"The first song I heard of theirs was called 'Funky' and the B-side of this was a song called 'Mentally Mad'. I was just listening to a mix show of theirs one night and they played all this new shit. I was like: 'Who the fuck is this?' I needed to know everything about this group from there; I knew this shit was ill. I discovered that they were from the Bronx and the more I listened, the more I realised that their beats were hard as fuck. I started reaching around and I found the 12"" single before the album came out and a few other songs. When the album eventually came out I was just mesmerised, especially with Kool Keith and his high-pitched rhymes talking about all this space-age, futuristic shit. It influenced me massively in that it was just this mad, unorthodox music and when I started making music, mine was very unorthodox as well. They were talking spaceship shit, like it was from another planet and they were 'Hardcore Bronx' fools too. The beats were banging with a big old bass and it just felt like some next level shit. It was hard as fuck, street shit set against these incredible lyrics – you just did not hear people talking like that. Kool Keith would rhyme but he'd also do this shit where nothing at all rhymed (like 'Mentally Mad') and that was very different at the time. They came just before Doctor Octagon and I never got into them or none of that as it felt watered down. Ultramagnetic MC's were just pure hood shit and they stood out because of it. Critical Beatdown was just incredible with the music and the beats they used. There's something too about having the contrast of the deep voice and the high pitched voice that's kind of like B-Real or Chuck D and Flava Flav. When one goes away, the other comes in and they switch again: when they come back, it's always more powerful too. They created a really dynamic sound."

"My entry into Gong would've been the Camembert Electrique album, which I bought for 50p or something like that. A lot of people at school had that record and, in fact, my first entry into being in a band at school was a band that just did Gong cover versions. It was an interesting education as I was dabbling around on an electric violin, and what with all those interesting time signatures. We did a street party for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977 and just played Gong covers! Later, down the line, one of the guys who was in the band became a member of Gong in the 80s, a guy called Graham Clark, and we got to the know them quite well. We were that much of a bunch of fanboys that we would make our way into the dressing room. There was a point when Gong founder Daevid Allen was playing with Here And Now, which was like this festival-type band, and every time they came to Manchester they let us play on stage using their instruments. We had this group called Danny And The Dressmakers and we'd play the worst noise you could possibly play; it was like an anti-band. We went on tour with Here And Now in a converted ambulance and did three gigs with them. And so we built a strong allegiance to the brand of Gong, which has carried on throughout my life. We also performed at the Gong Family Unconvention in Amsterdam at the Melkweg many years later, and Daevid Allen stayed at my house a few times. He was a very interesting character and proper musical melting pot in terms of where he comes from. I picked Angel's Egg because it's when the band was still experimenting. There are tracks here that are real improv, while others are really composed. There are tracks where certain members take a lead on it. They recently put a box set called Love From Planet Gong and listening to the re-mastered version of Angel's Egg, it occurred to me that this music couldn't be dreamed up in most people's imaginations. It's a fascinating record."

"I would imagine many babies were conceived to this album. If you think you're a singer or you want to do a bit of singing, it's a must listen album. Even when he's just scatting the lyrics and singing along to a melody – which is the way he apparently used to write a lot of stuff, by just going to the mic and ad libbing – he's amazing. I'm not very interested in politics as a musician – never have been – but he managed to incorporate what was going on in US politics at that time in a highly poetic way. I got to meet him and perform on a show with him at the Motown 25 concert in 1983. That was Marvin's last performance. I did 'Where Did Our Love Go' and Diana Ross came on stage when I was doing it, which was quite an event. She just danced around me and then went off. There was a knock on my dressing room door before the show and I opened the door and he said, ""Hi I'm Marvin Gaye"" and I said, ""I know you are!"" He just came to say thanks for doing the show. He was a really nice guy. And when I came off the stage, him and Smokey Robinson were waiting for me and they put their arms round me and all that. It was nice to meet him; he was such a gentle soul. Berry Gordy's No 2 was a woman called Suzanne de Passe who was the MD of the company and she'd seen my videos and heard my stuff, and Berry liked it. The theme of the show was 'Yesterday, Today, Forever', and he wanted something that was in the future style. I think I performed with all my heroes and heroines that night. I'd been listening to their songs all my life. I had the unenviable task of following Michael Jackson. He sang 'Billie Jean' and did the moonwalk for the first time. I was ten feet away from him when he did that. It was quite a memorable evening."

