Julian Cope - East Easy Rider & Head Remixes: 2x12"

The boxes are looking a bit bashed up, alas, but the vinyl is sounding in remarkably good nick.

We have here the remaining Cope "baggy" remixes by Hugo Nicholson as lifted from the "Peggy Suicide" album. These are also available digitally on the Dancing Heads CD and latterly on the monstrous balls up that was the Peggy Suicide Deluxe Edition which appeared a few years ago. Following on from the "Jehovahkill" Deluxe Edition, which is widely regarded as featuring the worst remastering job EVER and which renders it pretty much unlistenable; Island Records should hang their collective heads in shame. What a way to treat two of the finest UK rock albums ever released.

Anyway, following a recent request for these tracks, I thought I'd dig out the original vinyl editions and include the full vinyl porn artwork.

After all these years, I still love this stuff. Cope was untouchable around this time and although I'm mightily glad he's still around, ploughing his own furrow and releasing interesting music, it seems unlikely that he's ever going to do anything which touches the sparkly genius of this this stuff again. That last Head Heritage album comprising two bikers grunting and shouting in prehistoric chambers is possibly the worst record I've ever heard. I still bought it though...

My favourite track among this lot is the wonderful groove which is "Ravebury Stones". The soundtrack to many a comedown.

Vinyl rips at 320 Kbps.

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Julian Cope - Love L.U.V. 12"

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I hope you all had a good time. My New Year's Eve was eventful. I didn't/couldn't get out of bed until 15:45 on New Year's day due to an appalling hangover. The consequence of mixing wine, champagne, moscow mules and port. Just imagine the state of my poor shrunken brain-sac after THAT assault.

As I stumbled through the remaining part of the day this remix of Cope's "Beautiful Love" kept echoing around my broken head - a fractured memory of the previous evening's soundtrack. I have a vague recollection of standing on a chair, throwing shapes and grinning like a fool to the huge embarrassment of my daughter. This killer tune has become a party staple round these parts, as it's a guaranteed living room floor filler for those of a certain age. Us fortysomethings just can't resist that baggy beat. It stirs something within our hive conciousness and black-holes us back to shared memories of clubbing and drugging days now passed.

Back to work tomorrow. *sigh*

Fresh rip from vintage pink vinyl.
320 Kbps.
All artwork included.

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Various - To The Shores Of Lake Placid

Ah, the infamous "To The Shores Of Lake Placid" LP. Catalogue Number Zoo 4.

Wikipedia.

1. Big In Japan - Society For Cutting Up Men
2. Those Naughty Lumps - Iggy Pop's Jacket
3. The Teardrop Explodes - When I Dream
4. Echo And The Bunnymen - Pictures On My Wall
5. Echo And The Bunnymen - Read It In Books
6. Lori And The Chameleons - Lonely Spy
7. The Turqoise Swimming Pools - The Winds
8. Whopper - Kwalo Klobinsky's Lullaby
9. Dalek (I Love You) - A Suicide
10. The Turquoise Swimming Pools - Burst Balloons
11. The Teardrop Explodes - Camera, Camera
12. Big In Japan - Suicide A Go Go
13. Echo And The Bunnymen - Villiers Terrace
14. The Teardrop Explodes - Take A Chance

Features full artwork with added Julian Cope autographs.

Vinyl rip from original LP at 320 Kbps.

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Julian Cope - Live Japan '91

One of the rarer albums in Julian's long and sprawling discography, this excellent live album catches the great man in fine form. His backing band were great around this time and I saw him several times in '91.

From Head Heritage:

Following hot on the heels of The Teardrop Explodes' ZOOLOGY comes Julian Cope's own LIVE JAPAN '91, a sonically superb disc which consolidates Head Heritage's decision to undermine the current slew of mediocre bootleg recordings available, with handsomely packaged alternative releases. This new record is a particularly hot performance from the summer '91 shows, and features Donald Ross Skinner and Rooster Cosby at their best. Head Heritage is currently the sole distributor of this Revell Records release (and will continue to be if everything goes to plan), so check out this concert album by an artist who has all-too-infrequently been caught live on record.

1. Hanging Out And Hung Up On The Line
2. You Think It's Love
3. East Easy Rider
4. Pristeen / Double Vegetation
5. Promised Land
6. Leperskin
7. Yeah Yeah Yeah
8. Bill Drummond Said
9. Beautiful Love
10. Sleeping Gas
11. Sunspots
12. Out Of My Mind On Dope & Speed
13. World Shut Your Mouth

Long deleted and out of print.

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Julian Cope - Repossessed

Long time visitors to Castles in Space and my previous blog, Spinster's Rock will know that I am a massive Cope head.

While going through some old photos earlier this week, I found a set of pictures I had taken at a Cope book signing/spoken word gig in support of the second volume of his autobiography, "Repossessed". I'm placing this around Winter 1999.

It was a fantastic occasion with Cope sporting his Odin makeup and espousing his Odinist/Shaman/Rock'n'Roller hypothesis (complicated, but basically, he's all three).

The space was small, being the basement of a Charing Cross Road bookstore in central London. There was a tiny crowd and so I was able to get within stalking distance of the great man. I also got him to sign a couple of copies of the book afterwards, natch. One of them to my daughter, who was a toddler at the time and will one day treasure this historic artifact. Probably.

Click the thumbnail below to see all the pictures.

Julian Cope - Repossessed

Black Sheep - Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse LP

"Kiss My Sweet Apocalypse" is the debut double-LP and 2CD set from Julian Cope's group, Black Sheep. This here is the double vinyl LP set which has a significantly different track list to the CD.

In common with most people who hear this, I really didn't like it that much at first, but it's dusty charms reveal themselves over the course of a few listens. I guess as good a starting point as any is the parched cover version of "Just Like Leila Khaled Said" from the Teardrop Explodes second album "Wilder". Here reduced to basically an acoustic riff strummed over and over with a distant synth picking out that classic melody. This is great stuff for Cope heads everywhere and is just about worth the price of admission on it's own.

Also great is the Holy McGrail led title track which is 24 minutes of krauty synth drones and buzzed out textures, sounding not unlike a darker Queen Elizabeth.

The album is mostly lyric free apart from the repeated protest chants appearing occasionally. "War! Peace!" is a typical example, but for the most part this stuff wears very thin, very quickly.

I believe there are spin off albums due sometime from several members of the Black Sheep group. Indeed the first one, from former Universal Panzies frontguy, Christophe F. has already appeared and is available over at Head Heritage. Christophe F. also leads the fourth side of this album with a brace of acoustic 'n' mellotron singalongs from around the acid campfire. Accomplished.

Vinyl rip at 320 Kbps.

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