My great-grandfather was a bugler in WWI. He quickly signed up as a soldier once in Europe. Thus ended the entire musical history of my family.
OK, it's not that dramatic. My mum saw the Beatles when they were in Australia ("all I heard was screams") - my sister played clarinet in high-school. My parents liked music but a small subset (John Farnham, some musicals). I'm sure there was other musical interest in the family, but I'm not aware of it...
I learned recorder in Primary School like most Australian kids my age. I only got as far as every-good-boy-deserves-fruit regarding music reading. There was a Casio keyboard in the house and I used to love playing with it, making up songs. Some combinations of notes sounded right, some didn't. Putting the right ones together were a song. There was a lot of joy in that.
My school made much use of the "Sing!" range of music books and tapes from the ABC. I used to adore the time singing along with these, going as far as requesting one of them for a gift for using at home. I believe they're weren't easy to obtain but my parents indulged. I don't think it ever occurred to me that the songs were "covers", or what a "cover" even meant.
On being gifted a Commodore 64 I discovered the joy of chiptunes. The music of Commando and Great Giana Sisters and hundreds of other games I can't think of now seeped into my soul. I somehow ended up with some examples of the demo-scene. I loved the music so much I'd transfer it to tape to listen to on my Walkman.
Later, in high school, I discovered you could borrow CDs from video stores (before this was banned) and I'd borrow "100% Hits" and "Hit Machine" compilations, cherry-picking the best songs to put on tape.
Up until around year 9 my music taste was fairly boring. Pop based. Heavy on the top of the charts, especially lame techno like "2 Unlimited" or "Snap". Around this time my mum's friend's son (who was a few years older than me) opened up his CD collection to me. He suggested some albums I might like. He was mostly into rock and metal. Through him I first heard Metallica, Ministry, Soundgarden, Nirvana...
I remember a particular tape I made from the radio. I don't know what the show was but I'm fairly certain it was Triple M. I captured Metallica's "Wherever I May Roam", Nirvana's "Lithium", Guns'n'Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine" - some other songs I wish I could remember... Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill" was on there... as well as some nonsense like The Movement's "Jump" and Kris Kross.
I discovered around year 10 or 11 that the local library allowed me to borrow CDs. That's where I first heard Metallica's "Master of Puppets", and everything clicked into place. Apparently I loved metal and rock. Apparently "metal" and "rock" were words that meant something. Genres.
I still loved crappy computer music though, and 90s techno is forever linked with my old gaming history. I will forever connect the game Flashback with Snap's "Rhythm Is A Dancer". Our family got a modem (14.4k!) and I discovered MOD files on BBS. Again I hardly realised the majority of these were covers. I remember being really surprised hearing Axel F was an actual song when I saw it in a movie, and even more shocked to discover it had a music video.
Year 11 saw me attempting to learn the guitar. I bought a second hand guitar/amp combo from the neighbour and started making demo tapes of riffs. I discovered how to render the notes in a MID or MOD file and I'd transpose those to guitar tab to learn riffs.
I discovered Triple J, and more importantly, Live At The Wireless. I'd tape them, and discover bands. I'd listen to the live tapes more than the albums. The albums started to sound weird compared to the live versions. Faith No More, Pearl Jam, Regurgitator, Smashing Pumpkins, various Australian bands...
I became obsessed. Joined the tape trading scene. My mission was usually to get a live version of every song. I'd trade for a tape just to hear the live version of one song.
Then in 1994 I went to my first gig...
