"Kristin Hersh is no ordinary musician, and her mind is unlike any other. In her memoir, Paradoxical Undressing, she captures what it’s like to be young and starting out, but this is a grazed reality, the top layer of skin stripped clean away. The book is based on a diary she kept when she was 18, which is, as she says, “the age when no one takes care of you”. It was a year when everything happened. She moved her band, Throwing Muses, from Providence, Rhode Island, to Boston. She was diagnosed as a schizophrenic, then bipolar. She was offered her first recording contract, with 4AD. She discovered she was pregnant. And she became unlikely friends with faded Hollywood movie star, Betty Hutton. “Betty sings about starlight and champagne,” Hersh writes. “I sing about dead rabbits and blow jobs.” Though Hutton was unpredictable and fragile (“Time is like a hurricane to her – a big, fast mess, sweeping her away”) she was also full of generosity, compassion and advice. “You have to leave things out to tell a story,” she once told Hersh. And Hersh listened. This female Kurt Cobain – he was a fan of her work – has forged her own brave path, often against enormous odds. And she writes better sentences than most writers do."

"To say anything is my favourite album is a bit of a lie because I change my mind from hour to hour, but if I had to choose a desert island album it would be this. I have such a personal sentimental attachment to it because I used to watch that film with my dad, and when he died there was a video cassette left and I watched it a lot. It got me into drawing, and the music is the first musical experience I ever had when I wanted to figure out a song. I was only 6 or 7 but I wanted to figure that music out. I think it made me always prefer minor chords and gloomier sounds. Watching that film, I remember feeling like it was almost magical and also terrifying. It's quite a violent film, and sexual, it was quite overwhelming. I was terrified and excited at the same time. It was the start of a burst of creativity for me, it started me drawing and the first drawings I did were always these alien landscapes – like most young boys. I started drawing and playing music all because of that album. It wasn't until years later that I realised that this amazing score was by this guy Alain Goraguer."

"T. Rex's Marc Bolan was my best mate's hero. I said I didn't like him, not because it was true but because he liked him. Not so long ago he bought me a pristine vinyl copy of Electric Warrior and again I was blown away, the sonic quality, the excitement. I still haven't told my friend that though. I was Pink Floyd, he was T. Rex, I was Simon & Garfunkel he was The Sweet... you see where I'm coming from. It was really sad when Marc Bolan died, who knows what he might have gone on to do. I saw him play in Southend, that was when we were in our teens. We'd go out to gigs, as much as we could afford. I lived in Basildon, and in Southend, which was close to us, there were quite a few good venues to see bands. I'd be surprised at things turning up. I remember seeing Generation X at a hotel ballroom, and that was really exciting, because we were kids and couldn't drink, officially. It was exotic and it was naughty. Southend has quite a musical history, with all the R&B stuff, Canvey Island and places like that, I think some of those clubs still exist, where you can see local bands and shit."