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

The right to bear umbrellas

While I own coats with hoods I'll often take an umbrella out with me if I think it looks like rain. At times I've become aware that people (other men, my friends in fact) regard the use of a brolly as somehow unmanly. Naturally, after this realisation I not only continue to use an umbrella to keep the rain off my head and upper body but also in utter defiance of this macho bollocks.

Anyway, my umbrella broke the other day. Or rather one of its spokes did. And then I discovered that it's almost impossible to get an umbrella repaired, the attitude of umbrella vendors is, unsurprisingly, that I should buy a new one. This irks me, considering it seems so minor an injury. I did find a couple of places that'd do repairs, but only if the umbrella was one of theirs. Which it was not.

Forced by this to put the broken brolly to one side (for now) I started to look into getting a replacement. On my lunch breaks I often used to walk past a suitable shop. James Smith & Sons, it looks lovely doesn't it? I should have guessed what was in store for me there. For something that looked just like my stricken brolly I was looking at £75, and you can spend almost £300. Unbelievable.

I found one for £25 eventually (here) and they even threw in a junior hiking stick, which I think I'll give to my mum, it's about the right size.

Despiritualized

I was disappointed by the Spiritualized concert. The performance was, in a word, turgid. Great venue, great back catalogue but on the night the presence of a choir and string section seemed to drag the whole thing down, "Messy", was the wife's conclusion.

After about an hour and a half everyone shuffled off stage and ten minutes later I was relieved when just the band and three backing singers returned. The remaining thirty minutes or so were an improvement but I was still far from blown away. At times I looked around and a few people were slowly nodding along, those whose heads were still were not (judging by their expressions) caught up in ecstasy, just a bit bored.

I don't mind the whole repetitive thing - if it's built right I can listen to the same guitar sound going round and around, with minimal variations, for however long. But as another tune ploughed towards its end in a crescendo of feedback I was thinking "What is the fucking point in this?". And then, to be fair, there was one immense moment - in what can only be described as a blink of the ears the maelstrom of sound ceased and we were listening to the beautifully gentle Shine a Light. The change in sound was matched by as sudden a change from blazing strobes to a still deep purple light. That bit was great, but I'd expected a whole evening of such quality. A final consolation prize was a decent enough run through of Take Me to the Other Side, allowing me to tick off another Spacemen 3 track heard live.

Rethinks

Years ago I gave Geogaddi a try and didn't like it. But recently I find I'm getting quite into Boards of Canada. Maybe it's the influence of liking their label mates Broadcast that has brought me round to giving them another whirl. Since last week I've been mesmerised by this track.

I looked into buying it - but have you ever tried getting their stuff on vinyl? Good Lord! I'd maintained a vinyl only stance for the last few months and paid out what I regard as some reasonably hefty prices, $54 for the Human Beinz Evolutions, 230 Kronor for Gene Harris' The 3 Sounds (only about £21 actually, but it sounds horrendous in kronor). Anyway, I met my match with The Campfire Headphase. I watched another copy go on ebay for just over £64 yesterday morning.

Boards of Canada Chromakey Dreamcoat

Year zero

I was reading the other day about the slight controversy over the use of Common Era and Before Common Era for Anno Domini and Before Christ. I'm not really too bothered about keeping AD and BC, and generally I'm in favour of political correctness (or being nice anyway). But just removing the references to Christ while keeping the whole thing based on his birthdate and then calling it the common era seems worse than keeping it explicitly Christian. If, for whatever reasons, the dominance of the Christian calendar gets up your nose, then having it rebranded as the universal Common Era is even worse isn't it?

And so, after some thought I've decided that the date we should use as year zero is the date of the moon landing. I wasn't alive at the time but apparently the whole human race was united in thinking it was very cool. There might be rumblings that this was a victory for the American industrial military complex, but it was an undeniably big deal and furthermore a magnificent scientific achievement - no gods or prophets involved at all. So, there you have it - Happy Year 42.

It's a bit of a small number that perhaps doesn't do justice to humanity's many millennia of doing stuff but sadly the exact dates of a lot of our most significant achievements (the wheel, writing etc.) are lost in the mists of time.

So sad about them

The first 15 seconds of this track is, I think, one of the most amazing things ever recorded. Nothing else I've heard comes out of your stereo like this. There are plenty of other Mary Chain tracks that I listen to more often and which are better songs, but as a listening experience this section is unsurpassed in its heavyosity.

