I like to hit things. My folks made the grand mistake of buying 12 year-old me drumsticks from some wood shop up in Bar Harbor, ME and I've been making a racket ever since.
In no order whatsoever... theSTART, Epoxies, PJ Harvey, Patti Smith, Dresden Dolls, The Stone Roses, The Smiths, Local H, Girl in a Coma, The Shins, Harvey Danger, Neutral Milk Hotel, Band of Horses, Wilco, PGMG, The Thermals, Deerhoof, Telephone, Lemonheads, At The Drive In, Fugazi, Television, Detachment Kit, Tears For Fears, Billy Joel, The AKAs, Cruiserweight, The King Cheetah, Blackpool Lights, Bedouin Soundclash, Menomena, Ted Leo + The Pharmacists, Speaker Speaker, Central Services, Patient Patient, Ms Led, Dept of Energy, The Decemberists, The Snakebites, 2 Ton Boa, Half Acre Day, John Vanderslice, Racetrack, Damone, Garbage, Radiohead, Foo Fighters, Placebo, Brassy, Mars Volta, Siouxsie, Kill Hannah, My Bloody Valentine, Goldfrapp, Portishead, Strike Anywhere, Kissing Chaos, Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Beatles, U2, Simon & Garfunkel, Journey, Elvis Costello, Tom Petty, Heart, The Police, The Cure, Cat Stevens, Buddy Rich, Gene Krupa, The Clash... and pleanty more.
Fern Gully, American Beauty, American History X, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, The Big Lebowski, Almost Famous, High Fidelity, Empire Records, Singles, Resivior Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bill, Pirates of the Carribiean, Peter Pan, Last Supper, Goonies, Love Stinks, Clockwork Orange, Raising Arizona, Trapped in Paradise, Four Rooms, anything Kevin Smith... and hundreds more.
Arrested Development... but they took that away from us, now didn't they?
JT Leroy, Ray Bradbury, Dan Brown, Al Franken, Emma Goldman, Naomi Klien, Eric Schlosser, anything by Kurt Vonegut... I.E. anything that has to do with political or social commentary or criticism.
John Bonham, Billy Brimblecom Jr, Stewart Copeland, Shirley Manson, Bill Hicks, Jonathan Cain... and the one and only Robert Ian South, who taught me more in the span of a couple months than most people could teach in a lifetime.