Went to Reading last night to see Julian Cope play. My friend Mark, who runs the excellent Strange Attractor press, put me on the list as he was playing with opener Urthona. For this I was very thankful. It was nice to sit and space out to Urthona after a long, rainy day. I got to Reading a little early to have a look at the city and I really liked their muli-coloured buses. The only other time I've seen Cope play (and I've been a huge fan of his work since the early 90's) was November 3, 1995, at The Middle East club in Cambridge, MA. I remember excellent performances of Soul Desert and Upwards At 45 Degrees that night. Though he encored with World Shut Your Mouth which was a little different than the rest of the performance and I couldn't tell if he was playing it out of obligation, because it was "the hit". Last night he closed with Greatness And Perfection and Robert Mitchum. Excellent stuff. But what was really exciting last night was that HE PLAYED THE GREAT DOMINIONS!!!! Such a fantastic song, from an incredible Pop album, The Teardrop Explodes' Wilder. (I own four copies of this album on record, as the US and UK versions have different covers...and insert sleeves ; ) Same with Kilimanjaro.)
No Reading videos have surfaced yet but here's The Great Dominions a few weeks ago (21/9/12) at Brudenell SC Leeds:
From his description last night, the books he's writing sound incredibly entertaining, including a "psychedelic road movie" through an parallel-reality Sardinia.
The Teardrop Explodes original of The Great Dominions:
There's some Brilliant Pop stuff on Wilder but also beautiful, strange numbers like this and Tiny Children, which, although I wasn't there at the time, it always seemed odd to me that a charting pop band appearing in teeny-bopper magazines would also be releasing. But very glad they did.
And once again, my Quietus piece on the comic book origins of The Teardrop Explodes' name.
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