Daily photos no. 23: Rock, and indeed Roll

I don't often do portraiture, but I do like taking my camera along to gigs - there are technical challenges such as lighting and movement, and some venues are less than keen on letting in people with big SLRs or even the little one I had at that time. I'm lucky to have a good friend (hi Phil) who ran venues and didn't mind me getting in the way. Also Phil: thanks for putting on Low in a tiny upstairs room all those years. Magical. No thanks for making me see Nigel from Dodgy learn to play his new sampler in his post-Britpop slump. Worst. Gig. Ever.

The first time I tried it was in December 2010, when two of my favourite acts turned up together. My friend Mark had introduced me to the music and indeed world of Julian Cope (former pop star, psychedelic, mystic, anarchist, cultural historian and raconteur) and I was already familiar with David Wrench. Wrench's first album Blow Winds Blow is a forgotten masterpiece of bilingual Welsh/English goth folk doom. His second, The Atomic World of Tomorrow is an oversexed synth-pop masterpiece, while the album he and Wrench did on this tour, Spades and Hoes and Plows is a leftwing concept album that's both mesmerising and punishing.





They're all fantastic in different ways and I wish he'd record more, but he's become a super-producer. His latest venture Audiobooks got a lot of acclaim recently too.

Sadly Wrench's sales have never matched his talent. I once went along to a gig in Bangor only to find myself the only one in the room who a) didn't have a record deal and b) had paid to get in. Everybody else was a member of Ectogram, Gorky's, Super Furry Animals or other Welsh groups. To his enormous credit, my ticket money was returned, I was bought a pint and the gig went ahead.

Wrench and Cope are very photogenic: Wrench is a 6'5" albino while Cope plays up his self-appointed role as the Arch-Drude in every way possible.

David Wrench

Julian Cope

Deliberately de-focussed guitar solo

Julian Cope