Mixmag-August '97

Sneaker Pimps(from '97)

Sneaker Pimps' Voice Changes On Second Album

Low Five review(from Virgin Deutschland-in German)

Chris Corner's Songs in the Key of Life(from NME.com)
 
 
 
 

Mixmag-August '97

"You've caught her on the right night. We'll all be covered in vomit by the morning."

"At one point we were violently anti-guitars. It got to the stage where I was hiding my indie records. It took a little while to pull them out of the cupboard."

"There are two different approaches. One's making an album with a folk ethic of song structure, melody and lyric. The other is making it as sonically contemporary as possible. Which means embracing the entire discourse of dance music."

"Trip hop is just the 90s version of goth"

You might think the Sneaker Pimps are an indie band, but their spectral brand of guitar-laden beats would never have existed without dance music. Founders Liam and Chris started out making trip hop, and a score of dance remixes have even put on speed garage pirates. Now on to the Nike tattoo, the dreams of vomiting fish and how Chris gets all the girls that Joe falls in love with. Writer: Rob Fearn; Photographer: Eitan

"WHERE'S the tuba?" Sneaker Pimps' guitarist Chris Corner launches into Teutonic mode, as five foaming beers are plonked on the Bierkeller table around which the group are huddled. Today's a rest day in the German town of Freiburg, on what drummer Dave Westlake calls "the sobriety leg" of the band's European tour. But not that you'd notice. The Sneakers might be carving a niche at the head of the post-Portishead breed with the spectral trip hop of '6 Underground' and the Garbage-style electro-pop of 'Spin Spin Sugar', but right now they're intent on just one thing. Getting royally moosed. Chris points at the Swoosh design tattooed on his wrist. "I went a bit mad in the States and that was the result. They were giving away free merchandise. I was going, 'Give me Nike!' I think I was after an endorsement." On the same US visit Dave fell in love, while Liam (Howe - keyboards) injured his knees jumping out of windows in the home of techno ("I was shouting, 'I sacrifice myself to the streets of Carl Craig!'").
"You feel a million miles from anything you know, so you lose it a bit," confesses singer Kelli Dayton. "But I remained rather calm and very sober throughout. I'm through my madness phase. I was the first to crack, and I'm fine now." Even so, the tiny 23 year old, whose Brummie accent sounds completely at odds with her svelte appearance and smooth vocals, is already on her third shot of schnapps. According to Chris, Kelli only gets drunk once a year, an event that's usually marked by the destruction of plate-glass windows and the snogging of complete strangers. "You've caught her on the right night," he says. "We'll all be covered in vomit by the morning." Luckily, the only ill-effects of Kelli's binge turn out to be strange, schnapps-induced dreams. For any amateur psychologists, the Sneakers' singer dream consisted of finding a body, which looked like it had been dragged out of the water, in the bunks of the tour bus. Liam pumped its stomach, causing the corpse to spew wriggling sea-creatures, which Kelli was forced to eat. "The thing is, I don't like sea food at the best of times," she says afterwards. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Kelli soon professes herself cured of the urge to drink.

