First gig?
Mott The Hoople at the Manchester Opera House - 26 November 1973 I think? The support band was Queen - and therefore the first band I ever saw. They were fantastic ... they hadn't gone pomp at that time, just a really great rock band. I remember I wore a suit and with my best mate Steve Hanley (who also wore the same itchy, almost wire wool suit). We felt like a couple pillocks amongst the tye-died, ripped jeans, seasoned gig-goers we were sat amongst. MTH were great as well - they did All The Young Dudes and Roll Away The Stone - two classics!

Best Gig?
Possibly Bowie at the Hammersmith (Apollo) Odeon last year. Mark Radcliffe and I introduced him ... his big Hammy Odeon homecoming gig. He played for nearly three hours and he asked us what we thought of the set-list before-hand. If not that - then maybe the last UK gig by Nirvana at Reading. It blew me away. I was on the stage with Raddy and Peel. It was the show Cobain famously came on stage in a wheelchair dressed in a hospital gown. I was glued to Cobain for 80% of the gig and Grohl for 20%. Sorry Krist. It really was immense - rock music that swept you away.

Gig you wish you'd been at?
Bowie at the Hard Rock in Manchester - June 72. He was just breaking big. I was only 10 at the time, but this was the tour to have seen. I missed the Aladdin Sane tour the following year coz my sister wouldn't take me - not that I bare a grudge or anything.

First record you ever played on the radio?
Hard to say. I remember the first record on the old night time 'graveyard shift' show (10 -12) on Radio 1 - the first song was White Riot ... but I didn't pick it, Mark did. My first record on 6 Music was Do Anything You Wanna Do by Eddie And The Hotrods - I didn't pick that either - but if I had picked the first track, that might well have been it. It was then that I knew I was amongst friends!

What's a record that makes you cry?
A record that makes me cry? Strangely very few sad records make me well up but sometimes I do when the record is so great. She Belongs To Me by Dylan got me recently when John Cale chose it for one of his Desert Island Discs.

A record which sounds better in the dark?
Pink Floyd'sWish You Were Here - particularly Shine On You Crazy Diamond - is definitely a 'dark' record ... I don't do drugs - no really I don't. But a bottle of wine and Gilmour's guitar work on that track gets me floating!

A song you wish you'd written?
Her Eyes Are A Blue Million Miles or Tropical Hotdog Night by Captain Beefheart. One a perfect love song, the other, well - I don't know how you'd begin to write that one!

A record you'd like played at your funeral?
Mess Of My Age perhaps ... the best track I played on when I was in The Fall.

CD you'd rescue if your house was on fire?
Ask me again next week and this'll change ... probably Hunky Dory by David Bowie ... or Diamond Dogs ... by David Bowie ... or Station To Station by David Bowie ... or Blood On The Tracks by David Bowie. It was by Bob Dylan really ... but I thought I'd keep the motif running!