Run DMC - 'Down With the King'

Run DMC are total hip-hop heroes of mine. Whenever I hear any of their records, they totally portray to me how the macho swagger of hip-hop can have a transformative power that operates outside of the usual hip-hop cliches. Or to quote Scroobius Pip from his awesome track 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' - 'Thou shalt remember that guns, bitches and bling were never part of the four elements [of hip-hop], and never will be'.

I've no idea when or where I bought this, and I'm sure it was just for the track 'Oooh, watcha gonna do' on this disc. But it never really got any asses shaking on the dance floor. In fact, it just got moved earlier and earlier in any set that I played, and althought people would come up to me and tell me how great they thought this track was, and how I was the only DJ they'd heard play it, nobody would dance to it. It's the musical equivalent on a dish of lambs tongues in a restaurant - even the people who know that it's a brave choice don't want to know.

I played it for a year or so, on and off, and then gave up. The rest of the album is OK, although Run DMC were going through a bit of a pseudo gangsta phase at this point - they look like Onyx on the cover, ferchrissakes.

But still, on the opening track, they sample themselves, from the track 'Down With the King' from the album 'Tougher Than Leather', and it sounds awesome. Hip-hop legends - believe it.

U2 - 'Zooropa'

I got really excited when I pulled this out - Zoo TV, Bono as Macphisto, telephone calls to world leaders and cultural bigwigs live from stage every night. It was U2 embracing postmodernism, going slightly mad, and reinventing themselves (again). Sadly, this is the boring zoo TV album - 'Achtung Baby' is the exciting one. This is a bit turgid and, if you were a U2 fan, you would have found it revolutionary at the time. Maybe it was, but it sounds tired now.

Maybe I feel like that because all it reminds me of is watching Zoo TV on telly. Maybe if I'd got off the sofa, gone out and engaged with it, it might mean more to me.

Hmm, have I only just realised that this music loving lark is two-way street?

The Breeders - 'Last Splash'

This reminds me of my friend Ali. Partly because when I moved home from New York and formed a band with him on drums, he was really into The Breeders' first album 'Pod'. But also because we went to see The Breeders play at Leeds University. That was a fun night for so many reasons, reasons that mostly aren't suitable for public airing. But two events stick out.

The first is getting on stage and dancing with support act Luscious Jackson. I wasn't a stage invader - there's one song where they invite people up onto the stage, and I managed to do so in Leeds, Manchester, New York, and at the Glastonbury festival in 1994.

The other thing that happened that night was that we were followed around by a couple of girls who giggled behind their hands whenever we happened to look at them, which we did fequently, mainly to see if they'd stopped following us around. This went on for far too long, and only stopped after they disappeared off to the toilets. We knew they'd been to the toilets, because one of them had managed to trap the toilet roll under her skirt, and was walking round with five feet of it dangling behind her. We couldn't help but laugh and, mortified, they left us alone after that.

Happily, it's a great album too.