Us and THEM.

[The Curmudgeon]

When I first started this website (well, "Blog" back in the olden days), the entire purpose was to attract a different.. I don't know if "class" is the right word, but certainly a different mentality of person. Not that I wanted 20 people with the exact same tastes and opinions as me, but I wanted people who, for want of a better term, had a fair knowledge and a real passion for whatever it was they were into.

See, there really isn't a lot of that sort about, (except the net, obviously). The average guy on the street only knows about the BIGGEST films out and the most POPULAR music out there. There's no passion involved, it's usually just "yeah, it's alright," and there's no knowledge of what they're listening to. These people don't hunt out rare albums or try and hunt down some obscure B-side - they wants hits and that's it.

So I think we can all agree we are NOT like that. I know we have a fair knowledge of obscure, weird movies that have never been near a cinema screen. And I know we all like music that won't ever trouble the charts. Which, of course, was the entire point of this site.

So my question is; when did you first feel you were.. different.. from Joe Public? When did you first begin branching out and discovering your own tastes and styles, not just what everyone else was talking about? When did you begin to seperate yourself from the mainstream?

For me, I think I must have been about 16, and me and my friend (rather snootily) referred to these people as "Normals." Like, they only enjoyed the Normal films and only listened to Normal music, and they would often look at us and our "weird" tastes. And hey, I never looked back.

Of course, things in the mainstream can be great, too. But when did you start looking for alternatives to it?

[Benjamin Haines]

Movie-wise, I'd have to say it was when I was nine years old and I got into Godzilla. Although my best friend at the time agreed that the Big G was cool and we did have a sleepover one night watching nothing but rented Godzilla movies until the early morning, I was certainly the only kid I knew who actually spent time reading The Official Godzilla Compendium, looking at Barry's Temple of Godzilla on the net, and generally delving all-out into the franchise. I'd say it wasn't until about the age of 15 or 16 that I really started seeking out more obscure, cult films. For point of reference, I'm 19 now.

I really wasn't much into music at all until my high school years, actually. All at once I got big into Linkin Park in rock and D-12 in rap, which were both big in the mainstream at the time, which I guess was how I got exposed to them in the first place. But I was never really into whatever was the latest and greatest to the mainstream crowd at all. After Linkin Park and D-12 I got really into System of a Down, and then Metallica, which remains my current fixation to this day.

[trashcanman]

I was raised extremely sheltered. My earliest music memory is my mother throwing out my older sister's AC/DC and Beastie Boys albums for being "satanic". It was all Madonna and Michael Jackson in my house until I got my first stereo at age 15. The very first station I turned to was playing a hilarious Cheech and Chong skit so I listened. It was the one and only rock station in my area and that coincidence changed my life. Fell in love with Aerosmith and Van Halen, then Guns n' Roses, then Metallica, and then one day I was on a fishing trip with my dad. He went into a bar and left me in the car with the radio running. I flipped channels and came across a pirate radio station playing Body Count's "Copkiller" album front-to-back. Fucking BRUTAL! It was all about the heaviness after that. I always had to sneak around to watch great movies or even read good books. I saved up scraps of lunch money in high school to buy fantasy novels and mommy dearest was not pleased when she found out. Apparently D&D and anything resembling it is also satanic. GO figure.

Saturday afternoons gave me kaiju, kung-fu, sci-fi, and classic horror when I was little, and I must have rented every Godzilla film (Rodan too) along with "Clash of the Titans" and the like 100 freakin' times but I was banned from rated "R" by my mother until age 19. Seriously. No wonder I moved out at that point. My first roommates had a Stephen King movie collection. The rest is history.

I've never, never, NEVER fit in anywhere so I guess I've always known I was "different". The ADHD didn't help. Not much has changed on that front.

[InvisibleWolfMan]

Having been an outsider for basically all my life, it's hard to imagine a point for me to have been looking for alternatives. Alot of my alternatives came from the fact that I had several different family members taking turns watching me while my mother worked many long hours when I was so young...all with their own distinct tastes in movies and music.

My music taste stems mostly from the aunt who ended up watching me the most. She had EVERYTHING in her music collection, from Gene Autry to Black Sabbath (WE SOLD OUR SOUL FOR ROCK 'N' ROLL)....from Christmas song collections to Prince's PURPLE RAIN (boy...did she LOVE Prince all the way up until SIGN 'O' THE TIMES)....from Ray Stevens to AC/DC...etc., etc., etc.

My taste in movies stems from not only the various family members but also just in general what I'd end up watching on the channels available to the area I lived in. They are as varied as can be. From classics such as KING KONG or CASABLANCA to stuff like REPOSSESSED or RED SONJA.

I guess I knew I was different from others when they'd look at me weird for droning on and on about something like WHITE ZOMBIE (the film not the band) or reciting many different song lyrics that I knew by heart as replies to questions I'd get asked OR just because it humorously suited the discussion somehow....to me, most of the times. It became quite clear when I was in 6th grade and heavily into my Dr. Demento phase. I would record each show and know the strangest songs like THE BALLAD OF IRVING or VAMPIRE FROGS or my personal favorite I'D RATHER HAVE A BOTTLE IN FRONT OF ME THAN HAVE A FRONTAL LOBOTOMY. And who could forgot the endless songs (including rarities and alternative versions) from the greatest gift Dr. Demento ever bestowed upon the world....

[trashcanman]

[from memory]
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than have a frontal lobotomy
Two different ways to kill the pain the same
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me, than have a frontal lobotomy
I may be drunk, but at least I'm not insane"

You rule, Wolfman!

[Ben]

As far as movies go I've always been "different." I mean, I was watching Godzilla at age 3.

Music, on the other hand, took a bit longer. I listened to all the mainstream pop garbage of the late nineties and new milenium until age 12. I turned on Metal Mania one day, saw the video for Enter Sandman, and went to Target to pick up Metallica's Black Album and AC/DC's Back in Black. My world just kept stretching further into the depths of metal from there.