Influences: Bill Brewster

Well, we all have to start somewhere and this is where I started, with this, still one of my favourite ever pop records. Killer production by Jeff Wayne, a great, evocative vocal by David and just look at him on the cover. Gorgeous. This and David in That’ll Be The Day; pretty much sums up the early 1970s for me.

I’ve had a few flirtations with northern soul and this was my first, before I had my head turned by the chaos of the Sex Pistols turning up in Cleethorpes. Before that, though, it was all about the all-nighters at the Pier and Winter Gardens. Pan’s People dancing to a prime bit of mid-70s northern: every putative soul boy’s fantasy.

The arrival of punk totally changed my outlook on music, even though I got bored of it quite quickly. Until I heard the Pistols, music seemed to be something done by older men who’d obviously been doing it for years, whether it was Motown or prog-rock. Suddenly, it seemed like something even idiots like me could get involved in. My favourite band from the era was The Fall and my favourite period was this, when they had this big old drummer called Mike Leigh, who they nicked from a cabaret band called Rockin’ Rocky & The Velvet Collars. I saw them play a few times with Leigh and they looked like the Fenn Street Gang, backed by the drummer from Showaddywaddy. Love the rockabilly feel of this tune.

Another game-changer for me was seeing ACR play at the Lyceum Ballroom in London in 1980 (supporting Joy Division and Killing Joke). They dressed like the cast from It Ain’t Half Hot Mum and played scratchy funk and, in particular, this cover of Banbarra (I didn’t know it was a cover at the time). I started digging for the records they name checked in interviews, like Cameo and Spunk. I was hooked.

First heard this in a club at the Warehouse in Leeds and it sounded like the future. Sparse, brilliant production by Daniel Miller and just an incredible, insistent groove. Listening to it now, it still sounds like the future and it’s now nearly 34 years old…

Remember reading about this in a chart in the Face in 1982. My kind of funk, zippy, electro-influenced and an amazing loose-limbed feel to the production.

We briefly had a proper record shop in Grimsby, but unfortunately, it didn’t last very long. But while it did, I remember buying this from there. Released on Flame, a Rhythm King subsidiary, I spent a number of years trying to work out the sample (it’s the lyrically suspect ‘Young Girls Are My Weakness’ by the Commodores).

I hated house when I first heard it. At least I thought I did. I’d actually already bought this on Trax, my first house record, after hearing it played on John Peel show. It’s not the best release on Trax, since it’s a bit novelty, but I still like it.

In 1991, I moved out of a flat in Islington and Dave Lee, aka Joey Negro, moved in to it. We became friends and when he bought his first flat in Crouch End, I used to spend a lot of time there, listening to new house/garage records, old disco, discussing Gary Glitter and smoking too much spliff. This is my favourite of his old mixes and it reminds me of that time.

This was so different from what was coming out at the time, punky, electronic, with sardonic lyrics, it feels like one of those tunes that was made specifically to delight me.