which artists cast a shadow on you?
 

I'm posting this thread in this section because I believe influence comes from any sort of creative walk, let alone life experiences themselves. So, if your works of art are purely confined to the aural realm, who are the people who provide the lifeline of your own existence as an artist? It doesn't have to be someone known to us either.

Aren't you going to answer your own question? Curious now...

Good question.

Dude. Not seen you here for ages. It seems to be woodwork comer-outers season.

Anyway. I think life experiences is a really interesting point. Because people always say, y'know, Rothko, Duchamp, Beckett, Ovid (or whatever area of the canon they want). But I always suspect the influences that stay hidden - the real shadows - are things like drunk uncles, smells of childhood swimming pools, ecstatic showers, exquisitely bad wanks etc etc.

Or am I off mark?

If I think about the kind of rock I tend to like, I'd say Kenneth Anger is as big an influence as any band.

I think life experiences have a bigger impact on my work than any actual musical influences. As I write mostly for theatre I try and mine my memories and times of emotion in a similar way that the actors will do throughout the rehearsal periods. Writing for the stage is an odd beast and the more you can draw on your life experiences the more successful the music will be for the show. It sounds like a wanky thing to say but this is how I work when writing. Sometimes I do use references and they are generally more classical based and modern classical based as Glice could attest to from the bits and pieces of mine he has heard. Albinoni's adagio has been a big influence on some of my work as has Steve Reich's Three tales. Apart from those two I would say Godspeed You Black Emperor's F# A# Infinity is always floating in the back of my mind.

Various artists that have influenced me (in all media art can be in), in no other order than as I think of them:

Salvador Dali
H.R. Giger
Stanley Kubrick
Danny Elfman
Dimebag Darrell
Carlos Santana
David Gilmour
Kurt Cobain
Jonny Greenwood
Hans Zimmer
Hideki Anno (NGE, anyway)
Page Hamilton
Deftones (the music made by the group as a whole)
Lee Ranaldo

Influences can be negative. "I'll NEVER sing/paint/write/think like that fucko."

I just try and write the soundtrack to my childhood.

I think landscapes and living spaces have cast more of a shadow on me than any artists.

I'm not really influenced by much, musically. When I heard Beefheart I did say, "Oh, so this is the sound I was trying to do." That's usually how it happens.. when I saw Toshio Matsumoto's brilliant experimental short "Phantom" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNshDaTJ2BI), that's another moment where I said, "OH! So this is the kind of movies I was trying to make!" Often, as I explore different ideas I have with the art I am creating, I find that a lot of great artists have done similiar things. Filmwise, Godard, Jost, Terayama, and Matsumoto are the ones who really scare me with how good they are, and while I don't consciously try to rip them off or pay homage to them in any way, I think we operate amongst a similiar wavelength, they just happened to be doing all that cool shit 30-50 years ago. As far as more traditional art, I started out making those drip paintings until I discovered Pollack had already done it. I also do spit paintings, I'm sure someone else has done those. I think music is the only area where I feel like I have genuinely done a few things that I haven't heard anyone else ever do, but I know someone, somewhere has. THere's just so much shit out there! But yeah I've never really said 'Okay, I'm going to try to sound like this guy.' except for maybe Harry Partch, once or twice... Kinda unrelated, but I will admit, if I was talented at all as a painter, I'd probably now be interested in trying to do something like Rosson Crow's stuff. I've never been interested enough in painting to try to develop my technique, maybe as I get older..

Pablo Picasso
Ralph Steadman
Franz Kline

too many to list.
each influence incorporates a small piece to the whole picture.

Something that I've been thinking about a lot lately is architecture. As an improvising musician, I've come to realise that the space is really important. I've played quite a few gigs in shitty rock dives and it's only recently I noticed that it affects my playing quite badly. I played in a gallery recently where the promoter put loads of effort into getting projections and the aesthetics of the stage as right as possible, and it made for a much more interesting, enjoyable gig. I'm playing in a disused toilet on the weekend, and I'm really excited about that - more than I would be playing to a more 'conventional' (and bigger) audience. The acoustic is utterly beautiful in there.

But yeah, more generally I find books about architecture to be much more enjoyable than most other sorts of art books. I tend to think that gallery art doesn't really work in brochure form, and there's a limit to how many IRL exhibitions I can get to. Luckily, the local library has a fairly large architecture section.

I am influenced by EVERYTHING I touch, hear, feel and see

Architecture and interior design are art. That is why I love it you are basically taking all of these collaborative artistic efforts from various ppl and creating an entire structure out of them. It is similiar to a gigantic pain in the ass collage.

i find that vincent van gogh symbolizes the love for painting /art

I repped you too quick this post is better<3