Tag Archives: Julian Cope

Julian Cope on 6 Music

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ARCH DRUDE IN FOR IGGY POP

We’ve had some stellar radio stand-ins on 6 Music for Jarvis Cocker of late, and this week we get the Arch Drude packing the Iggy Confidential slot on Friday 22nd, 7pm, for two hours of psychedelia – a must-listen, surely. Who knows what qualifies as psychedelic in Cope’s hefty book – I mean, Sleep’s Dopesmoker DEFINITELY, though that ain’t gonna make it onto a two-hour Friday night trip – but we may well get sunburned freak outs, acid fry-ups and sunnO)))shine daydreams cocktailed with the likes of Roky Erikson, Sky Saxon, Can, early Floyd and prime Love.

Floyd and Love have gotta be a cert for the playlist surely, because they’ve inspired and named Cope’s location-free festival that’s happening Right Now, every day this month, wherever YOU are:

SydArthur Festival

Buddhist appropriation entirely intended, SydArthur is a tribute to tenyearsgone Syd Barrett and Arthur Lee who passed away just 28 days apart in July/August 2006.

As ever, Cope needs little encouragement to evoke the Cosmic Order, the ancients, the gnostics and the sha-manics in rock n roll, and so the SydArthur Festival – a festival of the mind, of the head – is now a Thing on Head Heritage. Check the calendar and note that JC’s broadcast is George Clinton’s birthday. Parliafunkadelic on the playlist?

Line all of this up next to Uncut magazine’s fine fine fine Arthur Lee/Love feature last month and you can’t help but fire the Love revival machine so an in-through-the-side-door review may be on its way v soon.

Tune in Friday, turn it ON.

(d)Rude awakenings

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REWIND JANUARY

We’re flying into 2015 and the new releases are piling up ALREADY. Who knew that Venom have a new album out? Not me, but at least Phil Alexander did – ta for shoving it out there on Planet Rock last week (Saturday night, repeated on Wednesdays if you wanna check his weekly dispatch of new and classic rawk). Napalm Death have got a new one out as well. Is 2014 really so-last-year already? Is it too late to mention John Garcia and Boris? Given the tardiness of this slipsliding Rewind, probably yes, but you’ll have to wait a few lines because we’re starting with summat new. January 2015 brought a bit of excitement for experimental/drone fiends when Stewart Lee, standing in for Stuart Maconie on the Freakzone one Sunday night, played an excerpt of a too-long-for-radio track by VESUVIO, an underground commune band from Naples back in the 70s.

Vesuvio are not real.

Vesuvio do not exist, yet they’ve just put a record out.

WTF??? Yeah, bit of a head-scrambler that one, but when you know that Julian Cope is one third of Vesuvio (Stephen O’Malley and Holy McGrail make up the whole), and that Vesuvio are one of the invented bands in Cope’s One Three One novel – Dayglo Maradona, Make Fuck and Nurse with Mound are some of t’others – then things start to make, not sense exactly, but the beginnings of sense.

And, with those longhairs at the helm (I’m assuming McGrail is not shorn of scalp), you can guess the musical direction: three tracks of elemental earth-crust ambience that unfolds, percussion-free, over 54 drone-out minutes. The last of those tracks, Resin A, is listed as a bonus and it’s true that the other two tracks, Pompeii (side 1) and Herculaneum (side 2), are the real deal here. Escapist and vast and totally out-fucking-side in its scope, Vesuvio flirt with the likes of Urthona, McGrail himself and mebbe even Carlton Melton, which means that – if you accept their 70s origins – Vesuvio predate these other arteests by about 30 years … shit. Better not think about that for fear of being time-warped in the head. But if you’re a fan of the Arch Drude’s ambient metal sprawl-outs, this is pretty crucial stuff and you can get it over on Head Heritage.

Back to last year briefly for a quick word about a couple of albums. Did John Garcia’s solo effort make the top end of any critics’ lists? If not, it should have. Not flash, not avant and definitely not a Kyuss rehash, it’s a rock solid, class effort by a guy who knows what he does best: even-paced desert grooves and quietly addictive riffs, topped off – of course – by that voice, so don’t forget about him.

And finally, Noise by Boris. Did anyone else feel underwhelmed by Noise on first listen? I did, fearing it was another throwaway slice of fast ‘n catchy Boris-lite, but there’s enough heaviness ‘twixt the hooks to make it a keeper. Heavy Rain’s gargantuan post-rock crawl, Angel’s 18-minute ace and Quicksilver’s after-the-thrash fadeout – check the last three minutes for a definition of heavy beauty – are among a fistful of highlights, and while Noise might not challenge Feedbacker in the greatness stakes, it does at least sound like the Boris we know: MASSIVE. A flawed hit, then.

Well, time’s run out on us and we didn’t get any words on 2014 highs by Yob, Mogwai and Melvins, but that’s the way it’s gonna be (yeah, yeah-yeah …).

