I think I heard dev via Strapping first around 2004-06, but 1) didn't think much of it. 2) didn't "get" it. I think the first song I heard might have been "satans icecream truck", I thought it was funny and all but that was about it. I forgot about them.

I got into Dev thanks to Ziltoid in 2007-08. That had everything, the fun, the skill, the production, the concept/theme, and most of all the musicianship, and I was hooked pretty instantly. Since then it has been a slow and gradual progression through his solo works which I have come to admire and enjoy most. And as a result of that, I went back and checked out strapping and now I dig some of their stuff too.

A friend of mine lent me Infinity back in '02 or something like that. Got hooked straight away especially with Bad Devil and War (love the groove!!) and have since got most of the discography (I still don't own Biomech: Ocean Machine - will be getting soon) Then slowly listened to SYL and saw them live at Download '06.

That Download show looked so fucking awesome.

(I still don't own Biomech: Ocean Machine - will be getting soon)

You are seriously missing out.

A friend and I were discussing death metal and how much of it sucked. The friend was all, "Yeah, but there's good death metal, like that Devin Townsend guy." And then he sent me Earth Day and I fucking wanted more.

lol

Gotta be honest, I'm a noob.

Ziltoid was my first exposure a few years ago. I've been meaning to explore more for ages and only just got round to it a few weeks ago. TDTP stuff is blowing my mind, absolutley taking my head clean off! So much musically that I love here, the mix of heavy and beautiful ambience, just perfect.

Am not too aware of SYL yet though...

While I'm here, I have a question. Devins touring at the moment, which material does he tend to lean on more heavily? Or is it just a mix of everything?

Cheers!

[swervedriver]

Gotta be honest, I'm a noob.

Ziltoid was my first exposure a few years ago. I've been meaning to explore more for ages and only just got round to it a few weeks ago. TDTP stuff is blowing my mind, absolutley taking my head clean off! So much musically that I love here, the mix of heavy and beautiful ambience, just perfect.

Am not too aware of SYL yet though...

While I'm here, I have a question. Devins touring at the moment, which material does he tend to lean on more heavily? Or is it just a mix of everything?

Cheers!

Welcome. For touring reviews/setlists, take a look at the Devin Townsend Live subforum. That should give you a good idea of what he's doing live.

A lot of my mates were into Strapping, so I'd heard of them. But this was about 2005/6 so I was only 15 and actually chose Devildriver over SYL at Download festival. I know, blasphemy! Massively sucks too. But at the time I was young and dumb, so yeah. A few weeks after this I saw the video for Zen on Scuzz and thought it was awesome! I've been in love with Strapping ever since.

I got into Devin Townsend Project last year when Addicted came out. I'd never understood anything other than Strapping beforehand, and it's only recently I've got into Ocean Machine. It's really good to do maths to though - swear I'm multiplying brain cells sometimes. Cosmology + anything Devin Townsend = mind-blowing, too.

During my college years, I was reading a Meshuggah CD review on amazon and SYL got mentioned in a positive light, so I checked out Love? on youtube and found it pretty cool. Then I checked out another song (probably a live version of All Hail The New Flesh), and I thought it was also pretty good. So I DLed City to see if it was worth the hype, and it almost tore my balls off! I introduced it to a few friends, and out of nowhere, a small SYL fanbase was born in my small college town! I then proceeded to adventure my way through his SYL and solo back-catalogue and had my mind blown frequently, and Devin quickly became one of my favorite artists of all time (I still refer people to his music all the time). Having a physical discography is still a work in progress, but nonetheless my collection is growing

Me and my band were on our way to play on a radio show and my singer had a CD-R with a load of random songs on it and Earth Day came on. It was the song that got me into Devin's music and the first album I got was Ocean Machine and it has been my favourite album ever since.

About 8 years ago, when I was watching a late night music video show called Heavy Shift. Some good stuff, some forgettable stuff, and stuff I had seen/heard before. Suddenly Strapping Young Lad's video for S.Y.L. comes on, and I think, "OK, this isn't bad." Then the heavy crunch just before the first chorus kicks in, and by the time Dev is screaming "I fucking hate you!" over and over, I was hooked.
It wasn't long before I had a copy of HAARHT, and for awhile it hardly left my stereo.

Dude, that's awesome... I got into Strapping ALMOST the exact same way.
I was watching the Heavy Shift, (2003, 2004 maybe?) and they had Mike Patton hosting it... I was a big Mike Patton fan at the time... HUGE fan actually, and so I was basically watching the show for him.
Anyway, He goes through a few obscure songs, and a little bit of Sepultura, Slayer and such.
He goes on to introduce a song by Strapping Young Lad called "Detox"... He says he thinks they're an interesting band, but the reason he's playing the video is to check out how obese their drummer is.
Needless to say, my mind was fairly blown by how amazing that song was, which to this day is still my second favourite song (first goes to skeksis).

I then noticed Detox popping up on Channel V every now and then... So I took note of Strapping. Somehow found out they were bringing a new album out (this must have been 2005 by this point). I had a choice to either buy a Static-X album, or Alien by Strapping... Fuck I'm happy that I chose Alien. Blew my mind. Still probably my favourite album to this day.

The irony of it all, is the thing that drew me to Townsend over the longer period of time that I got into his music was the sincerity and realness of it all.
It made me realise how shallow and tongue-in-cheek a lot of Mike Pattons music was.
Anyway... Thanks Patton!

This story could have been A LOT longer.

Well, I got into metal around early 2006 and decided to head for Download that year with a couple of mates to get myself introduced. I didn't get to see the SYL set unfortunately which is one of my biggest regrets. I was actually in the tent behind the main stage getting my face ripped off by Bleeding Through. Which was a suitable consolation I must admit.

Then a couple of months afterwards after being told about the set so many times I downloaded the discography. Started buying SYL albums after and eventually solo stuff. And now I have almost everything of his on my shelf. Good times.

found a SYL poster in a magazine and downloaded alien to see what it was like. after the first couple of tracks it seemed fairly good then love? got me in for good. can definitely wait for my last experience with devs music

Aftermath, in some compilation I found.

"This next song is an homage to metal, and the cheesy voices that come with announcing it. FAR... BEYOND... METALOLLOLOLLLLLLLLL!!!"

Hooked.