who plays beautiful jazz guitar on Cornmarket Street in Oxford. He is a special musician with a genuine and wonderful talent. As I walk down this humdrum street, dismayed by the countless mobile phone shops and fast food eateries, the sound of his playing floats through the air and takes me someplace else. For that I am truly thankful.

... and personal dilemmas, I have been known to ask myself "what would Joe Strummer do?'

I have no idea if this is anything to be proud or ashamed of, but I do think it.

I'd also say that getting into The Clash and Public Enemy at the age of around 13 had a huge effect on my politics, opinions, musical taste and almost everything else I can think of. I do think my life would have been different had I stuck with the tedious U2 which everyone around me was into.

Denny.

yes, and more than one

I think my way of thinking was very influenced by reading the late 70's music weeklies. If I hadn't been interested in music then I would never have read them.
The only individual artist that I can recall influencing me to get up and do something was, bizarrely, Billy Idol. Despite me being at college through the height of the punk era I was never moved to buy a guitar until I saw him (on The Tube I think) play Be Bop A Lula and I thought "I want to be able to do that!" so I did.

Every bloody last one of them. If it wisnae for (deep breath) Johnny Marr, Edwyn Collins, James Grant, Adam Ant and Madness, I'd have stuck in at school, passed my exams and got a decent job like all my other pals. Instead I floundered around in shitty bands hacking away at my guitar like a 3rd rate Sleeper-bloke convinced I was going to make it in the music business anytime soon. Damn those poncy musicians with their fancy clothes and cool haircuts. I hate them all.

Faith No More opened my eyes to what was out there, something different to the chart pop rubbish I used to listen to.

What I'd be listening to today if I hadn't taken up my friends offer to listen to their The Real Thing album, rather frightens me. My bank manager rather wishes I hadn't, I'd guess...

V for Vendetta (comic, not the film) completely changed my societal and political viewpoint. Caught me at the right time in my teens, I guess.

[Sorry, another digression...]

I remember sitting in a dull English Lit tutorial at university when the tutor made the dubious claim that although films could be powerful they could never actually change someone's life. At that point, the shy lad in the Meat is Murder t-shirt, with "SHAME" penned on his arm in big writing, sat up.
He told us that one day his mum had sat down to watch "Shirley Valentine". Within a month she had left the family, gone on her own to Greece, met a Greek man and planned never to return. He, his brothers and his father only received postcards.
I've never heard any point in any argument more forcefully made. The tutor stuttered a bit, then moved on.

(I've just come home from watching "Up", and I'm now thinking about buying some balloons...)

the first time I heard 'Anarchy In The UK' it totally changed my whole outlook on music and ultimately, life in generally.I was sixteen in and in late November/early December 1976 and the single in question had just hit the shops. Living in a quiet backwater of East Sussex, I'd read about the burgeoning punk movement but had never actually heard any of the music and it cetainly wasn't stocked in any of the then three record shops in town.

However, a certain 'cool' store in Hastings had the single and I instructed one of my mates to pick me one up. On receiving said precious disc, I took it home and it put it on full blast.

Oh my giddy aunt! I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was so fucken brilliant I played it six times running. From then on I threw myself headlong into the whole punk lifestyle. The rest, as they say, is history.

in zimbabwe, 1981, at the officer's mess at the airforce base

the beat - I finally got it after a month of seeing bands in bars

became a huge collector of zimbabwean bands and african in general. Did a radio show for 14 years on african music in Melb and Sydney.Assisted with various tours and the rock'n'roll proportion of the collection has dwindled ever since.

by The Jam changed the way I viewed myself, my life and music. The look, the songs and the lyrics struck a chord with me at 13 or 14 that literally took my life in a different direction. Before AMC I was a child who lived for football and lived in a tracksuit, after I was a teenager with an attitude who wanted to be someone. Didn't get me anywhere but I do wonder if I would have turned out differently if I'd never heard it.

** Edit ** and I still convince myself that in David Watts Bruce actually sings "David Ross"

A long and complicated story which I will not bore you with. Because of them I packed in a job to go to a particular college and get involved in student ents. 20 years later I got a job based on that college ents experience, rather than my accountancy qualification, out of 150 applicants who were gagging for the job.

I had to go through 3 interviews and the final one was just me and the company chairman in the bar of the Manchester Midland Hotel talking about bands we had seen. He was particularly impressed I had seen Split Enz in their full wierdo days.

A musician hasn't changed my life, but a song did.

In 1976, I was doing a job I didn't enjoy and facing the prospect of a lifetime of jobs I didn't enjoy. I was watching television when this came on. It's the song "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" from Sweet Charity.

There was one thing I did like doing, and I decided to try to make my living doing that. I succeeded, and I've been doing it ever since. I can't imagine how different my life would have been, and how much less happy, if this song hadn't given me a big shove.

One man only had that sort of impact on me and that would be the late,great John Peel.

When I was 16 three of my school mates formed a band, and the first time I saw them rehearsing it was a complete hairs up the back of the neck, grinning uncontrollably 'I have to be a part of this' experience..

That led to me learning the guitar, getting into bands, miles and miles up and down the M4 to crap gigs in London, getting covered in mud for 4 days in 1998 waiting to play Sunday 12.30 on the New Band stage at Glastonbury...

The song my mates were playing that led to this Road to Dasmascus experience? I used to pretend it was something The Ramones, but now I'm much less concerned with notions of hipness I can freely confess that it was actually a spirited rendition of Run to You

I was obsessed with that album and just thought, OK I am going to live in Berlin. So I did.
Daft reason, but it's worked out great.