I'm surprised I didn't answer this years ago, but also glad because the answer has changed so much.
I was 13, living in a suburb near Oakland and waking up to the world. I didn't like what I found and so I took to periods of long silence, dark clothes, and I always wore a walkman so people wouldn't approach me. I used to put the tapes I'd steal from my older brother in there: Depeche Mode, Tears for Fears, (he had a m*****n tape, too), The Cure and the like. They were fine, but I wasn't really a music person. I'm still not, honestly.
An old friend's sister saw me standing in the corner of the quad at school every day, headphones on. She walked up to me once and said, "Bet you'll like this" and gave me a completely inacurate story about the band while I glared at her and refused to speak. And she handed me First and Last and Always.
I listened to that tape almost exclusively and collected all I could, journeying to SF since nowhere else carried the music. I saw them live for the first time when I was 17 (1991) and still knew next to nothing about the band except that they were in a category totally by themselves. Seeing the show made it all come together and the music has just never lost its relevance to me.
I'm not much of a collector and I don't know all the trivia and associated acts, though I've collected a lot of knowledge over the last 28 years, mostly watching you all talk. The music has always just been something that recalls strength and an odd kind of happiness. I'm finally in a position to go see pretty much any show, any time, and I intend to take advantage of that for as long as I can!
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