Station to Station by David Bowie! Because my best friend Jim had an old VW Bug with an 8-track player, and Bowie's Station to Station and Lodger were, for a year, literally the only two things we could listen to in his car. Ah, bliss. Sheer fucking bliss. "The return of the Thin White Duke / Throwing darts in lovers' eyes..."

Neat question, hellbient.

My high school musical tastes were embarassing and I thankfully don't own any of that stuff anymore.

In lieu of supplying you with evidence of my former squareness (which no one would want to listen to anyway), here's the song that most reminds me of that era of my life. Growing up Other in small-town, uptight Texas? Awk-ward!

"I guess I'll feel less than real
All my life
With these feathers I made
Under me
Lifting me up"

Well, I don't really need to YSI what I was listening to throughout high school, because if you like it you'll have it: metallica, baby!

I didn't have a car in high school. Or friends (that I hung out with outside of classes).

9th - 11th grade, Grateful Dead. Possibly Neil Young. Probably with a head full of mescaline and a joint burning in the ashtray. Or we might be taking a friends' truck and a couple of guns out to Westvaco land halfway to Savannah to shoot tin cans in an old dump we found out there, in which case, Bad Company, the Allman Brothers and Skynyrd. But then along came 12th grade, bringing with it Roxy Music, the Police, the Slits, Bow Wow Wow, the Ramones: my musical taste got opened wide up in 12th grade.

MGL of today in no way condones the amount of driving under assorted influences that was done in her high school years and thanks various gods regularly for the fact that nothing bad ever happened, which was strictly luck. Did you know that two 16 year old girls high as kites can sit in a 1976 ford station wagon and drive it around and around a suburban cul de sac circle at speeds approaching 25 mph without ever touching the acclerator? Or how funny this can seem?

Most likely either the Sisters of Mercy (floodland) if I got to pick, or the Replacements (pleased to meet me) if he did. The Clash (london calling) if we couldn't agree on anything else.

I had a tape of Violent Femmes first album (taped over my brother's copy of Def Leppard Hysteria!) that would go with my friends and I whenever we had a driving group therapy session...which was often. So here's "Add It Up."

I didn't have a car in high school.

Neither did I. My friends and I spent a lot of time walking through the city in groups singing in-joke music: show tunes, barbershop, chorales, anything with harmony.

We had slightly more conventional teenage tastes when we were stationary, but that wasn't what you asked.

Great question.

During most of the two years when we did a lot of driving, we could only be described as a confused self-styled 80s version of wannabe hippies. Mostly we dug in our parents' and older siblings' record bins and made tapes of the good stuff. We were really, really anti-war. It didn't much matter that there wasn't a war going on. We were just anti it anyway. I suppose the cold war was going on, and the culture had clearly started going to the dogs anyway, so we were probably trying for a little counterculture revival of our own.

We listened to the Hair soundtrack obsessively. I still know it by heart, front to back (we starve, look at one another short of breath, walking proudly in our winter coats, wearing smells from laboratories, facing a dying nation...). I can still see the long row of green lights on Ocean Ave, all the way down through Long Branch, Asbury Park, and Belmar, which was the best place to just go drive.

We listened to Cat Stevens.

We listened to this strange album by a band called Prelude, which featured covers of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush". Also, we listed to Melanie. I'm guessing that these LPs were dug from an older sister's record bin. Melanie was from our hometown, so there was that.

Listened to the Violent Femmes, over and over and over. And the Dead Milkmen.

We listened to a lot of Grateful Dead and CSN. Also, Jimmy Cliff, Bob Marley, and Peter Tosh.

I listened to Steeleye Span and Leo Kottke, but I never really got other people to put up with that.

And all this was in addition to a steady stream of classic rock from the radio, and the very beginnings of what was then always called 'alternative music', which meant the little, local out-there station that played REM, the B-52s, and Morrissey. Believe it, kids!

I'm with 'puppie - my friends and I mostly listened to musical soundtracks and Christian Pop Rock, neither of which I really own up to any more.

me3dia: I still love that Femmes album.

The Clash, Elvis Costello, and (If I was in control of the tape deck) Dave Edmunds.

Same as 'pode for me: metallica.

me3dia: I still love that Femmes album.

So do I. It's a personal touchstone for me.

Ain't talking 'bout love.

That works nomis, given we are both kiwis and you are (stalking the wiki) 3 weeks older than me!

When we weren't listening to high school radio stations (there were at least 3 we could hear in our neighborhood - including the one my firends and I were at) it was the Boomtown Rats, Violent Femmes first album, Clash, XTC, Cheap Trick, Surf Punks, the Repo Man soundtrack, Split Enz, the Damned, the Police, the Who, Buzzcocks, Dickies, Devo, Ramones, and the Fleshtones. I'm sure I've blacked out the lamer stuff, but that's how I remember it. I tended to hang out with people that liked the same sutff I did. Granted, I was never driving since I didn't get my license until after college.

Ronnie's car: Scorpions, Cheap Trick
Robin's car: John Cougar (back when he was still John Cougar), Prince, Blondie
Todd's car: The Cars, Pink Floyd, Allman Brothers, Stones
My car: B-52s, Psych Furs, Soft Cell, Smiths, REPO MAN!!! Yesssssss!
Mom's car: K.T Oslin, Pavarotti, the fucking Judds

Def Leppard, Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Winger, Warrant, Poison, Motley Crue...mixed with a helping of older stuff. (My friend and I did a mean duet of "Happy Together.")

