Hi!
Hope you’re well! Not much to report here, finally got a Home Taping Is Killing Music tattoo.
Got an email reminder about some SQL gubbins today and I found this half finished post. I’m just going to post it anyway. Would have been more timely 2 years ago, but, hey. Look at that, this blog is nearly 10 years old.
From about 6 years old I read 2000AD religiously, if you’re of my age (and that’s a distinct possibility) it’s probably had some influence on your own childhood even if it’s only due to the quite awful Sylvester Stallone movie (although this has since been somewhat diminished by the excellent Dredd of late).
My favourite comics though were the one picked up on the corner of Buchanan Street & Argyll Street, a street vendor sold newsstand copies of US comics and other those I had a particular fondness for DC Comics. More specifically I really enjoyed the alternative takes on the heroes such as those from Earth-2 or some other parallel universe where Batman wore the colourful costume of Zur-En-Arh or Superman was made of gold and lived in the Sun or you know, something that was grounded in this reality but slightly warped and alternative.
To go back to 2000AD, the Glaswegian writer Grant Morrison did some work for the comic, perhaps most famously the Superhero saga, Zenith. And again, the most enjoyable chapter of this for me was the war of heroes with many alternative takes from parallel dimensions on long forgotten and not forgotten characters such as an Acid House interpretation of Robot Archie or a grown-up Billy Whizz. All very silly, but I’ve always appreciated a sharp take on alternative histories or the Sci-Fi staple of the Mirror Universe.
Which ultimately brings me to this.
This is the back of the Dayglo Maradona – Rock Section sleeve, a tie-in record to Julian Cope’s novel, One Three One, a Time-Shifting Gnostic Hooligan Road Novel. I’d love to tell you more about the novel, but I think I bailed out after about 100 pages as it was a bit too What the Fuck for me.
Anyway, I just wanted to draw attention to the sleeves of the contemporary singles, which I understand were designed by Avalon Cope, and are wonderfully evocative of the era.
edit, 2023, some of this music was recorded other than Rock Section, I’m not sure how easy it is to find but I’ve added Bandcamp & Youtube where I’ve found or added it. Seems to have been mostly issued in 2017 around the time of The Trip Advizer tour and I aimgine it’s out there somewhere in more specialist Julian Cope forums, but I’ve not found them. Anyway, see the Lord Yatesbury label on Discogs for more information.
Spackhouse Tottu – The Daemon This looks like Guerilla Records, Dub House Disco especially.
I don’t actually know where this comes from, but when I tineye the image it leads to 131doorway, which seems to be a holding site for ads nowadays. It was this once though, a tie-in for the book.
Neon Sardinia – Sakkabadora Hemina
Nurse With Mound – Mixing Concrete
Exercise Club – Kick (thanks, Doors).
Forest of Dean – Black Forest of Dean
Judge Barry Hertzog – The Border Rebel
Brits Abroad – Last Tango In Paris EP
Last Tango In Paris lyrics
Sugary drinks across the ages,
Tales of pick-me-ups by sages,
Caffeinated to the max,
Delivering drinks down ancient tracks,
‘The King of Vienna needs some sugar,
You’re heading east, you lucky bugger.’
Red Bull comes in cans, I know,
I’ve followed its career,
Since I chanced upon its Austrian debut,
It was 1987 and our youth team played East Tyrol,
Where the fighting hordes are few.
So we loaded up with Kola Max,
We loaded up with sickly snacks,
Got overloaded on the aeroplane,
Then descended as one sugary mass,
We crossed the tarmac,
Reached the grass,
Then retched collectively, ooh!
(Pause) Let’s start again.
Sugary drinks across the ages,
Tales of pick-me-ups by sages,
Caffeinated to the max,
Delivering drinks down ancient tracks,
‘The King of France, he needs some sugar,
You’re heading south, you lucky bugger.’
Red Star, Paris: green-and-white,
A year or so ago,
Your soft drinks were all gone long before Half Time,
So I had to mug a tourist fairly near the Eiffel Tower,
Half a Tango is no crime!
Your Honour, it was lack of fizz,
Your Honour, Coke won’t do the biz,
And your baggage handlers cracked the fizz I’d packed,
If you run a Euro football club,
We Anglos don’t all need the pub,
White sugar: it’s a fact.
(School choir)
Mick collects the kind of drinks that keep you up all night,
All you kiddies, too much pop will make you sick,
Unto every son and daughter,
Give them juice and give them water,
Then there’s all the more for Mick.
Was it the first Vimto in Cannock?
No, it was the last Tango in Paris,
Was it the final Britvic in Bury?
No, it was the last Tango in Paris.
It was not the penultimate Coke in Berlin
Quaffed down with a bongload of charis;
Indeed, it would go down in history
As the last Tango in Paris.
Was it the final R. White’s in Westminster?
No, it was the last Tango in Paris.
It was not the penultimate Tizer in Hull,
It was the last Tango in Paris.
Was it the ultimate Fanta in Nazi Germany?
The last Dr. Pepper on Broadway?
The last Kia-Ora to escape from Andorra?
Just take this Ribena and go away.
Was it the last Dandelion and Burdock in the Quantocks?
No, I won’t speak of it longer,
The only contender was My Mum’s Cola,
And that’s only because it’s stronger.
Was it the second-to-last Irn Bru in the Shetlands?
Or the final Corona on Skye?
Well, me I can’t answer,
All clammy and sweaty,
Just gimme one quick or I’ll die.
Not sure about this one, Bocca Juniors follow up to Raise (referenced above) was Substance, touching on Aleister Crowley in it’s lyrics but I’m not really seeing the connection with Werwolf(sic).
