"From the moment Lou Castel literally falls from the sky into the film, one knows that one has signed up for one darn crazy ride. Of all the films in the collection this is the one that spells y-o-u-t-h with the greatest virulence. It captures its never abetted sense of social claustrophobia and, its consequence, its recurrent fantasies of murder and mayhem. For anyone, anywhere, at any time, who uttered, “Families, I hate you!” this film should be the Bible. Nervy, hilarious, and bleaker than bleak, it manages to make you believe the impossible, namely that a filmmaker could take a trip on the Rimbaud side of the street and not come out looking ridiculous. And, as an added bonus, for those who want to understand the sixties beyond the banalities that are ritually uttered about them, every scene of Fists in the Pocket, with the convulsive beauty of its framing and composition, amply proves how much this period was made by people so steeped in classical culture that they fantasized it could be solid beyond its fragility, shaking it to the core and ultimately ushering in a world they could themselves hardly live in."

"I was working on a film with another writer friend that didn’t happen. It was going to happen in Europe if it happened, and I had been scouting for it, and I saw this film when I was thinking about that movie, and that maybe kind of bled into First Cow. Suddenly First Cow did come together, and they were both in the same period, and they both were sort of films of peasants in their little hutches. [In Wooden Clogs], this is like a little community of workers who are working on the property of their landlord; the Chief Factor in First Cow isn’t really a property owner, but he’s more like the CEO of Firestone going to another continent and using all the resources; he’s holding this kind of power in the region. There were some thematic things, but again, it’s people in their little houses working all day – always sewing, fixing things, feeding the animals – and then around the candlelight at night telling stories and cooking in their fires and everything is very tactile. All the hay, the thatch roofs, the wooden floors, all those things – the chores, the chores, the chores."

"The first time I can remember hearing a synthesiser was sometime in the late '70s. I must have been eight or nine and I was on a driving holiday with my parents in the Pyrenees. 'I Feel Love' was on the radio and it freaked me right out. It scared me; that sequence flipped me out. 2000AD had just launched and I was really, deeply into it. All the stories were about terrifying dystopias and that song coming out of the radio sounded like a herald for one of those places. Years later, Silver Apples pushed similar buttons for me. They came about when synthesisers were more readily associated with almost academic music – people like Pierre Henry, Morton Subotnick, musique concrète stuff. Silver Apples created a sound I'd never heard before. The closest comparison (with a bit of hindsight) is something like NEU! – that driven, motorik sound. Silver Apples were before the first NEU! record by a few years. They sounded futuristic in name and sound; they built their own gear and credited the synth as a member of the band (The Simeon). There's a real toughness to the music, something very street."

"This one I didn't play on! It's one of those songs that just came over on the radio. I think I heard it on the radio before I even heard it on the album. It was Bowie at his best for me. There were a few that did that. I always loved the odd side of Bowie, the odd subjects he chose and his way of putting it across… an artful way of putting across something scary or apocalyptic. He had an arty way of expressing it so you could actually accept it. It was a bit creepy! It was like all the perverted things in the world are in that song, but he never sang about them. Yet it was in there! I always thought that was such a talent, to make people think something, without actually having to say it. Maybe that says a lot for my mind [laughs], I know! But it's just an amazing ability to do that, I think. That is what music is all about. It's larger than just words. I just feel like 'Scary Monsters' is a great example of that. I would have loved to have played on that one."

"My father was a film buff. He instilled in me an appreciation of the art of movies. He felt that there was no cinema artist greater than Kurosawa. At a very young age he took me to see Throne of Blood and Seven Samurai. Since then I’ve seen Seven Samurai over fifty times, in theaters, on VHS, laserdisc, and DVD. The latest Criterion edition is my favorite version of my favorite action movie. I love all the extras, especially the history of the samurai, which really enhances the movie’s historical context. In the second season of Heroes, we did a story line set in seventeenth-century Japan. The Seven Samurai box set was an invaluable resource for the costume and art department. About half of our crew watched it and were really inspired by what they saw. It’s one of those movies that I can’t turn off. One minute of viewing and I’m hooked. I’ve heard many people say that about the first two Godfather films, but for me Seven Samurai is the one that lures me into watching multiple hours of a movie I know by heart."

"This 1990 masterpiece is very much a travel album. It has all the hallmarks and some of the pitfalls of a life on the road: the single 'I Left my wallet in El Segundo' is a case in point. The advice lyric 'I don't eat no ham'n'eggs cuz they're high in cholesterol' in the classic cut 'Ham'n'eggs' is another highly unusual call and response rhyme - but again paints a true picture of the perils of a road life spent in diners. Over the course of the album we visit Lucien in Paris and traverse around the world of music with a zillion samples of classic sixties and seventies rock and soul albums. It's always optimistic and wide eyed - the best way to travel. I was talking to my friend Ben the other day about how this is my favorite Tribe album - (most people seem to prefer The Low End Theory?) - but I learned so much about music through this record - The songs are great and it's one of those albums that drags you into a different universe and world view and changes you for the better."

"When we were growing up, we had mutual friends. I used to go and watch them play at the Bug Bar in Brixton when I was 14… I remember them getting signed to Fiction and how exciting that was. I’ve still got one of their demo CDs, in a photocopied and stapled-together packet, which had their early song Latchmere on it. Latchmere was a swimming pool we all went to; it had a really good wave machine. That’s how their song goes: “Latchmere’s/ Got a wave machine.” When I watched the Maccabees play at Glastonbury this year, it was so moving – seeing all those random people singing their song back at them, about a little swimming pool that was a huge part of my youth. It took me back… I’d say they’re the most consistent band in the UK right now. Without fail, they deliver with their songs, and I find them very inspiring for that. They know who they are; as individuals, as friends, as a band. They’re lovely boys – and with their new record, Marks to Prove It, they had their first No 1 album."

"I was one of those kids who had never seen an indie film before I got to college. If it wasn’t a big, huge tentpole movie, or if it wasn’t on the radio, I hadn’t experienced it. Then in college I started getting into independent movies, which led me to classic movies, which led me to all this different stuff. The 1970s movies, for me, were only discovered, unfortunately, as little as six or seven years ago. So Kramer vs. Kramer. Some of the greatest writing I’ve ever seen, some of the gutsiest performances. It’s just so quintessential of what the 1970s were for me. There’s just this unfiltered, raw energy, and despite how beautiful that movie is — and obviously, it’s a well done movie — the fact [is] that they’re not making movies like that anymore. [Kramer vs. Kramer is about] a horrible relationship. It’s a really tough situation for the father to be in, and yet [for] everyone who went and saw the movie, there was this weird understanding or commiseration with anger. I think people might have been angrier, or willing to see angry movies."