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Underground > Radio & Music >

Julian Cope... or fucking WHAT!!!?

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STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

21:15 / 04.12.01

Dunno if this one's already been done to death, or ignored, so I'll post here and watch tearfully as it sinks to the bottom of Barbelith and out of existence with no replies...
here goes.
Julian Cope. Arch-Drude of Wessex. One of my all-time heroes (who I- miraculously- haven't listened to for a few months, but have just rediscovered in a big way)...
Copey better than Teardrops?
Teardrops better than Bunnymen?
Copey post '89 better than before '89?
discuss.
(or ignore, and do the question on quadratic equations and their role in the Crimean war instead).

10:14 / 05.12.01

teardrop explodes!

dropping acid on TOTP!

julian h christ!

the world tree mic stand!

bill drummond!

discovering odin!

14:06 / 05.12.01

Witnessed Copes solo tour some time ago.
What a Lord (of the dance)
Sonic Shamans unite,
fight off the Romans.
Barbarian Kraut Rock

07:59 / 06.12.01

Julian Cope's got a new album out with his new band: Brain Doner. It's been out for months and I keep meaning to get it - it is supposed to ROCK like Fuck.

But Yay, the Cope-meister.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

08:57 / 06.12.01

I actually forgot I'd posted that... Cope's one of my all-time faves but I haven't listened to him for a while until a couple of days ago... the only reason I noticed the thread is cos I'm listening to "Kilimanjaro" right now...
I met him a few times and he liked my hair (when I had hair) so he instantly jumped several points from his already-high rating in the "space-rock guru of, like, EVER" stakes...
Anyone see him last time, at Ocean, cos I missed it? Saw him last at that "Cornucopea" thing at the Festival Hall with Coil (fucking ace) and Ash Ra Tempel (very disappointing... somewhere there's a really worthy documentary on rainforests missing a soundtrack)...
They've got the Brain Donor album for a tenner round the corner... I may well buy it tomorrow. Anyone know if anything else is in the pipeline? Last I heard (about eighteen months ago) there was an album coming out "very soon" called "Citizen Caned"... which is one of the all-time greatest album titles, but an actual album to go with it would be kind of cool...
Whoah! People who don't take the piss out of me for listening to Copey! Ace!
(My own personal answer to the questions I posed earlier... Copey post-'89 better. Always better than the Bunnymen, though not by a huge margin, if you discount the later Bunnymen stuff. He da MAN!!!)

08:57 / 06.12.01

i missed the ocean gig, but i did see his 'discovering odin' talks at the british museum. there are some (fuzzy as fuck) pics of it up on my blog right now. (click on the homepage logo)

08:57 / 06.12.01

I was at the Cornocopia thing aswell. Quite liked the free CD you got with it. Coil were cool as well, in their giant snowman robes...

Didnt Ash Ra Tempel wander off for a cig break halfway through and everyone started bitching and demanding an encore cos the band forgot to mention they werent finished.

22:53 / 05.04.03

so what albums by copey, tear drop explodes/solo era do you people recommend? his book makes me want to be a rockstar!

04:46 / 06.04.03

"Peggy Sucide" and "Jehovahkill" are probably the two to get. The "Floored Genius" retrospective covers all the necessary bases up until about 1991 and is probably another good place to start.

For the Teardop Explodes get the first two albums.

11:41 / 06.04.03

Picking the right Copey album to kick off with is quite tricky: Do you like his bubblegum pop aspects? Do you prefer his full-on rock persona? Or are you more attracted to his dystopian angst angle?

Bubblegum pop: World Shut Your Mouth, 20 Mothers
Awl-Rock: St Julian
Angst In Yer Pants: Peggy Suicide, Jehovahkill

Personally, I prefer the pop version of Julian and his debut album World Shut Your Mouth has some of his best tunes on it. I actually found Peggy Suicide to be a profundly dull and depressing album - and I don't mean in a cool Radiohead melancholic way either! Jehovahkill is a similarly heavy album but manages to be more convinicing in terms of tunes and ideas.

Also - a word on Brain Donor: Believe me, recordings do not do justice to the awesome spectacle that is Brain Donor. I can remember people being outraged by their performance at the Cornucopea event or convinced that Copey was "having a joke" before they walked out in disgust! Get to see the Donor live and you won't be disappointed.

01:19 / 19.01.05

Just got Citizen Cain'd through the post this morning - it's not out in the shops I don't think, at least I ordered my copy off the interweb through Head Heritage, but it's well worth the effort of... just typing in your details and waiting around for the parcel to arrive, I suppose.

