When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? Overwhelmed by pretty much all the music ever, you default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours. This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
After mainly growing up loving The Beatles, Queen and a healthy collection of Motown courtesy of my Dad, I remember Britpop being the first genre that I discovered myself. I devoured it all from the age of 11, and it was central to me picking up the guitar.
The Prodigy opened me up to all things electronic around the age of 13, my uncle lending me his copies of Music For The Jilted Generation and The Fat Of The Land. Blink 182 helped me discover all things punk, and I quickly learnt about its lineage. I remember wearing a Rage Against The Machine hoodie that I’d saved up for and bought on Camden market proudly for what seemed like every day for a year. I had no idea what Zach was so vehemently angry about but I was on his side straight away, this was probably my first realisation that music can really stand for something. At 14 I was a regular at local gigs and grew to love our wonderful thriving local scene. Mahumodo were one of the first metal bands I really connected with having never really embraced the more mainstream American bands like Linkin Park and Limp Biscuit on account of being an elitist little prick.
I was lucky enough to have a wide group of friends from all sorts of background which had me exposed to all sorts of music. UK garage was just beginning to become one of the defining sounds of Britain and that DJ Luck & MC Neat tune was becoming legendary. At 15 I was becoming obsessed with hardcore. Gorilla Biscuits was a band I clung onto the most, having more melody than the current trend in the UK at the time but having a slightly better recording quality than the first era of original American hardcore. I began smoking a lot of weed, and NWA was always the soundtrack to those sessions. At the time we also began promoting shows ourselves, usually local hardcore, ska and emo bands. We’d always play jungle between the bands which was becoming a big influence on me after discovering Aphex Twin and Squarepusher and wanting to learn more about that drum sound, and its lineage. Not a million miles away in its complicated rhythms and energy was The Dillinger Escape Plan, I remember when one of my best mates played the Calculating Infinity album and having heard nothing of such immense technical ability and ferocity before was blown away. They became the benchmark for intensity during live performance.
Discovering the lineage of British indie music back from modern indie through to post-punk was inspiring, and I immediately latched onto Joy Division and New Order. Thursday were a band that influenced so many UK bands around this time, us included. Their track here would always be played at house parties at the time, and front room crowd surfing would normally occur. Faithless’ Insomnia became a must at all parties too. Their brand of euphoria and Maxi Jazz’s spoken word both really inspired me.
SikTh were becoming legends in our humble wee scene. We went on befriend them and to record two of our albums with their guitarist and general mastermind Dan Weller.
Enter Shikari headline 2000trees on Saturday 14th July. Visit twothousandtreesfestival.co.uk for tickets.
