2. SparksKimono My House

This is another very formative thing. My mum had a videotape called Sounds Of The 70s, with bits of The Old Grey Whistle Test and Top Of The Pops. I was probably seven or eight years old, watching that tape, and I saw Sparks doing ‘This Town Ain’t Big Enough For Both Of Us’. I just loved it immediately. I think a lot of the time, maybe superficially, there’s a detached, ironic tone to some of their music, which is great – but then with that song, there’s this sinister feeling just under the surface. It’s a really otherworldly song, very odd and clear at the same time. 

I heard that someone, maybe it was David Bowie, described them by saying, “I’ve just seen Marc Bolan and Adolf Hitler together!” I think that contrast appealed to me as a child. When we were kids, George used to like fluffy toys, and I used to like quite grotesque toys, and Sparks were a bit like a development of that.