This week's music memory comes from Michael McKinney of St. Paul, Minn.:

When I was in junior high, two or three times a week I would ride my Per Welinder skateboard (by Powell Peralta) to a small restaurant in downtown Stillwater, Minn. — about a half-mile, pretty much all downhill — to wash dishes for a couple of hours. I made $3.15 an hour, and worked with a stoner named MG.

The owner was very kind to me: Every time I showed up, I got an egg-salad sandwich, a chocolate-chip cookie and a Coca-Cola before starting my shift. I liked working there, and I still compare it to jobs I have worked at since then.

There was one day when MG had discovered some new music; he was so excited and emotional about this song — he told me it was changing the chemistry of his brain, listening to it and to the album repeatedly. He told me to sit down and take a break, then he put the song on the stereo and walked out the back door for a smoke break.

There I was, sitting alone in the restaurant, and the steel drums and acoustic guitars caught my ear long before Perry Farrell told me about Jane, and what she had to say.