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..
