ESOTERIC, homepage / myspace and, Pantheist, homepage / myspace - Notable previous projects: Chalice and Mournful Congregation - My Fishlet - Electric bass and bass effects, santoor and sitar (but not tuning them) - Fencing (epee) - India; its culture, history...and food - 20th century history - war aesthetics - real ales - theology (predominantly, but not limited to Vedic and related traditions) - religious imagery - Formula One racing - Ski jumping - Fruit wars - transcendental experience of the imbibed mind whether it be from a vindaloo curry, the green herb, the green fairy, or a wild mushroom - the cessation of mass animal murder - the rights of the individual...etc....
Vardhamana Mahavira, Siddhartha Gautama, Guru Nanak Dev, and any other supposedly 'enlightened' folk. And me 16 years ago.
Musicians/Collectives/Composers I admire and respect include - Abigor, Aghast, Alice in Chains, Tori Amos, Arcturus, Atheist, Autechre, Autopsy, Nikhil Banerjee, Bathory, Bauhaus, Beatles, Bee and Flower, Beherit, Bethlehem, Bjork, Black Sabbath, Black Lodge, Blut Aus Nord, Boards of Canada, Bolt Thrower, Boris, Burning Witch, Cliff Burton, Burzum, Kate Bush, Camel, Candlemass, Carcass, Cathedral, Celtic Frost, Hariprasad Chaurasia, The Clowns of Decadence, Cocteau Twins, Coroner, Corrupted, Cynic, Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, Dark Angel, DarkThrone, Dawn, Dead Can Dance, Death, Deathless, Destruction, diSEMBOWELMENT, Dodheimsgard, Drudkh, Dystopia, Earth, Edge of Sanity, Eisenvater, Emperor, Enslaved, Enya, Faith No More, Diamanda Galas, Gehenna, Goatsblood, Godflesh, Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Gong, Graves at Sea, Grief, Handel, Hate Forest, Jimi Hendrix, Immortal, Indesinence, In the Woods, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Kampfar, Asad Ali Khan, Imrat Khan, Vilayat Khan, King Crimson, Korpse, Labradford, Leviathan, Limbonic Art, The Lord Weird Slough Feg, Mahler, Michael Manring, Master's Hammer, Lamented Souls, Loreena McKennitt, Melvins, Ministry, Mono, Morbid Angel, Morphine, Mortuary Hacking Session, Mussorgsky, John Myung, Napalm Death, Ram Narayan, Negurâ Bunget, Juan Nelson, Neurosis, Obituary, The Orb, Pan-Thy-Monium, Paradigma, Jaco Pastorius, Ashok Pathak, Pentagram, Pink Floyd, Planet Aids, Portishead, Primus, Queen, Rachel's, Refused, Reverend Bizarre, Kari Rueslåtten, Rush, Sadus, Saint Vitus, Sarcofago, Shalabi Effect, Ravi Shankar, Shiv Kumar Sharma, Billy Sheehan, Sigh, Skepticism, Skinny Puppy, Sleep, Slint, Smashing Pumpkins, Squarepusher, Stargazer, Storm, Strapping Young Lad, Striborg, The Sugarcubes, Summoning, Swans, System of a Down, Taake, The Tea Party, Therion, The 3rd and the Mortal, Thrones, Tormentor, Type O Negative, Ulver, Unholy, Until Death Overtakes Me, Voivod, Wagner, Winter, Victor Wooten, Yes, Yob, John Zorn, etc etc.....
Sci-Fi, War, Bizarre...including but not limited to - 2001, Alien quadrilogy, An Inconvenient Truth, Apocalypse Now, Bad Boy Bubby, Baraka, Batman, Batman Returns, The Birds, Brain Dead, Brazil, Children of Men, The Cider House Rules, City of Lost Children, Crash (David Cronenburg), Cube, The Dark Crystal, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead, Day the Earth Stood Still, Deliverance, Dune, Earthlings, Earth versus the Spider, Elizabeth, Elizabeth -The Golden Age-, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Exorcist, Eyes Wide Shut, Fantastic Voyage, Fargo, A Fish Called Wanda, The Fly, Full Metal Jacket, Gandhi, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, Grand Prix, Hellraiser, House of Flying Daggers, House of Wax (1953), Jaws series, Das Kabinett des Doktor Caligari, Land of the Dead, The Last Supper, Logans Run, Man Bites Dog, Meet the Feebles, Metropolis, Monty Python Movies, Mulholland Drive, Muppet Movies, Naked Lunch, Natural Born Killers, Night of the Living Dead, Nosferatu (1922), O' Brother Where Art Thou, 'O Lucky Man, The Omen, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, The Others, Pink Panther series (obviously only those with Peter Sellers), Platoon, Planet of the Apes (1968), Re-animator, Requiem for a Dream, Reservoir Dogs, Robot Monster, Rope, Rosemarys Baby, The Seventh Seal, Shallow Grave, The Shining, Shivers, Spartacus, Star Trek movies, Star Wars series, The Towering Inferno, Trainspotting, Transformers, Der Untergang (Downfall), The Wicker Man, Withnail and I, etc...
If you count all the British comedy (Monty Python, Fawlty Towers, Black Adder, Red Dwarf etc) and such that I grew up with as purely 'TV', then that's it....as for contemporary, very little...I could say the Simpsons, but it may seem somewhat predictable. Six Feet Under (R.I.P.) and Law and Order:S.V.U. are both great shows...and lately I have been watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - brilliant.
Classics, Sci Fi...Burroughs, Crowley, Fiest, Huxley, The Iluminatus! Trilogy, Kafka, Lovecraft, Nietszche, Orwell, Alastair Reynolds, Shelley, Theological texts, etc...
John Cleese, Grover (as performed by Frank Oz), Kermit the Frog (as performed by Jim Henson), and Jon Stewart.