“what develops tastes, is it merely exposure or a value system that is developed through some Oedipal experience or is there something deeper there... was I always meant to grow up adoring Brahms Symphony no. 4 in F movement 3?”- Great question Handy… you make me think…

My brain says exposure, because, for me, it’s clearly not an environment thing. If it was, I would suppose that means I should love Matchbox 20 and Sugar Ray, right? I mean, white kid who grew up in the suburbs in the 90s, it wouldn’t be my fault. That’s not how it seems to have worked out though, as my tastes more lay in the realm of classic rock. I would like to tell you that it was as simple as putting the needle down on Zeppelin IV and hearing Plant wail, “Hey, hey, mama, said the way you move…” and the rest is history. I don’t think it was as simple as that, though an 11 year old with a copy of Zeppelin IV and a working turntable can be a dangerous thing.

I think more a likely source for my taste was the never ending litany of long car trips in my youth. From Houston, Texas to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with my Dad when I was 5, numerous trips from Pennsylvania and Connecticut to Massachusetts for holidays… more time in a car then I care to remember. The news is not all bad of course, I got to spend hours, literally days of my life, with some of my best friends: Hendrix, Clapton, CSNY, the Beatles, the Eagles, the Rolling Stones, Jackson Browne, the Kinks, Simon & Garfunkel, the Moody Blues, the Who, I mean the list goes on and on and on… They were (and still are) the soundtrack to my family and, ergo, became part of it. Yes, Zep started it, but it was so much more than that… The permanence of this music draws me almost as much as the sound itself. I could never bring myself to listen to pop or hip-hop because it’s just so damn disposable (though Jay-Z has grown on me recently). I can’t bring myself to really want to be a part of something so ephemeral, it's probably the history scholar in me, who knows?. Perhaps that’s not fair, there’s talent everywhere of course, but it’s not all for me I guess.

I don’t know if that really answers the question, and maybe my tastes are more narrow, and my thinking more pedestrian, but it is what it is… Hope I could further your dialogue.