Now the guitars are back, but their debut album 'Becoming X' remains a record that could never have existed without dance music. Sink into the moody, Nellee Hooper-mixed waters of '6 Underground' and the Massive Attack squelch of the title track. Cue up the widescreen beats of 'Post-Modern Sleaze', the rolling, trip hop rush of 'Low Place Like Home'. It's easy to see why both dance and indie camps are trying to claim the Sneaker Pimps as their own. If the Sneakers are a dance band, they're one that's overcome its blind hatred of guitars and re-discovered the song-writing traditions that were vapourised by acid's big bang. If they're an indie band, then - like Garbage - they're one that actually sounds 'modern', state-of-the-art, the way a rock band ought to sound in the late 90s. Either way, they're at least a thousand times more exciting than Oasis... or the average techno purist. "I don't think it can ever be bad to be in more than one area," says Kelli. "I think we're desperately anti-purist and, as people, incredibly indecisive..." Liam says. "...and scared of being just one thing," Kelli adds. Liam, 26, and Chris, 23, both grew up in Hartlepool in the North East of England ("He was poppin' my sister for eight years," Chris explains. "I couldn't avoid him. He was coming around all the time.") Drummer Dave, 26, and bassist Joe Wilson, 24, are two more of the five piece Sneakers' DAT-free live incarnation, although it was Liam and Chris who wrote the music and lyrics on 'Becoming X' along with unseen 'sixth member' Ian Pickering. "A lot of the lyrics are quite tongue-in-cheek," says Liam, a former art-school student. "I suppose they're critical or satirical or disposable in various ways. But I don't think they're weighty. Just quirky, cultural anti-statements." Anti-statements like 'Tesko Suicide', inspired by a drunken argument Liam and Kelli had about the glamourisation of suicide, where Liam suggested that suicide kits might as well be available in supermarkets. 'Post-Modern Sleaze', meanwhile, dissects the 'Thelma & Louise' syndrome, whereby seemingly happily married women ditch their partners for a trashier lifestyle straight out of a magazine. Kelli prefers the words to 'How Do', based on traditional folk songs from cult 70s black magic film The Wicker Man. Liam and Chris spotted Kelli singing with her band The Lumieres in a pub's backroom in 1993. Back then, the two were making music as Line Of Flight. Having no pretentions to soulfulness, the feisty, punk-reared Kelli fitted their needs exactly - someone to drag their productions kicking and screaming out of the studio. "Soul music is something we feel unqualified to involve ourselves in," admits Liam. "We're more interested in English music. The new wave. That's a lot more what we're about." "I don't think it's an agenda," says Joe. "It's just purely about honesty." In a way, Sneaker Pimps' darkside fusion of widescreen breakbeats, PJ Harvey and feline punk is just a logical extension of what's been happening in trip hop for some time - in the millennial blues of Portishead or Tricky's howling noisefests. "Trip hop is just the 90s version of goth," agrees Liam. "The Sisters Of Mercy was a kind of slowed-down breakbeat. They (the goth scene) really embraced machinery, even someone as desperately goth as Alien Sex Fiend - they didn't have a bass player, they had a keyboard player." Direct and friendly, a golden-skinned lover of 90s nouveau punk outfits Sonic Youth and the Pixies, Kelli grew up in Birmingham's Bartley Green area. She left school at 14 and started playing in punk bands. The singer met her boyfriend, Bill - a 36-year-old Canadian - in the mosh pit of a Cramps gig. She thinks the other Sneaker Pimps are jealous of him. They certainly seem to enjoy calling him 'Billy Tiny Willy' (he's six foot two). Kelli, though, gives as good as she gets when it comes to the 'on-tour banter'.
Liam: "I mean, when me and Chris grew up, which was..."
Kelli: "[quick as a flash] ...last week!"
"I was watching Nirvana on the telly the other day," says bassist Joe at one point, "thinking, how the hell did anyone fall for that shite?" "It's not shite, though, Joe," says Kelli. "That's just your opinion. It's not like you know about music. You know what you like, that's all. It's not like everyone else has got these blinkers over their eyes and you're the enlightened one..." "Yeah, but Nirvana are shit, though, aren't they?" says Liam.

THE Sneaker Pimps are the first to admit that they enjoy taking the piss out of each other. Liam claims that most of the arguments centre on women. "What usually happens is that Joe brushes past some girl and falls in love," he explains. "Chris then swoops in, gets off with her. Joe's pissed off for about a week. At this point Chris forgets entirely. 'Eh? Who was that?' Meanwhile, Joe's still reverberating from luuurrve!" Sneaker Pimps take their name from a posse employed by The Beastie Boys to make trainer-buying runs to New York. The Beasties' Mike Diamond turned up at one of the Sneakers' LA gigs, although, according to Liam, he doesn't remember coining the term. ("He did say it though - on The Word.") Mike D wasn't the only hero they met in the US. The band recorded with goth shock rocker Marilyn Manson for the film Spawn, which features several other rock-dance collaborations. Elsewhere on the soundtrack, Rage Against The Machine team up with The Prodigy, Metallica with Goldie and - in an inspired piece of casting - Def Leppard with Alex Reece ("He cut his arm off in tribute," jokes Dave). On top of the link-up with Manson came the Bjork 'incident', a late-night meeting between Chris and the Icelandic chanteuse, the mention of which prompts the other Pimps to delight in a hilarious rant about both her and her current love interest, Howie B. "You should have seen Chris's face the next day," says Liam. "He came back to the studio at 11am having not slept, going, 'I want her babies!'"
"That's enough about Bjork!" says Chris sharply.

