My musical awareness first stirred with namby-pamby pop music on an AM transistor radio. I became musically aware in teen-dom, and at 12 bought an FM radio-cassette the size of a cereal box. With a morning newspaper route at oh-dark-thirty, I carried it on my bicycle for company, stocking it with cassettes from a Columbia House deal — 13 for 1¢, then eight over two years at regular Club prices, something like $137.98 each. I didn’t know how to pick music then, so my haul was a mixed bag from embarrassing to accidentally great.