Neil Young "Tonight's the Night"

Another tough call picking a favourite Neil Young LP.  All my favourite Neil is late 60s and 70s.  The odd one since - I do love "Ragged Glory" from 1991.  I have a particular obsession with this LP though.  I love that it's so imperfect.  It's recorded late at night, it's totally live, unpolished, full of hiss and amp buzz.  Bands would be terrified of making a record like this now.  A wonderful collection of songs too.  When I first moved to New Zealand a friend came to visit and we did a tour of the south island.  This was pretty much the soundtrack of the trip.  Other than this I'd go for "On The Beach" and "After the Goldrush"  I finally got to see him live around 2013.  It was a little disappointing as Neil had brought along his set from the Rust Never Sleeps tour in '79.  This included a giant fake microphone which was positioned exactly in my line of view meaning I couldn't see him play at all.

Teenage Fanclub "Grand Prix"

I loved Teenage Fanclub from when I first saw "Everything Flows" on SNUB TV, a UK indie show, around 1990.  They had that perfect ragged combination of loud guitars and melody.  I was never at all keen on all those 80s rock groups but bands like Teenage Fanclub, Dinosaur Jr, Pixies, Husker Du were the first modern bands I heard that avoided all those poodle rock cliches and actually fitted alongside all those classic power pop bands from the 60s that I got from my Dad's record collection.  Hard to pick one Teenage Fanclub LP.  "Bandwagonesque" and "Songs From Northern Britain" are family faves but I've probably listened to this most of all.  A colossal influence on my writing and "Simple Songs" and "Five Minutes" are both massive homages to this band.  I must have seen them 7 or 8 times - always great.  Here's the original SNUB TV clip.  I saw them not long after this at Sheffield Leadmill.  

The Velvet Underground "The Velvet Underground"

I first heard this when I was 17 when my Economics teacher lent me the LP.  I already had the Banana debut LP.  I loved parts of it (Sunday Morning, Venus in Furs) but was kind of baffled by some of it.  The big thing for me was hearing the 3rd LP and 1969 Live.  I loved the simplicity of it, the groove in songs like "What Goes On" and mostly that it sounded fun.  They never sounded pretentious to me - on 1969 they sounded like they were having a ball.  I loved Lou Reed's mastery of simple chords and melody more than anything.  He doesn't sing in the conventional sense - I guess that gave me encouragement.  I think a lot of bands that tried to ape them missed that fun side of the band.  I thought Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers nailed it though. I saw them when they reformed in 1993 at the very nasty Wembley Arena.  They still had something special and loved that there were no session muso's.  I thought they should have had Doug Yule along though.  He's kind of been written out of their story but he's great on this LP and "Loaded"

The Stone Roses "The Stone Roses" 1989

I first saw them at Northampton Roadmenders club in the summer of 1989.  I only had the single "Made of Stone" at the time but can still pretty much remember every song.  Probably the LP I've listened to most over the last 25 years. John Squires's guitar playing is extraordinary throughout.  I have special soft spot for "Waterfall" and "I am the Resurrection"  I love this clip from the recent documentary when they reformed.   It's probably not the greatest performance but I love how it captures how much this band meant to so many people.  It never dates for me.