CAFÉ Mokka is a grotto-like building, the only decent venue in Thun, with an open-air stage in the beer garden. A wild-eyed longhair called Peter books bands from all round the world, much to the displeasure of the local authorities, who later that night threaten to close him down. "All they're interested in is ringing their fucking bells!" he growls. Kelli spends the 45 minutes before the show running through vocal exercises. Dave, now with spiky punk hairstyle, concentrates on consuming as much alcohol as possible (the Swiss hosts having laid on absurd amounts of free drink). Chris, meanwhile, goes hunting for women. Miraculously, by 9.30pm the Sneakers are ready. The several hundred fans are standing in the darkness smoking spliffs and drinking beer. When Peter Longhair introduces them ("Great Modern Indie Rock From The UK" say the posters), there's a polite cheer of approval.

Bathed in red light, the Sneakers provide a faultless run-through of the album. Kelli beams throughout, sounding even better than on record. Chris, meanwhile, seems to have attracted a gaggle of female admirers, who are gazing up at him. When the last song has finished, the Pimps scuttle off under the fairy lights and back into the Café Mokka. At which point the kids go mental, stamping their feet and hollering for more. After about five minutes, Peter has to come out and calm them down. "There are two different approaches," Liam had said before the show. "One's making an album with a folk ethic of song structure, melody and lyric. The other is making it as sonically contemporary as possible. Which means embracing the entire discourse of dance music. Those two things are conflicts, but that's what we're trying to do. Make disposable sounds for timeless songs. A bit like alchemy." And tonight, Sneaker Pimps made their alchemy look effortless.

The album 'Becoming X' is out now. The single 'Post Modern Sleaze', with remixes from DJ Sneak, Salt City Orchestra, Reprazent and The Underdog is out August 18th. Both on Clean Up

WHO'S YOUR FAVOURITE SNEAKER PIMP?
"AT first everyone kept going on about how different we were to one another," says Sneakers bass-player, Joe. "A bit like the Spice Girls." It's true that, despite the angst-ridden nature of their songs and their unparalleled knowledge of 'the ways of the breakbeat', the Sneaker Pimps can be reduced to the same 'something-for-everyone' formula as the nation's favourite girl group. Which brings us to the burning question of the hour - who's your favourite Sneaker Pimp?

GOTH SNEAKER
BIRMINGHAM'S answer to Siouxsie Sioux. Not best disposed to bright light, from which she hides behind a pair of space-age shades. Ardent admirer of 'Anti-Christ superstar' Marilyn Manson. Favoured by those with a predilection for pointy boots and black eyeliner. Kelli: [in disbelief] "Oh God!"

TECHNO SNEAKER
TWIDDLER of knobs and addict of rare 12" vinyl. Techno Sneaker's fuzzy, tennis-ball haircut belies his previous incarnation as an Acid Jazz-style 'beathead'. Listens to Kraftwerk on the tour bus and memorises catalogue numbers to obscure Carl Craig records. Liam: "Can I change mine from Techno to Electro, please?"

ROMO SNEAKER
SELF-confessed critic of Romo's laughable 'new wave'. Claims to have only ever liked one New Romantic icon, David Sylvian, yet is forever tagged a wedge-barnetted 'woofty'. Fails miserably, however, to provide satisfactory explanation for his nail polish and eye make-up. Chris: "Musically I'm not that interested. Visually, er, now and again..."

WIGGA SNEAKER
A 'MAN mountain' of considerable girth, baggy trousered and rolling of gait. Constantly demands to know whether fellow Sneakers are down with 'the programme'. Bitterly regrets suggesting Spice Girls analogy to 'honky' journalist from Mixmag. Joe: [quietly] "I don't think mine's very accurate..."

