Eels: In late 6th grade, after a long night of singing the Tenacious D CD, Keiffer rolling around in a sleeping bag and saying "I'm like a steamroller, only jewish", and my friend's sister bitching at us from downstairs, Keiffer decided to put on the Eels' "I Like Birds". I was blown away. Later that month, I went to a store and bought "Beautiful Freak". From there, my love for Eels grew. To this day I am a huge fan.
Liquid Tension Experiment: Whilst walking about at jazz camp with "friends", (people of equal playing level; anyone better than you wanted nothing to do with you, and you wanted nothing to do with people worse than you) we were trying to out-band one another. I won the indie with a sharp Sugarplastic to the face. But when we entered into prog territory, I was quite knocked-on-my-ass (at this point, the only prog I listened to was ELP, Symphony X, The Moody Blues, and Renaissance). One guy mentioned LTE and said they were the best band to play with distortion and without a singer in the history of rock and roll. I figured they were worth a check out.
After jazz camp and nearing school, I ran into my actual friend Oliver from camp at Amoeba records. Whilst searching the Tom Waits used CD's, Oliver came up to me and said "I found the last LTE cd." and I thought "shite". Turned out Oliver and me were going to school together though, and in a trade for loaning him the first Sandman graphic novel, he burned me a copy of the first LTE cd. Three songs on it are now amongst the 25 most listened to of mine and have been since I got the CD.
Jimi Hendrix: The first concious memory I have of really getting into Jimi was when I was playing guitar in my room recently after I had gotten my DD-6. I was doing a lot of echoey stuff with the Wah, and my dad came in and said "Are you playing '1983...' by Jimi?" and I said no. He played it for me and my love for Jimi (which was already existent but only in the form of liking a couple popular cuts off 'Are You Experienced?') increased ten-fold. Jimi is now one of my several guitar heroes.
Mr. Bungle: I found out about Bungle shortly after listening to GWAR for the first time. I never really bothered to check them out, but their name stayed a lurkin' in my subconcious. About two years later, my brother's saying to me "You gotta check out this band Mr. Bungle. They're like GWAR, but with a clown gimmick!" Although he was totally wrong, I listened to some samples, decided I liked it, and vowed to buy a CD later.
A few months passed, and my friend Jordy kept going up to me at school and saying "I was lookin' atchoo while you was lookin' at me..." in a very Brando voice. I asked him after the 10th or 11th time what the fuck it was all about. He played me 'Egg', then 'Golem II: The Bionic Vapour Boy', and finally 'Carousel'. It was then that I fell in love.
DISCLAIMER: I still assumed my brother was right about the clown gimmick after these three songs, but to any of you who are wanting to check out Bungle in the future, they are not a band about clowns. So don't make that assumption.
The Sugarplastic: My brother's friend Dustin was over, and I kept hearing stomping coming from his room. I went in and found that they were both sitting, my brother drawing, and Dustin reading, stomping their feet along to 'Ottowa Bonesaw'. I asked Dustin what it was and he said "Damn good". Later that week, he burned "Radio Jejune" for my brother and within a day, I had burned a copy of his and knew every note of every song.
There, 5 of my favorite band, and how I got introduced to them, in a nutshell.
