"I wanted to pick the Pistols or the first Clash record, because they did mean a lot to me, but I’ve had to go with Obsession by UFO, because they were such a huge influence. Def Leppard were on a boating holiday on the Norfolk Broads, and we happened to read a local paper which said that UFO were playing the Ipswich Gaumont, which was a taxi and a bus ride away from where we were parking the boat. We’d yet to play a gig when we saw UFO, and they opened up with three brand new songs, which was very brave: Hot And Ready, Cherry, and (I think) Only You Can Rock Me. And then they went on to do more familiar material, and we were just gobsmacked. The dynamic on stage between Pete Way’s lunacy and Phil Mogg’s attention-grabbing stance in the middle, and then the mad German on the right with his bucket boots and Flying V. It was insanely brilliant. Steve Clarke turned around to me and said, “Right. That’s it. I’m leaving if we don’t start playing shows.” Because all we’d done was rehearse for nine months to try and become relatively good at what we did. That show — and that album — were a massive influence on us, because we were listening to the album all the way through the boating holiday. UFO were and still remain a major influence on us for all sorts of reasons. They were very British, and they had a sense of humour So with the greatest of respect to Never Mind The Bollocks and the first Clash album, I’m going with that one."

"A lot of Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters” is shot from a distance. Lots of squared-off rectangular compositions, lots of corners and windows, lots of flat tracking shots. The colors are muted, greenish-gray and black. In contrast to the imagery of other films in the good old American David vs. Goliath tradition, Todd sets his hero’s very human struggle with the giant corporation DuPont in a visual framework that always looks a lot more corporate than human. It’s a really interesting choice. The handheld camera-work and bleached deserts of “Erin Brockovich” are as far away as the lighted ceiling squares and shadowy parking garages of “All The President’s Men” — the two most-famous exemplars of this genre. Instead, “Dark Waters” looks expensive, angular, and soft-edged. Even the interpolated closeups of Mark Ruffalo as he uncovers one terrible secret after another never break or mottle the movie’s palette. If it’s not stretching the point, “Dark Waters” looks a bit like it was shot on, well, Teflon. It’s a chilly, chilling approach to a drawn-out, turbulent, often soul-crushing struggle. But it makes perfect sense, considering the size and character of the corporate culture Mark’s Robert Bilott both works in and pits himself again. He’s not building a lawsuit house by house from behind the wheel of a pickup truck; he’s a corporate lawyer pursuing a huge corporation from expensive corporate offices. And whenever the movie does linger over the human costs he’s trying to redress, the effect is as gruesome as a mutilated body on a slab in a very clean morgue. These choices are a stark reminder that ultimately, even Bilott’s spectacular, hard-won legal victory is a drop in DuPont’s bucket. And it speaks to the pervasive character of the problem (not to mention the chemicals in our drinking water) that even when the good guys gain some ground, the world Todd captures in this movie is one of cold grays, smooth edges and gleaming surfaces to which nothing ever sticks. Not yet, anyway."