"This compilation is like plugging into a direct line to your 15-year-old self. And somewhere in there is me right now. It sounds strange because I'm now 50, but it never really leaves you. It's just weird how that can energise you. Even for music that's not like it. I can put this on and it's like it gives me power, almost like turning on the batteries. Of course, we don't sound like a punk rock band from '77, but it has that energy that's universal and you form it into where you're going musically. I put this album on the list because it's a power source that got me through a lot of these recordings, and strangely enough I sound nothing like it. Punk rock is the hydrochloric acid where you get that frothy explosion in the beaker."

"The mythology is that Jimmy Page played on that, but it's clearly Jeff Beck all the way - that personality. The interesting way they recorded the tracks is that the entire band were in the studio at the same time. And Ronnie Wood on bass. I think Ronnie Wood is actually a better bass player than he is a guitar player. The bass playing on that record is just great! You can hear mistakes, but listen to what the bass does in 'Rock My Plimsoul', it goes completely against the drums, but it gives it like a slinky snake-like feel. From beginning to end you have this kind of jamming, drunken-keyboard-player-in-a-New-Orleans-whorehouse-upright-piano feel. It's the best vocal that Rod Stewart has ever done on that first record, I don't think he's ever equalled it. He ran out of songs to do, so he covered 'Greensleeves' instrumental, he just didn't have any more songs! 'Shapes Of Things' was a cover that he originally did with The Yardbirds and then did a version here, and tore. It. Up. Such a heavy, heavy band. I remember seeing them live in New York City. The rest of the kids didn't understand, but I was just blown away. I remember it well, the opening band was the Crazy [World of] Arthur Brown. He came out in a mask with his head lit on fire. That was actually connected later to by fire-spitting in the band. I just thought, 'Well that's a good idea'. The thing you noticed that while everyone was drinking, flirting, talking or whatever, when Arthur Brown walked onstage with his head on fire, everyone stopped!"

"I think I was on MySpace, that's how long ago it was, and I was looking for Omar Souleyman. I ended up finding Ali Hussan Kuban by mistake. I found this track called 'Habibi', and it blew my mind. The first bit of drums when it comes in, it's almost like drum & bass, but it's not but it's not folkloric African either, it feels like rock & roll. It's so direct, and it's speaking our language, but it's from a completely different culture, and I just love that. And when you hear his voice… His voice is killer - it sounds like Joe Strummer. His voice just feels so punk, especially later on when they start dubbing it and putting all this delay on it. It was that one song that made me start Melt Yourself Down. I was playing it at a party and people were going mad. By that point I'd been obsessed with this song for months, I was listening to it over and over again. Everyone I played it to was like: ""Oh my god, what the fuck is that?!"". I thought: I want to make a cover of this song, I want to start a band. Because I didn't have a band at the time. Acoustic Ladyland was over. I said: I think I'm going to form a band just to do that one song. The next day when I was coming down from my birthday party evening, I just thought, let's do that - brilliant idea. I phoned everybody and said: ""let's do it!"". I organised a rehearsal and then the next day I came to and thought: 'oh shit, I think a formed a band yesterday'. And then I thought, 'well OK, let's just start writing'. I went upstairs and wrote 'Fix My Life', and then it all came together really quickly."

"When I was in Junior High, I met this guy and he had a cassette with Minor Threat on one side and The Exploited on the other. He left it at my house, and I had a Walkman, so I popped it in as I was walking to school. I heard the first chord of “Filler” and then I stopped and turned around. I didn’t go to school that day. I listened to that cassette and I was ‘What is this? This is awesome, this is what I need right now. These people are speaking my language, and they’re young like me as well.’ That’s when I thought I could maybe write a song, record it and put it on a record. That’s all I thought. I didn’t want to be a famous rock star but maybe I could do that DIY stuff. Not like the rock stars who were bigger than life - it was hard to aspire to that - but this other stuff? Yeah, I could do this. Plus, I thought that girls would think it was pretty cool if I played the guitar and I was in a band. So I started a band and this song and the first Minor Threat record was a game changer for me. It also started my record collecting phase. After I got into Minor Threat, I got into Dischord Records - I wanted everything on that label, so I spent years collecting that stuff. I still have all the singles; I might still have it all of it. That band had a huge effect on me that led me to want to write and play music, but also it was a club I could belong to. I was part of something with it – I could put on a leather jacket and help my teenage angst."

"They're a funny band, Man, because they were always on the fringes of being really successful but they didn't really hit the big time. But they did well in America, and for this, the line-up had changed a tiny bit and it causes a lot of conjecture among their fans, but it's just beautiful. Actually, I've got a sneaking feeling that My Morning Jacket must be fans of Man, because there's stuff on Welsh-Connection which sounds very much like MMJ on their album Circuital. The cover is a mock-up of the French Connection movie poster, so you can sense the mood of everything, but the actual song 'The Welsh Connection' is just amazing. There's a certain 70s, deep-brown and depressed mood to it, but it kind of flies as well. It's what you imagine the 70s to be like; you imagine them being devoid of fantasy, so you had to lift yourself above the strikes and the power cuts and the joblessness and the overcooked beige food. You imagine that there's no fantasy for you to actually plough, and you've gotta just rise above it and try and dream. That's why I love this record; it feels like you're floating above reality and the brownness of the 70s, and it's trying to get somewhere. I've always found Man intriguing, because they're a west Walian band but they were making music that was very much competing with some of the best American West Coast prog-rock bands or rock bands, and I always find that intriguing - when a band tapped into something that was not of their typography or geographical situation. It's just a beautiful record, and a lot of their fans don't actually think it's their best, but I think it's their best by a mile."