Magnificent pagan beast

Julian Cope that is. Until a few months ago I'd got along with just the compilation Floored Genius Vol 1. Throughout the eighties I loved all of his singles that I heard and, I think, came close to buying Peggy Suicide. The only other homage I paid was in my student days when, on trips to the jukebox, Reward featured in my unbeatable 50p triumvirate (the other two being Geno and, slightly edgier, Love is the Drug).

As the years rolled by I'd sometimes give the neighbours a blast of Safe Surfer (still probably my favourite) but he was a relative stranger to my turntable and I never thought to fill the gaps between the Floored Genius tracks. And that might have been it had my interest not been reawakened by his autobiographies Head On and Repossessed, the best pop autobiographies ever written I think. At least the best pop autobiographies written by someone whose music I respected. (As I've said before George Melly's Owning Up is probably the ultimate music autobiography, but I just can't get excited by Bessie Smith). Oh, and that big book about megalithic monuments he wrote. He's an interesting guy.

So yes, I've been catching up with his eighties solo output, concentrating most recently on Fried. That's the cover up there. The record company hated it (Repossessed pg 74). My own position: what's not to like? It's one of those "two kinds of people in the world" thingies maybe, but I just don't get how a picture of a man wearing a giant turtle shell can be deemed inappropriate for an album sleeve.

Anyway, a snippet - this sounds very influential, or is it just so simple that other people were bound to come up with something similar?

Julian Cope Mic Mak Mok

George Melly

This is the first instalment of the late, great George Melly's autobiography. And it's the best. The next part "Rum, Bum and Concertina" (what sailors have to make do with at sea, as opposed to wine, women and song on shore) is also good, but the third part, "Scouse Mouse", I'm not too fussed about at all.

I don't know what made me pick the book up the first time, maybe just the picture on the cover. I think I'd probably heard of him but only as a television personality. I've read my fair share of books about bands and this is by far my favourite. Which is slightly odd given that I don't really like the type of music that it revolves around.

Despite this, for a long time it was one of my ambitions to see him do his customary turn at Ronnie Scott's in the run up to New Year but I would always be up North visiting my family. And then he died. I went along to an evening with George Melly type thing once, held on a very dark night in a small wooden lecture theatre. I haven't attended anything like it since - just going to listen to someone speak about their life for two or three hours. I knew he'd had an interesting life and that he could write well about it but, unsurprisingly, it was a greater pleasure to hear him tell most of these same tales in the flesh. I think it's fair to say that his serious musical career ended in the early sixties and that from that point onwards he became a professional raconteur.

I found the documentary filmed around his final days depressing, or deflating might be a better word. The slightly rigid bohemianism, the forced (I suspect) indifference to the indignities brought by his various ailments and the prospect of imminent death. Who knows, maybe he really was that cool.