An online buddy described Ocean Machine as "humanity's greatest fucking achievement ever", then sent me some mp3's. I coerced him to send me the full album and Infinity, and then I went out and redeemed myself by buying those two albums plus Terria.

Best money I ever spent.

I can imagine that you had hard time talking to other people after those many happy months you spent inside your house.

The first devin related song I ever heard was the live version of 'Oh my fucking god' from 'No sleep till bedtime'. I was pretty much just like "WTF? LOL!" and didn't really think much else of it at the time. The 'get down there and suck my buddies cock part' certainly tickled my funny bone, though. Hahaha... then after that it was; Kingdom, Jupiter, Storm and Random Analysis. They were all on a compilation CD my friend made for me.

I couldn't seem to stop listening to Storm, so I've been hooked ever since.

2001 A.D.:
I was pretty much into "Phobos" (Voivod) and trying to catch something similar or whatever strong, massive industrial metal stuff. I bought "Physicist" just by chance, because I liked the title (very dangerous way to buy music).
When I came home and pulled the CD into the player it happened; the first notes of "NAMASTE" made me feel like a power generator: I was immobile, but vibrating and buzzing and my eyes just were out. The "MATERIAL" was an interstellar trip, without being under the drugs or completely drunk. "DEATH", it had desinterateded me!
My luck was there, double luck, I would say: the CD contained a collection of Dev's precedent works' covers and so I made myself the idea to bacome a Dev's prophet and bring his word to anyone listens metal or rock stuff anyway, to fulfill our lines with new accolites.
Actually, the song which hooked me up definitely was "DETOX". My friend told me, after I made him listen to "City", that Strapping Young Lad really are the best extreme metal band in the world (Meshuggah and Voivod apart) and that that particular song is the same.
I won't speak about "OM", "Infinity" and "Terria", because I just adore them. That's the Music, man!

I bought Ocean Machine and as soon as I heard Seventh Wave I had to buy everything else.

Infinity was first; blew my mind in the early hours of the morning while on a ski trip and had an awesome intro to dev. OM was after and then spent the rest of my years (until now) checking out everything this guy ever put out. And OM was a first for listening to Dev stoned. Infinity was like an orgasm and Terria freaked me out. Synchestra just had me smiling forever, along with tears from laughing.

my first dtb experience was getting a lovely pinhead tattoo while the tattooist blaired ocean machine i had to ask afterwards who the f*ck was that and starting my dtb collection.

my boyfriend tried to get me into syl first, which at the time was waaaayyy too much for me. so he gave me accelerated evolution to listen to. on the way to work one warm spring evening, i decided to walk to work with AE playin on my discman, the sun was low in the sky, and i didn't want to stop walking!!! that was it for the next few days, i was constantly listening to it and couldn't believe this was the same person on city!!!
then i slowly got into syl aswell (thanks to oh my fuckin god) and the rest is history.
every time i listen to anything by devin i have to turn it up and i tell everyone i know to listen to either dtb or syl depending on their tastes. if they can get into dtb then eventually they'll like syl! well i did!

I think Strapping Young Lad just popped in an online metal-related discussion around the year 2002 or so. There was also a mention about Devin's solo material. I went on to check out a few tracks over the internet. I think, Christeen, Bad Devil, Oh My Fucking God (because of the title, naturally ), Detox were the first ones. It was love at first hearing and I needed to get more and more after hearing these songs for a few times. Since that I've bought all the full-lenght ones.

After being a long time industrial music and metal fan, I discovered SYL, then downloaded Namaste....standard DTB reaction of shitting oneself ensues. The mislabel of the Namaste song file listed it as an SYL song. Not being able to find Namaste listed on any of the SYL Cd's, I found it to be Dev's solo stuff. I downloaded more solo stuff and was forever hooked. I bought all his albums off Amazon and that's it.

Before Dev, I thought Reznor was a genius. But NIN is like the first girl you kissed and thought you loved until you met the one you know you will spend the rest of your life with, Dev. Too bad Dev makes a pretty grousome girl, HAHA!

Headbangers Ball or something similar - Detox on, me, my brother and Dad just loved that riff. Still do.

I remember buying City and finding it hard to get into, but that was when Soundgarden were my favourite band and I thought Machine Head were too heavy. Then I read a 10/10 review of OM in Metal Hammer by there then editor (a lady whose name I can't remember) who said it was the SYL frontman doing this amazing album. From then on OM has been my fave album and Devy my fave artist, he just pulled me into his world and I can't escape now!

No other artist does that to me.