SPORTY SNEAKER
DRUM-stick wielder. Often sweaty. Dresses exclusively in nylon sportswear and has big bass-speakers built into his stool to keep him in time. Dogged by terrible inferiority complex, not helped by Romo Sneaker's superior strike rate with 'the laydeez'. Dave: [to Chris] "I'm not Sporty, you fucker! Have I got to be fucking Sporty Sneaker, the unpopular one?"

REMIX MAYHEM!
"I FUCKING hate Van Helden's mix. It's absolutely algorithmic, formulaic, dull, anthemic house cack!" Looking through their press cuttings, you'd be forgiven for thinking Sneaker Pimps were none too happy about the remix mayhem their tracks have inspired. But no. The above outburst, Liam explains, was made before he'd heard the track! Why did he say it, then? "Cause he's a cock!" says Dave. "There was a strong possibility that it would be a piece of shit," Liam says. "As a rule, I think house music is a spent force..." "That's why I liked the Van Helden mix, because I was expecting so little from it." adds Chris. "It actually re-established my faith in dance music." Just as well, as it's meant Kelli's "spin spin sugar" refrain has been dominating London's speed garage pirates ever since. So, from 'anthemic house cack' to 'faceless techno bollocks', here are those Sneakers knob-twiddlers in full...

AQUASKY
('Tesko Suicide')
Out-of-body drum n' bass spiralling heavenwards with liquid synths and 'so-so' samples. See you at the check-out...

TWO LONE SWORDSMEN
('6 Underground')
Messrs Weatherall and Tenniswood evoke piss-streaked concrete tunnels with loads of wibbly-wobbly noises.

NELLEE HOOPER
('6 Underground')
The Soul II Soul man gives his dub a dose of the jitters. Like space transmissions from some very paranoid aliens.

FILA BRAZILIA
('6 Underground')
Souped-up breaks beneath a pitched-up Kelli. Warm and gooey and worth its weight in, um, Pork.

ARMAND VAN HELDEN
('Spin Spin Sugar')
Gothic oddness, mutant basslines, cyber-vocals. Armand's mix is dark enough for London speed garage station Freek FM.

FARLEY AND HELLER
('Spin Spin Sugar')
A fist full of Sneakers! The deep house maestros draft in some spaghetti western vibes for this dubby work-out.

PHLUIDE
('Spin Spin Sugar')
Kelli and Co are spooked by darkside techno and rogue sub-bass. Er, who is Phluide, anyway? (It's their sound man, actually.)

ATTICA BLUES
('6 Underground')
Trainerspotting with the MoWax beatheadz. Angelic vocals, queasy breaks and wicked scratching.

SIMON WARNER
('6 Underground')
The Umbrellas Of Ladywell equals full-scale orchestral action and 1960s spy film vibes. Beautiful.

DJ SNEAK
('6 Underground')
Chicago's finest goes for a thumping house injection with a hint of disco loopery. Relentless but groovy.

NUSH
('6 Underground')
The Brit-house merchants send arms aloft with this pumped-up trainer bender. Get funky!

JAMIE MYERSON
('6 Underground')
Speaker-worrying dub and the sound of Kelli stuck in the orchestral loop from rated Philadelphia junglist Myerson. Very strange indeed.

RICHARD H KIRK
('6 Underground')
Dubwise droid funk. The Cabaret Voltaire man goes head-to-head with glassy-eyed machinery.

PERFECTO
('6 Underground')
Oakenfold and Osbourne get back to their indie-dance roots. Cut-and-scratch guitar-action rules!
 
 
 

