THE thing about Massive Attack is this when they released Blue Lines in 1991 they changed the face of contemporary music Proof Try this, baby the album's producer, Nellee Hooper, went on to discover Bjork and shape her subsequent sound a young man called Tricky did some rapping on the album and the rest, as far as he and we are concerned, is history. Another young man called Geoff worked as a tape-op on Blue Lines and made some musical contributions. Inspired by what was going on around him, he went off to form a band called Portishead there was the discovery of hip hop/soul diva Shara Nelson and there was that perfect musical moment (song one, side two) called Unfinished Sympathy which has been covered by both Tina Turner and Madonna. Essential fact about Unfinished Sympathy it was recently voted the most popular "bonking" song of all time by a handful of glossy magazines.

The far reaching, highly influential, ground breaking nature of Blue Lines is beyond dispute but then Massive Attack went on to release Protection (1994) and cast their spell all over again. Everything But The Girl were struggling with their sound and beginning to despair of the music business when they got asked to write and sing on the album as a result of Massive Attack's influence, they have now successfully recreated themselves as a Jungle band. Protection was then remixed in its entirety and re released in dub form as No Protection by the man in front of us, The Mad Professor.

So what's the vibe with Massive Attack? "They do seem to have that effect on people," says the Professor. "And while a lot of people did seem to make careers out of their association with them, I had been running a record label and releasing records for 1 years before I worked on No Protection." Fair enough.

"The reason why a lot of people wouldn't have heard of my name pre Massive Attack," he continues, "is simply because I'm regarded as anti establishment. I never get played on radio stations, and the sort of radio stations who would normally play my sort of music seem only to play stuff that has been done by their friends. It doesn't really worry me I've been underground for so long now, I've actually come to like it."

Considering your background in dub, it seems strange that you're not a big fan of Jungle the drum'n'bass and all of that? Jungle is not happening," he says. "It's not progressing, it's going nowhere and at the moment it's right back where it started. Any new musical form has to develop in order to last, and I really wonder where Jungle is going to go now. It'll be interesting, but I'm not that hopeful at the moment."

The dub-tastic sound of The Mad Professor comes to Dublin tomorrow night, when he headlines the Midnight Groove at The Olympia (late night). Recommended.

TALKING about all things Jungle, Dublin now has its own, Jungle(ish) club, called Riddim which is at The Mission across the road from the IFC, basically every Tuesday night from 11 p.m. until really quite late indeed. Handling the vinyl with caution and looking all moody behind the decks are Donal Scannell, Claire Moloney and Jim Carroll. Admission is three squid ... Derry's Cuckoo have got a new double A sided single (remember them?) out in the shops. It's called Non Sequitur/More Of Me and they'll be most pleased to know that Non Sequitur has found itself on to a "Best Of compilation across the water, in between tracks by The Stone Roses and the Boo Radleys... Gigs! Gigs! 60 FT Dolls are in The Fiddler next Wednesday night, supported by Cuckoo, funnily enough, then Divine Comedy plays the same venue on the 11th, (The Empire, Belfast on the 12th), then there's The Cure in The Point on June 4th an Elvis Costello and The Attractions in the National Stadium on June 26th, Not to mention Ash in the SFX on July 1st. Gosh.