I have been accused of being elitist for never going through a “Michael Jackson phase.” My cousin Jon is the person I have to thank for getting me into music at an early age. Jon is a few years my senior, and cared enough to expose me to things he really loved. The town we live in was also home to a world class record store entrepreneur. There really was nothing very cool about me. I was just lucky.

I really should devote another post to my early music education at some point, but for now, I wanted to share another cool band photo I came across recently.

Wasted Youth was an early 80s post-punk/new wave meets Nick Drake-esque band from East London. Jon picked up their album, “From The Inner Depth” a few years after it came out—probably about 1987 or so. I instantly fell in love with it.

I was in middle school at the time. I remember coming back from the movies with my parents where we saw Frantic with Harrison Ford, and sitting in the back seat of the car with my walkman listening to this album for the n-thousanth time. I was really into the movie, and really, really into punk rock French girl. Wasted Youth totally peaked for me in the car ride home that day. Their songs, “Jealousy” and “Rebecca’s Room” trigger some of my most nostalgic memories.

I still have the record in my collection and bring it out from time to time. The band has a compilation of their early singles in the iTunes store. I picked it up a few months ago and have been in teenage heaven ever since.