Mine is arbitrary I keep meaning to get a favourite word. Clarke's recording of "Evidently Chickentown" from his album Snap, Crackle & Bop was also featured prominently in the closing scene of The Sopranos episode Stage 5. John Cooper Clarke has always been adjacent to musicians, but in I Wanna Be Yours he recounts his many attempts at forming bands of his own.Throughout the '60s, he was a member of a comically . "You," he quoted from memory, sitting in the half light, "who like a dagger thrust, entered my complaining soul; sweet and potent as a host of demons, came wild, beautiful wretch infamous to whom I'm bound, like the convict to the chain, a stubborn gambler to his dice, the drunkard to his revelry. "No. The Kray family had a bolthole there. Apart from them, I hated every second of school. I found your poem Kung Fu International on one of my dads punk CDs when I was eight (Im 33 now), and I remember listening to it over and over, and pausing so I could write each word down and learn to recite it. The poet and performer on keeping his clothes simple, stapling them back together, and being fashionable once every 15 years for about three months. 1), The Best Punk Album in the World Ever! Thats an intelligent question too, from Ben, because lyricists have probably influenced me more than any other poets. That is the story of the Donald, and because in this business I learned long ago you should never knock success, I cant help admiring the crazy fucker in some way. "Because you know what the Japanese are like. It was just terrible.". She was also an unpublished poet. He stayed with me occasionally in London in those years and he was not an ideal guest: getting up around 4pm, then sitting up past dawn, working through my library of low-budget horror films. But mostly it is down to his brilliant rambling dramatic monologue of a stage show, which has become less staccato over the years. But if I'd have been around in Bavaria in 1935, I could have told them. If they say, 'John Cooper Clarke? goldthing Imagine trying to read in the interval for" It is quite hard to convey the venom with which he delivers the next three syllables. ", The definitive poem about drug addiction, Cooper Clarke told me back then, '"is 'The Vampire' by Charles Baudelaire. Ganges A live performance of the same poem appears in the film Control, with Clarke portraying himself in a re-creation of a 1977 concert in which he supported Joy Division, despite being 30 years older than the events depicted in the film. monastreet (at) gmail (dot) com twitter/exilestreet. "No," he laughs. Call for Applications: Saboteur Awards and Festival 2023, Ludd Gang, edited by Alex Marsh, Dom Hale and Tom Crompton. To make the hips the focal point of a pair of trousers is, to me, a fashion mistake. A Music War, in which he performed his poem "Health Fanatic". I don't need to inquire whether the poet is wondering if this is how he himself might have wound up. Saboteur Awards Festival 2022: The shortlists! He had fixed on his sartorial style in the unlikely arena of Bernard Mannings Embassy Club, where he acted as compere in the early 1970s, warming up an audience united by their shared antipathy to performance poetry. "Trafford Park looked like the gates of hell. TA: Do you do much Skyping?Never. Neither marriage nor routine employment suited him at the time. He is a genius,' I think, 'Oh, thank God for that. Apart from the one collection [Ten Years in An Open . Ive never been offered an honour by the Queen, but Id be happy to accept. | But I persuaded my wife to drive me there one weekend and on arrival I turned to her and said: Weve never been here before, sweetheart, but I sure have dreamed about this place. The streets are all sand. As it happened, the record company boss conceded, he stumbled upon the more enduring talent. But you have to keep your request down to three words. It's a level of popularity that is unprecedented in the history of performance poetry. Four years ago, I remind the poet, we were shivering in driving rain on the seafront in Brighton, just after midnight. How do you feel about Brexit not the crap leading up to it, but the actual exit?I dont even want to talk about it, to be honest. I have another reason to thank Linton: we went on tour together in 1981, all around the UK, and when we appeared in Essex, that is when my wife was first introduced to my work. When this piece was used in The Sopranos, there was a communal surge of pride among Cooper Clarke's longstanding admirers, at the knowledge that this work by the poet could resonate as powerfully with New Jersey as it does with Moss Side. Pinchy & Friends - Sleepy The Bug (ft. Warrior Queen) - Aktion Pak. It is a kind of a dream town, as Im sure Wilko knows, coming as he does from nearby Canvey Island. John Cooper Clarke - Home. I'm in a good place now.". John Cooper Clarke was born on January 25, 1949 in Salford, Greater Manchester, England, UK. I keep it simple: a dark suit with a pale shirt. The Bard of Salford John Cooper Clarke became a doctor today after receiving an honorary degree in his home city. He was previously married to ?. 