Murray Cammick

music journalist, DJ

If I were a car? I love the style of a ’55 Chev but this would not please my friends who are Ford drivers. I’d have to be a Barina, small and useful. I drove a Barina in the Rip It Up days.

I have always been involved in creative things and then you live with the consequences of your achievements.

I bash myself up regularly over mistakes I have made. That’s a flaw. You deal with flaws by eating another sausage roll.

Where’s the scholarship in music journalism? Because we can listen directly to music on the web there is less need for writers to tell us about what is new. When I was at Rip It Up I was ageist and wanted young 20-something staff writers to cover music made by young musicians, but I kept the old writers as specialists. There’s a need for scholarship when writing about Bob Dylan but there may be a need to be young, to write about Tame Impala, Temples, etc.

I don’t need the net on my mobile but I am addicted to my laptop.

What vexes me now is why there was so much misogynist hate directed towards Hillary Clinton last year, by the left and the right.

I have always wanted to share music with people — tell them about what I am enjoying. When I Quiz is on page 3.

was an obsessive teen soul fan, Immortal by Otis Redding was my “to die for” LP. Now I’d take a container load of records to my desert island and wallow in my indecision.

Pavlova and cream make me feel like a child again.

My two favourite music biographies are the Marvin Gaye bio Divided Soul by David Ritz and the Dusty Springfield bio Dancing With Demons by Penny Valentine and Dusty’s friend and manager Vicki Wickham. I like musicians who are short on wisdom and big on talent — for exploring the human condition through songs.

I’m nostalgic about days gone by. I wish I could get a pie and a donut for sixpence.

The most important person in my life is me. Followed closely by friends who go to lunch.

The song I cannot sit down to would b KC and the Sunshine Band, Shake Your Booty … it’s your duty. Great lyrics for a music scholar, ike me. How could a young writer fathom the hidden genius in this masterpiece of popular music?