Julian Cope at the British Museum: Discover Odin

2001 was the year I went slightly mad for Julian Cope, having had him on my radar for several years but never quite got round to checking him out. It was reading his Head On/Repossessed autobiography, which I got for £3 at Fopp, that got me started. An astonishing mix of tall tales, pathos, humour and insight that I enjoyed massively without really knowing much of the music that Cope had made. I saw him play at a fairly empty Sheffield Memorial Hall that year, and gradually started accumulating bits of his back catalogue, as well as absorbing his great website.

I was actually in London on one of the evenings that Cope was lecturing/performing at the British Museum, but I was at Laurie Anderson's slightly disappointing show at the Royal Festival Hall instead (memorable only for the post-9/11 spookiness of "Here come the planes; They're American planes"). So I ordered this CD direct from Head Heritage a couple of months later. Unlike the official description and this photograph, my copy is neither numbered nor signed.

Cope has made hubris his trademark. Lack of ridicule is something to be very scared of. The mix of spoken word readings over synth washes, pagan poetry, space-rock noodling and tumulo-babble on this CD was never going to be more than a curio, but it ought to be an excruciating curio, and it's not; it's intermittently quite interesting. The best bits are the abridged versions of chapters from Cope's book Let Me Speak to the Driver which was forthcoming in 2001 and still hasn't appeared four and a half years later. I think that may be a good sign, because it may mean Cope is getting the book properly checked and reviewed. He could spin any old story out of some half-baked research into pre-history and I wouldn't be able to spot the errors, but I'd like to think he's approaching his job with the proper gravity.

MusicBrainz entry for this album

Comments

[Charles]

I know this is going to sound horrible, and as a collector of music (though it seems vastly less so than yourself, I'm impressed!)I shouldn't ask but would you be interested in selling this piece? As its nigh impossible to find, despite spending years sitting on ebay and such like trawling for it. I have heard numerous reviews similar to your own and others which simply trash it but I must confess this question is from a completist angle and there is the rub.
Anyway, if this is a waste of your time i apologise in advance. I have not included my regular email as I prefer not to broadcast it publicly.

[David]

Sorry to disappoint you, Charles, but I haven't sold any records or CDs in the last 25 years, and I have no plans to do so at the moment.

[Charles]

:) Figured. But had nothing to lose by asking.
Thanks for responding though, appreciated.