I started working on a documentary (for lack of a better word) filming people asking about their earliest memory. I even have footage of Justin asking this question. Unfortunately, I never figured out how to edit it into something watchable. The fact that I had wildly divergent audio, often with background music, didn’t help. Maybe I’ll give it another spin.

Has anybody seen Terrence Malick’s New World? I haven’t seen it but the Apocalypto talk got me thinking. I like most of his other movies…three of four I think.

Apocalypto is worth watching even if Mel gibson is a retard.

My brothers and I used to take turns singing along to the records with my dad’s old reel to reel, while standing in front of the window unit to keep cool. Good times.

Also, is your 70s post-porn music Gerry Rafferty?

Kilian, I wish I had memories of an Irish family.

Earliest memories I have are the smell of hotel grilled hot dogs by the pool at the Hotel Condado where my mom and i used to go when i was around three (she was dating the french lifeguard named Pierre, i kid you not).

As for childhood music, my earliest records where the disney storytime series stuff with the bell chime on the record to tell you when to flip the page of the accompanying book, but those werent really all that much music, just stories. After that it was stricktly beatles and stones for me. Starting with the earliest beatles records from my mom and the mid 60s stones. For years my mom would give me a beatles record for every xmas and one for every birthday. First lyrics i ever memorized were I Am The Warlus, even before i knew what any of it meant. At some point i had all the beatles records on Capitol, so i started with the stones, and then disco hit and it was all downhill from there. You should see my collection of disco 45s. Dan Hartman, Musique, Celi Bee, Grace Jones, Gary’s Gang, Sylvester, Goody Goody, Meco, Macho, Edwin Starr, and of course all the majors, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Chic, Rod Stewart (yes, he’ll always be disco to me), etc etc etc. I may have said too much.
But there was also my uncle blasting all the brazilian, jazz, and heavy instrumental and more abstact stuff out of his room, and my dad with his heavy prog rock stuff (first time i heard Sabbath, ELP, Yes, Zeppelin, Cream and many others was from his records).

Of course that is only the english language music, there is a whole other set of music in spanish that goes from children groups like La Pandilla (early menudo type stuff) to various folk musics to the salsa hits of the day…. Music was really all around all the time. I guess i was lucky that way.

My early childhood was filled with music. My parents and the younger members of the extended Irish family that was always around (I was the first born grandchild after all) were into the folk movement, not surprising for New York at the time. Lots of Arlo Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Clancy Brothers as well as stuff from the Great American Folk Anthology like Jimmy Crack Corn, Wabash Cannonball. On top of that my mom made sure to sing lots of German children songs. My dad liked to sing Italian Opera on Saturday mornings. He was a giant at six foot eight with that stuff. On top of that my grandparents loved to sing songs from the forties and put on big band albums and also Al Jolson. My grandfather loved to sing me to sleep with Irish songs like tora lora lora. What a difference that early life was to Houston with my stoic german family. No singing, radio or anything sonically memorable from that bunch, save from singing German Christmas songs as rigidly as the von Trapps pre-Maria.