Tommy Bolin and Michael Hedges were two incredible guitarists who died before I heard of them or had the opportunity to see them play.
Most recent find has been an early seventies pscychedelic German band called Krokodil. Look them up on iTunes and see if you see what I see.
A long time ago I had a new college roomate bring in the new Grateful Dead album Wokingman’s Dead. How I hated that country-rock-crap-playin’ band! For all I knew that’s what the Dead sounded like. And I don’t like it.
Fast Forward twenty years and a roomate puts on one of the sweetest space-prog-rock albums I’ve heard in a looong while. “John, who’s this?” "That, my son is “Weather Report Suite” from Wake Of The Flood by the Grateful Dead. The Next record was Terrapin Station, followed by Blues For Allah.
I guess I don’t hate the Grateful Dead, after all.
I would have loved House of Freaks’ Tantilla if I’d bought it in 1989, when it came out. I didn’t get a copy until last year. It’s a great roots-rock record by a mostly forgotten band.
Hugh Laurie. I only caught House at the end of the second season, and I wish someone had broke into my place, put a gun to my head, and forced me to watch the first episode.
And Andrew Vachss. I had the first Burke mystery “Flood” in my house for two years before I read it. Damn good.
Big Star - they get mentioned reasonably regularly on this board, but I never got around to getting their 2-albums-on-1-CD collection with both #1 Record and Radio City on it until a few years ago.
That’s exactly it. I’d vaguely heard of it before (and in fact frequently confused it with Farscape in my mind. Similar names.) and I saw lots of threads about it. In one thread I saw that Sci-Fi was going to rerun the whole series, so I figured what the heck, I’d see what all the hubbub was about. Tivoed an episode, sat down to watch it, and by “Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal” (or maybe it was “We can’t die because we are too pretty.”) was totally hooked and kicking myself for not finding it earlier.
I just finished reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates after reading an article about the movie production. I was amazed that a novel like that could have disappeared so completely.
Anything by Gene Wolfe. Specifically, the Sun cycle.
R A Lafferty, Avram Davidson & Cordwainer Smith–longtime favorites–were mentioned one an SDMB thread called “Who can I read after Gene Wolfe?” So I decided to pick up Shadow & Claw. I’m almost finished with On Blue’s Waters & foresee re-reading the whole thing. Slower, this time.
Look, Wolfe dropped out of Texas A&M and later got an Engineering degree at the University of Houston. That’s my part of the world. How did he learn to write like that?
Concerning Firefly. I came late to Buffy, since issues kept me from following TV shows when it premiered. Reruns were confusing–“He can’t be Buffy’s boyfriend, he’s a bloodsucking fiend!” During some vacation time, a TV network was showing 4 consecutive episodes per day & I caught on. About that time, the Chosen collection came out–& into my collection.
So I bought *Firefly * sight unseen. And was not disappointed.
I love discovering new-to-me authors that already have a bunch of books out. I don’t like waiting years between books. I didn’t pick up Harry Potter until the 5th book was about to be released, and I have been really aggravated at having to wait for the 6th and 7th ones.
I discovered Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin series only after I saw the movie, and I learned about Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe books after I rented one of the BBC videos in order to see Sean Bean.
I discovered Joss Whedon’s works only after *Serenity *came out.
It’s only recently that I found authors Lois McMaster Bujold and Tony Hillerman. Weeks of entertainment there.
Kristin Lavrandsdatter by Sigrid Undsett – I’ve always loved historical fiction, yet this prize-winning book published in the 1920’s didn’t hit my radar until last year when Dopers recommended it.
HBO’s The Wire, now in its fourth season. I’ve had HBO for years but always skipped this show. I was given the first season DVD two years ago and didn’t bother to watch it until last month! The upside is that I can watch seasons two and three on DVD, and won’t have to wait too long for four. The hard part is resisting watching it on HBO until I’m caught up.
I wish I would have discovered Don Robertson’s books before he died, so I could have told him how much I love his books.
The Honor Harrington military/adventure sci fi series. Thing is, I’d actually seen books from it for years, but had no idea it was actually any good. Especially since I’d gotten burned out on military themed sci fi from too many Vietnam inspired both-sides-are-evil-and-let’s-go-into-excruciating-detail-how-miserable-people-are military sci fi books, so I avoided it assuming it was just as unpleasant.
This is why you should read the “Whatcha reading?” threads around here – it comes up pretty regularly. Plus there’s at least one thread specifically devoted to it.
I never watched “The Sopranos” until right before it ended–seeing “Big Love,” “Rome” and then a bunch of ads all over the place convinced me that maybe it was also in that league. And to think, I could’ve been watching this years ago!
Have also been reading a lot of feminist type writing which I sort of avoided in earlier years. Then again, maybe I wouldn’t have appreciated it back then. Still–a moot point now.
There are four bits of writing I was recommended by others, and in turn I pass them on to anyone who cares. These are things I definitely wish I’d read earlier.
J.L. Borges - Ficciones - best short stories ever written.
I. Calvino - Invisible Cities - not easy to describe, but excellent.
My recent one was the tv show “Supernatural.” I missed only the first season, I believe, and I won’t be missing any future ones. I think this show is the heir to the Buffy/Angel crown for smart, funny, supernatural stuff with really, really studly guys.
I came late to “Harry Potter,” too, and then inhaled all the books I could get my hands on.
My husband and I just started watching Lost about 3 weeks ago. We’re halfway through Season 2, and we’re hooked.
We’ve heard that it goes downhill, but hey, we’re not waiting long periods between episodes, and it’s better than watching tons of summer reruns. And I don’t think either of us really cares about solving all of the mysteries anyway, we just really enjoy the character interactions and the dire situations.