Music I like is much and is detailed below. But so far as influences go I would say there are only these in this chronological order:

Beatles, Dylan, Incredible String Band, Deep Forest, Jai Uttal!   That's entirely it!

Nobody else, although I may have liked their music, actually influenced me. 

Martin's Musical likings are: Starting with 'The Beatles'. There's many other influences, but none as significant as 'The Beatles'. In fact, I have still not recovered from the breakup of the Beatles! It was the biggest tragedy of the last 50 years, and I'm still in pieces about it - crying on a daily basis. Life was so great back then with beautiful music all the time as the backdrop to life. This thing that they call 'life' nowadays is a totally crap perverted reflection of life, and is fact nothing but a sad pit of tears and boring misery without 'The Beatles' or something similar. There has not been any music since, that even remotely comes close to being so consistently brilliant and sensitive, relevant, cutting edge, original and not sold out. Todays pathetic sold out twats like Justin Stickhiminthelake on down, just so unbelievably suck. These twats will say and do anything, as long as you put enough dollars in their pathetic faces. They so suck, and are all pawns in the hands of big business. It's so sick that todays kids are convinced by all this. Excuse me - I have to go back to my room for another 2 hour crying session about the break up of the Beatles! I was 12 and living in the north of England when they came on the scene. I was instantly a huge fan. I bought the first copy sold of the album 'Please Please Me' in Shipley Yorkshire, and the first copy sold of Sgt Peppers in Bolton, Lancashire, and the first copy sold of The White album in Haifa, Israel! I adore equally all 4 Beatles - not least Ringo, the world's best and most underrated drummer because he creatively served the song and not his ego. Where oh where is anyone ever going to find a drummer even nearly so good and coming from the heart as Ringo? Idiots who claim Ringo was not a good drummer should all be immersed in a vat of TV reality shows! No-one so far ever bettered the Beatles in popular music! Dylan is the other huge influence for me (I love all his work from 1961-The Basement Tapes - and since then one or two songs!!) - He was the power of the pen over the sword! I was the first Dylan fan in Bolton! Another huge influence when I was young was 'The Incredible String Band' - I like especially Robin Williamson's songs on their albums up to The Big Huge and Wee Tam and nothing much after that!, His Divine Grace AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, Jai Uttal (his first 3 albums especially influenced me), Deep Forest (dito), Beach Boys, Neil Young (up to Harvest), David Bowie - 'Hunky Dory' Sorry David (my friend) only like the entire 'Hunky Dory' album and don't much like anything else you did since then, but I defintely think 'Is There Life on Mars' is maybe the best pop song ever written - it's dramatic, dynamic, has the most intricate and brilliant original chords and fantastic futuristic escape lyrics!, Elgar, Vaughn Williams, John Williams, Hans Zimmer (todays Beethoven), Grieg, The Rolling Stones (until Brian Jones died and nothing after), Cream, Donovan, Genesis, Planxty (This may be the best band ever from Ireland), The Chieftains (their early stuff) Actually I love all kinds of Irish music and Eire in general - moving there and becoming an original New Age Traveller/ Tinker saved me! I have an Irish Catholic granny who was lady in waiting to the Duchess of Castle Howard in Yorkshire!. I'm not a musical snob. I like some stuff like 'Wings' that it's not cool to like, and other stuff which is cool to like I totally and utterly hate - like U2, Coldplay and Oasis - hate those 3. Also thoroughly detest cRAP music - which is nothing but liquid hate, and the world can do without it! Elton John has written some great songs with Bernie Taupin which I like - but I wouldn't say he's a big influence on me. I'm also a fan of Mike Oldfield - try his album 'Songs Of Distant Earth'. Everything he does is pretty good! I like Cat Stevens and his new music as 'Yusuf' is good! Never mind his religion - the guy is true to his path and that counts - people have different spiritual understandings! But what I don't get is how after all these years he's still thinking that 'Maybe There's a world!" Well I can tell you Yusuf - there definitely IS a world - I've not only been there, but I know how to recreate it here - in great detail! Another thing I can tell you for sure is that in that world they do not give suicide bombers 27 virgin brides. Fact is they never see that world! But hang on a minute - bearing in mind the absolute misery and despair that one wife can cause - it may after all be entirely appropriate that suicide bombers get 27 of them - that's it - all pulling in a differnt direction at once. Neat justice!

I'm also a fan of many great love songs through the ages. People like The Carpenters, Neil Sedaka, Glen Campbell, The Platters etc did great love songs! I'm also very much into middle eastern/persian music and rythyms - belly dance music and the like. So far as Trance, Techno and Ambient Music - they were very innovative when they were first started by people like Brian Eno and Future Sound Of London - but sadly they have now mostly become very repetitive and boring and made by a bunch of idiots with Acid who can press 'go'!!! So far as most of todays main stream music is concerned - I do occasionaly like some hit pop song. But not much that you hear in main stream has depth in todays music!! I'm fond of Keane and I like Rihanna's love songs! There are some good film scores by Williams and Zimmer and a few others. I like some acid folk and psychedelic bands from England. I have been discovering a lot of good music on myspace - but to be honest, nothing that really knocked me out! Just saw Rihanna's site on my space. Can you believe that 33 million people have listened to her stuff - now that's a big river. I'm just a quiet little backwater- that's where you gotta go to find an Anaconda!

But the biggest influence on my life would be my spiritual master - His Divine Grace A c Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada and The Vedic Literature - especially Srimad Bhagavatam and Sri Chaitanya Charitamrita. I have read and studied those two books 3-5 times over.

So far as the current situation on the planet is concerned - it's an absolute diabolical mess and I can't think of anything that got any better since I was a kid. Just about everything got much worse!!! People are sheep. Too easily led here and there yet very fast to get upset if someone like me stands up against it. They're all headed for disaster in my reckoning - unless we can get another 60's style spiritual revolution going. 2 or 3 people still alive with energy and trying could easily do it! Not likely!