Julian Cope
Jehovahkill

“Rock'n'roll, you see, rock'n'roll is wandering, it precedes the concept of settlement, it belongs to the nomadic phase of humanity. The greatest rock'n'roll is in the moment when the nomads travel following the path indicated by the shaman”

Julian H. Cope, Archdruid.

Archdruid?

…................................................

Julian, Julian...

You were almost a pop star, then the turtle man, then an erratic and extremely shabby Barrettian disciple.

Move number one Top of the pops...

Move number two the psychedelic vertigo...

Move number three the moody and lopsided step...

Besides, “man is by nature a serpentine traveler, all those straight roads are just paranoia”...

Now, however, after enlightenment, it is time to be yourself. The sun is the only eye that contemplates things without envy.

If creativity swings between light and shadow, now is the time of light. Light, however, is not just the sky. Light is above all the perception of reality.

And here's the vision of Peggy, the mother earth...

“I saw mother earth, a beautiful goddess. She threw her head back from the pain and confusion”

…............................

And where were those crazy Germans wandering? On the hills, right? Leading them was the man with a vision. It is said that he too had seen a goddess. And the name of the goddess was the star girl.

Yes, but then why the hills? Because those were the Swiss hills, the hills of the wizards. And please don't think of spineless hippies out of their minds. We are talking about intuitive knowledge, ancient traditions. And anyway, yes, in the end, it was a matter of one head/one vote, one hill/one wizard.

Too good to be true? Oh no. The best thing is that it was really true. That what came out was a method, a formula. Something simple, simple, that is: find the wizard, make him talk, give drugs to musicians, and turn on the recorder.

Yes, I know dear Julian, this is the story you told in your book about kraut rock. It's also good now though. The difference is that now you play all the parts. You are indeed both the man with a vision, the wizard, and the musician.

Adding, of course, the primordial spirit, the punk spirit, if you want to do something, do it.

So, joking and laughing, here you become the archdruid.

…................................................

The vision, however, doesn't stop here.

There's much more...

It's no longer time to be Dionysus, rock'n'roll must be useful. It must indicate the way..

So your very own Swiss hills are the suburbs of London you pedal through while noting down all the desolation you see in your notebook...

Oh shit, you've become a fucking protest singer. Or maybe not, what did you say? How?

How?

Oh yes, “a wandering musician poet”

…...........................................................

“Peggy suicide” is the first fabulous result post-enlightenment.

Recorded with no gimmicks and almost live, it has an old-fashioned charm and an almost heroic sweep. To the point that I see it as a kind of social background epic chivalric poem.

Of course, it's not exactly the Cope you expect or at least it wasn't in that '91 when we heard it for the first time.

It's not “Fried”, it's not “Droolian”. Yet it's a Cope that couldn't be more Cope.

Not only that, it's a surprisingly unified album and the sensation it leaves is that of finding oneself in front of a monolith where the long theory of opposite references is bent to a vision that holds everything together.

Almost a million fragments pass through the same sieve: the sixties, psychedelia, Scott Walker, garage, funk, avant-garde, folk rock, the Fall, Madchester, Lou Reed...

Yet the result is surprisingly personal and the best way to say it is that “Peggy” is an album that resembles only itself.

To the recipe must then be added an amused use of standards and clichés destined, and this is the beauty, to almost always collide with the unexpected. In short, opposite things must, if not exactly meet, at least clash with each other.

….............................................

The next step is “Jehovahkill”...

That is Robert Greaves wears the eternal mask of the rocker...

The mask is fundamental, “there is something disgustingly bourgeois about a band performing without stage outfits”

“All primitive men wore makeup. How can you woo a woman if you appear weak and unkempt?”

Our archdruid indeed always goes around in magnificent ceremonial uniforms. Yes, sure, it seems like something from a comic book, but that's the beauty of it.

Then he begins to fill his notebook with notes. All ultra-esoteric stuff: primitive cultures, pagan world, megalithic archaeology.

He becomes convinced that Christianity is one of the scourges of the world.

On the album cover, he places the image of an ancient cross-shaped site. “Not even the cross is your stuff.”

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“Jehovahkill”

It starts with a fantastic acid ballad in crescendo, very, very Peggy style.

The next track has a fantastic baritone à la Kevin Ayers and anyway for a while it goes on smoothly, little choruses, trumpets, and just a hint of extravagance.

Track five is at first a bard-like thing, that is, a ballad stretched over a bubbling of fabulous events that in the finale tears towards screaming kraut.

Yeah, kraut, finally its singer uses it and every time it happens the excitement is the highest. Among parodistic tribalism, blatant NEU citations, blends with techno, madness in power.

Then, of course, there are the adorable little nonsense, one is comprehensive of sha la la and Zappa-esque band finale. But the best, now on twilight tones, now simply magical, the best is always the bard...

The same argument applies to “Peggy”: despite the large amount of things, everything is submitted to the overall vision. And here too we are on the epic. Anyway, they are twin albums, one is blue, the other red...

Trallallà...