"Criterion has so much Ozu. Ten to fifteen years ago, I hunted through Japanese markets in L.A. and San Francisco for DVDs of otherwise unavailable Ozu. Because Ozu movies settle my mind. At one point in the late 1980s I was in Los Angeles for an extended period of time. I got in the habit of renting movies from Tower Video on Sunset. The two gold mines I remember best were the Humphrey Bogart Santana productions and the Wim Wenders movies, including Tokyo-ga. I watched Tokyo-ga through a filter of loving Wenders; otherwise, its content was pretty mystifying. A year or two later someone showed me Tokyo Story, and I wished Ozu was my mother. So generous and gentle. Patiently ignoring the 180-degree line (which bugs the fuck out of me in production). Of course, I don’t know Yasujiro Ozu; still, I love the man who gave these movies to us. And what lessons! The pairing of I Was Born, But . . . and Good Morning. He didn’t know he was doing it, because at the time he made Good Morning, I imagine that I Was Born, But . . . was ancient history. Now the two movies are equally present, and they stand alone and together. I choose the Floating Weeds movies, as among the genre of movies about us performing artists those movies reign."

"I just feel like that’s a movie that I saw when I was a kid, and you watch it over and over and over again, and you’re like, “Oh, Steve Martin’s doing bits, but they fit a story.” And it’s beautifully shot and directed by Carl Reiner, which some people don’t realize, and I just can’t think of a movie that informed my comedic personality more than The Jerk. It’s also a dumb character… it breaks all these stupid rules that Hollywood has for the sake of humor, and for the sake of jokes, and it’s a feel-good movie. Oh, man. I watch it over and over and over again. It’s got bits of Woody Allen’s kind of mysticalism, but it’s not. It’s jokey but the jokes don’t have punchlines. It’s like a Steve Martin album live, and they did a good job with making it a story. In a lot of ways you have no Borat without The Jerk, you have no anything, Lebowski; all those characters are Jerk-inspired. I play dumb quite a bit; I’ll say that right now. I don’t know if you call it a crutch, or what, but I tend to lean dumb… I don’t think I would have been able to get away with that had it not been for that movie."

"They’re a vocal group and started back in the heyday of very early reggae records. It’s the Jamaican parallel universe of rock & roll. It echoes rock & roll, R&B, Motown, soul. It has all the vocabulary of great 50s rock & roll. It’s pop music. It has this work ethic and immediacy: “We’re just making records, and making records, and making records.” It’s like surf music. It’s guys around the world in cheapo studios just digging deep. I love the vocalising of The Heptones. Even later records. I always loved them. I’m a sucker for the 60s records. All of their early records are singles. The first time they got compiled was probably the 70s. There’s one song called 'School Girls' that I almost covered a few years ago [Black essentially covers it for the Quietus there and then]. It’s so heartfelt and heartbroken. It’s like, it’s like, it’s like when I listen to 'The Great Pretender' [sings] “Oh yes! I’m the great pretender…” The Platters were a lot smoother than The Heptones. But The Heptones have that beautiful harmonising and soulfulness. Whenever I hear The Heptones I think, I wish I could sing that good. They do an amazing version of 'Knock On Wood'. They fuckin’ own it, man! It’s already a big hit for whoever the fuck recorded it. They sell it, they own it, they wear the hat."

"I was listening to this a lot when Supergrass were making Diamond Hoo Ha over in Berlin. This was the record of that album for me and I was listening to it over and over again. I love the rawness and the vocal performances. When I first heard it, it was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. It was different and I love Tom Verlaine's vocal quality; it's really androgynous and like the male Patti Smith. It had that delivery and I love it. I've never been drawn into the alternate tunings that they used and so I've never delved into that. I'm probably not enough of a nerd about other people's music to do that. But their playing is never pompous or self-indulgent. It wasn't guitar duelling but Television are very sensitive to their instruments. Everything had its place but I think I was drawn to it because of the band I was in. This was what we aspired to in terms of Mick [Quinn] being a brilliant bass player so we let him speak with what he was doing. And you couldn't tread over Danny because he had these amazing bass fills and we had that internal dialogue where everybody got to speak. The best bands are the ones that connect that way and are really on fire when there's that understanding between each other."

"Oh, this is brilliant! And the sound George Martin got on it! I love the opening drumbeat and the bleed with all the drums leaking onto the guitar mics and sometimes onto the vocals if they did the whole track live. The sound of it, to me, was real, raw excitement. They were a great group, they really were. From their days in Hamburg, they were so tight and on that record it really shows how brilliant they were. I think ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ was probably the greatest ever English rock’n’roll song. I would imagine that it’s a good as any old American rock’n’roll song, like the real thing. The real stuff. As good as a Chuck Berry tune or something. It was as solid as anything I’d ever heard or better. With the rock’n’roll records I’d started playing a bit by then – not bad, but a bit – and this song was nice and simple but don’t let that simplicity fool you. Some of the hardest stuff to do is the simple stuff, to make it effective and make it real and make it worthwhile. I thought it was unbelievable and I still do. Today, I still think, ""how the fuck did you do that""? It was like giving it back to the Americans: ""'ere y'are – we can do this as well!""

"What I love about Culture Club is how they took inspiration from reggae and made it into this beautiful pop that didn’t sound like much else at the time. Boy George was one of the first pop stars to come out and showcase that side of himself publicly, and in a time when it was more frowned upon than it is now. He’s always been so outspoken too, which is incredible. “I got the opportunity to meet him when he was a judge on The Voice Australia and to work with one of the artists that he mentored, Sheldon Riley. He auditioned with ‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me’, but it was a really dramatic version of the song - it was so powerful. It was really encouraging to see Boy George work with an artist who chose one of his songs to cover, which would be a challenge for a lot of people. “Boy George is such a great frontman, with all his flamboyance - his outfits and his makeup. I would be jealous sometimes when I would walk in the room and be like, “Man, who made that?” and he would say, “Oh I made this outfit”’ And the fact that he’s still doing it and works so hard, I have the utmost respect for that."