Nobody's mentioned Sun Ra so far! Nor the MC5 who are probably how SY heard about Sun Ra.

And of course on the other side of things the Beatles (particularly the White album) and the Beach Boys (mostly Pet Sounds) always come up. And the Carpenters.

the stooges, television, mc5, the ramones, pil, sonny sharrock, the fall, crime, the velvets, suicide, teenage jesus and the jerks, coltrane, the grateful dead, the voidoids, patti smith

cocaine

some experimental influence (my favourite):
glenn branca, rhys chatham, john cage, stockhausen, tony conrad, la monte young, steve reich, varése, coltrane, berio, t. monk, jim o' rourke, cecil taylor, fluxus...

Lou's Berlin album also had an impact on Thurston. I've got a Lou Reed docu laying around here with Thurston saying that.

Berlin is getting released this fall on DVD

Nihilist Spasm Band def.

I lived in their city, London On, for four years and I never heard of them until through SY

I guess its more of a philosophy/approach than an influence

alice cooper, minor threat, pere ubu, john fahey

never heard any SY references to NSB

yep, fahey, thurston said he was a "Secret influence" on them, whatever that means...

i can see influences in their music from bands that they themselves influenced.

you have fantastic taste in composers, those are a good amount of my favorites. varese is definitlet not someone who gets mentioned enough yet is every bit as important as boulez or partch.

you are crazy
they are branca's trick or treaters

He'll never admit it but I believe Thurston's greatest influence since Patti Smith was Klaus Nomi.

Or maybe Klaus Kinski.

No, Klaus Nomi.

No, Klaus Kinski.

thurston's myspace:

Music mythical beast / evenings / keffer / slither / emeralds / raven strain / pocahaunted / the fix / teenage jesus and the jerks / spykes / dreamcatcher / black artists group / matt krefting / mayhem / halflings / beherit / twig / visitations / prurient / mutant ape

Stockhausen

Oh yeah, lots of that. Green River, Mudhoney, Unwound, Dinosaur Jr., Pussy Galore, Bikini Kill, even Nirvana. They've never hidden that or denied it for a second. Different times for different influences though.