Titles include Hell Is Wicked, Stomping Dionysus and ( brilliantly I think, ) I'm Living In The Room They Found Saddam In; it's very much in the vein of his heavier stuff, Jehovah Kill particularly, but with lots more in the way of Krautrock/MC5-style axe freak-outs ( axe freak-outs is just what they sound like, ok ? ) as you'd possibly expect from the Odinesque rocker stance he's been taking up lately, and if it sounds a bit rough at times production-wise, that's probably all to the good. It should sound fantastic live in any case ( although have I got a ticket ? Have I arse, ) and a seventy plus minutes, it's great value for money too ! So there you go...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

05:51 / 19.01.05

I'm waiting for payday so I can order that baby.

But I'm all happy cos mono got me a ticket to see him at the Festival Hall for Christmas, and it's this Friday!

I hear he's working on a new book in the same format as "Modern Antiquarian" and "Megalithic European" which is all gonna be about famous rock'n'roll-related sites (Jim Morrison's grave, stuff like that).

lord nuneaton savage

10:16 / 19.01.05

Yay, Cope-rophiliacs!

Best Cope album? Gotta be "Fried" for me, just 'cos of it's general feeling of, well, fried-ness, and of course the fantastic cover.

Saw him last year at Lyric theatre three nights running. He was stunning (particularly on the second night). If your going this Friday you're in for a treat. Lucky buggers.

Also he deserves bigging up for his tremendous commitment to the the cause of obscure rock'n'roll. I've bought so many albums on his recommendation that I've lost count. Some good, some bad but all worth a listen.

Oh, by the way, if you are going on Friday, get there in time for Comets on Fire. I saw them last night (after what seems like a lifetime of waiting) and they were sodding AMAZING.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

10:23 / 19.01.05

I fully intend to- from what I'm told, I think I'll love 'em.

10:25 / 19.01.05

'I'm waiting for payday so I can order that baby'

that's exactly what i'm doing.

i like the one where he's dressed up as the turtle on the cover. is that 'fried'? it's like blur would sound if they had shrooms instead of booze, and the courage of their convictions. thrilling, pastoral english pop that doesn't go too folky, and never forgets to rock a bit too.

Rollo Kim, on location

17:13 / 19.01.05

I know it's a really naff thing to admit but I enjoy his writing far more than I do his music. His biographies are some of my all-time favourite reads - he even talks about Gurdjieff!

His heart is in the right place musically but I only seem to enjoy his really early stuff and the Teardrops things - and it's not just because I think he's got a really awful sense of production cause I like a lot of Hawkwind / Krautrock stuff. All in good time.

One of my oldest friends is a total Cope fanatic, but he says the Brain Donor thing makes him feel sick.

lord nuneaton savage

10:51 / 20.01.05

I do really like Brain Donor but the production on the albums does leave a bit do be desired. There's very little in the way of dynamic.
Having said that the song titles are amazing "Get off your pretty face", "My pagan ass", "Pagan UFO"? Skill.

And your correct Gumby, the album with the turtle shell palaver on the cover is indeed Fried.

--

02:31 / 21.01.05

Ah, yet another in a long line of "weid artists with daunting discographies I just haven't had the time to get into". I've read a bit about this guy, just haven't actually heard an album.

So, I guess the real question is, what is the most bizarre, strangest album he's done? Cuz that's the one i want to hear first.

06:44 / 21.01.05

I reckon the production's fine on Brain Doner; everything loud. His voice is struggling a bit though, he's not Lemmy but It nice to hear him trying really hard. I quite like the bits where his voice sort of cracks. Aw, I'll forgive him anything. Saw him live in Brighton a few months ago and he was crap and I fucking loved it! He also seems to have a liking for really crap keyboard sounds.

Weirdest album? Probably one of his long meditation albums like Rite, but don't start there.

Will buy the new album and love it no doubt.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

07:00 / 21.01.05

Normally I'd agree with you on the "don't start with Rite" thing, but I think Mr Champagne would probably like that one, from what I know of his other musical interests.
Or Queen Elizabeth, where Thighpaulsandra (later of Coil fame) really starting having a major effect.

I think my favourite's probably Jehovahkill, although for a good sense of where the boy Cope's at, 20 Mothers pretty much covers the spectrum of his (non-meditational) stuff.

lord nuneaton savage

10:20 / 21.01.05

Christ! Before I forget, beware "Interpreter" it's got some OK stuff on it ("Spacerock with me") but it also features a track on which he...

