Well being from California and fairly new to playing techno (about 3 years) my influences aren't as old-school.

Julian Liberator - First acid techno dj I ever saw, I saw him perform in San Francisco with Chris and Aaron, this was around the time of the earlier 4x4 releases and I had never heard anything like this set before. Being a trance dj at the time it made me realize that Techno was just more quality and had a "bigger" sound than Trance. This was the best set I've ever seen hands down.

Chris Liberator - Saw him blow it up with Aaron and Julian and got turned on to my favorite label of the first few years I played techno, Maximim Minimum. "Process Yellow" was my favorite track for about a year!

D.A.V.E. the Drummer - Once I was turned on to the SUF family of labels I started checking out his releases and getting turned on to tracks with more funk to them. I never thought electronic music could be so funky and driving at the same time.. amazing!