"The first Stooges album came and went, it was a band finding its feet, learning how to play, being part of a scene, being influenced by the MC5, and it's really amazing. But Fun House… just listen to the difference between the two records. You have to wonder what happened in between; was it mind-bending psychedelic drugs? That's what you'd think, isn't it? It's psychedelic, there's jazz in there, it's an unfathomable album and it's been very influential. It was produced by Don Gallucci from The Kingsmen, which seems like a really weird combination. They had real problems recording it, which is why there are so many different versions you can get of it. And nothing was working so they ended up stripping everything out of the studio and just doing it as a gig. So it's Iggy with a handheld mic and the band are just amped up and really going for it. And there are real punk songs on there like 'Down On The Street'. That is prototype punk: like the blueprint for punk. It's a benchmark album, and the fact that they produced it in 1970 is even more amazing. Imagine being a kid in 1970 when that landed… it didn't sound like anything else on Earth."

"I remember watching this, stoned, while at university, and I think you kind of have to be stoned to watch it, because it’s so psychedelic and weird. I’ve always had a fascination with Jim Morrison and regularly I ask myself: “What would a female Jim Morrison do in this moment?”, because I like his commitment to the moment as a performer, and his shameless expression of his sexuality, which, as a woman, I think is a nice thing to exploit. I don’t know how I would feel watching this film now, not being stoned, but at the time it seemed like a really romantic portrayal of a poetic artist."

"I love that Criterion not only focuses on the classic work of the Fellinis, the Bergmans and the Kurosawas of film history but also gives attention to controversial, camp, and cult films like Salò, Head, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Pink Flamingos. And none is more strangely perfect than House. One of the most beautifully strange and original films I’ve ever seen. Almost like a psychedelic, live-action Japanese version of an episode of Teletubbies, H.R. Pufnstuf, or Scooby-Doo. The fact that both this and Eraserhead came out in the same year leads me to believe there were some really good drugs floating around in 1977."

"This was the movie, when I was a kid. This and Bugsy Malone. I know all of the dialogue in these two movies from repeated viewings at the movie theater. The Vogue and the Alpha 3 theaters in Louisville. And Ruth Gordon gave me a gateway to Hollywood screenwriting history, and Cat Stevens a gateway to transformation through music. Harold took life’s lemons and made a black psychedelic monolithic lemonade. I learned to do that too. Comedy in death, comedy in failure, comedy in being mystified by societal expectations. I was very fond of MGM musicals during my childhood, and Harold and Maude felt like the closest thing to a modern-day evolution of one of those."

"This is referenced in my song 'I'm An Outlaw': "...an outlaw, burned from vinyl, dimed from cans, peaked to the dome". And that's some crazy, psychedelic, synth-y, weird funk. No offence to Miles, you know, unfortunately he's not with us, but fortunately he's not, because he's the weakest link on that record. At first he's awesome, and then some of his tone, it goes down south once in a while, but all the players, like John McLaughlin and the synth players, and if you listen to the record, especially in headphones, it's all - my theory is - going through modular synthesisers, all the percussion is going through envelope filters, but it's also panning non-stop. If you listen, it's unreal. If you crank it in headphones, it's full speed ahead!"

"Well, that was another one I burned on my way. At first, I was into the earlier John Coltrane, and then when he went into more free jazz, at first I didn't like it as much because I was so into his early tone and the swing and the melody of this more classic jazz, but the next one's more like that. Jesse [Trbovich, bandmate in the Violators] turned me on to it. We got stuck on the way home from an LA show or somewhere, we got dumped off in Phoenix, Arizona, and we had to stay for the night. We knew a really good record store there, Revolver Records, there was just a ton of jazz. I was wanting to stock up so I got Interstellar Space as a recommendation. When I first listened, I was like, [shrugs] yeah, 'cause he's just freaking out, just him and a drummer, Rashied Ali, then I burned it anyway. Usually what happens is that it sounds so good 'cause it's burned from those original vinyls and then you crank it in your headphones and it just sounds unreal, so that's what happened with that one on the way to Joshua Tree. My mind was blown and it's just so open and such raw emotion and so psychedelic without any of the pretensions that 'psychedelic' eventually became - he's just the real thing. It's just wide open and sprawling. 'Lost My Head' for sure has that jazz influence... obviously it's a white man's, with limited skill. The convenience of the key of C, for instance - you play all those sevenths with the same formation all over the place, so that's why the piano's beautiful, but that's got the McCoy Tyner or whatever thing in it."

"The Misfits are a good reference here. Having come off the question of where Dinosaur Jr. fit in, as with The Misfits, this is kind of hard to describe and hard to pigeonhole. They don't belong in just one box. Like when I was back working with Roky Erickson, who had the 13th Floor Elevators – the Elevators were heroes and Roky's voice was maniacal. Just that screaming. It was lovely. 

The Phantoms aren't quite psychedelic, but Roky was part of a group that popularised the term, a word which first emerged around 1957. It was certainly handy, to give a point of reference to what the Elevators were delivering. Back then I had the Moving Sidewalks. I chose that name because, well, elevators take you up, if that's where you want to go. Moving sidewalks take you forward."

"We came across the song 'Strangely Strange But Oddly Normal’ on a psychedelic compilation and fell in love with it. I just thought, “Who could write a chorus of, 'Strangely strange but oddly normal’, and make it a really catchy song?” The whole thing was sort of irrationally brilliant, and later we found out that one of them went off to Japan and tried to become a Zen priest. Of course, when we considered the history of literature in Ireland, with James Joyce and everyone, it started to all gel. And then we found out Joe Boyd was involved. They did the first one in one afternoon, because he didn’t think it would sell. We’re not sure which, who and when, but there was some exchange of personnel with the Incredible String Band at certain times"