I started playing when I was 14 and I guess you could say music was my first love. Well, only love so far, I guess.
I'd say I'm self-taught, though of course I've picked up things from my father, who's a blues rock guitarist and my friends and pretty much everybody I've played with.
My first huge influence was Eddie Van Halen, who made me want to pick up the guitar in the first place. After Eddie, I suppose Steve Vai (I'm a member of this wonderful forum ) has had the biggest impact on my playing. I'm also a very big fan of various styles of ethnic music. Especially Indian and Chinese and so I try to incorporate phrasing and melodic sensibilities from those styles into my own, more progressive and experimental style.
I love instrumental music and I love challenging myself with odd-time signatures and so-called 'difficult' rhythms. I'm also a big fan of improvisational passages in music and love both playing and listening to long sections of individual solos and how one in a band tosses melodic and rythmic ideas from one another.
Lastly, my ideal music situation would be a huge band consisting a small string section, an ethnic flute player, a tabla player, a sitarist, a Chinese Violinist, a couple of singers from Les Mystéres des Voix Bulgares and a standard four-piece rock band set-up. Now that would be cool. The music would be a combination of progressive rock, Indian, Chinese and Balkan ethnic music and good, solid melodies.
Hobbies:
1. Movies - BIG movie fan. Got a big collection of dvds and I try to watch as many of them as I can, although I usually keep busy with other things.
I love sci-fi, fantasy and horror in particular with my top ten looking something like this (altough it changes from time to time):
The Empire Strikes Back
The Exorcist
Superman: The Movie
Raiders Of The Lost Ark
Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
Star Wars
The Shining
Labyrinth
Alien
Return Of The Jedi
Yeah, big Star Wars fan. But really, I enjoy all kinds of films. I'm also a big fan of animated films, especially Hayao Miyazaki's films.
My favourite actors include Johnny Depp, Bill Nighy, Rachel Weisz, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, Bruce Campbell, Christopher Walken, Cate Blanchett, Willem DaFoe, Al Pacino, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Lance Henriksen etc.
Fave directors - Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, David Cronenberg, Bryan Singer, David Fincher, Ridley Scott, George Lucas, David Lynch, George A.Romero, Sam Raimi and early John Carpenter
2.Video Games:
I suppose this represents the geek in me, which I would never deny or try to change. I love playing my PS2 (soon to be PS3 when my budget allows for it) and my fave games are the Silent Hill series, the Pro Evolution Soccer series and the Wipeout games. Currently really loving this wonderful Japanese game called Okami
3.Comic Books:
I've always had a thing for comic books. It started out with Superman comics, then over to Spider-Man and other Marvel comics. In my teens I started reading everything by Frank Miller, like Ronin, Sin City, Batman and Daredevil. From then I discovered Neil Gaiman's Sandman books which I still hold as the best graphic novels ever written. In my late teens I really got into Elfquest and gravitated towards its beautiful art and very human stories. If you're a fan too, you should go to this forum , of which I'm a member.
4.Drawing/Art:
This is something I've done more or less all my life. I did a lot of drawing when I was a kid. Mainly He-Man and Transformers-type things.
Recently I've gotten back into it, with the many pauses in my job an ample time to doodle and draw. I've also started a comic of my own, Tom Kat's Troubles & Toils , which I hope to get really good at eventually. We'll see.
Individual Comics: Morning Glory , Live Long And...Prosper? , ...Without The Paddles , The Best A Man Can Get , 6 Billion Forms Of Communication , Telemarketers Part I , Tom Kat Sings 80s Hits From Memory , Famous Last Words , Telemarketers Part II , Ignorance Is Bliss , Get Us Out Of Here, Mr Zulu! , If Life Was A Videogame , The Perils Of Morning Wood , Mating Season? , What's Your Fetish? , Bulletproof Brain , Dirty Ronnie , Engage Beer!
Art: The Malyman , Playmonster Model , The Troglet Chief , Minoru , Gauron Woodshepherd , Gnor
Cmdr. Blim Files: Journal #35236 , Journal # 35287 , Journal # 35248 , Journal # 35315 , Journal # 35315
Kroodles: Weird Creatures , More Weird Creatures , Even More Weird CreaturesI edited my profile with Thomas' Myspace Editor V4.4
