7. Miles DavisKind Of Blue
When the Sony Walkman first came out, I got Kind Of Blue and also an early mountain bike. And I discovered weed. That combination of Miles, weed, a Walkman and a bike, it really could take you somewhere else incredible. The phenomenon of being taken wherever you wanted with music while you were on your bike, it was liberating. Fantastic. Andy Diagram, who was in The Pale Fountains, put me on to Miles early doors, and the first time I heard Kind Of Blue I was biking down Prinny Avenue. It was mindblowing. That was my first introduction to jazz. I’d heard bits and pieces, I knew what I liked, but having Andy Diagram knowing it inside out meant that I could always ask him ‘Who’s this? Who’s that?’ After Kind Of Blue he put me on to Coltrane and all the big guns.
You named an album after Miles Davis and Gil Evans with Shack’s The Corner Of Miles And Gil in 2005, too.
I’d had this dream where something was saying ‘I’ll meet you on the corner of Miles and Gil, I’ll meet you on the corner of Miles and Gil.’ It was only after that that I realised they had an album called On The Corner, I honestly hadn’t heard it. Subconsciously I think to myself, you must have known, somewhere along the way, but it wasn’t a conscious thing to do that.
