Ian Dury - Screamer's Dance

I love Ian Dury - he's one of the geezers who inspired me to start writing. This isn't one of his better known tracks, but I reckon it's such a powerful and edgy statement about physical disability - sensitive under the skin too...

Prodigy - Firestarter

This one definately needed the video. The sort of guy I look forward to my daughter's bringing home in a few years time...

Jeff BucKley's Corpus Christi Carol

This song was featured as one of Elvis Costello's selection on Desert Island Discs several years ago. I think Jeff Buckley had an amazing voice...

Erik Satie

In the late Nineteenth Century, when Erik Satie was experimenting with his sound world, the vast majority of his contemporaries thought he was out-of-tune and, quite frankly, out of his mind. I'm glad to say that our ears have caught up with him... well, most of our ears have anyway. I love the strange eeriness and atmosphere which surrounds his music. I have to be in the mood, but when I am, it's magical... magical like an Autumnal Sunday which never quite wakes up, and makes you feel lost in time.

Here's A Jazz Starter...

The first time I ever listened to Jazz was many years ago, when, spliff in hand, I chilled listening to Miles Davis' classic album, 'Kind of Blue'. You might say that I was befuddled by the weed, but I'm stone cold sober now and I still love this track. Sheer class... and to think that most of it was improvised - that's fuckin' amazing!

Big Mama Thornton...

Big Mama Thornton! Not only could this mama punch yer lights out, no trouble - she could also belt out the blues like no-one else I've ever heard. Here's the real - and original! - version of Hound Dog:


She had a massive influence on many artists, not least Robert Plant. Listen to this one...

Manu Chao

As a young thing growing up in France Manu Chao was nuts about Dr Feelgood and The Clash. So much so in fact, that he went on a fan's pilgrimage... all the way to Canvey Island. He got quite a shock when he got there...

Anyway, I really like his eclectic sound - all them little pings and strummin', plus the French of course.