Oh God I can hardly bring myself to say it...

Well he...(ahem)

Look, he raps, OK? It's absolutely sodding horrible. He raps about meeting little green men. He raps like your dad. Jesus, that was a hard one to forgive.

Haus of Mystery

11:12 / 21.01.05

Is it worse than Roddy Williams 'rap' on 'Rock DJ', cos that's gonna take some beating. Or Brett Anderson's on 'Stay Together'. Yeeble!

Cope is so uncool that he's always cool.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

22:05 / 21.01.05

Whoah.
I just got back.
I was really fucked.
Cope was REALLY REALLY fucked.
He sounded like Black Sabbath.
Whoah.

Haus of Mystery

15:47 / 22.01.05

Last time I saw him it was his between show banter that mad it priceless. How does the 'Citizen Cain'd' stuff sound Stoat-man?

Brigade du jour

22:08 / 22.01.05

Glad you enjoyed the gig Stoatie. Gladder still you managed to find the Royal Festival Hall last night! You used the tube didn't you?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

09:27 / 23.01.05

No, I walked. I was dead chuffed with myself for finding it.

The Cain'd stuff seems very, very rock. OK, I was fairly bollocksed, but "somewhere between Sabbath and the MC5" wouldn't really be too far off the mark.
The between-song banter was madder than usual- I think he was on mushrooms. He did two sets, was fairly coherent for the first, and totally off his tits by the second.
Funniest thing was, most of the second set consisted of the poppier end of his oeuvre- a few Teardrops tracks, that kind of thing- only done METAL.
Truly a god amongst men.

11:50 / 23.01.05

I'm sadly under-acquinted with Julian Cope's recorded works, but his narration on Sunn O)))'s 'My Wall' is officially THE GREATEST THING I'VE EVER HEARD IN MY LIFE, so investigations are definitely underway...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:18 / 23.01.05

That's another thing that I NEED to get. Sunn0))) rule.

Rizla- I think you'd like the Brain Donor stuff, or Jehovahkill, from what I know of your musical taste. All of his stuff's great (well, okay, apart from that rap on Interpreter, but I try not to think about that), but I reckon you'd like those most. (And the new album, if it's anything like he sounded on Friday).

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

12:57 / 23.01.05

Read my brief booze-addled rantings on the gig here.

lord nuneaton savage

10:17 / 24.01.05

Did you get to see the Comets then Stoat? I only ask 'cos most people I know who went didn't know what time they were on and ended up missing them (apart from my bruv who said they were the skill-ingest).

Oh, and I forgot to recommend "Skellington" earlier. Recorded in one day and featuring some of his loosest, strangest stuff, including the mighty "Out of my mind on dope and speed". Huzzah!

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:52 / 24.01.05

Yup. Comets On Fire absolutely ruled.
The timing was funny... Cope came on pretty much bang-on 7:30 (I missed the very beginning), played a set, then COF came on, then Cope came back and did another.

10:26 / 09.02.05

well, it's been a couple of weeks since i ordered citizen cain'd - no arrival yet. i'm hoping it'll get here before valentines...

but has anyone got any reports on how long theirs took to arrive? what if it's just julian cope and some envelopes? it could take years.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

11:27 / 09.02.05

Mine just turned up this morning- it was about a week and a half. I'm thinking they probably do a mailout every few days (not sure why, it just seems like the way I'd do it), so hopefully yours should be in the same post- tomorrow, maybe?

You probably don't want to read this next bit...

So far it's ace (though only having one ear is spoiling it a bit)- I'm on track 3, and so far it's been a Sabbath/MC5-at-the-same-time-esque opener (Hell Is Wicked), a second track (Can't Hardly Stand It) which sounds like a lo-fi Monster Magnet (yes, really!) and I'm Living In The Room They Found Saddam In, which sounds a bit like what By The Light of the Silbury Moon may have done if it had been on Skellington.

It's very raw, very stripped down (but still very BIG), very rock and roll. Ace.

13:29 / 09.02.05

I *think* my copy took about ten days to arrive, so it might be worth sending Head Heritage an e-mail.

It's been reviewed a bit more widely since, so perhaps that explains the delay ?

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

23:23 / 11.02.05

Any joy yet, Gumbitch?

I must admit, on first listening there were a couple of bits that left me cold... a few days later and I couldn't live without it.
Can't wait to hear it through both ears.

"I Will be Absorbed" is now officially one of my favourite Cope songs in... ooh, years.

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