ROCK/POP
Julian Cope
King Tut's, Glasgow, Thu 5 & Fri 6 Oct; Liquid Room, Edinburgh, Sat 7 Oct.
He was an exploding teardrop who became A Modern Antiquarian; he was fried and sainted and he even offered to be your spacehopper, baby, but don't call Julian Cope a hippy-
’l'm far out but I'm not a hippy,’ he states for the record. ’l’m a longhaired punk whereas Bill Drummond [former Teardrop Explodes manager and one-time KLF pop-art terrorist] is a shorthaired hippy. If you burn a million quid that's a real act of hippyness. It's like "oh, man, we’ve got too much money, we don't know what to do with it"; well, fucking give it to people who haven't got a million quid. Just don't intellectualise it, you plank!’
Cope is about to embark on his biggest British tour in half a decade, billed as ’twenty years of rock ’n' roll stories: triumphs, failures and platform boots’. The ads for the tour feature him playing a twin neck guitar, that ultimate emblem of prog rock.
‘lt’s a Cheap Trick thing,’ he laughs. ‘l've always been a man with a gimmick. In the Teardrops I had the inflatable trousers, mid 805 I had the huge mic stand . . . I’ve actually been using this since '91 but then I got such a negative attitude from lots of people that I thought, well, sod it; I'm such an apostate I’ve just got to celebrate the double neck.’
And how does the man described by 0 magazine as 'the Andrew Lloyd Webber of garage rock' feel about the way he is perceived? ’Saying you're misunderstood is the last refuge of the scoundrel,’ he says. ’l'm just not clear enough about where I'm coming from a lot of the time. People ask me things like "was it an accident you did Top Of The Pops with a mohican and a dress?" They don’t realise that if you're going to put over that image there's a tremendous amount of forethought. Do I want to be seen as a twat or a cunt? Two choices.’
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Everyone wants to go large with the Fries
ELECTRONIC/ROCK Regular Fries
‘r'oii‘ talking to Paul Moody
Julian Cope is the archetypal daydream believer
Julian said in an interview in the early 805 that he didn't want to grow up. Enthusiasm for his work — be it the next BBCZ programme about standing stones, another instalment of his biography or the coming gigs — is contagious, childlike in the best possible sense, but he qualifies words spoken long ago.
'l'm probably the most grown-up artist there is in as much as I'm very realistic. You can't do as many things as I've done without being pretty together. If you look at people like George Clinton and Sun Ra, they achieved a hell of a lot while never losing their image of being totally out there.
'You keep pumping it out. And that way I‘ve never been deluded in terms of my dreams.’ (Rodger Evans)
TVs on stage zike not". The Cash had it and those org "uge E-R-i-E-S letters, .'.e were Just try ng to lt‘dkf‘ rt so lt‘-tl( I" 't‘.()"(‘ for people,’ says luloody "Vt/e aluzays have ‘ilms going and \.'.e liked that idea that PIT‘K Floyd had \.'\.'hen they started, that it was always more than lust four guys on a stage ll‘.|ll(} out some rock fantasy '
Having ( tti‘acted tne attent.on of Mercury Rev producer Daze li‘idiitann there seems no stopping the Fees ‘We worked amazingly well \‘will him and he rust tries to get that psychedelic edge out of us The standout track from their !l(‘\.‘.
the Fries
l/enue, Edinburgh, Mon 16 Oct.
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for l.ke t'ie Primals and Asian Dub foundaton before, he is much given to -a/y airaic'w-tudes like, ‘We're there to b'ox‘. t"e coiixentiotia! world into little o'eces' ‘.".'ha'.'s more interesting is the in s punch of lunkadelic-loving
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lhei‘ se f-recor'lecl debut album Accept The Signal was a iterate, eclectic fu'tkfest grounded in the ruins of a i-tack"ey bedsfl. after a particuarly 'iecioi‘ stic party, but it \.‘.'as their s..bseu-.:e"'. . * pcv‘foi‘mances ‘."./lll(ll sav‘. filer 1g“. si‘ ne t"om their r‘.l()lll(’l$llll)
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album though is the brillia'it Supersonic ‘vVaves iCoke And Siiiokcw' a bitinted hip hop lici.’i‘.l)(‘." ieminiscent of' New. Kingdoms '(l‘ieap Thrihs' tone in collaboration saith US tapper/ioon/poin star Kool Keith 'We llibl sent him this letter say-rig the aliens are trying to work out \.'.hat makes the 'illlllcil‘. ."ace tick so they ltlSl s't listening to ll‘t? music we play and taking the drugs \.‘.(‘ do and he seemed to fove it Never has a collaboration felt so apt iPaii; Oaie'
“ War On Plastic Plants is out on Mon 16 Oct and the single Supersonic 'i"/a~.ces i’Coke Arid Smoke" is out non; both on
ISO/V.
preview MUSIC
CLASS CAL Scottish Opera: L'Elisir d'amore
Theatre Royal, Glasgow, 17, 19, 21, 24, 26, 28 Oct; Festival Theatre, Edinburgh, 17 & 18 Nov. There are all sorts of practical reasons ineVitably mainly to do With finance - for opera companies to pull something out of the cupboard and get it back on the stage. But when you are sitting on an investment as successful as Giles Havergal's 1994 production of Doni/etti's L,E/isir d’amore tThe ElleT Of Love), the impetus for revealing it anew is firmly rooted in artistic integrity. For Havergal, the opportunity of working on a reVivaI IS welcome. ’You get a chance to put right some of the things you know were not quite right the first time,' he says. ‘lt's nothing at all to the outside eye, but to me it makes a big difference.’
First time round, the now-risen star Lisa Milne was making her professional debut With Scottish Opera in a relatively minor role, but this time the hugely successful soprano takes the central role of Adina. 'We've worked together quite a lot now,’ says Havergal. ’I always find that l_isa, theatre-Wise, has a kind of natural talent. She sings very naturally and her performances have a real sympathy With whatever part she is playing ' An opera of sharp comedy and heartfelt pathos, L'Elisir d’amore tells of Nemorino, desperate to win Adina's love, buying a love potion from a guack doctor It is, of course, fake and after all sorts of muddles everything ends happily.
Hayergal is not only thrilled with Milne, but speaks extremely highly of the others involved. ‘The four or five main principals are playing quite simple characters, but the detail and the nuance have to be there,’ he says. ’The Italian Donato di Stefano as the doctor is wonderful and very, very entertaining He's played the part a lot, but is very open to different ways of doing it ' The opera is one With delightful humanity and, as Havergal says, ‘it's the familiar story of falling in love With the person next door, but wanting to play the field first ’ thilOl Main!
Giles Havergal revels in revival
s 19 ()c'. 2003 THE lIST 49