SNEAKER PIMPS -10/27/97
By Linda Laban

This month UK trip-hop band Sneaker Pimps headlines its second US tour
of the year and includes a stop at The Rubb in Ybor City(check for dates). At the end
of August, the Pimps opened for Beck in Portland, which is where we
found keyboard player Liam Howe washing his socks, as co-songwriter and
guitarist Chris Corner attempted to remove the hair dye that had
stained the bathroom.
"There's a lot of dye everywhere," Liam joked down the telephone line.
All this rock star-like hotel room trashing is a direct result of the
success of the band's (which, along with Howe and Corner, comprises
singer Kelli Dayton, bassist Gerald, and drummer Dave) debut album,
Becoming X, which was released last winter.
"Somehow Chris has dyed the sink, I don't know how. The black dye has
taken on the sink so he's desperately trying to bleach it off. Trashed
the sink, used all the coffee and tea..." Chris trails off laughing at
the band's disrespectful antics. The band kicked off its current tour on
the West Coast, before hitting the CMJ music conference in New York. En
route, a couple of Canadian shows were slotted in, too.
"I'm not very keen on Canada," says Liam. "My problem was when I was in
Canada I had terrible conjunctivitis and I didn't actually see much. So
I'm basing it on touch and smell alone." How did you manage to play
without eyesight?
"I was led off stage by Gerald and he told me which tunes we were doing
in my ear mid-set and I played it blind like Stevie Wonder." You might
think that that must have been difficult but no, apparently it was a
doddle.
"You don't know how easy my job is," laughs Liam. " Keyboards are quite
easy. It's more like pushing buttons really." Despite the moody nuance
of its music, the Sneaker Pimps do in fact prove to be quite
lighthearted; or maybe the hair dye has gone to their head. Whilst 1997
has been a whirl of critical attention and world tours, not to mention
album sales of around 125,000 copies, initially, since recording for
Becoming X was completed in early '96, things moved slowly.
"It took a long time to write and record and before we knew it the
album was actually a year and two months old," remembers Chris of the
tedious process of getting an album from recording tape to store
shelves.
"Beforehand we were used to writing things in the bedroom, recording it
in the bedroom, and within two weeks having a white label in the shops.
It feels odd but we've got used to it now." Before they called
themselves Sneaker Pimps, Liam and Chris churned out dance singles of
the techno variety.
"We've always been keen on songs; writing dance music was more of a
vacation than it was a design. It was more to do with "let's experiment
with dance music". Eventually we returned to writing songs, which we
always had done. It was more like coming back to what we like to do. We
wrote songs and then we thought well, who is actually going to sing
this." A good question which was answered while Liam was visiting
Birmingham.
"I was spending quite a lot of time in Birmingham - well, the reason
was my girlfriend at the time - and we saw Kelli in a pub and then she
came to one of our odd dance things. We thought this could be
interesting and without thinking too seriously about it, we got together
in the studio a few times, then a few more times, and before we knew it
we had a whole album. We'd never really got together and thought "we're
gonna make a pop record and rule the world". It just happened," he
laughs, though obviously taken aback by the move from bedroom studio to
Portland hotel room.
"After we had written the album we thought 'what are we gonna call
this thing'," Chris goes on. "So that night we were watching The Word
[now defunct British Gen X TV show] and it was an interview with Beastie
Boys' Mike D who said he employed a guy called a sneaker pimp to find
his trainers in New York. Absolutely perfect," concludes Liam bluntly.
Becoming X's moody, dark beat- and sample-heavy music might at first say
otherwise, but the Sneaker Pimps easily falls into traditional rock
group territory.
"Yeah we write songs with verses and choruses," muses Chris. "I'd never
say that it didn't come from traditional rock but at the same time I
grew up with a lot of electronica like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and
Can. True electronica."
So, what next for the 'Pimps after a successful year touting its debut
album across the world? Is there a new album or anything written yet?
"We have lots of ideas and things written but nothing on tape. We've
been so overloaded with live stuff," Chris admits. Will there be any
change of musical approach for the next album?
"I always say yeah but we've just done a song for the new Trainspotting
movie. Well, it's not the new Trainspotting movie, it's by Danny Boyle
and has nothing to do with Trainspotting; it's called A Life Less
Ordinary," Liam explains but we know what he means. "We wrote a tune for
the theme of it, it's the lead tune on the soundtrack. I thought it was
completely different and we played it to a mate of ours and he said
'Yeah, sounds like a Sneaker Pimps tune.' So I wonder how different
people can be to themselves." We wonder too and wander off to leave Liam
to give rock and roll a bad name.
"I know those Sneaker Pimps! They dyed our sink!" Liam says in mock
disgust.
 
 

Sneaker Pimps' Voice Changes On Second Album-from SonicNet.com

British trip-hop-rock band prepares to release record a year after lead singer's departure.