’til next time!

AUDIOSCOPE 2014

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Zero familiarity with any of this year’s line-up except New York’s junk electronic freakonauts Silver Apples means that Audioscope 2014 looks set to be a non-stop tale of the unexpected. Saturdays don’t get much better than this, and at 3.10 we see The Doomed Bird of Providence.

Let’s just repeat that name one more time: THE DOOMED BIRD OF PROVIDENCE.

Magnificent. Sounds like a bunch of Wheatsheaf-stained mantra-rock hairies, but they’re actually a septet of Oz/London (nick)cave-dwellers with a ramshackle line in Celt stomp and shanty swing. Take the hey-ho from Saint Nick’s Supernaturally, add a bit of Murder by Death and you might be somewhere near.

Earthling Society: with guitar trebled and wah-wahed to the max over blues-ish rhythm and cosmicspacerock keyboards, the Society open with their version of Alice Coltrane’s Journey in Satchidananda and pitch themselves as a quintessential Audioscope band. Better when they ditch the vocals and just rock out, you can see why they supported Julian Cope circa Dark Orgasm – there’s more than a whiff of the Archdrude’s back-then penchant for guitar excess, not to mention Brain Donor’s chasmic numbskullery.

After a swift pint down at the Bookbinders, we get ready for Wrangler.

Who?

WRANGLER.

Who?

Stephen Mallinder from Cabaret Voltaire.

Shit, really??? Seminal name #1 of Audioscope 2014 then, and Wrangler do NOT disappoint. Retro-futurist industrial beats, dirty synths and near-dalek vocals make for a seedy brand of heavy electronica that’s got the Cabaret creep but with added rock-band thrust. Loud and ballsy, we like this lot. We like this lot A LOT. Audioscope 2014 is most definitely hotting up.

You Are Wolf cool the mood, but that’s a compliment … we are, quite simply, powerless to resist. Nothing like the ‘Bjork-does-folk’ tag in the programme, singer Kerry Andrew cuts a quietly captivating presence and compels everyone to listen – as in, really listen. With her storyteller’s charm and made-on-the-spot loops, and the band’s sparse yet experimental folk backdrop, you enter a world in every song. For the last track, she persuades everyone to join in (‘You’ve got to sing or it’ll be rubbish!’) while the loops build and build. You Are Wolf: biggest surprise of the day.

Telescopes up next. Big contrast and, once the initial thrill of high volume passes, big boredom. Telescopes are definitely louder and less tuneful than imagined, but all that early promise gets pissed away in their interminable search for a magic moment. Probably because they went up their own arse to look for it.

But no matter, that’s the fun of the fair, right? Some you get, some you don’t. Now it’s past 8pm and seminal name #2 is in the room:

JONNY GREENWOOD!

No, I mean SILVER APPLES!

But Jonny Greenwood IS here, such is Silver Apples’ revered status as electronic rock pioneers from way out left. And while no-one would dispute the timeless legacy of SA’s junk-lab space throb, tonight’s show is, in truth, a tribute to a once mighty force. Reduced volume robs the music of its disorienting power and carousel madness, and the sight of a slight (but sprightly) Simeon – born in 1938, go work it out – at the helm is nearly as weird as the music he makes. Still, the always-awesome Oscillation burns a killer earworm back into the head, and the man Simeon appears in fine fettle. Cheers to that, to long life, and to the very existence of their otherworldly oddness.

After the good-natured but muted Silver Apples, and the endless-aimless Telescopes, we’re in need of an action shot.

Matt Elliott, of Third Eye Foundation, is … not the guy to do it. Sorry. Just too slow, quiet and acoustic for this hour of the day, and we’re in danger of flagging. The yawning starts. Need a sit down. Back aches a bit. Only three things can save us: a blinder from Public Service Broadcasting (I’m not confident), a mini mince pie from the merchandise stand, and a massive bag of chips.

Pie (mince) and chips (loads) duly scoffed, we are upright and awake. Can the headliners deliver? For some people, PBS are THE reason for coming to Audioscope 2014. For others – me included – Silver Apples are/were the no-brainer attraction, and the fact that the room has emptied somewhat since Simeon/The Simeon departed kinda proves the point.

Jonny Greenwood has vanished.

But all caution is unfounded because Public Service Broadcasting deliver exactly the right kind of energy with tight guitar/banjo licks running over danceable moto beats and, of course, their public service films whizzing past in the background. For most of the set, I watch the band – all two of them – and let the films pass by without too much attention. For the last track, I watch the film – about people climbing Everest – and find that the music scores the drama spot-on. Is this true of every track? I should watch again.

Whether their film-nerd shtick has longevity is another matter, but tonight, Public Service Broadcasting put smiles on faces and prove themselves well worthy of top billing. Nice one.

And so ends another eclectic Audioscope: brilliant, again. Raising good money for Shelter, again. Now excuse me while I go play Wrangler’s LA Spark CD. Again.