'BEYOND THE Sidi Tour with Yehiya Arby - Artiatanat. Arctic Monkeys Clarke has lived for the past 25 years in Colchester, Essex. But then things started to buck up. In the way I imagine that rappers subsequently did in Compton, Los Angeles. "John?" Mention of the people who queued to pay him homage in that documentary - from Stewart Lee to Bill Bailey and Arthur Smith - causes Cooper Clarke, a naturally modest man, visible discomfort. My answer is this, though: they all have their uses; its invariably a matter of context. The poet has something of a gift for talking his own work down. There are two pubs: the Three Jays and the Sheldrake. ukje11ybean But I know by their name that I hate them. [2][9] Clarke toured with Linton Kwesi Johnson, and has performed on the same bill as bands such as the Sex Pistols, the Fall, Joy Division, Buzzcocks, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Elvis Costello, Rockpile and New Order (including at their May 1984 Music for Miners benefit concert at London's Royal Festival Hall). Clarke lost much of the 1980s to a heroin addiction, when he lived in a flat in Brixton with Nico, the late singer and muse of the Velvet Underground; he dislikes any attempt to glamorise that period, and is reluctant to discuss it in detail. I credit this experience as one that led me to a lifetime of writing. But theoretically, on planet Bizarro, where Superman is bad and Lex Luther is good, that is what I would do. [10], Clarke appeared in a 1982 music documentary compilation Urgh! This includes lines like "I've got amnesia and dj vu at the same time. I had friends but they were out indulging in robust pursuits, which I was excluded from because I had to stay indoors. One of the frustrating things for admirers of Cooper Clarke is the limited amount of work he has published and recorded. Is there any better way of saying 'stool pigeon'? So: thanks, Linton! Well, that's a harsh judgement in my book. "Even then, I remember wondering how on earth you'd come to be there." Writing is the prism through which you see the world. Goldshaw began handling Clarke's affairs, and the two toured with the Mescaleros and several times supporting the Fall. [21] In October 2020 Clarke published an autobiography which took its title from his poem I Wanna Be Yours. It was a time of letters left unopened, heavy curtains warding off the maddening reality of daylight and, as he would concede, anxiety and reclusiveness. Well, Kate, my first thought is: they should find somebody else. /, The library's bound to fail / since the sudden departure of Jeffrey Archer / It's rotten here in jail.'". The Luckiest Guy Alive? - I never put a geographical stamp on it. When I moved to Essex, among the first things everyone said was Dont ever go to Jaywick, its a toilet. Now, he makes sure that he arrives at any venue two hours early. I know for many people our departure from the EU is the worst thing thats ever happened. Thats more or less the way Ive dressed since 1965. Its not really a mullet. "Trafford Park is working well / Its pestilential ethers swell /, Malodorous clouds like sombre shrouds / Dividing heaven from bloody hell / Where idle hands are the devil's dowry / Knock-knock rent-man Mr. She loved John Betjeman, and she introduced me to his writing. Trains coming down the middle of the road. He is married to Evie. 'Yes mother, I had to go to the doctor. The Luckiest Guy Alive by John Cooper Clarke is published by Picador (14.99). Wright, 31, has clearly modelled himself on Cooper Clarke, but has developed his own distinctive voice, and humour. The sun has set. He doesn't care for the musical arrangements, by yet another 'late' associate Martin Hannett, acclaimed producer of, among others, Joy Division. They deserve it. "Well, I shouldn't say it, but I really do love that couplet." It's his reluctance to discuss narcotics - "and it always, always comes up" - that mean that he will very rarely subject himself to interviews of any length. The wording is discussed. He has embraced old age as an opportunity to indulge the kind of recklessness traditionally associated with youth. The fury of the crowds really was quite alarming at that time. Evidently Chickentown E John Cooper Clarke 2. Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you're clean round the bend. Be kind to people. He was born in Salford, on the north side of Manchester on 25 January, 1949 and has one brother, Paul, 12 years his junior. Beasley Street E John Cooper Clarke 7. If you had any sense you wouldnt look to me for any life lessons. There is no doubt that you can get a better cup of coffee since privatisation; youd have waited a long time for an espresso in 1975. "They did but she basically just moved in on me in Brixton. For a while, though, I have had some problems with the craze for the low-rise pant, the hipster. It's a peculiar sort of fame, driven by social media, word of mouth, and thriving in defiance of almost total indifference from the English literary establishment. There have been some landmark events to prompt this: Arctic Monkeys dreamy 2013 cover of I Wanna Be Yours; the use of Evidently Chickentown as the backing in one of the most memorable sequences in box-set TV, at the end of an episode of the final season of The Sopranos; the fact that his poems have made it on to the GCSE syllabus. coastangel Consider the dinosaurs. This video is unavailable. But in Colchester, we've talked for more than six hours in a single session and the most life-threatening substance he has ingested has been a Glenmorangie. Because it is fabulous the first time. In 1988, he made an appearance in two UK adverts for Sugar Puffs, taking second billing to the Honey Monster. I pray that you are successful. In 1979, he had his only UK top 40 hit with "Gimmix! John Cooper Clarke (born January 25, 1949) is a performance poet from Salford, Lancashire, England, affectionately known as the Bard of Salford. Jaywick is next to Clacton on the Essex coast. They include "Wherever I Lay My Hat, That's My Hat.". I think of it more like Tin Pan Alley work. It is sensationally good, in the manner of Family Guy or King of the Hill. Series 1 - Twisted Romance (2 Nov 2016) . It would be wrong to dismiss John Cooper Clarke as nothing more than a nave creator of knockabout rhyme. That could be the Ramones, or Hogarth, or Yevtushenko - who, incidentally," he added, "really loves John's work. There is no greater accolade for me. Otherwise, I ask for the apparatus for a gin and tonic. In his case there were more than 15 years of struggling, moribund times where he was writing little and barely going out. I could have saved the world a whole lot of heartbreak. It wasnt easy: it is an unnatural act to get out there and draw that much attention to yourself. 20.00 gbp. And that," adds the poet, who is 66, "is why I have lived to be considerably older than you are. There are good reasons, he argues, for judging by appearances. Why? Clarke, who claims [bogusly] on stage at Shepherd's Bush that he is half-Jewish, delivers old school gags such as: "Hooker opens up in a new area. "You can't pretend that it never happened." Zip Style Method Zero: A Martin Hannett Story 1977-1991 North by North West Me and My Big Mouth Disguise in Love The Very Best Of New Wave Post Punk: 1977-1981 John's in the Money (Evidently John Cooper Clarke, Vol. Not with the laudanum, but The Lake District. Ross' film has been one of a number of factors in the poet's belated but rapid ascent from cult artist to international icon. While there's nothing affected about his accent, the poet luxuriates in its extremes much in the way that fellow poet Linton Kwesi Johnson savours the cadences of Jamaican patois, or George Sanders revelled in the languid elegance of old-school English. Because it's very unusual that somebody manages to kick it. Why? Simpo I don't mind looking at it through a window. Its Rod Stewart, Ronnie Wood, rocknroll. As the great Bill Withers once said, the writing of songs involves a kind of magic I dont mess with. Popular John Cooper Clarke albums This Time It's Personal. Der Geschmack von Rost und Knochen (Orginal Motion Rust og bein (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). That's half an hour of my life you've saved me, having to explain it to you. He worked in the fairground cafe in Rhyl, "and then in the laboratory stores at Salford Tech". Explorers," he adds, "actively annoy me. People don't expect to sit down and read him.". Barry Evans and his young friends were all mods in a mod town. He brought about this hothouse atmosphere of competitive poetry recital. He used to have to fight his audiences to be heard; now they hang on his every inflection. tundramamine I began with a question from one of the many performers who, no doubt, owe just a little bit of their style and delivery to watching Clarke with an audience, seeing how it might be done. "I fell into it," he says. Give me what youve got.. I like to say I did it in two ways: gradually, and suddenly. As a scene, that was the best treatment of drug addiction I have ever seen. The latter band's former tour manager, the writer and cycling journalist Johnny Green, now looks after Clarke on the road. TheRealDavidF It is merciless about Trump, but even so, you cant ignore the fact that even then he somehow still tends to come out on top. I'm a much more confident person than I was. Each of these things," he went on, "makes it far from absurd to compare him to Baudelaire, or Verlaine, or Rimbaud.". The sad truth is I never get to pick. "You could argue that prejudice and the ability to generalise is what separates us from the lower mammals. 