I Was There: The Night That Defined Generation X
Dark Music, Darker Sex, and How I Ended Up at the “Woodstock of the 1980s”
The 1980s was a great time to grow up, musically speaking. As 1979 turned to 1980, the disco era was dying, and new, rebellious forms of music were popping up to fill the void: punk, new wave, and electronic rock. I’d spent much of the 70s listening to first children’s music and then classical — my mother had played concert piano as a child, and I mostly listened to what she played. My dad preferred rock and roll, and it was through him that I had my first musical crushes: first John Denver, then Billy Joel. As the 80s dawned, I started listening to KMET’s Dr. Demento on Sunday nights, and when my friends came over to lay out by the pool, we tuned in to the new Los Angeles rock station, KROQ.
Then came MTV. What heady days those were, with the birth of music videos. They broadened my horizons to a whole new sound as I watched bands I’d never seen before dance and sing and make cool new music. I fell in love with The Buggles, Wall of Voodoo, Gary Numan, and Talking Heads. I watched, entranced, as Sting and The Police wrapped me around their little finger. And a little song called “My Ever Changing Moods” became my anthem as Paul Weller transformed from mod-rock band The Jam into the more jazz-influenced sound of…
