In no particular order…

Tenet, the band by and including Jed Fucking Simon. A super intense cross of old school know-how and current awesome. This man’s right hand is up there with the best (Hetfield, etc…).

City Of Fire: What Caustic Thought has evolved into. Byron’s new band with Burton Bell on vox, mixed by Greg Reely. The first song is a CRUSHER

3 Inches of Blood: All hail hometown awesome. Shane Clark is THE MAN… Val from Zimmers Hole is in this as well…

Zimmers Hole: Jed, Byron, Gene and Val. Three records out now on Century Media. Be afraid while pissing yourselves. Awesome, awesome live band.

Opeth: Really, what can you say that hasn’t been said? Classy, intelligent, and incredibly incredible. We all know “Deliverance” and “The Drapery Falls,” etc., but man… “Benighted” was stuck in my head for two months straight at one time.

Meshuggah: The only thing I dislike about Meshuggah is the fact that their name gets used in association with TONS of bands that have NO IDEA what it takes to be the masters. You can’t be Meshuggah. Sit back and bathe in their brilliance and listen to Catch 33 from beginning to end while reading the lyrics.

Gojira: From Mars to Sirius, track 2… fucking hell…

The Wildhearts: Ginger is a musical savant, an incredibly passionate and natural musical entity. I love him, and I love his music. Chutzpah! by the Wildhearts is gold, as is everything they do… it pours out of the man. My personal HOLY FUCK moment for the past two months came from listening to the song “Jake,” that he wrote about his son on his solo album Yoni. You have to be tough as fucking nails to have the strength to be honest, and Ginger makes nails seem like styrofoam packing insulation.

Behemoth: Amazingly dedicated to their craft. The passion is undeniable. immense respect.

Steve Vai: In these times, when most (if not the majority) of our scene can’t read music (nor do most of us know what the hell fret is what note), we tend to forget the musical dynasty of Steve Vai. Not only can he school us all in the ways of guitar, but give him a piece of PAPER and a PEN, and he’ll write ten variations of the lesson for a three-hundred piece orchestra. Bless the guy and his music. Love him.

Morbid Angel: Domination changed my world in a time where many “death metal” vocalists sound like Super-Grover (I fucking do…). I imagine David Vincent yelling at the plumber for over0charging him and tearing a hole in the space time continuum. I LOVE the band, and I LOVE his voice.

W.A.S.P.: Like a truly dark version of Motley Crue back on their first two records. I always had the feeling Motley truly cared what we thought, and those suspicions  were confirmed after Theatre of Pain came out. Nothing against them, it just felt like a bait and switch. W.A.S.P. pissed my dad off. That was all that mattered when I was twelve. My mom liked Theatre of Pain, so I never bought it.

Venom: “Powerdrive”… weird production but a defining disk for me.

The Young Gods: I keep coming back to them, I was totally hooked on ‘Only Heaven’ and had a hard time getting into Second Nature, now Second Nature is a ‘desert Island’ disk for me.

Ravi Shankar: Connected, schooled, brilliant, centered, and makes any improvisations I (or most people I know) ever do seem incredibly vulgar and unimportant. Check this:

Jeff Beck: This clip is among the most connected guitar things I’ve ever witnessed:

Myrkskog: The first track on Deathmachine rocked me harder than most things that year:

Foetus: “Mortgage” is by far my favorite track off Gash …it was my soundtrack to self destruction along with White Noise by Cop Shoot Cop for two solid years :). I couldn’t find “Mortgage,” but here’s at least something off Gash, and some Cop Shoot Cop.

Cop Shoot Cop

King’s X: I have nothing but love for these guys. Gretchen changed my life. Doug Pinnick is an incredible human being.

Motorhead: This is the first song I ever really learned on guitar.

Grotus: Maybe the pinnacle moment in my musical evolution came when I saw these dudes open up for Mr. Bungle in ’90. I obsessively followed them to their shows. I contacted Lars, the singer, awhile back to tell him how much they meant to me, and he remembered me as that “weird kid that was at all our shows.”

Stravinsky: “The Rite of Spring” ladies and germs… the single most important piece of music written in the 20th century as far as I’m concerned. There’ s no justice I can do to an explanation that you can’t find online. THE HEAVIEST MUSIC EVER MADE.

