'", His delivery, stage presence, and an enviable ability to think on his feet, mean that, like a great actor or musician, he bears repeated viewing. They have one child. 'Oh, you poor thing, I'll put your electric blanket on. ", The reason John Cooper Clarke has been so patronised, Liverpool poet Adrian Henri once argued, "has to do with his association with music. this time it's personal cd. He has embraced old age as an opportunity to indulge the kind of recklessness traditionally associated with youth. Hilda, his mother, worked as a cleaner. Ive interviewed him once before, that time on the telephone, and was struck how just as on stage there appeared no subject under the sun which he could not bend to his comic will. A few lines later it was like I was king of the fucking nick. If you read the lyrics to Its Magic, that very sexy Doris Day song, for example, you are already singing the song they leave you no other way to go. And the private sector has upped the standards of concourse retail in general, which used to consist of a couple of broken cig machines. Yes. The only stereo I like is a jukebox: two speakers but both on the same piece of furniture. ", Nico and Clarke were never lovers, Alan Wise told me, over tea in his local caf in Manchester. Explorers," he adds, "actively annoy me. Official Sites. After 20 years of performing the same material, Clarke re-established contact with guitarist Rick Goldstraw, who had founded Blue Orchids and played with The Fall and Nico. Worst act? Gazing at those windswept hills and imagining the unspeakable horror of actually being out there. They died out. She was exemplary. I never went for the athleisure thing Im not very ath! He is married to Evie. Thats the gold standard, not just for me, but worldwide. CREATE * INSPIRE * COMMUNITY * ART * DESIGN * MUSIC * FILM * PHOTO * PROJECTS, Perfect Pitch - Tim Bouverie # 11 Johann Sebastian Bach - Mass in B Minor, ROOTS REGGAE MAIOR ACERVO DE REGGAE DA INTERNET, FilterWhere Do We Go From Here + Link (2 X US Promo 12), X-Press 2 Essential Mix 1994-04-16 [repost classic essential mix], Skullflower "Exquisite Fucking Boredom" (tUMULt TM212) 2003, Sting - Before the Police - Various Songs (1975-1977), Benjamin Godard - Piano Works, Vol. You might look up a piece by our former Poet Laureate, Andrew Motion, written to commemorate Prince William's 21st birthday. The Kray family had a bolthole there. 20.00 gbp. "It's hard to convey the aggression of those audiences." At the same time," he adds, "they were a picnic compared to the working men's clubs. I am sure some of my classmates felt their time could have been more profitably spent. Blog Archive 2022 (44) 2022 (44) May (9) April (20) April (20) I once went clothes shopping with the poet, and the store owner had to explain that he had nothing to fit Cooper Clarke (5' 10", chest 32", waist 27", weight 116lb.) Anyone would dig it. harryrossgorman "Trafford Park looked like the gates of hell. I thought very carefully before I embarked on mine," he explains. I discovered your music and spoken word when I was a teenager, and it was very inspirational to me. [4] During an April 2018 episode of Steve Jones' radio show Jonesy's Jukebox, Clarke revealed one of his early inspirations to be the poet Sir Henry Newbolt, reciting from memory a portion of Newbolt's poem "Vita Lampada". | Thats another thing I have always avoided: peg tops. I wish I had an answer. - This is a poem of rigidly defined structure: five syllables, seven syllables, five syllables. Every time I obtained a tubular Ivy League blazer that didnt have padded shoulders I had to treat it like it was made out of gold. If I have a cup of coffee, Ill sit down at a table. So I came up with this. ("This paper's boring, mindless and mean / Full of pornography, the kind that's clean / Where William Hickey meets Michael Caine / Again and again and again and again / You see all kinds of ugliness and hideous excess / But you never see a nipple in The Daily Express."). It is fair to say we were not on expansive speaking terms. [23] He has appeared as a guest on the comedy panel show Would I Lie To You? She does the business. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. I should say that all my characters are an amalgam or something, Craig, but Vince was the bloke in the downstairs apartment when I lived in Plymouth for a while, real name Frank. You helped the Fall in the early days, letting them rehearse in your house, and you were a lifelong friend of the other Bard of Salford, Mark E Smith. Actually if it sounds like anybody, it's Rimbaud. 2016 Zip Style Method. Riot Van Publicity Listings There are many subjects he does not enjoy broaching on the record, and heroin is chief among them. Didn't his dick almost drop off once? Jaywick is next to Clacton on the Essex coast. 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. Cooper Clarke is largely indifferent to them. This is "an advert," as he explains, "that I wrote for the Martini people, on the understanding that I would receive a year's supply, or a lifetime's supply, whichever was the greater, of their enervating beverage." Now you, being unprejudiced, would give them the benefit of the doubt. ", When Nico died after falling off her bike in Ibiza, in July 1988, her Daily Telegraph obituary remarked that 'she gave up heroin for cycling, which proved to be the more lethal recreation.' ", Clarke looks uncomfortable. His response has become something of a mantra. I think that made me cultivate an inner life. (De rouille et d'os) [Original De xido y Hueso (Orginal Motion Picture Soundtrack). They have one child. I had that AIDS once," he adds, as an afterthought. "I was sent to Rhyl, to live with my auntie Eileen; she died of tuberculosis." [on choosing to become a poet] You get to wear fine clothes and perfume and nobody pulls you up on it. John has a brilliant and retentive mind and an exhaustive knowledge of all kinds of culture. Oh dear! Did you ever think you could stop using smack [heroin]? Poetry is a phonetic medium. Across the road, outside London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, fans are gathering to watch