They're like the anti-guitarhero guitarhero duo. Think they may have influenced me slightly?

And as pointed out Buckethead isn't a bad choice either- especially in a band context. (I even like him on the Guns 'n' Roses record. Cool production there but way heavy on shitty ballads. Also, Brain is totally wasted playing boringass beats.)

Re: Frippertronics, on a similar note, we were working on something at rehearsal yesterday where I was asked by my bassist to "play like Robert Fripp". So I alternated between playing dissonant minimalist clean parts through reverse reverb, and turning my guitar volume off all the way and then playing my pedalboard, kicking on the Geiger Counter for use as a signal generator, manipulating the bit and sample rates to change pitch and play melodies in realtime, and tampering with the the EHX tremolo (which does some really odd uneven shapes) into the Eventide filters and delays as a sort of sequencer. Then dicking with the EHX reverb to create swells and feedback loops.

That sounds like some serious badness. Ya know, the good kind of bad.

Although Shawn Lane is my favorite guitarist...I would punch kittens in the face for Holdsworth's skills.

"I can play my pedals" is pretty badass, gotta admit, blushingly. Our drummer being armed with a Roland SPD-S helps. I don't think he hit a drum the whole time (maybe hats or tambourine); it was all electroshit.

I was tempted to say Paul Gilbert, but then I realized that'd basically just be taking my existing skillsets and amplifying them a billionfold. Fripp or Holdsworth would be fine choices.

But if I must introduce someone new to the thread...Ron Jarzombek perhaps?

Paul Gilbert I guess...