Good or bad, there’s always something memorable about your first time, isn’t there? Whether or not there were other people around. Maybe what you were doing. Whether it was in your bedroom or the back seat of a car. If you were in a car, did you just jam it in, or did you take your time, unwrapping it slow?
We’re talking about your Vhginity, of course. LP or cassette? Or, was it possibly the dreaded 8-Track? No need to be embarrassed, everybody’s mom and dad had one. C’mon, how else were they going to listen to Neil Diamond’s Greatest Hits.
Me? I wouldn’t get my hands on a copy of the first Van Halen album until 1980, when I got a paper route and started earning some coin. I had to make do with the “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love” 45 and a crappy mono cassette a friend’s brother burned for me because at the time, that was high tech. What I remember most about that tape? I probably got plenty of listening hours out of that cheap-ass cassette with only two songs on side two, but when it unwound in an old pre-boom boom box with an AM/FM radio and only one speaker? I knew it was time to start saving up.
What about you? Mono or stereo? Did you bust out your fold-open turntable with the built-in speaker that started crackling if you turned it up past 5 and blow it out playing “Eruption” over and over, or did you wait for your parents to go out and crank their quadraphonic system – you know, the one the size of a sectional – so loud the neighbors complained? Did it feel like a car horn blaring when you first heard “Runnin’ With the Devil“, or did you think aliens were landing? Were you worried your player was eating your copy when “Atomic Punk” started and (admit it) you had no idea what the hell was making that sound?
How’d you get your hands on it? Did you bike down to your local record store to snag your copy? Sam Goody? Did you make up a phony name like so many of us and join the Columbia Record & Tape Club? However you got exposed, we wanna hear all about it. Every juicy detail.