"I was about 16. We had this great art room in school and an absolutely brilliant teacher, Bob White. This art room was really well equipped with dark rooms and screen printing and painting. Bob was quite happy for us to play records. If you were in there, you could hear what other people were putting on. Somebody older than me was hip and put on Velvet Underground & Nico. That was just so influential. I often think that the ones that have lasted really well for me are songs like 'Sunday Morning', some of the kind of quieter, more reflective ones."

"I can’t finish this list without mentioning this one. I came across this brilliant album reissued by Frederiksberg Records on Bandcamp, and was immediately struck by the catchiness of ‘Sizzlin’ Hot.’ It was a track that should have been a hit, but never was. It was just before a bunch of DJ gigs around New Year’s Eve, so I immediately edited and remixed it. When I’ve played it anywhere since then, the result is total pandemonium! With the kind permission of the band and Frederiksberg Records, my reworking ended up being the title track on my most recent Daphni EP."

"Wonderful! Brilliant! It’s very different to everybody else, and it’s all men singing who sound like women. It sounds like Jefferson Airplane at times, and you think, “Who’s that woman?” and then you realise it’s a man. And now that singer does TV commercials and plays accordion in coffee shops. They were quite big. In England, quite a lot of people bought their records. We DJ-ed a lot with our original one, and somebody stole it from a club. We’ll find one again! H.P. Lovecraft were really underrated in terms of the sixties bands from the West Coast."

"[Number] four is Foxcatcher. And again the two performances for me were — well, I guess the three performances — but one is the director. First of all, it was just so visually beautiful. And I felt like it was visually beautiful for a purpose, not just like, “Look at this lovely shot, and now we’ll get back to storytelling.” I mean every shot moved the story forward in some way, and yet was beautiful, or horrific. I thought Mark Ruffalo was just amazing, and Steve Carrell. So I watched it two or three times. I just thought it was just brilliant."

"This is a classic Chinese style story and I enjoy that type of film. It appeals to Asian audiences, but this film appealed to audiences everywhere. It showed the best of what this type of film can be. The Director was brilliant, and the photography was really beautiful. The action was well choreographed and the cast did a great job. For this genre the movie really hit its target. When I saw this movie I imagined what it would be like to fly and do Kung Fu. Anything that sparks the imagination this well is exciting to watch."

"What’s amazing about All the President’s Men is that the only thing that happens in the whole movie is people make phone calls. There are no computers so they can’t look anything up — they’re looking up stuff in the Yellow Pages and they’re using, like, rotary phones. It’s Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford who are brilliant in it. They’re so natural. So, they’re making phone calls, they’re looking through files, and they’re having meetings in their newspaper’s editor’s office. That’s all that happens in the movie, and it’s as exciting as any big blockbuster movie. I mean, it’s really a huge accomplishment."

"It's the best showbusiness book that I've read. It's brilliantly written and it's about a brilliant director who was very meaningful to me when I was growing up and becoming a film-maker. Schickel understands Kazan; he understands Tennessee Williams; he understands Marlon Brando; he understands A Streetcar Named Desire. He writes with great historical knowledge, insight and liveliness. Showbusiness books are usually not worth reading. They're just silly and shallow. But this is a fabulous book. Whatever you think of Kazan politically, it has nothing to do with the fact that the guy was a great director."