The usual. Except, y'know... in a totally unique sort of way.
Douglas Adams. Hendrix. Gandhi. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec. Bill Hicks. Oscar Wilde. Edvard Munch. Maynard James Keenan. The usual.
So... here's the thing. My list of bands really is very, very, VERY important and impressive and blah blah blah, but you'll just have to manipulate those neuronic zapperoids of yours and try to imagine it. This is because a) I feel like a wanker listing a load of names that nobody will bother to read, and b) it's so much more cool and mysterious not to specify. Y'see? Huh? Aren't you wishing you did the same? Aren't you sitting there imagining all the unique little-known european electro-skank-grind trios that I, only I, have heard of? Aren't you spaffing your gender-specific fluids over the unknown possibilities of what might form the creative backbone of my musical slekshun? Of course you are! And so I cause you pain! And so I pity you! Bwa-ha-ha! Having said all of that, just to burst my own bubble, my metaphorical list comprises a whole bunch of good, stuck-in-its-ways, deeply-unfashionable guitarish stuff that starts with the Smashing Pumpkins, rambles via Jimmy Eat World, meanders past King Crimson, and ends with Tool, which will one day embarrass my kids and earn me the contempt of my more eclectic peers. Ah, snobbery... When did music become the tribal warpaint by which we define ourselves anyway?
In no particular order: Leon. Twelve Monkeys. Shaun of the Dead. Brazil. Fargo. Grosse Point Blank. Delicatessen. Dark Crystal. Dig!. Fight Club. Royal Tenenbaums. Once Upon a Time In the West. A Fistful of Dynamite. Donnie Darko. Anything with Sergio Leone, Luc Besson or Terry Gilliam on the front is A-okay with me.
Deadwood. Anything that isn't Deadwood is simply not worth watching. However: if the TV absolutely has to be on, make sure it's tuned to one of the following: Spaced, The Day Today, Brass Eye, Family Guy, The Mighty Boosh, Big Train or Futurama. Anything else is just evil soul-sucking megablandishment.
Scepticism Inc. by Bo Fowler. One of the silliest, most brilliantly original reads ever. What else? Oh, loads of stuff... Anything by Palahniuk, Vonnegut, Thompson.Moondust by Andrew Smith is an amazing book, as are the "Kovacs" novels by Richard Morgan and anything by Paul Auster.And Alan Moore, of course, of course, of course.
Bill Hicks. Billy Corgan. Gandhi. That Dog out of Homeward Bound. Notice that none of them are writers. If your heroes have already walked the path you're on, all you'll ever do is try and match their stride.
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