the poet. newmanshh Dr John Cooper Clarke at the Firestation Arts Centre 21/06/17, Treasure in the History of Things by Katherine McMahon, Review: John Cooper Clarke w/ Mike Garry and Salena Godden Apple & Snakes 30th Anniversary 01/12/12. And I thought I would do that, but with a lousy street. The outfit was another form of fighting talk, one he has stuck with in a journey that has seen some extremes. I'm a much more confident person than I was. "The bottles were bad. [2] He returned to live performance in the 1990s, appearing again with Suns of Arqa in 1992 at The Witchwood in Ashton-under-Lyne. [16][17], Clarke was the subject of a BBC Four documentary, Evidently John Cooper Clarke, in May 2012, screened as part of the BBC's Punk Britannia season. They were built as holiday chalets, but people now live permanently in them. Arriving late, he is unsure as to whether he has found the right venue. You deserve not the reward of freedom from your slavery. "Great that, innit, that 'Fool'?" He toured with Bill Nelson's band Be-Bop Deluxe in 1978 and was signed by Epic Records, who issued the studio album Disguise In Love, produced by Hannett, in 1978. Her run of success on the British TV show Opportunity Knocks led both Clarke and his mother to believe that he could make a living at poetry.[8]. John Cooper Clarke is touring now. 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. If they say, 'John Cooper Clarke? I believe that John Cooper Clarke should be regarded as being among the very best writers in Britain. "Evidently Chickentown" (recited by Christopher Eccleston) is featured in the made-for-television film Strumpet. He was previously married to ?. 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. And since you ask, Chickentown is among my favourites, not least because of that and its appearance in the penultimate episode of The Sopranos. Is Vince the ageing Savage, [who] betrays no kind of life, but the smell of yesterdays cabbage and the ghost of last years wife in Beasley Street based on anyone in particular? Put the Pain in Spain. Many people have told me that they do use the writing of poetry to concentrate their mind on some pressing metaphysical problem. I credit this experience as one that led me to a lifetime of writing. BBC Radio 4 - Dr John Cooper Clarke at the BBC (Nov 2016) Somebody once said that a wedding is a funeral where you can smell your own flowers. If its true, as I claim in the title poem of my book, that I am the Luckiest Guy Alive, its for two reasons. View agent, publicist, legal and company contact details on IMDbPro, Evie As an audience member I know what I get from watching you perform. That terrible inertia they captured that brilliantly.". The band's Alex Turner has said he is very fond of Clarke's work and takes inspiration for lyrics from his poems. It runs every teatime on television in the States. 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. djkeos monastreet (at) gmail (dot) com twitter/exilestreet. I believe its the kind of thing Charles Baudelaire aspired to: you know, the guy with the overview, a mirror reflecting the entire Parisian crowd. highwaytohell "In the French, it's imbcile.". He used to have to fight his audiences to be heard; now they hang on his every inflection. My message is always the same: dont even do it once. ", One of his regular companions on the road, in the early days, was Elvis Costello. Because John has extraordinary talent and he has lived a life of frightening extremes. Whats your favourite word? "Sometimes," the actor Steve Coogan once said, "I ask people: 'Have you ever heard of Cooper Clarke?' In 1979, he had his only UK top 40 hit with "Gimmix! [11] The film featured live performances of mainstream artists (the Police, the Go-Go's, XTC, Devo) as well as more obscure bands (Pere Ubu, Invisible Girls, the Alley Cats, Athletico Spizz '80, Chelsea) using concert footage from around the world. Im not a handsome man and its damage limitation. Your germs are splattered about. Baudelaire was my hero. Lowry." Now, Im no expert, but I think when it comes to guys, the less said about the hips the better. The poet has something of a gift for talking his own work down. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99. Where I grew up, the one unmistakable sign of homosexuality was to betray some interest in your appearance.". and Football Focus. [2] Rabid also released his debut LP O est la maison de fromage'? I didnt meet her then, but she was in the audience. An edited version of Wilson's observation, reproduced as graffiti on the wall of an underpass, served as the opening scene for Evidently John Cooper Clarke, director John Ross' remarkable 2012 documentary for BBC4. John Cooper Clarke SUB89 22.06.12 Lydia The Girl With the Itch through to Rotten Here In Gaol AboutPressCopyrightContact usCreatorsAdvertiseDevelopersTermsPrivacyPolicy & SafetyHow. "Frontal lobes just had a trim," it begins, "or did you meet the Moonies? Ive never been offered an honour by the Queen, but Id be happy to accept. 'Danger'? They deserve it. "Have you ever seen Genesis?" No one can be that busy. The latter band's former tour manager, the writer and cycling journalist Johnny Green, now looks after Clarke on the road. He speaks with love of the life he has created there, referring often to his wife, Evie, and daughter, Stella, his guiding lights. Too bad to be true. The template was the 1933 Busby Berkeley movie 42nd Street. He set a very high bar. I remember thinking, this must be what Stalingrad was like. Evidently Chickentown E John Cooper Clarke 2. Prison had become like a never-ending party. 1982 Snap, Crackle & Bop. He has had the wit and the generosity to encourage protgs, such as fellow-Mancunian Mike Garry and Luke Wright, who grew up in Colchester. "I've never really known," he says. Nobody likes their own hair but Im glad Ive got hair to hate. 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. That performance undoubtedly made him a popular figure in the Manchester pub scene of the mid-1970s. These are the very reasons for our survival as a species. 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