My name is Brian Flota, and I was born in Centralia, Illinois on October 2, 1975. I have lived in Corona, California for eleven years. My interest in music started when I was very young. I was seven years old when I bought my first record album. Even at seven, I was somewhat of an eccentric critic. The first album I bought was Herbie Hancock's "Future Shock." I thought it might disappear from the record store before "Thriller." I am an English major and a Creative Writing minor at the University of California, Riverside. I have made the Dean's List seven times, and after graduation, plan on going to graduate school to get a Ph.D. in English. I wrote record reviews for the UCR school newspaper, The Highlander, for three years. I have had poems published in various small publications and also write fiction. In my English classes, I have often tried to bring in music to my topics whenever possible. I recently wrote a paper comparing Joseph Heller's novel "Catch-22" to Nirvana's Nevermind album, and I working on a paper currently in which I compared certain aspects of James Joyce's "Ulysses" to the Beatles White Album. I do not think that popular music is given enough attention in academia. Desert Island Picks --The Beatles, Rubber Soul UK version (1965) --The Beatles, Revolver UK version (1966) --The Beatles, The Beatles (1968) --The Beatles, Abbey Road (1969) --John Coltrane, Interstellar Space (1974, 1991) --Bob Dylan, Bringing It All Back Home (1965) --Bob Dylan, Highway 61 Revisited (1965) --Bob Dylan, Blonde on Blonde (1966) --The Charles Gayle Quartet, More Live at the Knitting Factory (1993) --Iggy and the Stooges, Raw Power (1973, 1997) --Joy Division, Closer (1980) --John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band (1970) --New York Dolls, Too Much Too Soon (1974) --Nirvana, Nevermind (1991) --Nirvana, In Utero (1993) --Nirvana, MTV Unplugged in New York (1994) --Gram Parsons, GP/Grievous Angel (1990) --Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain (1984) --Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet (1990) --The Rolling Stones, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out (1970) --Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (1977) --Sonic Youth, Daydream Nation (1988) --The Stooges, Fun House (1970) --The Velvet Underground, White Light/White Heat (1967), All Music Guide