I mention this in the wake of the reissues, particularly Psychocandy. Rather than giving us a load of previously released b-sides I wish they'd fling open the vaults and give us a mindnumbingly detailed account of how this singular album and its contemporary tracks were assembled (similar to the treatment that Pet Sounds got). Obviously accompanied by a sixty odd page booklet with tons of unseen photos and an Ian MacDonald style dissection.

Jesus & Mary Chain Cracked

Slight update, this is exactly the kind of thing I was talking about. Apparently Cracked is Taste The Floor slowed down to half speed . And Taste The Floor was the first track on Psychocandy that I really got into.

Er...

I got fed up with EARTH CAPITOL. Like so many of my utterances it was cribbed from the Simpsons (one of Kodos and Kang's exchanges) and the other day I saw they spelled it capital and that was just the last straw.

Living in the past

Not so long ago I bought, for three reasons, Osbert Lancaster's Sailing to Byzantium at Oxfam: it has a nice cover; I like Osbert Lancaster's stuff and, having been to Rome, Istanbul is the city that I most want to visit and (as far as I know in ignorance of this book) I'd got the idea into my head that when I do go I'd like to arrive by boat. I see though, while looking for a scan of the book cover, that it's the title of a poem by Keats. Didn't know that. I love the word Byzantium. Imagine getting it (or byzantine, I suppose) on a triple word score in Scrabble.

Anyway, reading through the book, on reaching page 11 a paragraph on the monophysite controversy hit me like a hammer blow. I remembered it as a lecturer had used almost the exact wording years before. The odd sensation was heightened as a few days earlier I'd been flipping at random through St Augustine's Confessions and had landed on the part in which the pious Alypius is drawn into watching gladiatorial contests at the Coliseum*, which again I'd remembered very clearly hearing from the same lecturer.

My first feeling was a consciousness of walking in his footsteps (twenty years later than he'd have liked really, though I doubt Sailing to Byzantium was on the reading lists, the Confessions probably was though). Another part of me felt, at the discovery of these ingredients, something like disappointment, along the lines of, "So that's how how he came across as so knowledgeable and erudite, he just read a load of stuff. Pah!" . Simple, isn't it?

On a cold winter's night, years after I'd graduated, I walked into my local in Sheffield. It was very busy and as I stood defrosting at the bar surveying the throng I was astonished to see, sat in a corner, the spit and image of this old lecturer. "It can't be", I thought. And it probably wasn't, but as my dope-addled brain grappled with the situation the doppelganger looked across at me, smiled and raised his glass. That definitely freaked me out a bit and, still not certain, I didn't go over for a chat. I don't know, maybe it was him.

*Isn't it amazing what's on wikipedia?

Francophonic Thursday

Davy H today posted Francoise Hardy's Voila, and so I drew his attention to the Voila-sampling Lord Knows Best which by co-incidence I'd bought last night. Meanwhile over on Across The Kitchen Table Drew responded to Davy with Jacqueline Taieb's Sept Heures Du Matin, which in a further co-incidence, I'd also bought last night, along with two other tracks, both of which were also French. Clearly the gods of blogging demand that I post one of those tracks right now.

The Liminanas Funeral Girl

Jazz odyssey

My copy of Taschen's Jazz Covers has not, so far, thrown up any direct hits as far as the music is concerned. The only album featured in the book that I've bought is Monk Montgomery's Bass Odyssey - but I think that's because I was blown away by a couple of its tracks posted over on Aquarium Drunkard (I'm slightly embarrassed about how many records I've bought after hearing them there, I feel as though I'm being spoonfed). I don't think I'd have clicked play if I hadn't seen the sleeve in the book, so maybe we should chalk it up as a victory for Jazz Covers.

The plan is to give anything whose cover intrigues me a whirl and the inclusion of Keith Jarrett's Life Between The Exit Signs and Facing You led indirectly to his Restoration Ruin. I didn't know but Keith Jarrett is a top flight and rather scary pianist (he shouts at people who cough during his concerts). However, back in the day he recorded this album which, as a weird, folk type thing, is a complete aberration in his discography.

The delightfully Sixties sleeve notes describe it as, "Contemporary. Off-Beat. Very NOW". Richie Unterberger thinks it's only so so and the solitary Amazon commentator has some very harsh things to say about it. I, on the other hand, love it. Ramshackle and a bit whimsical he sounds like Arthur Lee a lot of the time and there's even a touch of Syd Barrett about the title track. The whole thing's got a sort of Sesame Street vibe to it.

Keith Jarrett All Right