Search and Destroy : Julian Cope

Weirdly, I was pondering buying the Modern Antiquarian yesterday ... now that you can buy it for 20 odd quid from Amazon (I must confess I have previously bought a copy and sold it without reading for £100+).

IIRC he played a st julian track and a teardrops song the one and only time i saw him but i could be wrong.

but yeah this is probably the "f*ck it here's the classics" tour i'd most like to see in the world

The only time I saw him was solo at the Middle East back in, I think, 1995. Round 20 Mothers, I think.

Was a pretty amazing show for one dude with a guitar/keyboard.
I remember him walking onto the stage, SUPER LATE, and doing a whole stetching, yawning act about just waking up... complaining about "city dwellers" and the strange hours we keep. He also played a song while walking back and forth on the bar. High entertainment!

As for "f*ck it here's the classics" - Rooster and DRS would be necessities!

It's not impossible this was the very time I saw him!

I think it was the only time he's played Boston since the Peggy show(s?) at the Paradise in 91 or so (which I was out of town for. grr), so... probably?

Hi!

Yeah, must be, I'm almost sure the show I saw was at the Middle East, and it was definitely a solo.

I was at that Middle East gig as well! Brilliant it was. Also not been into his work since, alas.

only 100 people attended that show but every one of them wasted the rest of their life on ilx

JC MidEastShow Support Group

If my memory isn't tricking me, I remember he also did a pretty fun interview on 'BCN when he was in town, which struck me as odd, as they were mainly playing Stone Temple Pilots and Candlebox round that time. He either played or had them play that tune that mentions Madonna and Courtney Love too, which the internet tells me is "Conspiracist Blues."

Quietus review sounds about right:

http://thequietus.com/articles/12603-julian-cope-revolutionary-suicide-review

http://i57.tinypic.com/2u3vdvr.jpg

Fucking hell, man.

like some sort of neolithic boogie-rock dustman

a silbury hillbilly

that's pretty much what the records sound like these days too.

has the band name WAZZOCK been taken yet?

i'm getting a hellboy vibe from the gloves

Why the WTF? have you not seen him a while or something?

He's looked like that (on and off) since about 1982.

He had to give up the Scott Walker to do it, though.

a silbury hillbilly

― john wahey (NickB), Tuesday, 16 September 2014 11:56 (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

V good.

i'm about as likely to read his novel as i am to wake up tomorrow speaking perfect inuit, but i think i would probably enjoy reading his thoughts on bono/blake or scottish independence right now

Autogeddon is amazing btw - I prefer it to Peggy Suicide if not Jehovahkill. So goddamn crazed and psychedelic - it's almost up there with Fried in terms of pure beautiful goofball madness, and it evokes a state of confused apocalyptic bliss - driving as the ultimate freedom as well as the means of damnation

Glad you revived this, for I've been listening to Jehovahkill all week and think it's one of the '90s best albums.

nice, you're right.

Peggy Suicide through Interpreter is probably one the best all-time five-albums runs in music.

I agree that Autogeddon is great. It seems v. underrated.

the emphatic pro-assassination stance of the album probably limited its appeal

Even though it was two years later, Autogeddon felt to me at the time to be in the long shadow cast by Jehovakill and the brilliant dates he played for that tour.

Autogeddon has some utterly shattering moments but it's not on the level of Fried, Jehovahkill and Citizen Cain'd for me.

Is there a story behind the lyrics change in "Greatness And Perfection", i.e. he really sings "greatest imperfection". It's a clever twist.

Put your head back in the clouds, Mr. Cope. His best.

you got room for one more, fear loves this place is in there twice! maybe it should be, it's one of his best.

Maybe Kolly Kibber's Birthday or Screaming Secrets, and they're past your cut-off but Autogeddon Blues or Dust from Interpreter.

good catch! Replaced.

you should certainly, certainly check out 20 Mothers fyi - it's full of lovely little pop songs (like Try, Try, Try, which I'm sure you'd love, and the amazing Highway To The Sun)

Yeah I like 20 Mothers more than autogeddon or interpreter tbh

Latterly, Citizen Cain'd is brilliant -- it has his hookiness AND his post-megalithic heaviness

"Try Try Try" is amazing because at that point he's clearly no longer interested in Top of the Pops but you just feel him saying "by the way, just so you know, I can still effortlessly produce incredibly hooky pop songs"

Given the other songs you liked, I'm surprised no "5 O'Clock World" -- why, because it's a cover?

5 O'Clock World is such an odd cover, by that point he'd been a pop star for like ten years.

was he ever really a pop star? Serious question. I know he and the TE had a few hits.

Teardrop Explodes at the time were Duran Duran level huge in the UK, no? He was pop pinup for sure. And World Shut Your Mouth was definitely in heavy rotation on MTV in the early 80s... also his My Nation Underground singles were constantly on Post-Modern MTV and 120 Minutes in '89 (how I first got interested in him), Island was definitely trying to make him one again.

Yeah, in my link I mentioned the CMJ and modern rock chart hits ("Charlotte Anne" hit #1).

Yeah, the sort of subdued psych aspect of Charlotte Anne is what made me buy My Nation Underground back then!

Not that I would have described it that way then, probably more like "this has that same weirdness the Legendary Pink Dots exhibit"

I bought St. Julian on the strength of a newspaper review and goddamn if it wasn't the most amazing thing I'd ever heard -- both just like the classic rock I was listening to and also totally not -- it rewired me

he is absolutely one of the greats (imago canon)

Teardrop Explodes at the time were Duran Duran level huge in the UK, no? He was pop pinup for sure.

neither he nor the teardrops were ever really household names.

When "Try try try" came out, I got a postcard from "KAK' promotions from Julian Cope basically bigging it up excitedly. I was more "Hey, its nice but aren't you more out-there than this?"

(I didn't write back, that's not what I mean)

Anyway, he did do TOTP. with Try*3 and he looked happy doing it. I think it was the last time he did the pop single hit thing, but hey.

Planetary Sit-In seems like another stab at it

Anyway, he did do TOTP. with Try*3 and he looked happy doing it

Little did I know!