"It's hard to describe the Ledge. He was discovered on The Gong Show many years ago in America. He basically just shouts and screams. He's a cowboy. He was recording in the 1970s but he's still going now. This is his latest compilation. I met him a couple of months ago when I was on my American tour. Bowie's a big fan too. He got the idea for the name Ziggy Stardust from the Ledge and he covered 'I Took a Trip (On a Gemini Spaceship)' on one of his albums [Heathen, 2002]. The Ledge is an extraordinary character. He plays the bugle during some of his tracks. If you ever see him, bring earmuffs. He's not very musical. I used to play his song 'Paralyzed' before my gigs at the Marquee in '77 just to confuse the audience and set the tone for the night. Complete pandemonium. Some of the songs he writes are… [trails off, lost for words] He's obsessed with Nasa and space flights, which I'm into too. I loved the space missions. The visuals and the way they got there. It's science fact. They were like cowboys in space. But The Ledge took it one step further. I'd be quite interested to see what other people think if they check him out. He's not to everybody's taste. The album is an anthology of tracks like 'My Underwear Froze to the Clothesline' and 'Standing in a Trashcan'. It's all good stuff. The names refer to Fergie [Duchess of York], Raquel Welch and Bowie. They're all fans of the Ledge. [laughs]"

"At 7 I contracted meningitis. It affected my brain, and I slipped into a coma. I spent a year in hospital, and during that time music didn’t play much of a major part. I was in total confusion and frustration and really not recognizing the people in front of me who were telling me all manner of strange things. It was very, very hard to get to grips with myself, and it took a good four years to recover my memories. Music wasn’t really there. By 10, though, I was running a mini-cab service, doing the bookings, which was the best job ever. I loved the responsibility, and people were surprised that a little boy was booking their journey. The money was great so I started buying music. I was going to two record stores at that time: one in Finsbury Park, run by a sweet little white-haired old lady, that used to have nothing but Jimi Hendrix and big, deep, dense, dark dub—it was always full of Jamaicans. The other one was run by two long-haired chubby fellows who had great taste. That’s where I picked up Alice Cooper’s Pretties for You. It was a long time before he became popular. The idea of buying singles wasn’t good enough for me, albums were like wow, eight more songs, and the covers would absolutely fascinate me. A lot of times I would just buy things because of the artwork—but that’s not to say it was all good. Pretties for You is a really good example of bad artwork."