"My mate used to work at WH Smith’s record department, and the salesman from Polydor had been in and said “’Ere, we’ve got this record. It’s a bit weird, lad, but everyone seems to like it…” So he bought the lot, 50 copies. And it’s that old cliché: it sounded like it came from outer space. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before. I wasn’t really mad on rock music as such, and I was young, so I heard it with my formative listening ears, and it struck me as something really exotic and other-worldly. You listen to those songs: no choruses, solos that go on for hours, and… not that I’d compare us to Roxy Music in the slightest, but when we were writing some of those early songs like ‘Night Boat To Cairo’ and ‘Embarrassment’, they were songs that had no chorus, and verses and solos that went all over the place, and didn’t have a verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure, and I’m sure that in some very small way was informed by Roxy Music. Even down to the fact that they don’t mention ‘Virginia Plain’ until the very end, which is what we did with ‘Embarrassment’! “You’re an embarrassment…“, the last word of the song. I never saw them live, but I do clearly remember seeing them on The Old Grey Whistle Test, and old Whispering Bob (Harris) saying ‘If that’s the future of rock & roll, then I’m fucking off!’ And fortunately, it was. And the whole glamour of that album sleeve, and the portraits of the five of them inside the gatefold, and the clothes they were wearing… Andy Mackay had these sunburst crepe-heeled Toppers, I think they were called, that I spent months trying to find, and they were fifty quid even then. And you’d nick the poster off the Tube, but you’d have to rip off eight posters in one go, so you ended up with this completely rock-hard Roxy Music poster that you couldn’t roll up under your arm, and you’d try and pin it to your wall but it would keep coming off. All that formative stuff’s so important…"

"This is another record that I think Chris Bear might have found when we were twenty-one, twenty-two maybe, right before the band became Grizzly Bear. It’s a seven-minute, classic metal song with an almost Bowie-esque vocal delivery, it’s raging guitar music basically and I still love that kind of stuff. I had a deep metal phase as a kid, I loved Metallica and that kind of thing, but this is more in the Black Sabbath realm of heavy. “I’ve got a really strong memory of listening to this with Chris Bear and Chris Taylor. We had this phase between nineteen and twenty-two where we kept trying to be a band but it never really worked out. It didn’t happen until they’d started Grizzly Bear, I was the last guy to join, but when we were bonding over music around then it started to make sense we’d play together eventually. “We loved this song, it’s so classically heavy and cool and maybe it’s that, learning to appreciate music for what it is and not thinking about what it means, or if it’s moving you. It’s not cheesy or over the top, there’s a subtlety to it, it’s tasteful without trying or overthinking it. “We saw Danava play a few times in tiny clubs and they were incredible We saw lots of super-heavy music between 2004 and 2006 and being around New York was amazing for that, even Animal Collective were like that then, you’d see these crazy, heavy shows that were super-energetic and vibrant. “There’s not much documentation about this, but on our first couple of tours there was more of a heavier energy, musically it was much more improvised, frenetic and busy, closer to jazz. Our early live incarnation was somewhere between this and Elvin Jones, trying to channel this heavy energy. “It’s another one of those touchstones we talked about a lot when we were younger, not that it really made its way into our music very much, we never really made full on metal, but there’s occasional moments where that energy creeps in."

