In Canada, in the 80’s, I was that guy in school who introduced my friends to the ‘cool’ music as I didn’t listen to contemporary stuff. Some they accepted like Howard Jones, OMD, ABC, Alphaville and Duran Duran (which I discovered before they took off). Being that my friends were mostly girls at that time, I lost them to the boybands of the era. Toronto’s CFNY was a godsend in those times and kept me searching and finding more artists that were less the norm and far more interesting.

So I continued with “my’ music of A flock of seagulls, Yello, Peter Murphy, Cocteau Twins, Japan, Art of Noise, Rational Youth, Men Without hats, Trans-x, Strange Advance, Cabaret Voltaire, The Beloved , Depeche Mode and yes even Wang Chung! Anything that had an electric connection but outside the norm was my jam. 

Later I expanded to different genres. Not a hard guitar guy but I really loved Sisters of Mercy, The Cure and similar bands that got me to my goth phase. This then lead to Industrial with early Ministry, Skinny Puppy and Front line Assembly. This music was furthered enhanced when I made a friend in the states. He would come up and visit his girlfriend (my next door neighbor) and we were both into making synth music so we’d jam and exchange songs of bands each never heard of – good times!

From him I learned about Chris and Cosy, EON, Front 242, LFO and more. This expanded over time to Orbital, Portishead, AIR, Chemical Brothers, Unkle, The Orb, Delerium (I listed to Delerium’s ‘Semantic Spaces’ album every day for a year driving to work) and David Sylvain was a big influence – anything by members of Japan really. Constantly looking for my fix of electronic music goodness.

In my more adult years I continued playing music and absorbing what I could – though I’m still a self taught duffus who can hardly play, I still managed to come up with stuff I enjoy. I’ve refined my sound and mixing capabilities and have written more (good) songs in the last 5 years than the previous 20.

As I am still able to find I found mind-blowing music that takes me to new places like Celldweller (cyberpunk/Techo/Metal??), Muse, Ladytron TS/RT, Royksopp, Ionnalee, Faderhead, Actors  and the awesome Pendulum! I’m always looking for new Electronic music spanning all genres to keep me inspired and push me forward to write more music – when will I stop? Who knows.