One of the seminal music experiences in your whole life happens when you’re just a kid – when someone you look up to plays you something you’ve never heard before. Normally, this person is both a bit older and related to you (but can, of course, be someone from a different family tree), and you take what they say very seriously. Your parents can’t be included, because music you get from them is a whole other seminal music experience on its own.
Take, for example, the eleven-year-old in Almost Famous. His older sister happened to be Zooey Deschanel, and she introduced him to all kinds of great music. The next thing he knows, he’s writing for Rolling Stone. This happens all the time in real life, as long as your name is Cameron Crowe.
Speaking of real life examples, one day, a young and impressionable Chuck Klosterman was given a Mötley Crüe tape by his older brother. The next thing we know, there’s an apologist for that entire genre called Hair Metal, writing for, well, at least Spin anyways.
At that very impressionable age, I had someone introduce me to a lot of music I hadn’t heard before. If it wasn’t for him, I may have been stuck in a whirlpool of classic rock and mid-90s California punk forever…
Rylan Kafara
The Past is Unwritten 