I heard much splooging about City, so I got it and was blown away. Later got SYL. Then I heard much splooging about Accelerated Evolution and found out the same guy was involved and again was blown away. I now have everything he has released. That's what, 2-300 bucks he's made off me alone? Worth every fucking penny too, as I listen to either DTB or SYL almost daily. I'm not kidding, my Itunes has his albums blowing away all others on my most listened list. Maybe that's not healthy but I'm more than happy to let Tracy have his babies at least.

Well I had heard the name from time to time and one day I was at my local HMV just browsing and I got to SYL and saw a face looking at me in horror and the words "Heavy As A Really Heavy Thing" right above it. I sort of laughed at it in my head and bought it. I had never heard SYL before, but I had money to spare, and in fact that was one of only TWO times that I have bought an album on impulse.

A few months later, I bought City. Then SYL came out 6 months later and I bought that. Around the same time SYL was released, I was hearing lots of comparisons with this other album, "Accelerated Evolution," that just came out - a Devin Townsend solo project. I downloaded a few songs and thought it was alright, but not quite as good as any SYL I'd heard. However, at the time I was probably only 16 or 17, so knowing that a man was capable of writing the chaos that is SYL and also some really mellow, catchy rock music fascinated me. I decided to download more, and the very first song I downloaded after the Accelerated Evolution album was one of Earth Day or Canada.

That's when I fell in love.

I discovered OM afew months after getting into SYL, my friend told me about Devy's sideprojects so I went out and bought OM. And to this day is still my favorite Devy album.

It took me awhile to get his stuff back then cos not many people knew about him, and it was bloody hard to get his material down our way.

In 1997 I read a review of Biomech in a german metal magazine, where it got a very high rating. I think I even heard SYL's city before... however, so I bought Biomech...but then at home upon first listen: "crap! it's not heavy!!". at that time I was heavily into Pantera, Sepultura and such bands, so an album as mellow as Biomech was kind of "not cool"! (I was 17/18 then.) but still, I listened to it from time to time, but it took some months until I really liked it.
now comes the cheesy/lame part: at that time, when I had come to really like it, I was in love with a girl and I used to listen to Biomech nearly every night on the headphones while thinking of her. that way, somehow, Biomech still retains a special place in my collection...could well be my favourite album ever!!

So i was a junior in high school when Sex & Religion came out. My friends were all hoping for Passion & Warfare 2, so they all hated it, and told me not to bother buying it. They said the singer was a complete douche-bag, that he screamed way too much, ect.

Well.

I bought it anyway, and i quite liked the singer. I thought he was gutsy to scream the way he did on the ballads, gave them a bit of a kick. Plus when he did just sing-wow. The end of Still My Bleeding Heart is just awesome. Then i get the imfamous Guitar world (which i still have) and my impression of this Devin Townsend guy kind of changed. He came across as a little bit of a whack-job i thought. Then i saw Vai on the tonight show. WHOA!!! Now i really thought this Townsend guy was a nut.
Just not what i was into at the time, so while i still listend to S&R every once in a while, i basically forgot all about Devin Townsend.

Fast forward to June of 2005:
So i'm browsing Steve Vais' web site, and read the bio for S&R.
Vai writes of lot's of things good and bad about the album, but what strikes me is what he writes about Devin Townsend. Says he's a genius.
Highly recommends Ocean Machine. Says Stapping Young Lad (who? i think) holds brutal treasures. As i said, i had completely forgotten about
Devin. So now i'm curious. So i search Devin Townsend, and end up at HDR website. I download Storm, Canada, & Christeen. Storm just hit me.
I thought it was one of the best songs i'd ever heard. So what i end up doing is dowloading anything i can find. The first thing to complete downloading were the songs from Ocean Machine. At this point i remember it being late at night, so i decide to burn OM, and then listen to it while i'm going to sleep. Now i was a little disappointed, because i was hoping to get Accelerated Evolution, as i was in love with Storm. I didn't know a thing about OM. I will never forget what happend in the next 70 minutes. Lying in bed with my headphones on, I was taken away. I thought OM was the greatest thing i'd ever heard. I could not believe i'd never heard anything else about Devin Townsend. This was the greatest album ever made! Vai was right: he was a genius.
I'm not a good writer... there is no way i can describe how much i loved OM. I'm thinking a little of it was my original feeling about Devin;
that this was the same man i saw on Jay leno. Now i was the douchebag.
So that's my first taste of Devin Townsend. I love every one of his records. I had a hell of summer discovering all of his music.

I've never been the same. Thank you, Devin.