@reubent, '77 WAS a great year musically. So much was happening, local music scenes exploding all over the country. The Progressive and "Singer-Songwriter" era was over! I put S-S in quotes because a lot of the new music was still being written and sung by a single person (Graham Parker, Costello, Nick Lowe, Tom Waits, Marshall Crenshaw, Tom Petty, etc.), but the music wasn't being performed in the laidback "West Coast" S-S style the genre is thought in terms of.
That year I discovered the burgeoning underground scene of Fanzines---small 'zines dedicated to the Power Pop and Garage Bands I had missed after I abandoned Rock music entirely in '71: Bomp Magazine (the first and the best, written mostly by Greg Shaw, manager of The Flamin' Groovies and owner of the highly-influential indi label Bomp Records), Trouser Press (which focused on UK bands), and dozens more. That year I was introduced to Dave Edmunds, Nick Lowe, The Dwight Twilley Band, The Ramones, Marshall Crenshaw, Tom Petty, Jonathan Richman, Moon Martin, ABBA (they might seem out of place here, but in fact aren't), AC/DC, Squeeze, Television, Willy DeVille, Cheap Trick, The Symptoms (out of Springfield, Missouri; a great band.), and a bunch more.
And 1978 was just as good!