Julian H Cope at The Firestation – reviewed

There is a curious tension in the air, hanging, like the heavy incense of Frankenstein and myrrh

We, the congregation, wait patiently for our Shamanic druid, for tonight the Firestation Art Centre in Windsor, it would appear, has manifested as the church of JULIAN H COPE …our temple deity…

Whilst seeming eons pass, the chosen choir (the support band Urthona) battles through an onslaught of sound, an antithesis of chill, and we are faintly disturbed by the dyn and discord,

a lysergic OM if you will….

Thus the scene is set for the “saint’s” return to the lectern, yet still we wait, the atmosphere very much somewhere between warm welcome and cruel threat.

I confess, I’m a little nervous…Cope has been quite a hero of mine since the days of Teardrop Explodes (recently awarded an ‘Inspiration Award’ by Mojo magazine…their ‘Reward’ if you will) and despite his failings, I still hold him in high reverence…I’d hate to have to write a bad review…

Cope is an extraordinary artist…to list his achievements here would be impossible…..to talk of his underacheivements too (his words) would take just as long. No coincidence then that the 3 compilation CD anthologies of his collective works are aptly named ‘Floored Genius’ 1, 2 and 3….

Cope, a stone age renaissance man, is not only a great musician, but also a fine writer, ‘The Modern Antiquarian’ is a must for anyone who wishes to understand the nature of stones in Neolithic Britain from the perspective of an enthusiast, (or should that be one time compulsive obsessive?) “I used to be a veggie in the 90s” he leers later on stage…”but now I really want to hunt.”

…. I don’t have a copy of the book myself…my sister does…she’s not interested in music…but she does like standing stones…

OH! and one last thing you need to know before the night begins….. COPE and I fell out of favour sometime ago in ’92 (he doesn’t know this, and I doubt if he would care if he did), with the release of ‘Jehovakill’, not because of its anti-religious themes, or outspokeness, but because I felt that the unfinished nature of the beast (I’m a musician) treated me with contempt….I gave it away in a huff, and it is here, I felt, that he moved too faraway from the polish of “Saint Julian” (the title of his most successful LP/1986) to the paganistic force that is ‘Julian H Cope’….a step too far I often wondered…

At last, the waiting is over, he steps on stage, ACID DRENCHED AND SILVER SKINNED, a comic book hero, biker king, a self-styled messiah, stretching, preacher thin, hidden eyes surveying the “mosh pit” below with a threatening stare, a wolf amongst the sheep….

I’m hiding in the gallery above, far too many hobnailed boots down there (I sketch him, quickly…..an antiquated photograph….he signs it later…)

“I cant see a thing through these sunglasses” he mutters sardonically after many moments of silence and, at last, the tension is broken……ENDEARINGLY

HE begins…beside the mike stand I’ve admired so much (a modern icon), to weave his tales…. ‘Come The Revolution’ opens the show, just him, alone, naked, (musically, not literally, although I wouldn’t put it past him from what I have read) with split tone electric, one crunch, one clean, much as Jehovakill once sounded to me….and yet…

I am FAR FROM DISSAPOINTED…this WORKS so well…NO… THIS REALLY works..but why? Perhaps I’ve grown up, or HE has….or WE both have? Jehovakill is described by Amazon as “Cope’s crusade to make music safe for acid-damaged intellectuals” …and it is an intriguing warmth he offers…

The feeling is somewhere between carefully measured chaos and…well…..CHAOS… I like it well…!

HE acknowledges the times when he was “Fried” and “Under a turtle shell” with a self-effacing honesty, a dower humour and at times he admits, he knows he has been lost…

I accept the apology, all is forgiven

For now, he seems found…

“Are these my songs?” he laughs, checking the set list taped to the back of his green holed semi before searing into Teardrop’s songs and Peggy Suicide’s ‘Safesurfer’ and the laconic ‘Pristine’…

A well measured set…each song, a story unravelled…. as if a mortal coil once wound too tight, relaxes…slowly, as he unwinds…

Between songs Cope is charming, witty and self-assured….Windsor is the perfect intimate stage…music needs a ONENESS always….

‘I’m Your Daddy’, for example, is written like a protest song, an almost Bluegrass drone for his daughters that measures the evening’s meter with calmer tones, a lullaby. ‘Autogedden Blues’ and ‘Robert Mitchum’ too are outstanding, but for me it was the Scott Walker inspired ‘Im Not Looking, I’m Not Seeing Anything’ which shines as SUBLIME, here Cope plays keyboards, half accomplished, half self-styled with his head hung low…..but how he croons his PRIMAL SCREAM, how he croons.

I get the feeling that if I called out for ‘World Shut Your Mouth’ or ‘Trampolene’ towards the end of the night, or for an encore, he’d shoot me dead with ONE look…if that is, he could see me at the back of the auditorium through his shades..