Such a simple question that is tough to answer that simply.

First there are the 3 favorite bands that played the soundtrack to my youth:
1. Van Halen - Mean Street, DOA, Runnin' with the Devil
2. Kiss - Rock-n-Roll Over and Lick It Up were monumental albums in my youth
3. AC/DC - COD, care of the devil in me

Then there are my current favorite musicians (4 is the new 3):
1. Zakk Wylde - Guitar God. Ozzy, Pride and Glory, S/T, BLS. From acoustic, to piano, to southern fried rawk with a banjo to viking metal, this man does it all.
2. Radney Foster - My favorite singer/songwriter. Excellent voice, heartfelt lyrics and every country artist who's anybody has sung his stuff.
3. Myles Kennedy - Apocolyptic Love is a masterpiece of a sleaze rock album; Alter Bridge; The rock star voice lives in this man.
4. Lzzy Hale - Perhaps the most powerful rock voice I've ever heard. She's hot, she rocks and she can sing your socks off.

Then there are my sleaze rock top 3 albums!
1. GNR - Appetite for Destruction: Slash's guitars define the term sleaze rock
2. Buckcherry - S/T: Incredible sleaze rock album front to back; Lit Up and Check Your Head are classics
3. Slash - Apocolyptic Love: Slash reinvents his sleaze rock sound

Then there are the bands that I keep finding myself playing over and over on my abundance of head-fi gear
1. Badlands - S/T, Voodoo Highway and Dusk. Ray Gillen, Jake E Lee and Eric Singer. 3 guys I'd easily build a fantasy rock band around. Hair infused blues metal.
2. Saigon Kick - vastly underrated so called hair band from the late 80's and early 90's, that really has nothing in common with that genre. Very quirky song writing.
3. Chickenfoot - What a supergroup.  Sammy is like fine wine, his voice seems to somehow get better with age.

There is so much I've left out.  Surely there is room for 3 or 4 more?

The Cars
Weezer
Chris Cornell

Bands:

Dream Theater
Tool
Type-O-Negative

Musicians:

John Petrucci
John Myung
Mike Portnoy

I generally prefer jazz, folk, singer/songwriters, and funk/soul to rock; however, it's much easier for me to name the three rock artists that I feel tower over the rest of the rabble:

1) Sonic Youth
2) The Grateful Dead (only live material)
3) The Fall

First post!

I generally prefer jazz, folk, singer/songwriters, and funk/soul to rock; however, it's much easier for me to name the three rock artists that I feel tower over the rest of the rabble:

1) Sonic Youth
2) The Grateful Dead (only live material)
3) The Fall

First post!

Anyone with both the Dead and The Fall in their top bands is surely a lost brother of mine. Awesome shit. They aren't in my top 3 but I love your music taste.

Me:

1. Phish - my favorite live band, and overall the most important band in my life.
2. Ween - my favorite songwriters of all time. No band encapsulates the darkness of the human experience better than ween.
3. Joy Division/New Order