Original Gamers, name your tunes!

[Blackwind]

So, as a twenty-three year old who has been playing D&D since I was ten, I was fascinated to read about the connection between D&D and heavy metal on the "D&D is so METAL" thread. For someone like me who started playing in the days of 2E and Dragonlance, that "old school feel" that people always talk about is kind of elusive and difficult to understand.

So, as part of my ongoing attempt to understand what D&D was all about back in the day, perhaps you Original Gamers can help me out. Here's the question: when you were playing D&D back in the 70s and early 80s, what kind of music were you listening to (especially while you were actually gaming, preparing adventures, reading modules in your mom's basement, etc)? Please list band names, albums, favorite songs, etc. Imagine I'm making a mix CD or a playlist or something.

Bonus question: what kind of snacks were you eating?
Super bonus question: did you inhale?

Remember, this is specifically about the 70s and early 80s.

 

[EricNoah]

I was young enough at that point that I was not really listening to the radio much. And we didn't even have a TV at the time.

I vaguely remember hearing You Light Up My Life while listening to some new year's eve countdown around that time. Pretty sure that's not what you are looking for.

Oh, wait ... my older brother listened to Queen and Blondie and Kansas at the time and he's the one who introduced me to D&D. So I guess you can put Bohemian Rhapsody and Heart of Glass and a song by Kansas (sorry, can't think of one) on your list...

 

[DrunkonDuty]

Music: Don't actually listen to music while I play, then or now. But in more general terms I was doing the retro thing and listening to lots of 60's stuff. The Beatles, Doors, Stones. Bob Marley was big on my list then (and now.) As well as the usual top-20 stuff. Hey, I was a kid. In terms of metal I like the older school. ACDC, Led Zepplin, Deep Purple, Sabbath. Hell, at the time it wasn't old.

Snacks: chips, coke, chocolate.

Inhale: nah. Never been much of a midnight toker. Now and then if I'm with friends and they have a smoke I'll have a toke or two to be social. But generally speaking I prefer a beer.

 

[Theron]

Warning: The first part of this isn't going to help.

I can't hear the song "Hold the Line" by Toto without having a D&D flashback to New Year's Eve, 1978, sitting in my bedroom (at my parents' house - I was 15) listening to the radio while I was keying a new level for the dungeon I was going to spring on my buddies when school started back up.

Told you it wouldn't help.

In an attempt to be more helpful, here's the stuff I was more typically listening to in my first few years of gaming (late 70s, especially early 80s):

Blue Oyster Cult
Black Sabbath
Judas Priest
Hawkwind
KISS
UFO
Ozzy Osbourne
Saxon
Iron Maiden
Tygers of Pan Tang
Motorhead
Rush

Songs of particular significance: BOC's "Black Blade" and "Veteran of the Psychic Wars" ("Stormbringer" was my game of choice almost the moment it came out), Rush's "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" and "2112," everything on Ozzy's "Diary of a Madman" album, and the entirety of Maiden's "Number of the Beast" album.

I did not inhale. In my area, stoners and gamers didn't socialize. It was only several years later that I learned that many of the stoners were closet gamers.

Snacks consisted of chips and cokes, I think. At my age, I can barely remember what I had for breakfast yesterday, much less what I ate while killing orcs twenty five years ago.

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

Iron Maiden (Number of the Beast, etc)
Black Sabbath (Master of Reality, etc)
Dio (Last in Line, etc)
Scorpions (Lovedrive, etc)
Judas Priest (Sin After Sin, etc)
Ozzy (Diary of a Madman, etc)
Blue Oyster Cult (Cultosaurus Erectus, etc)
Motorhead (Overkill, etc)
Rush (2112, etc)
Yngwie Malmsteen/Rising Force
Rainbow (Rainbow Rising, etc)
AC/DC (Let there Be Rock, etc)
Led Zeppelin (II, etc)
Deep Purple (Stormbringer, etc)

 

[Crothian]

We never really listened to music when we gamed but as I was raised in a Motown House if there was music that was what it was. But music I felt (and still mostly do) is more often a distraction then a game enhancer.

We ate Doritoes and pepsi. Occasionally we would have Jolt I think. I'm not sure when they came out.

And we never did any "inhaling" while we gamed. We gamed to game so anything that interferred with that was not what we wanted.

 

[WayneLigon]

Music was never a big part of gaming for us. We never had music on during games, since it was too distracting. Now, one GM did use 'musical clues', which was a mood-setting peice that also contained clues to the adventure. Usually that was something from his extensive and very eclectic music collection It could be anything, from very early Jethro Tull, to the California Wicca Bluegrass Band, to Alice Cooper. Later on, we used some of the better-sung filk. Lately, we simply use film soundtracks or appropriate vocals.

Snack food was usually pizza, since one guy worked at Godfathers at the time. The 'maximum meat' pizza he'd make actually had a convex shape to it. Diet Coke, Coke, Pepsi. We were never much on Mountain Dew.

 

[MrFilthyIke]

Iron Maiden's Piece of Mind is the album to means D&D the most to me.

Lots of Malmsteen, AC/DC and early Def Lepard get put into that mix for when I started.

I have diversified quite a bit since then, but still love those bands.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Iron Maiden.

Judas Priest.

Black Sabbath.

That was pretty much it.

As for snacks, it was whatever Mike William's mom would set out for us. Usually that was bulk Nacho chips.

 

[trancejeremy]

It really depends on where we gamed (my golden age as a kid was from about 78-82).

At one friends house, it was usually Queen (The Game and Flash Gordon albums), the Village People, Blondie, Abba, Kansas (Point of Know Return), Reo Speedwagon (Hi Infidelity), Foreigner, AC/DC (For Those about to Rock), Styx (Grand Illusion, Kilroy was Here), Def Leppard (Pyromania). (Mostly what I listened to, at my house, since I copied him a bit)

No snacks there, occsionally a soda, because he was a little overweight and his mother wouldn't let him snack and stay inside.

At another, thanks to a friends older brother, it was mostly The Who. Tommy. Over and over and over. And over. And over. Thankfully one of those albums that you can listen to over and over. And over. And over.

We'd always have Kool-aid at his house. No snacks, other than celery.

At another friends, thanks to his brother, the Beatles, Queen, Donovan, Jesus Christ Superstar (the musical), some more obscure stuff, like Mason Profit (the song Two Hangmen), Angel (the song, "The Tower"). Also Emerson Lake & Palmer, their Brain Salad Surgery album.

We'd have Pepsi there. Sometimes some sort of chips I didn't like. They were from Illinois, so they had strange taste in food.

At my house, we'd always have coke and/or kool aid. Occasionally pop-corn or pretzals as snacks, I never liked chips much.