Clint of Pop Will Eat Itself talks about the music that consumed him.

David Bowie: "Starman"

"YEP, a bit of a clich? for people my age. When I was six, Bowie was so weird and striking compared to everyone else. I badgered our mum into buying 'Starman', and when the shop didn't have it the woman badgered her into buying me the album. So there I was with 'Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars', full of words and ideas I didn't understand. It seemed really seedy and not quite right and appealing. Shame what he does is such a piece of shit these days, sorry to say."

 

Ramones: "Sheena is a Punk Rocker"

"IS this one screamingly obvious? Well, there's no point in me lying about what I like. When I was about 13 or 14,1 heard this and another great one 'Peaches' by The Stranglers, on Radio Luxembourg. Somehow, these noisy great tunes led me to listen to John Peel. I became so obsessed by Peel, I wouldn't even go out to the park with my friends at nights. I liked the Ramones" unity and love. And with their long hair, they looked different to the normal punks. When I saw them at Birmingham Odeon Dee Dee threw me his plectrum!"

 

Siouxsie and the Banshees: "Hong Kong Garden"

"I REALLY got into this idea that, here was this brilliant band, getting sessions on John Peel, and I knew all their best songs and loved them, and yet they couldn't get a deal I It was like no one else liked them and no one else was involved. The kids in school started to like them once m they were in the charts. I had a problem with that. They weren't my property anymore. But, when their album came out, it was so discordant, all the hangers-on lost interest. They still make great records."

 

Psychedelic Furs: "Fall"/ Modern English: "Gathering Dust"

"I LIKED this stuff because it was so arrogant and strange and discordant, and not horrible latter-end punk like the UK Subs. I don't know which affected me more. Both were noisy, synthesised art-school records which contained a latent menace, unlike The Cult, which I couldn't stand, and the violent chicken-dancing Theatre Of Hate."

 

Jesus and Mary Chain: "Never Understand"

"WHEN this came out, we were playing in bands which had absolutely no direction. One day Graham came round with this and it changed all our ideas. It was so simplistic and in-yer-face but was full of noisy melodies. It was like, why hadn't anyone done this before? We'd not been 'excited by anything for about three years. It's funny though, I was never a massive fan after their first album."

 

The Cure: "Inbetween Days"

"I LIKED them and then lost them. I found their records after "Seventeen Seconds' much too depressing, especially 'Pornography'. But they'd made a perfect pop record. I was depressed a lot when I was around twenty-one. I had a flat, and I sat around on the dole drinking homebrew, and when I was particularly maudlin, this cheered me up. I saw them about 10 times. Inevitably though, you get older and the excitement with just one band can't last."

 

Public Enemy: "It Take A Nations Of MiIlions To Hold Us Back"

"I WAS gonna pick a Beastie Boys cos they were great, but they're a bit too throwaway. I'm too much of a loner to really like fun records. Public Enemy, on the other hand, had menace and were exclusive and exciting. Yeah, I understand people saying they're racist. But they're talking from their comer and looking after themselves and I don't have a problem with that."

 

David Lynch and Alan R Splet: "Soundtrack to Eraserhead"/ John Carpenter "Theme From Assault On Precinct Thirteen"

"MY friends can't understand why I listen to 'Eraserhead'. I don't really listen to it at all. I just really love the atmosphere. Some people like chill-out records, I like the ones that put me on edge. The Lady In The Radiator Song' is amazing. I find Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music" loads more unlistenable and jarring! John Carpenter's work is so simple - all that piano repetition and electronic, brooding riffs. Both he and Lynch directed the films that went with these pieces. That's complete control for you. "

 

Renegade Soundwave: "Biting My Nails"

'THIS fitted in with us. Their basic idea was to take a well-known record and then make a new record out of it. 'Knock On Wood' in this instance. We played this when we DJ-ayed and all the kids really wanted to hear was 'All Fall Down' by Primal Scream. We'd go, 'Sorry, but you're gonna listen to this and then some reggae afterwards, because we're the bloody DJ-ays tonight.' Um, I don't think this record got anywhere but it had a great backbeat."

 

Jane's Addiction: "Mountain Song"

"GODI I was out with this bloke the other night who was saying that the Happy Mondays were the most important thing to ever happen to current music and that dance music was it. And I said, 'Bollocks! It sounds like Donna Summer records - good, but I've heard it all a million times before.' Jane's Addiction piss on that stupid idea that 'Rock is dead' with raw emotion, comment and spirit. Mind you, maybe rock was dead before them. They were the first band to really capture that feeling of being pissed off. I like people who make records to be pissed off. I like to wallow in self-pity. It's a male trait."

 

The Orb: "Little Fluffy Clouds"

"I DON'T like to wallow in self-pity and menace all the time. This is so exhilarating. The Rickie Lee Jones sample gives it the kind of focus I find lacking in most other dance tracks. I like things to have a point as insulting as this sounds, it's great to go to sleep to. Oh dear. The Orb go and make all that effort and someone just nods off to it. You see, I find it hard to sleep because my metabolic rate refuses to slow down. I did nave sleep tapes, but they were full of people talking, and that's useless cos I stay awake trying to understand what they're saying."

 

Suede: "Animal Nitrate"

"IN five years this might sound like a crock of shit. But pop music is about now, after all. I think this song is great. All credit to the band for living up to the hype. They've had three killer singles and went from the music papers to Top Of The Pops in months! Brett Anderson offsets his lyrics like Bowie did. He makes you think. Then again, whether what you think about Suede is determined by the songs, or by what Brett says in the music press, remains to be seen."