What was your first music that you paid for?

Growing up in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the 60's, we listened to a station out of Windsor, Ontario, CKLW AM. It was either garage rock or soul for us. Bubble Puppy-Hot Smoke and Sasafras, Blues Magoos-Pipe Dream, There's a Chance We Can Make It, then there are the Detroit Bands: Amboy Dukes-Baby Please Don't Go, Rationals-Respect, SRC, Stooges, MC5, Underdogs, Up, Iguanas (Iggy Pop's first band), Bob Seeger System, Mitch Ryder, Unrelated Segments, so many others, they go on forever.

Mine was, at the age of 12 '' Tom Jones Live at the Flamenco in Las Vegas'' I did not have a clue who Tom Jones was, I just wanted to buy my first LP. Listened to this record for a whole year before getting my second LP, SGT Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band....when I heard this for the first time...''Wow''

I had a cheap mono 1 speaker portable record player, to which I connected another ''speaker'', a $ 2,99 Radio Shack 6'' driver that I taped to a cardboard box in which I had cut a 6'' hole with a knife. So there I had it , ''Stereo'' sound!

I went to kilobuck systems since, ( with kilobuck speakers ). Funny, my memory brings me back to a time where this joke of a system (by our snobby audiophile standards) is the best-sounding system I ever had, listening to ''with a little help from my firends'' between my two mono speakers in my bedroom, scratches and all....now THAT was fun !

A yellow 45 with the theme song from the western series "Cheyenne". Can't remember what the flip side is.

I won my second 45 (Elvis's "Blue Hawaii") @ my father's company picnic by driving a spike all the way into a 2x4 with 2 whacks of a hammer. The fat drunk guy running the contest said I was too young to participate, but my father talked him into giving me a chance. The guy got pissed off when I won (3 blows/whacks was a win). I then called the old guy a peckerhead and got into trouble. Gave the 45 to my mother who later took my sister and myself to see the movie (the movie sucked).

KISS - Destroyer.

I have since moved on.

Brad Day
Atlanta, GA

Columbia House 12 albums for 99 cents: several Simon and Garfunkel, Bob Dylan, Herb Alpert, Brazil 66. Can't remember the rest...