Stone Temple Pilots created a monster. I was always a fan of music, but I didn't start consuming it like a drug until I heard STP.
I grew up somewhat sheltered from modern music. The very first record I ever purchased--well, to be fair, my parents purchased it for me--was a Van Halen 45 of Jump/House of Pain when I was 6 years old. From there, I pretty much listened to what my parents listened to. I was fed a steady diet of 2 of Dean's "4 food groups of rock," the Beatles and the Stones. As I got older, my father introduced me to Eric Clapton and Jethro Tull, and my mom introduced me to Jimmy Buffet (who still holds a soft spot in my heart, oddly).
My first compact disc, perhaps embarrassingly, was Whenever You Need Somebody by Rick Astley. I still remember the excitement of having purchased this new technology, with my parents, at the only Target in town (there are now 4). When my cousin, who became more like a brother, moved in with my family, he started introducing me to what was then the resurgence of Aerosmith. Pump became one of my favorite albums. One of the first CDs that I purchased on my own was Aerosmith's Get a Grip at the Wherehouse. I was now 13 and in 8th grade. Aerosmith had become the biggest rock band in the world, reenergized, along with Alicia Silberstone, for the MTV generation. But in 1994, my world changed.
I dropped what I was doing and my head spun when I heard a clip--just a clip--in a teaser for MTV's already-huge Unplugged series. That clip was the chorus of "Big Empty". It was early 1994 and I was a freshman in high school. I spent the next several months, usually on Saturday trips to the big malls in the big cities, rummaging through record shops trying to find a copy of what I had heard. My father was really into technology (we had already gone through both a Commodore 64 and Macintosh Plus), and we were already hooked up to the newest burgeoning technology, the internet (at first through America Online). I frantically searched in both record stores and online, finding out that the song was slated to be released on an album coming out June 7, 1994. I distinctly remember one trip to a mall music shop where I asked if a single release would precede the album. I was told that a lot of bands didn't release singles anymore (though I would quickly learn that that was not true in other countries, and thus soon began my search for interesting imports), so probably not.
I bought Purple (on cassette, as I listened to music almost exclusively then on a Walkman) as soon as I could, and I immediately fell in love with another song on the album, "Interstate Love Song". In fact, as time (and releases) went on, "Big Empty" would start to slide down my list of favorite STP songs. I eventually purchased Core, also on cassette, unheard. I was immediately struck by the almost indistinguishable sounds between the two albums. Another song that I had never heard stuck out: "Plush". I was enamoured. Actually, I was addicted.
One day, after wearing out these two cassettes, I heard a vaguely familiar voice on the radio. It sounded a lot like the singer from STP in the verses to "Big Empty", but this was an odd, acoustic diddy with an odd beat that almost sounded middle-eastern. I thought 'this sounds like STP'. It was. It was Dancing Days. I looked around online and found out that Encomium, a tribute to Led Zeppelin, a band that I had never listened to before, was coming out on March 14, 1995. On its release date, I purchased it on compact disc. Then began the 378-day countdown to the release of Tiny Music...Songs from the Vatican Gift Shop, and soon my life would experience its ups and downs along with, and sometimes because of this band.
Epilogue:
Prior to the release of Encomium, I heard another song that made me head swing around towards the video playing on MTV. The song was "Don't Tell Me (What Love Can Do)"; the band was Van Halen, now with a different singer than when I received my first ever record. I purchased the album, Balance, on CD (I had, of course, upgraded to a Discman).
Van Halen made me want to pick up a guitar. I have been playing now for 14 years. STP made me want to join a band. I played in one for about 5 years.
Both bands opened up doors, and since my musical tastes have expanded exponentially. Ironically, as my musical horizon was expanding at a furious pace, it also came full circle.