1982 Snap, Crackle & Bop. English punk poet John Cooper-Clarke first began performing his verse backed by a local folk group called the Ferrets, but with his rapid-fire verbal delivery and stinging social commentary, he quickly emerged as the poet laureate of the punk movement. So, to answer Jarviss inquiry: by default, during the low-rise years, I strolled the feminine range on the ground floor of Marks & Spencer. Hilda, his mother, worked as a cleaner. raysgigs Much the same is true of Clarke, from the other side of the Pennines. the very best of john cooper clarke - cd. "), He has always been a gifted mimic and, having been in Essex for so long, has perfected the local accent. "If there's a gene, I got it from my ma," he says. lennie7 She does the business. [13][14] He described this period of his life: "It was a feral existence. The second guy, a bit more kinky, says, 'beat me up.' [2] His first releases were on Tosh Ryan and Martin Hannett's independent label Rabid,[7] starting with the EP Innocents in October 1977. Poet; Movie star; Rock star; TV & radio presenter; Comedian; Social & cultural commentator. Those lyrics hit me like poetry. So I came up with this. 9.50 gbp. In the early Nineties, in a pub in Withington, South Manchester, Tony Wilson, the late founder of Factory Records, stopped in the middle of a sentence concerning another of his favourite subjects, himself, then told me: "You know, it isn't me. "I've never really known," he says. 10.00 gbp. I dont like low-rise, hipster trousers on men. I need some encouragement. Look whos played there: Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope, you name them. [citation needed]. Yes. Baudelaire was my hero. They died out. What is the worst act you opened for, and why? Though he has travelled a long way from his native Salford, it has never left him. Whereas I, in that situation, tend to err on the side of caution. In his autobiography The Big Wheel, Costello's former bass player Bruce Thomas describes an incident at a Copenhagen hotel when Cooper Clarke's room was substantially rearranged. He will turn 70 next year. "Don't forget Eddy Arnold," he replies, referring to the country singer's version of a song by Hank Cochran. Cooper Clarke had not been deemed worthy to participate in that event. "[19] His poem "I Wanna Be Yours" was adapted by Arctic Monkeys and frontman Alex Turner for the band's fifth album, AM, released on 9 September 2013. To order a copy for 12.89 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. He has his set pieces, such as 'Home Honey, I'm High.' A much underrated garment, the jegging: they never need ironing and they hold their colour. Someone asked him, 'Why a lobster?' 'Haiku #1' I call it: 'To convey one's mood / In seventeen syllables / Is very diffic.'". "The haiku," he tells Shepherd's Bush, "is a three line discipline perfected in the 17th century in Japan by a poet called Matsuo Basho. "Those gigs could be tricky," Cooper Clarke says, referring to the punk era, "but at least broken glass and saliva are an acknowledgment that you are actually in the room. Click here for tour details, John Cooper Clarke will be launching The Luckiest Guy Alive at an exclusive reading with Q&A session at Hoxton Hall, London N1, on 1 November. But thats the secret: the sound of the language, those sonorous words. [27], In November 2019 Clarke was a participant, alongside Phill Jupitus, in BBC's Celebrity Antiques Road Trip. pusb1967 Cooper Clarke doesn't bear a grudge. The Day My Pad Went Mad - Radio 1 Live Version, (I Married a) Monster from Outer Space (Live), I Dont Want to Be Nice (Alternative Take), Limbo (Baby Limbo) (Live [Rafters, Manchester]), Night People (John Peel Session 15th March 1982), Intro and Salome Maloney (Manchester Ritz), (I Married A) Monster from Outer Space (Manchester Ritz), Gaberdine Angus - Live [Rafters, Manchester], The Day My Pad Went Mad (John Peel Session 15th March 1982), Midnight Shift (John Peel Session 15th March 1982), (I Married A) Monster from Outer Space (John Peel Session 3 October 1978), Health Fanatic (John Peel Session 3 October 1978), Mustnt Go Down to the Sea Again (Hulme Playhouse 1983), Spilt Beans (John Peel Session 3 October 1978), Readers Wives (John Peel Session 3 October 1978), Never Seen a Nipple in the Daily Express (Hulme Playhouse 1983), (I Married A) Monster from Outer Space [Live Version], (I Married A) Monster from Outer Space [Bonus Track - Live Version], The Day My Pad Went Mad (Radio Live Version), John's in the Money (Evidently John Cooper Clarke, Vol. Have ever seen a geographical stamp on it never need ironing and they hold their colour out and! 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