Gene Hoglan

Meldrum: Gene motherfucking Hoglan and his incredibly beautiful band, in more ways than I can count. RIP Michelle, I never knew her, but I’ve known of her since Phantom Blue.

…and another band of Gene’s, Mechanism… dizzying chaos with Val (Zimmers Hole) on vox.

The Clancy Brothers: Fuck yeah Ireland!

Johnny Cash: “Punishing Beauty,” the second heaviest piece of music ever put to disk.

Mike Patton: Fascinating, artistically honest and determined, incredibly talented and innovative with a voice that puts every single one of us to shame. THAT’S how you sing in tune while rocking folks. Some folks have it, most of us can only aspire to it.

Tom Waits: He has more soul in his toenail than I have in my entire back catalog. “Hold On” is a defining track for me, but choosing is just dependent on mood.

Red Harvest: Crushing industrial… this is the only version I could find of this song. The album was Cold Dark Matter.

Samael: “Shining Kingdom”… unbelievable, fucked me up for a long time. Incredibly brilliant music by some of the most brilliant minds I’ve had the chance to meet. Passage is a milestone as far as I’m concerned.

“Weird Al”: Sorry, but without “Weird Al” and Van Halen 1 on the jukebox at the old Godfathers Pizza in Surrey, I’d probably be a carpenter. His medleys are brilliant… he was really a stunning musician in many ways.

The Smalls: THE BEST CANADIAN BAND OF ALL TIME… enough said.

The Cardiacs: Sing To God was so brilliant that everyone thought it was just a fluke. Nope, they did that ON PURPOSE. They were light years ahead.

Radiohead: Kid A forever and a day. Humbling and defined a great trip.

OLD: James Plotkin is a hero of mine… his choices of notes to include in his loops are the sign of a mind that is on a different wavelength. Formula I have listened to about 1,500 times.

…I can’t find anything off that album, but heres something along those lines…

Godflesh: I can never decide between Streetcleaner and Hymns, so I just decided on Jesu, which also cleans many a floor with awesome polish (pretty good, eh?).

Judas Priest: The first metal songs that rocked my world away from the Eurythmics and Taco were “Victim Of Changes” from Unleashed in the East, Motorhead by Motorhead, and “Flying High Again” by Ozzy. I became totally intrigued by Priest mainly because of KK Downing. I think if there was an overall guitar hero, it would be him after seeing this video as a ten year old. Mix that with EVH and Steve Morse and you had a pimply, masturbating guitar nerd.

The Cowboy Junkies: A beautiful, haunted Canadian band. The Trinity Session is a perfect little moment in time. Not for everyone, to be sure, but definitely for me. Great for road trips.

Metallica vs. Slayer. Loved Metallica, Liked Slayer… the last song that knocked me on my ass was “Leper Messiah.” However, my favorite song overall was “Ride The Lightning” – at the end of the solo where it goes from double kick to toms.

Megadeth: Was never a huge fan, but “Hook in Mouth” was a huge song for me, if that makes any sense.

Trevor Jones: The score to The Dark Crystal and Tron were huge inspirations, plus the ending of “Music Of The Night” by Andrew Lloyd Webber where it plays on the dissonance… “I Want To Live In America” from West Side Story, most of Jesus Christ Superstar, and parts of Fiddler On The Roof and Paint Your Wagon.

…here’s a great instrumental clip from Fiddler:

Zoviet France and Rapoon: Incredibly cool, amazingly descriptive, beautiful ambient music by people that would not have any time for me, and would not be fun to party with.

…here’s an example… my favorite album is probably Darker By Light. Seriously, I’ve listened to that record thousands of times. I think Robin Storey is an absolute master genius freak of nature.

Neurosis: Through Silver and Blood scared me, and I loved them for it. Like a gray and diabolical version of Kyuss (or at least that’s what I thought that night when this record started looming up in the background).

Sleepytime Gorilla Museum: Absolutely brilliant, next level genius.

Mutemath: “Chaos.” This song knocked me on my ass. Man… killer production and vibe.

Bon Iver: This album helped me through a rough patch. Love this song…

Man… the list goes on and on… I love me some music.

-DT