 

Audioscope reviews of 2013 and 2015 here, and Audioscope’s Music for a Good Home 3 CD

 

 

Drudes, freaks and wolves

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The Arch Drude is back in the news – the book news. Fiction news, to be exact, coz he’s only gone and put out his new (and first) novel, One Three One, on Faber and Faber. He nipped in to Stuart Maconie’s Freakzone for a wee chat about it so go check the July 6th episode for a short interview and snatches of music from Neon Sardinia and Dayglo Maradona, just two of the book’s fictional-bands-real-music backstory.

And as if an interview wasn’t enough reason to tune in, check these amplifier-friendly arteests on that same show’s playlist:

  • Jex Thoth
  • Poino
  • Yes (new single!)
  • Brain Donor (a righteous My Pagan Ass, no less)
  • The Safety Fire (right-now prog)

Anything else to report and reveal from this surge of rock radio activity?

Only the promise of a Freakzone interview with Southern Lord’s WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM on Sunday

AND a 30-minute Cope mix on the Freakier Zone on Saturday.

Who needs the World Cup???

 

 

 

DRUDION no more!

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No more Address Drudion! What are we gonna do????

For around 14 years the Arch Drude, aka Julian Cope, has been posting his monthly missives and under-the-underground reviews with the shamanic, preachin’-revolution flamboyance that only he can bring to a page.

Now he’s closing that particular chapter of his rock ‘n roll voyage – March 1st saw the last of his Monthly Drudions on Head Heritage as family Cope pack up and move on. Go check his last post if you haven’t already.

And if you fancy a trawl through some of the best essay-length record reviews this side of Lester Bangs, go check the Album of the Month feature from the Unsung section too.

For 10 years, Cope put a monthly review of an unsung (unappreciated, unrecognised, underground) record up, pulled from anywhere in the previous 50 years. Oriented towards the heavy/noise/psyche end of things, it’s an inspirational rock source from a great writer who’s a music FAN, and many of the reviews were compiled in his Copendium tome of a couple of years back.

While we’re on the subject of Cope, don’t forget the On This Deity blog by his wife Dorian – the link is at the bottom right of this page, or if you can’t be bothered going all the way over there, have a look at it right here.

Julian Cope. Spectacular guitar-heavy rock’n’roll excess

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Kevin WoodThis review was first published on BBC Oxford on 16 February 2006, two days after Julian Cope’s concert in Oxford.

 

 

 

It’s February the 14th and there’s a lot of love bouncing around upstairs in the Zodiac…

…but that’s not just because it’s Valentines Day, no no no. It’s because the Arch Drude, Julian Cope, is onstage.

His last Zodiac appearance was a solo affair where, armed with a lurid green semi acoustic guitar, effects pedals and a hefty beard, he plundered his vast back catalogue to mesmerising effect. Now, 18 months later and with last year’s Citizen Cain’d/Dark Orgasm double whammy in the can, he is ready to ROCK. We know this for a fact because Doggen – guitarist extraordinaire and tonight masked by Joker-style face paint – is up there with a six-stringed axe to grind, while Mister E is ready to pound his kit.

The opening shots of White B**** Comes Good and She’s Got a Ring on her Finger tell us exactly what to expect – a night of Copean garage/psyche rifferama. Double Vegetation, Highway to the Sun, World War Pigs, Hanging Out and Hung Up on the Line and Sunspots are all given extra beef by Doggen’s unrestrained guitar cookery, as are a pair of tunes from Teardrops archives. There’s even an airing for Brain Donor’s unrefined thuggery… Get Off My Pretty Face indeed. Everyone’s happy.

Threading it all together is Cope’s between-song banter, as unhinged and high value as ever. Never one to use two words when twenty will do, the self-styled rock ‘n’ roll shaman riffs on the trivial and the bizarre, from his fingerless studded gloves to a disastrous séance with Al Jourgensen’s wife via lost maps to the underworld. And who else would bother to swap his bass for another one that’s exactly the same, just because he loved the absurdity of it?

After dropping the pace with Autogeddon’s epic s.t.a.r.c.a.r., Doggen and Mister E depart to leave the frontman wielding his mellotron and electric guitar to max effect on a clutch of Fried/Peggy Suicide/Jehovahkill/20 Mothers faves. Then the band regroup for the last stretch, finally finishing off with Hell is Wicked and Reynard the Fox. It’s here, right at the end, where the mood of the gig changes from feelgood rockout to slightly macabre spectacle as Cope gets deeper into raging poet mode before cutting his chest with the mic stand. Though not out of character – he revived it in last year’s tour – it’s still unnerving. Necessary? Like Iggy Pop’s famously sliding kecks, probably not. Then again, with his current ‘cliché is reality’ trip, who knows what’s going on…

Lashings of rock, lashings of charisma, 100% Cope – another great gig. See you next time.