"Well, I grew up in the sixties. In 1962, I bought the first Rolling Stones single, and I still have it. I still have every single they released, in order, right up until Brian Jones was murdered. I saw Pink Floyd god knows how many times, and even did a couple of light shows for them... We started listening to pirate radio and John Peel’s Perfumed Garden, and had a friend at school called Spidey who was very good at spotting interesting new music. John Peel was the first person to play The Velvet Underground, and Spidey said, “Listen to this, you’re gonna love this!”. That’s when we got the first violin. We used to go to Birmingham, to this tiny little record shop that had nothing of interest except some Albert Ayler and free jazz. There was a record in there, and we recognised the artwork from Oz magazine so we knew it was by Hapshash and The Coloured Coat, because they used to do psychedelic posters and Oz. So we bought it just because of that. It was on Magnet Records. When we pulled out [the disc], we were shocked to see that it was on red vinyl, which we’d never seen before. We later discovered that all these people on the scene in London wanted to raise money for the legals fees of John “Hoppy” Hopkins, the first person who’d been busted for drugs and who co-founded the International Times. He was a real mover and shaker of the times. It’s like twenty to a hundred people high on acid jamming! We fell in love with it and still listen to it all the time. When we DJ, people come up to us and ask, “What was that with that great riff?” Guess what one of them ended up doing? Writing “We Are The Wombles”! That really got me in the head, that was worse than a bad acid trip!"

"My dad’s Greek and he came to Britain when he was nine or ten. Like a lot of people, he used music to maintain his identity and when I was a kid, he used to play a lot of the stuff that he brought with him - everything from contemporary rock to older folk and then Yannis Markopoulos as well. He’s one of Greece’s foremost composers. He’s from Crete and he sort of interpolates melodies and rhythms in a way that’s thousands of years old really. “This particular song has a real resonance for me, because it’s probably the first piece of music I can remember the experience of listening to. My dad used to put it on when I was two or three years old and he’d put me on his shoulders and spin me around. It’s incredibly hypnotic and repetitive and I remember this amazing sensation of the first time I had that feeling of music moving me beyond the state of resting existence. It’s stuck with me and I can still put it on and get chills from it - partly because it’s a very powerful piece of music anyway, and partly because it has that incredible memory attached for me as well. “Greek music is still a big part of my life. A few years ago I was involved in this performance at the Barbican where various musicians got together to perform the music and tell the story of another Greek composer, Markos Vamvakaris, and I was the narrator. I joined the rest of the musicians to sing with them at the end of the show and it was a great moment for me. When you’re a generation removed it’s tougher to stay in touch with your national identity, you have to put a little bit more effort in to appreciate your history and your heritage, but it’s worth it"

"I’m not in love with John Ford’s movies. They are staples, and it’s like saying you don’t like bread—Ford’s films are in all filmmakers’ foundations, somewhere, it’s inescapable. But when it comes to being in love with movies, I’m more of an Anthony Mann girl. Having said this, Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln is one of the most beautiful films ever made. The images early in the film of Henry Fonda in his thick, unruly, natural environment of rivers and briars and brambles strike my heart in ways so deep I can’t even explain. The majestic landscapes Ford would be later known for are much more grounded here, more personal. What he shot reminds me of a home so far ago lost. And there is a feeling of that, deeper than nostalgia, running all through this film. It’s like a grand American ache. Henry Fonda explains on the commentary how he initially turned the film down, then the screenwriters went to his house and READ HIM THE SCRIPT! Out loud! What balls! I can’t imagine anyone doing that these days. Then he said yes to the part, did the screen test with the fake nose and flipped out when he saw himself as Lincoln and felt he couldn’t do it—he couldn’t play someone with that weight that Lincoln had and still carries and holds. Well—I won’t spoil it for you—you MUST hear what very simple ingenious thing grumpy old Ford said to get Fonda to do the role. Supporting Fonda’s performance is an incredible cast—Alice Brady in her final performance before her early death, Ward Bond, and Richard Cromwell (whom I had a real sweet thing for)! The booklet is just as poetic as the movie, with essays by Geoffrey O’Brien and Sergei Eisenstein between the pages of lovely quiet stills of a very accessible yet long-gone American landscape."