I used to be a strange kid who wouldn't quite admit his liking for rock - mainly because all the people who liked that catchy music were nasty (in an evil way) while my father played piano in a swing orchestra and my mother played the violin as a freelance philharmonic. That, and some of the first related material I heard was Metallica, which sounded noisy, messy and not very musical. Enter Sandman did not appeal to me at the time. Two songs I heard without knowing what they were, when they were made or that there had ever been a Curt Cobain: Enter Sandman, and Lithium (which I liked). Both were eventually rediscovered in meaningful contexts as a result of Led Zeppelin being introduced into my life.
My first musical interest was The Beatles. I learned of Status Quo (liked On The Level) and Lynyrd Skynyrd. I digged some ZZ-Top on the radio, and my mother corrected me when I was wrong about them. I had yet to realize that the rebellion of rock'n'roll belonged to people slightly older than my father.
One day my father came back from a business trip with a gift for me. It was a CD. I took a look at the cover and was not quite thrilled. It looked boring. And I couldn't figure out what the album was called. I give the grey thing a puzzled look, while my father suggests I might want to thank him - so I do. And when he leaves I put the CD on.
It was a strange experience for me. I dig The Blues Brothers, and I've got a tape full of shuffle rock. I put this thing on, and I am greeted by a few tentative noises that end in nothing? And then a voice calls out. And then there is music. And then the voice calls out. I couldn't make it work, I couldn't hear the music when the guitar stopped playing.
Then came Rock and Roll.
An appropriate footnote: Black Dog is fantastic, although a challenging introduction to any kind of music, and the less obvious and immediate (easily grasped) a song is, especially on that album, the better and more durable it turns out to be.
