John Cooper Clarke

"To express one's thoughts in seventeen syllables is very diffic"

Anyway, enough of the name-dropping. I love the records with Hannett, and love some of the other stuff, though it lacks real musical interest - it's still better than just reading poetry on paper, because he has a strong and unique delivery.

It is worth tracking down JCC's poetry book which is called "Ten Years in an Open-Necked Shirt". It contains most of his classic lyrics such as "Beasley Street".

I've seen JCC do his spoken-word performances live a couple of times. The poetry is almost a minor part of his act. He reads all the poems so fast it is difficult to catch all the details. The best part of his performances are when he tells anecdotes and jokes. He is an excellent stand-up comedian.

the use of 'chickentown' at the end of ep79 of the sopranos is just stunning, such a powerful portent and one of the best moments of tv i've ever seen.

what is 'chickentown' actually about and what's the story behind the sopranos using it?

as someone who lives in manchester and has spent the last 2 months falling in love with the sopranos it was a brilliant shock to hear this thick salford brogue stomping out over footage of tony hugging an uncomfortable-looking chris.

gareth was telling me about this guy last night

such a great song. both CBS albums are ultra-classic.

as a non-Britisher, I see the song as a narrative of lower class urban despair. a lot of the album it's on touches on that subject esp. 'Beasley Street".

hmm actually is the 3rd on CBS too? not quite so classic.

I fucking love john cooper clarke

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2dd6ogISPg

This is clearer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0xZq7-f2XU&feature=related

Ronan OTM. Don't even get me started on JCC.

The third album is on CBS as well. I agree it isn't as classic as the other two but with patience I found about half of it was about as good.
See my blog for a very rare JCC-related single.

the solo live 10" "Walking Back To Happiness" is also very classic. Ou Est La Maison De Fromage LP is early/spotty/badly recorded, for fans only.

he seems to have made a remarkable recovery from addiction, a friend of mine went to see him in the late 80's and Clarke was a no show. Now he seems to show up on bills in the UK frequently.

yeah he played for my friend recently in Dublin. or performed I guess, it's a non musical show.

his lyrics or poetry are absolutely amazing, best I've ever seen.

Went to see him in the late 80's, was a very together dude, not like the audience!

(The After Dark club, you Reading Contingent people!)

gareth was telling me about this guy last night
-- Just got offed,

ha. gareth hipped me to him a few weeks ago also. totally in love with him

me and gareth listened to him for about 8 hour on sat night/sunday morning

more JCC!

Has anyone seen JCC live? He is playing in Greenwich sometime soon and I'm wondering if it's worth it.

Also he's doing a 6music radio show in a couple of weeks, filling in for Jarvis on Sunday I think, which sounds like it could be fun.

A few times, more or less accidentally to be honest. He's amusing enough the first time you see him, although possibly the best time was when he was fucked and was just messing up all the jokes and just spewing venom (Stuff like, instead of 'I'm so thin that I have to run around in the shower to get wet' turned into 'I have to fucking run fucking in the running shower to get fucking wet, as if any of you give a fuck' sort of thing.

Does he play with a band these days?

I certainly haven't seen him. Didn't he used to have a couple of the Buzzcocks in it? But, no, all stand up I think (don't follow his career incredibly closely tho, so might be worth finding a more rigorously accurate source).

I doubt he would have a band these days. How would he pay them for a start?

I was at Wickerman the other year when a rumour start that JCC was playing. But no one seemed to know when or where. I never did establish whether it happened. I like JCC and I also like RevPorl who sounds a bit the same... http://www.revporl.com/music.html

I was surprised to see how old he is- born in 1949, he's pretty close in age to David Bowie (1947), and not far from the Beatles and the Stones (Paul McCartney (1942) and Mick Jagger (1943))

then again he's looked like 'Don't Look Back' era Dylan for over 30 years I suppose.

I'm sure the band went the way of Hannett, i.e. packed it years ago...

saw this guy play in limerick last night. was a bit disappointed that he didnt have a band backing him at first, although it turned out to be more enjoyable than most rock shows tbh. v. funny, part working mans club comic, part hipster beat poet.

I dug up his "Me and my big mouth" CBS Hits album yesterday.

all time favourite. god the guy's lyrics are sharp in the context of hannett's production. such diverse music too. hannett did some truly weird shit with jcc, like "health fanatic" which sounds a bit like a post-punk "spastic". he's got lots of crap but 10-12 really beautiful songs.

man I really need to put some effort into finding a copy of Zip Style Method, that's the only one I'm missing.

That's on Spotify, actually...

He's in Washington D.C. tonight at the Hamilton.

Lovely appearance today on Desert Island Discs. Killer line: "It was a tough school. We had our own coroner."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000701x

I swear every time I've listened to this program in the last few years, it invariably features some boring millionaire i've never heard of before + usually one whom doesn't seem curious about music in the slightest.

Yes, that's more or less why I stopped listening to it. Bah!

It's a good corrective though in case you harbour the notion that people are interested in music.

Lol

enjoying the music and chat from JCC on this ep so far. And as someone who's once witnessed someone getting their winnings brutally robbed from them: Never smile walking out of a bookies is definitely some sage advice!

but I start nodding off when he drones on about punk.

the last straw for me is when he's civil and complementary about the Arctic Monkeys.. bring back the millionaires talking about how some John Legend track reminds them of that special day when their kid was born (and corporation tax was lowered).

Top top geezer...also anyone who likes to ‘schmei’ around is all good with me

Listened to "Suspended Sentence" for the first time in yonks. The backing is so fabulous, almost post-punk in 1977. Who's playing behind him, and do they back him in any subsequent works?

https://www.discogs.com/artist/3392156-The-Curious-Yellows

other involvement in The Fall and Gerry And The Holograms...

and other than Hannett I don't think any of them reappear on the later LPs!

A POETRY THREAD
A while ago I was reminded of John Cooper Clarke's brilliant poem "Evidently Chickentown" which basically sums up living in England in the 70s/80s. (Here's an excerpt and a link to the full poem) https://t.co/yeJOKrnXCb pic.twitter.com/KTj1QZQaSo

— Sandra Newman (@sannewman) July 31, 2019

cont.

… there were all these chickens in the back yard & Nico would just sit for hours staring out the back window & the chickens would come and peck at the window right in front of her face but she just sat immobile from depression and/or opiates, blankly staring at the wet chickens

— Sandra Newman (@sannewman) July 31, 2019

bleak

jcc was on celebrity pointless yesterday

he didn’t win

As pointed out above, used brilliantly in The Sopranos--best incorporation of a song over the show's entire run, I'd say.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBcbc8eWz6U&t=196s

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBcbc8eWz6U