"Allen doesn’t have to sing ‘Kaddish,’ man. You understand what I mean? He just has to lay it down. He’s the only poet that I know of. I can’t really tell you all my feelings of him because they are just too total. He’s the only person I respect who writes, that just totally writes. He don’t have to do nothing, man. Allen Ginsberg, he’s just holy."

"Diane di Prima is a legendary poet and feminist. These poems are the embodiment of a woman seeing herself both as feminine and animalistic all at once. Di Prima is considered the only woman who was part of the Beat movement of poets, but in my opinion, she is the strongest voice out of all of them, even more than Allen Ginsberg. She always wrote fiercely and violently, truthfully and potently. She is a wholly original voice and this book was the first glimpse of that."

"I’ve seen Koyaanisqatsi more than any other movie. For years, I would just put play the disc on repeat the way some people might play their favorite record. But more importantly, Koyaanisqatsi has had a profound effect on me as a filmmaker and editor. It’s not so much the obvious stuff (i.e. the time lapse cinematography, editing to music, etc.) but rather this age-old notion that an audience can experience a story just through imagery. Audiences are smart—give them some guideposts, throw out some complex ideas, and they will do the rest. Koyaanisqatsi serves as a constant reminder that film is a visual medium where explanation (and even plot) can sometimes be intrusive, and the most powerful statement a film can make is the one that the audience arrives at. The Koyaanisqatsi supplements are also really instructive. There are a couple candid doc pieces with the director, Godfrey Reggio. At one point, he says he explored having Allen Ginsberg recite poetry throughout the film. At another point, he talks about filming surreal Terry Gilliam–like scenes (at an enormous budget) that he ultimately decided to cut out. It reinforces the idea that with filmmaking, just like in life, sometimes you have to go through a lot of bad mistakes to discover what really works."

"I never got into the ‘Celebration Of The Lizard’ stuff, and I’m still not mad on it. In the minibus on early Bunnymen tours we’d play a lot of Doors, and I got into it. I think they wrote some of the best three-minute pop songs ever. Robby Krieger came up with some of their best pop songs. Even though I prefer the Velvets as a group, The Doors are the most perfect and compatible four musicians in the history of time. The stuff they were doing was unbelievable. Even some of the madder stuff I can handle. If you listen to the musicianship, Ray Manzarek’s keyboard playing is so recognisable from just being a bluesy player, and it never gets on your wick. Some keyboard playing you’re like, "oh, fuck off". The band had the best drummer, keyboardist, guitarist and frontman – and it never got muso. Morrison looked incredible. If he was alive today he’d still be just as good, not so mysterious perhaps, but more of an Allen Ginsberg or Nick Nolte, swatting flies from his face on Venice Beach with a bevvy in his hand. He’d still be at it. And therefore, a heroic figure, looking like he’d been up for three weeks growing the world’s largest beard. I love the way ‘Peace Frog’ runs into ‘Blue Sunday’. The singing was incredible. I just don’t understand how The Doors weren’t even bigger."

"They were an underground band who started releasing cassettes in 1982 and are from Aberteifi in South West Wales, so they weren't part of a scene. They were from a small, working class town where, strangely, an interesting guy called Malcolm Neon had set up a cassette label, releasing electronic music in the Welsh language. So they kinda fit in – he put a tape of theirs out and gradually they released more albums, which would end up on the Anhrern, a punk rock Welsh language label which John Peel started to play. By the time Pyst came out in 1990, David R. Edwards' voice was becoming the key critical voice of the Welsh language. He held a mirror to society and to himself that was so brutally honest: they weren't embraced by the media at the time because they were misunderstood. They were gradually more acclaimed for their genius as time went on. The name of the band translates to English as 'developing', so they had experimenting as part of their reason for existing. By this time, it was David R. Edwards and Pat Morgan on bass and she brought a really distinctive musicality to the band. Their first two albums had been produced by Gorwel Owen who, for me, is like a Welsh Conny Plank, so everything was experimental but also really well-recorded. And this album [Datblygu] is a mixture of great songwriting. He can – when it's necessary - write a conventional pop song but delivered in a unique way like the classic, timeless songs. We covered one of these, 'Y Teimlad', on the Super Furry Animals' record Mwng. There are some great songs on this record – one is 'Ugain I Un' which is like a generic country and western song about being a horse [running] at [odds of] 20/1 who fails a jump and gets shot before the end of the song. There's another pop song called 'Am' which is just great pop music! But [the album is] always experimental and you could compare David to people like Mark E. Smith, Nick Cave and Allen Ginsberg, people with an honesty and darkness which is timeless as the lyrics deal with basic human traits. This isn't self-consciously Welsh. In fact, it's very critical of Welsh society in the Welsh language as that's the most honest way you could communicate [this idea]. And it captures Wales at that time where there was a great non-conformist musical streak going on ."