The title character of my novel, Iphigenia Murphy, turns sixteen the summer of 1992. When the story opens, Iffy has only just recently started getting into music. When she was younger, she listened to whatever was on the radio, WPLJ or Z100, top-40 stuff. But she starts hanging around with some guys in her high school who are into skateboarding and she finds out pretty quickly that they have great disdain for bands she considers cool (ahem, Bon Jovi).
Those guys let her know about WDRE, 92.7, New York’s “alternative station.” Iffy buys blank tapes and records hours and hours and then listens to those tapes over and over again. Listening to DRE, Iffy discovers the Ramones, and, even more exciting, finds out that the band is from Queens. This geographical coincidence–this tentative connection to these cool, weird, angry guys–means everything to Iffy.
She’ll find Tori Amos and Bikini Kill later, but in 1992, this is what Iffy has on heavy Walkman rotation:
The Pixies, “Where is My Mind?”
The Ramones, “I Wanna Be Sedated”
Joan Jett, “I Hate Myself for Loving You”
The Violent Femmes, “Blister in the Sun”
Jane’s Addiction, “Summertime Rolls”
Sara Hosey 
One thought on “It felt, in my ears, the way really good food tastes.”