I'm off to Manchester tonight, to see Low, a wonderful slowcore Mormon rock band (enticing, no?). Ben hates them, I think they're one of the best bands of the last 15 years.
I'm taking my camera - and just read this very good guide to taking good shots in such places. The last time I did gig photography (David Wrench and Julian Cope) it came out very well - though my Richard Thompson shots weren't quite as good (but his violinist liked them).
I took some pictures at last night's gig. It's quite tricky - challenging light, crowds and so on, but some came out quite well. See the whole set here.
David Wrench's drummer
David Wrench
David Wrench. I'm quite pleased with this one.
Pouting Julian Cope. Or is it Zaphod Beeblebrox?
Julian Cope's guitar
I'm pleased with this one. I wandered around until the right person stood in front of me, and I deliberately left Cope's shoulder in.
I went to a gig last night: David Wrench playing the extended, droning (in a good way) rebel songs he recorded with Julian Cope, and Cope playing a medley of his massive back catalogue, concentrating on the poppier end. He dedicated the first track to the students who trashed Millbank, resorted to the phrase 'dance to THIS, motherfuckers' fairly frequently, and teased the lairy drunk hippies who constantly demanded the most obscure b-sides they could think of.
I had a quick chat with Wrench, who I used to know a little. I was once the only paying member of the audience at one of his gigs: his band was a super-group drawn from Ectogram, Melys, Super Furry Animals and Gorkys Zygotic Mynci, while the other 4 or 5 people at the gig were bandmates or partners of those on stage. Everyone had a record deal except me. I brought along my treasured copy of Wrench's first album, Blow Winds Blow and he signed it, quite surprised by its mere existence, I think. It's a great album of gothy Welsh folk with a lot of Nick Cave thrown in. His next album was high electro camp, then the latest dark folk one.
Cope used to be in the psychedelic pop genius The Teardrop Explodes, and was a bit of a pretty boy. His pop career was stymied by record industry shenanigans, so he became a lefty-hippy-shaman who sings lefty-hippy-shaman songs which still have killer pop hooks. An admirable figure in every way.
That said, he's a bit of a Peter Pan. He's become a performing monkey for his die-hard audience. He's up there with his East German Border Patrol Cap, unruly hair, leathers, songs about drugs and revolution, while his fans arrive in company cars, M+S clothes and tote Blackberries. As long as they worship at the feet of Cope, they seem to feel, they're still alternative. It's carnivalesque in Bakhtinian terms: an evening of feeling countercultural as a breathing space before returning to the sales department. It's not Cope's fault: he clearly believes everything he says and his beliefs are wholly admirable. But I can't help wondering what he thinks as he surveys the paunches, bald spots and straights who pay his bills.
To counteract this, here's the most beautiful of modern lullabies from Trespassers William, who first came to my attention when they covered one of my favourite Ride tracks to wonderful effect.
I'm going to a gig tonight, but it's nothing like this. The headline act is Julian Cope - weirdo genius. I've seen him live many times. Sometimes you get his full on acid-fuelled pop madness, sometimes his raconteur routine, but he's always brilliant.
The support act is David Wrench, who I used to know a little bit in North Wales. The beanpole albino weirdo just recorded an album of rebel folk with Cope (4 tracks, lasting an hour in total) but his solo stuff has moved from bilingual folk-with-Nick-Cave-and-Joy-Division to perverted 80s electro-pop. Whatever happens tonight, it's going to be interesting.
It'll also be fun because I'm going with my colleague Mark, who looks rather like His Copeness, largely deliberately I suspect.
Julian Cope, author of books and website on prehistoric monuments
Mark, visiting prehistoric monument
Finally, just because I like it: new country band Lambchop doing the Sisters of Mercy's 'This Corrosion', and the original for comparison.
Julian Cope is a full on rock god, druid and genius. Also he's one of the most entertaining performers around, even for non-hippies. His account of being nicked at the G20 protests while wearing a burka and stab vest with a wig is hilarious and depressing.
Welcome, fans directed here from Richard Thompson's site. Come for the music criticism - stay for the cheap sarcasm…
For the rest of you, last night I went to Richard Thompson's '1000 Years of Popular Music' show. He's the brilliant folk/rock guitarist formerly of Fairport Convention fame, of whom you should have heard. I was definitely the youngest person in the audience, which was a shame as the show was astonishing.
I missed the first 15 minutes, so arrived in time for 1603 - madrigals, some Purcell, then a stream of strikers' ballads, music hall, light opera, country, jazz, rock'n'roll, Australian Beatles-light, The Korgis, a Beatles medley (would the purists approve?) and finally a Nelly Furtado track, all sung by Thompson, Debra Dobkin (a cool drumming singer who looked like Marsha from Spaced) and Judith Owen who rather over-egged some of it, such as Down By The Sally Garden. What a raconteur RT is too - almost as good as Julian Cope, who actually made me cry with laughter at the Glee Club a couple of years ago.
