Given we've now written about them three times, you're probably aware by now that Projekt A-Ko are 75% of Urusei Yatsura. What we do keep needing to stress is their new album Yoyodyne is just as poppily dissonant Sonic Youth/Pavement-ish as that earlier band's heights. Singer/guitarist Fergus Lawrie answers our questions:
First single bought: I have a terrible memory and honestly can't remember buying a single until maybe a Galaxie 500 Blue Thunder 10"...my Dad was a bit of a hi-fi buff so the record player was off limits for a lot of my childhood. I got by listening to bootleg cassettes recorded by my music industry killing friends. There was a 7" of I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing knocking around the house, the B-Side of which Morning Town Ride is an absolutely terrifying tale of parents abandoning their sleeping infants aboard a train that carries them through the night, possibly to some kind of experimental baby farm, I could never listen to the end...
First album bought: I had a big blues phase in my early teens, it would be Ten Years After or Jimi Hendrix.
First gig voluntarily attended: Ha ha! Either Humphrey Lyttleton or BB King, can't remember which was first.
The record that most made you want to get into music: JAMC's Psychocandy and MBV's Isn't Anything both sounded so amazing and alien to my ears the first time I heard them. I remember I couldn't even hear the songs in Psychocandy for the first few listens. I'd really only heard classic rock and blues before that so my ear just wasn't educated to those sounds.
The three headliners at a festival you were curating: Ouch! So hard to choose...give me Astrud Gilberto, Velvet Underground and Merzbow.
A song not enough people know about but everyone should hear: Winona by Drop Nineteens, something about it is utterly beguiling to me, but I'm always going on about it so lets say Hand by Radial Spangle.
A song you'd play to get people dancing: My two year old daughter won't dance to anything except Jimmy by MIA at the moment.
The last great thing you heard: Wow, how great is great? There's very very few albums that would rate as truly indispensable. The last great rock record for me was the debut album Is This It by a band called The Strokes which I don't think many people picked up on when it came out a few years ago. The poise and elegance of the arrangements and the overall band dynamic are phenomenal.
(a little while later)
Can I add... Kylie Minoise and Wounded Knee are both incredible solo artists who deserve wider recognition.
Your key non-musical influences: Mainly my friends and people I've known. Travel. A lot of cinema, recently been enjoying (if that's the right word!) Takashi Miike. Also 'Tirez sur le Pianiste' by Truffaut.
Your favourite new artist: I've been quite obsessed with that Big Pink song Velvet but I can't decide if its genius or just Goth Moby...
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