Influences: Dave Harvey

This was one of the first albums I got into without having been given it by my parents. An older friend of mine in a sleepy market town in Shropshire used to sell us tapes with 2 albums on them – he literally had all the classic hip hop albums and that link got me into the music in a big way, a good education. At that time you’d only find stuff through a link like this although Yo MTV Raps was coming through then as well so it was a huge influence on me.

This was another massive album for me around the same time. I loved the Mondays, I thought they were cool as fuck and not a bunch of scallywags. They were a massive influence on me as were so many indie bands at that time. All the obvious ones to be honest, The Roses, The Smiths, The Cure, The Doors, The Clash anything with a The….very much around the time I got into late nights as well…..this one always made me dream of lying next to a beach, I had visions of what I thought Ibiza was like….now we have it on the beach in Tisno.

There you go, another The….around the same time I was getting into ska, dub, reggae, finding other bits and pieces of music that were all connected – I used to love the energy of Two Tone, and the aggro to be honest – used to drive my parents mad with this on at all hours, teenage kicks.

Fox Base Alpha had a bit of everything on it and I thought they were super cool as well and that Sarah was HOT. It was all around the same time I was discovering dance music, going to free parties in the Welsh countryside and raves in the Midlands. The older bunch I was hanging out with in my small town were big mods and loved their guitars but also their house music as well so it was – a little bit like the Mondays – a taste of both…still love this album and definitely reminds me of feeling like I’d had my heart broken, luckily it was actually just hormones.

Hands in the air in barns in the countryside – it’s still borderline, in fact just too much for a lot of my friends but this was a staple of the free parties I went to as a kid and still gives me goosebumps, 6am sunrises and this – magic.

Could have picked any number of their tracks – as with everyone in this list. This was getting played everywhere at the time, I had been turned on to it by mates in Shropshire but will always remember being at Glastonbury, way too young, having discovered the real late night action, no idea what on earth we had got ourselves into, having our heads blown off by this on the Other stage in 1994. It was a truly life changing weekend and probably lead me on from that point to a large extent.

When I went to University, I met a good friend Lee who schooled me on where all the original samples and music had come from that I knew from all my hip hop albums – in all honesty I hadn’t really given it much though until that point, he had loads of classic soul/funk/rare groove and all the bits that he didn’t have soon got discovered through all the breaks comps of that era. It was a huge moment musically to realise there was all this amazing music out there, sounds so naive to say it now but I had just come out of the back sticks!

I actually got into disco quite late compared to everything else – I had always liked it but never got into it big time until much later, the Aficionado lads from Manchester played this edit of Bumblebee Unlimited at the Big Chill – can’t even remember what year it was to be honest but I do remember having a massive disco fireworks and crescendos moment in the sunshine and after that I was all over it.

This was around the same time we were doing Seen, the beginnings of Futureboogie, it was a very exciting time for us, we’d only been in Bristol a couple of years and everything was going good – we got heavily into broken beat, jazz, afro, latin all sorts – but this was a real anthem for us and the scene in general, there was so much great music coming out round then.

Another anthem for us over the years, could have picked so many from this era but still get this out from time to time, good times business…..

First time we ever booked Dixon to come and play for us at Native in Bristol it blew my head off, that was about 2005 I think – absolutely amazing, turned me on to a load of new house and the whole Innervisions vibes….still one of the best sets I’ve ever seen, think this tune came later but that set was what sparked me off.