I promise you that in my case, this isn’t hyperbole. I didn’t realize it until fairly recently when I was diagnosed with PTSD that my life has basically been a string of jumping from one trauma to another. But the one constant that always guided me and kept me resilient was my love for music. A big part of this was my family, a lot of musicians and music lovers who cultivated my own interest in it since I was a toddler.

My mother was probably the biggest of these influences. She had a huge record and cassette collection, and once she realized my brother and I were latching on to current songs on the radio, she taught us how to build our collection as well.

I also have to give credit to a couple of family babysitters; teenagers that showed me how to dance, what the best radio station was, how to tape stuff off the radio, and so on.

And while the music helped me endure adulthood through some major situations that almost killed me, including a long fight with drug addiction, some abusive relationships and so on, I wanted this blog to focus mostly on my childhood. Religious trauma, some family trauma, and LOTS of bullying… most of that era for me was a lot of shame, self-loathing and feeling completely unworthy.

So this blog is dedicated to the music from my birth to high school graduation, 1977-1995. I’ll tell you my own story about these artists, songs and albums and how they gave me the strength to keep going. I know that sounds a bit bleak, but I promise there will be a lot of fun and crazy stories too.