I was lucky enough to have been introduced to music at a very early age. My Dad took me to my first gig in 1979 (at the age of 5) - saw The Pretenders in their prime. From then there was no looking back...

I got interested in XTC, Elvis Costello, The Police, Adam and the Ants. In 1982 I heard Queen's Greatest Hits at a mate's house - which was a second epiphanal moment.

Other conduits of great music into my remote childhood home in rural South Wales were the Friday and Saturday Night Rock Shows on Radio 1 - dear ol' Tommy Vance and Alan Freeman introducing me to a vast array of great rock.

Seems ridiculous now but I only discovered The Jam through a character on BBC cop show Juliet Bravo listening to 'Eton Rifles' on a car radio really loud - I'm pretty sure it was used as a kind of short hand for 'this character is a wrong 'un'. It sounded fabulous and although I knew what it was and who The Jam were it was like hearing it for the first time. Fortunately it was just after my birthday so I had a few quid to spend. The following weekend I bought Setting Sons and All Mod Cons second hand from The Record Mart in Middlesbrough (£1.75 each but he did me a deal and I got the 2 for £3).

To link in with another thread, that was kind of the beginning of the end of my dalliance with Heavy Metal. Within weeks I was part exing my Saxon collection for Elvis Costello LPs and God was back in HIs Heaven.

When MTV was one channel and it just used to show music videos instead of endless reality TV shows I would sit in fornt of my black and white TV (this is the early 90s so I'm not sure why we didn't have a colour telly yet) and soak up Soundgarden, Rage Against the Machine, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Offspring, Nirvana, Bush, etc and then go and spend all my paper round money on casettes by said bands from HMV.

My method of discovering new music has always been from recommendation of others, either friends, family or journalists. My parents and elder siblings always played music so it was not unusual to have Lp's for birthdays and Christmas presents at a fairly young age (Squeeze, Cosetello, Blondie, Boomtown Rats etc). I latterly started reading the "inkies" and would spend my paper round pocket money on 7" singles from Sullivans Records in my home town. From NME and Melody Maker I moved onto John Peel and my early wages were hammered by buying obscure singles and Ep's. Now in this digital age I read still read music magazines for reviews (The Word and Uncut) and read online blogs for new bands to interest me. Latest discovery was from the SXSW website, a band called "Hallelujah The Hills" with a self penned track. It was from online blogs I also discovered The Hold Steady, Band of Horses and Vampire Weekend in the last year or so, who I like greatly.

My three current favourites were all found in different ways:
Kathleen Edwards - I saw an ad in No Depression magazine for her first CD, Failer. It intrigued me enough to find a sample on the internet, bought it and haven't looked back.
Eileen Rose I saw supporting The Jayhawks. Although I didn't buy her CD on the night it was an instance where bothering to turn up for the support has paid dividends. When her second CD, Long Shot Novena, came out ex NME editor Neil Spencer gave it a rave review in The Observer so I bought it. Since then I have seen her many times since and bought all her CD's.
Tift Merritt I came across on the Lost Highway website. I was looking for something about Ryan Adams, saw links to her 1st CD Bramble Rose, listened to samples and then bought it. It is possible I'd been primed by reading about her in No Depression.

Love the Eton Rifles story!

I'm just remembering that I got really into the Jam when someone loaned me 4 of their albums and I really feasted and concentrated on them, I did the same thing subsequently with the Stranglers, New Order and R.E.M., I suppose it's the equivalent of going online and instantly having 40 tracks at your disposal..

eMusic by its nature makes you/forces you to spend hours listening to 30 second samples by bands no one has ever heard of. And you will find some great stuff on there.