Correspondent Angela Solomon reports:

WOLVERHAMPTON, England - Something was missing when the Sneaker Pimps took the stage at the Wolverhampton Varsity on Wednesday night - the woman who sang their hit, "6 Underground"

Instead, guitarist Chris Corner got behind the microphone for that relaxed, sleazy trip-hop number and for the rest of the Sneaker Pimps' set, which included material from their upcoming album, Splinter. The British band recorded Splinter - scheduled for an October release in the U.K. - without singer Kelli Dayton, who quit last summer in what was reported as an amicable departure.

"We are the same band," drummer Dave Westlake said before the gig. "To the public, it may look like we've totally changed, but it's really only one instrument that's changed."

Having taken over that "instrument," Corner said he feels no pressure to fill Dayton's shoes. "We were always the ones who wrote the songs," said the guitarist, who writes and produces the Sneaker Pimps' material with keyboardist Liam Howe. "Now it's just us performing them as well."

The new material the Sneaker Pimps played Wednesday, including "Superbug" and "Lightning," suggested that in Dayton's absence the band's past fusion of trip-hop beats and rock sounds is giving way to something more raw and loose. The guitar and vocals were much louder than Howe's keyboards, and the change may have been a symptom of the Sneaker Pimps' wish to move away from what Howe called the "whimsy breeziness" of "6 Underground."

"We thought '6 Underground' was just a filler on the album," Howe said, "and it turned out to be our biggest hit!"

The follow-up to the band's debut, Becoming X (1996; 1997 in the U.S.), which included "6 Underground," Splinter will be the band's second studio album of original material. Howe described the album as "glorious - it's like a spiritual homecoming for the band."

"The first album had a sort of naivete," Westlake said. "Now, we're taking it back to writing songs that we thought people would want to listen to. It's kind of more important, and there's less of the zeitgeist about it."

The band couldn't quite agree in defining the difference between the two albums. "The new record sounds more alive," Westlake said, "and it took longer to record. ... It's heavier." Howe called Splinter "more intense" than Becoming X, while Corner thought it was "thinner."

Either way, "they're still really good," said Marcha Davies, 19, of Wolverhampton, who was at the Wolverhampton Varsity show. "And the new singer is such a flirt. The band still ... smolders!"

In front of an easygoing crowd grooving gently to the music and occasionally demanding that the sound crew turn up the bass, the Pimps seemed to be at home onstage. Corner made light work of the band's older material, such as the rockish "Spin Spin Sugar"

"Low Five," the band's forthcoming single, was well-received. Preserving the first album's style, it incorporated a repeated keyboard riff and a sexy, if somewhat depressed, vocal line.

The band's ambient trip-hop style has triggered comparisons between the Sneaker Pimps and fellow British band Portishead, which also released a debut album in 1996. "But we recorded ours first," Howe said. "We were a bit peeved when everyone thought we'd copied them.

"Music is an art, it's creative, so you're bound to find that parallel invention happens sometimes ... Anyway, our aim now is to create something more substantial."
 
 

Sneaker Pimps- "Low Five"-from Virgin Deutschland (in German-Sprechen Sie Deutsch nicht? Don't Worry, I'll get around to translating it)

Nach eineinhalbjähriger Kunstpause gibt es jetzt endlich wieder ein Lebenszeichen der Sneaker Pimps. "Kunstpause" ist jedoch hier keineswegs wörtlich zu nehmen, denn es hat sich einiges im Sneakers-Universum getan: die Jungs trennten sich von Sängerin Kelli und stockten das ursprüngliche "Projekt" auf eine inzwischen vierköpfige, "richtige" Band auf. "Low Five" ist der erste Appetithappen auf das neue Album der "neuen" Sneaker Pimps, und zeigt auch deutlich wo der Weg hingeht: opulente, bisweilen düstere Breitwandsounds, klassisch schöne Melodien, Arrangements, die mitunter der Krautrockära ihre Referenz erweisen, und dazu die filigrane, einschmeichelnde Stimme von Gitarrist Chris Corner, der ab sofort die gesamte Vokalarbeit übernimmt. Heraus kommt ein ästhetisches Hörvergnügen feinster Qualität. Was "alt" geblieben ist, sind die hochkarätigen Vinyl-Remixe, die wie immer ganz vorne dabei sind. Namen wie Todd Terry, Zero 7 oder Eric Morillo sprechen da eine deutliche Sprache. "Low Five" kommt mit zwei Non-Album-Tracks und wird die Fans sicherlich mehr als überzeugen von den Sneaker Pimps, Vol. 2. Die Sneaker Pimps sind tot - es leben die Sneaker Pimps!
 