Nine Inch Nails! I'll never forget one time after sixth period: "Meet up at Sam Woo's (for food)? Let's go!" It being L.A., the four of us got into four separate cars. A mile from school I pull up to the stop sign with "Wish" playing on the alt-rock station, and one of my friends pulls up beside me, blasting the same thing. We nodded to each other as if we were cool (ha!). In honor of the moment, we both peeled off as the light turned green... me in my mom's Corolla four-door, and he in his dad's Camry station wagon. :)

Reptile

Ah, and the Violent Femmes! Sitting through a lull in orchestra practice and out of nowhere, someone in the cello section starts playing Blister in the Sun! Those were the days. But on the less hip side, high school was also Beethoven, Vivaldi, and Sibelius to me.

You know, thinking back over what I posted earlier: most of my really intense musical explorations in those days were pretty solitary. I didn't expect my friends to get excited about my own odd soundtrack, and went off and did a lot of listening on my own.

I think that's why I've found it so strange and moving to hang out in IRC with you all listening to something together. That's kind of new for me.

Bowie, Clash, Nick Lowe and Judas Priest. It was an ancient Datson B210 painted matt black with pictures of nebula painted on it.

Amazing question.

The Vandals' I Have a Date
The Anniversary's The Heart is a Lonely Hunter
NOFOX's Linoleum

I saw the Vandals perform once, and I thought Joe Escalante was so fucking hot (seriously, what?). I said to my friends, "I'm gonna slap that guy's ass." And so they got off stage, and Joe fled too quickly, but I did get to slap Dave Quackenbush's ass, with his permission.

Wow. NOFX's...

No tape player in my car, so I listened to the college stations KCMU, KGRG, and KAOS depending on where I was driving.

In my friends' cars w/tape or cd players, there was a fair bit of cross-over, but I primarily associate these specific bands with the following people:
Jim - NoMeansNo, Primus, Subhumans
Brad - The Cult, Jane's Addiction
Alice - Ministry, Violent Femmes, the Pixies

I would usually pack a dose of Minor Threat, 7 Seconds, Black Flag, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, or Fugazi to throw in the mix if I could.

Sorry no YSI from dialup, but if I was able I would definitely send out 7 Seconds "The Crew," Ministry's "Stigmata," NoMeansNo's "Victory," and the Cult's "Peace Dog". Too bad I just burned all my MeCha swap CDs 'cause I feel a nostalgia fueled mix coming on strong.

Not YSI capable at the moment, but safetyfork's is 100% on for me, though I think I didn't discover the Pixies until I went off to university. I went to high school in a rural area, meaning that we had to drive to get to just about anything, so we often listened to full tapes.

In addition to what he named, Shriekback, Dead Kennedys, Oingo Boingo, Frankie Goes To Hollywood and Sisters of Mercy were in heavy rotation.

My last summer in Newberg was one of the hottest on record. One of my best friends and I would drive to cool off, sometimes to Hagg Lake to cool off in the water, sometimes around Parrott Mountain to cool off in the shade of pine trees. The entire valley smelled like a sauna that summer, it was so hot. Most often, we listened to Ministry's Twitch. I still smell sauna when I hear anything from that album.

My freshman year at PLU, I remember an excruciating drive from PLU to Newberg with a guy whom I'd attended highschool and was attending university with and on whom I'd had a crawl under the carpet crush on for years. He played imports from Talk Talk and Blue Nile. I probably said three words the entire drive because I was so intimidated and I'm certain this confirmed his suspicion that I was mildly retarded. Even now, whenever I hear either band, I get a giddy little rush and feel a bit stupid.

REM most of the time. Also Elvis Costello, 10,000 Maniacs, Echo and the Bunnymen, New Order... but mostly REM. I can remember vividly what it felt like to ride shotgun in my boyfriend's Honda. He smelled like Drakkar, I smelled like China Lily and too much mousse. We were so in love and so screwed up.

Beer tasted better then.

jrossi, you completely outlined my college years and dozens of hours on the train back and forth between Tacoma and Portland, scent and sound, except I smelled like Opium and Aqua Net.

Yeah.

Joe and I sitting in my 1982 Honda Prelude with the sunroof open and our seats tilted back, drinking icy cold bottles of Budweiser and passing a joint back and forth. CCR in the tape deck. Throwing empty beer bottles at a raccoon foraging in the kudzu. "Put a candle in the window..." saddest song ever, man. Dude, you gotta get home, your dad will be pissed. Here, have some gum. Hey let's leave all these empties on the roof of the school!

On the way home: switch cassettes. The first Clash album. Bobbin' my head to "White Riot", "Clash City Rockers", "Garage Band". Cutting the lights and the engine and coasting into the driveway so that...dammit. Porch light comes on. I'm busted. Grounded again.

You never know what you've got until it's gone.

Alice played Substance a lot in her car as well. Thanks for the reminder, jrossi4r. She had a fiat spider. Completely impractical car for the Northwest, but it was such a great ride when you could take the top down.

Actually, she also permanently borrowed my "Power, Corruption And Lies " New Order tape.