"“What have you done to its eyes?” How does a movie become a classic? Is it timing? Was it the dream-team collaboration of Paramount, Polanski, and Robert Evans? Was it producer William Castle, the mastermind who purchased the Ira Levin novel with plans to make it himself? Was it Mia Farrow, who had been painted with the brush of scandal after marrying Frank Sinatra? Did the devil himself have a hand in it? Whatever the reasons, my fascination with this film has never waned. There’s an enjoyment in watching Rosemary’s Baby that is similar to another gothic horror film, The Shining. It’s like listening to an album you love. Seeing the repetition of familiar scenes and faces. Shaking your head at Rosemary’s innocence as she tries to convince people that her neighbors might just be in a cult with Satan! Another highlight is the production design and cinematography. Not a frame is out of place, and it’s beautiful to look at. It captures a kind of sixties avant-garde vibe. I get the feeling Warhol would have liked this film. There are all sorts of great exterior location shots of New York, and the Dakota building on Seventy-Second Street adds the right spookiness. Does anyone remember or talk about what an amazing actress Mia Farrow is? Watch Broadway Danny Rose, and then watch Rosemary’s Baby. There’s some range there! Farrow as Rosemary has a beautiful, waifish glamour, enhanced by short dresses that make her seem more fragile and doll-like. John Cassavetes playing the “actor.” I love that he’s an “actor.” I love that his name is Guy! He makes a great prince of darkness. With his dark eyes and leering smile, well, you know he’s guilty of something the minute you see him. Then we have Ruth Gordon, who almost steals the film. Her caftan-wearing, mousse-making devil worshipper is the perfect amount of comic relief. I also love Charles Grodin as the fink doctor who squeals on Rosemary. Ralph Bellamy: terrifying! Every woman’s nightmare! Maybe that’s why I love it: Rosemary’s Baby plays on every woman’s fears. The man I married is different. Oh wait—maybe he’s sold his soul to the devil!"

"Again, this is a real stoner record. But the thing with it was the method of tape loops and being experimental in the studio with tape. With not much other technology available you would do things with varispeed and loops. We only did it a couple of times but you end up with sixty feet of tape going round bits of microphone stands and chair legs and handles of the kettle and things like that, just to get it to play in a loop the way you want it to. And to then be able to build on top of that into something coherent and repetitive: in a way it really was the birth of techno. Certainly the more ambient stuff like The Orb, where they're saying yes, we like things that just keep going and are repetitive. But in a way again it's the dynamics of it, because what you really have is that the loop becomes the foundation and it becomes a mechanical thing where you don't actually need to listen to it once you've got the idea of it. It keeps going, your mind cancels it out and then you listen to what's going on above it and on top of that. So it is a kind of foundation thing, and it's almost like as a species, people like perfection. That's why we like laser beams and bubbles. And we like repetitive music and drum loops because our consciousness doesn't need to pay attention to them, but we admire them because they are perfect, and nothing else in the world is. That was the real value of Terry Riley for me. With the Damned's second album we had this song called 'You Know' and I remember Brian said it's just one riff and we keep repeating it. And I was thinking fucking hell, Brian, have you run out of ideas? But actually there is something that goes with that, which is that almost hypnotic groove that you can find yourself in when you're listening to it, or when you're playing it."

"We've been playing The Soft Bulletin live, and you have to consider that chain of events where you make a record but then you have to become the people who play it in front of people. When I saw The Who play live in 1977, that was really a moment that changed music for me; it was no longer music, it was like a deeply religious power to me. They were still doing these songs from Tommy, in a sense like they were on Live At Leeds, where it was just utter chaos, [and] utter release. And even though people would say that at the time that I saw them they weren't at the peak of their powers, they were powerful enough on this night. That was a life-changing, fucking devastating couple of hours of music. I walked out there like I'd changed heads. And it's like that on Live At Leeds. They start to discover that psychic energy: they're feeding off each other's energy, looking at each other, listening to each other, letting that be the reason the songs sounded the way they did. And that's hard to do, to be an intuitive musician - you have to surrender and say yeah, it's like this, and that's a motherfucker, what if it sucks? You have to trust that you have it in you. So when I hear Live At Leeds I'm always reminded that these are young guys, they didn't know that they were playing at their peak, they were just playing what they felt like playing. And the way that the volume goes up, and the way they even lose themselves - the playing is so intense that they even lose the tempo - but they leave that in the record and that's what's music's about. It's not just something that's kept in time, it's people making a racket. Fuck, sometimes it's out of control. There's moments like that on 'Magic Bus' or 'My Generation', moments in those jams that I think are some of the greatest moments of that type of rock & roll. There's that invisible energy guiding them through this. In 1970 you probably had not heard music like that ever.]"