 

CHRIS CORNER'S SONGS IN THE KEY OF LIFE -from NME.com

First Record You Can Remember
'Guilty' - Barbra Streisand & Barry Gibb
"How sad is that?! I think it was, like, 1980 and my mum played it endlessly. So it was forced upon me, but I do have fond memories of being young to that record. I don't know why! I listened to it the other day and it was like, 'Oh dear!' But it reminds me of a general security and lack of anxiety about everything until about the age of ten. Free and easy."

Record That Reminds You Of School
'(Hey You) The RockSteady Crew' - The RockSteady Crew
"I was a young breakdancer and I used to get the lino and the beatbox out! I didn't have the backward baseball cap though, I wasn't quite as clued up as that! I remember going to my uncle's wedding and they played it and there was this 40-year-old guy who was into robotics so we had this burn-out!! I must have been about nine and he was 40! And there was this tragic scene of young versus old. I got him in the end, though! I won! It's a bit sad really."

Record That Evokes The Greatest Summer Of Your Life
'It's Raining Today' - Scott Walker
"About two or three years ago we were off touring the world. I had this on my headphones and we were flying over Tokyo. I just remember thinking, 'My God! I'm in a fairy tale!' That ultimate feeling of, 'I don't deserve this'. Whenever I listen to that, it reminds me of feeling that I didn't mind if the plane went down right then because I was the happiest I've ever been. That sense of well-being."
 
 

Record For A Night On The Tiles
'Shut 'Em Down' - Public Enemy
"We'd put it on before we went onstage and it'd get us really fired up. Then we'd come off and get fucked out of our heads and put it on really loud! It's just one of those really ballsy tracks that gets you going and gets your blood flying. I rarely go out that much though. I'm not a big clubber so it's not like I'd stick some trance on or something. I'd much prefer to go to a hip-hop club and jump around to that."

Record That Inspired You To Form A Band
'Brilliant Trees' - David Sylvian
"I think it was just so heavily indulgent that it really helped me understand that the best way to get over repressed Englishness was to communicate through music. Putting your emotions down on paper was so much easier than communicating in the flesh, you know! Before that track, I'd actually been doing astrophysics!! So it was like, 'What do I do, do I choose astrophysics or do I choose music?' Mmmm! What do you think?!
"My uncle really pushed this record on me for some reason and I hated it at first. And then years later I just thought, 'My God, that's a fantastic record'. I suppose it was around the time of college when I was starting to do bits and bobs of music in a home studio with Liam (Howe, fellow Pimp) that I really got into it and I realised this was the only way to communicate."

Record Guaranteed To Clear The Tourbus
Martine McCutcheon
"Apart from most records of late, probably something like Martine McCutcheon - which would clear us all off because it's just a crime to humanity and art and youth and everything! It's just disgusting that this music exists! Anything that's commercial tragedy would get rid of us all, definitely."

New Year's Eve, 1999 - What's On The Hi-Fi? 'Hi-Fi' - Robots In Disguise
"It's this demo we got through 'cos we're starting off this little label called Splinter Records. I'm just sick of the whole record industry and the only way to survive and make money is to be autonomous. So we're starting this label and we've just got this demo by a band called Robots In Disguise. It's really good and I think that's probably what I'm going to be listening to. They're two girls and floating around drummers and they're very odd and quirky, sort of mixing technology with folk and stuff. I also chose it because of the question and the fact that the track was called 'Hi-Fi'!!"

Record You Would Like Played At Your Funeral
'End Of World' - Kathy Smith
"The obvious magnitude of loss would be reflected in the title, I hope! No, I'm joking, but I do like that song and it's not as depressing as the title would make you think. It's quite a breezy, folky-jazzy track to leave on."