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Launcelot ", Clarke looks uncomfortable. "Keats, Baudelaire, Poe," I suggest to Cooper Clarke. Whats your favourite gig venue, and why?It has to be the London Palladium, at which I have the honour of appearing again next month. ("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."). But the ritual suicide; that's not really my cup of tea. He is an actor and writer, known for Control (2007), Rust and Bone (2012) and The Souvenir (2019). bluemax Thats an intelligent question too, from Ben, because lyricists have probably influenced me more than any other poets. But drug addiction really is the most tedious of subjects. Across the road, outside London's Shepherd's Bush Empire, fans are gathering to watch the poet. These are the very reasons for our survival as a species. Britain's best loved and most important performance poet. John Cooper Clarke is touring now. Why? Is that a stage name? "I was sent to Rhyl, to live with my auntie Eileen; she died of tuberculosis." It is a romantic picture, that idea of Cole Porter always writing lyrics on the back of cigarette packs and menus. "Well," Cooper Clarke says, "he was a rent man, wasn't he?". At that time, as he puts it, Andy Warhol's former muse, who appears in Fellini's La Dolce Vita, "had her own gaff in Sedgley Park [North Manchester]." With the passage of time, I suggest, such periods of lassitude in poets, or even stand ups like Lenny Bruce, become not just pardoned but somehow regarded as magnificent. They have one child. Apart from the one collection [Ten Years in An Open . "Solid gold geezer that / From the solitaire pin through the mink cravat to the snake-eye studs on his kid suede spats / Solid gold geezer that / Lives in a solid gold flat / With a girl worth a million / Plus VAT / And a caviar-guzzling cat. ", But the lost years do feed into his writing and his comedy. lennie7 (De rouille et d'os) [Original De xido y Hueso (Orginal Motion Picture Soundtrack). You're late home.' To enjoy a renaissance, Cooper Clarke concedes, you must have been dead for a period. ", On stage, such classics as '36 Hours' may be followed by some surreal monologue that might or might not recur in a subsequent performance. People used to go on about how soulless life in those new towns was, but that was not my experience of Stevenage. And if so, how did you combat it?I didnt get it too bad. The Kray family had a bolthole there. "I fell into it," he says. "I've never really known," he says. 'Yes mother, I had to go to the doctor. [22], 2015 saw Clarke present a documentary on Thomas De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium-Eater in the BBC's second series of The Secret Life of Books. "I have come to understand that there is some value to what I do. He is married to Evie. I really like the idea of being a poetic hack. He speaks with love of the life he has created there, referring often to his wife, Evie, and daughter, Stella, his guiding lights. But all poetry - all writing - is aural. Cooper Clarke rid himself of his own 16-year habit for good in 1992. He came into the office pulling a suitcase and immediately he sat down he was unzipping it to reveal his latest pride and joy, a handsome hardback collection of his poetry, entitled The Luckiest Guy Alive. When it first started to appear on the front of the paper the Guardian was the worst offender by the time I found out what it meant I was too annoyed to want to think about it. PMgep Hilda, his mother, worked as a cleaner. That terrible inertia they captured that brilliantly.". He reserves the style for poems such as, 'Solid Gold Geezer.' I am sure some of my classmates felt their time could have been more profitably spent. Dont ever do it. But in Colchester, we've talked for more than six hours in a single session and the most life-threatening substance he has ingested has been a Glenmorangie. And they have followed me all my days, because as you get older you keep finding some new dimension even in the simplest love song. Thats another thing I have always avoided: peg tops. I tend to live by the dictum less is more, but that mono sound proved more can be more. This includes lines like "I've got amnesia and dj vu at the same time. In the way I imagine that rappers subsequently did in Compton, Los Angeles. Is that the crime of the century? Much of that gift lies in his voice: you cant help but smile when he talks. The poet and performer on keeping his clothes simple, stapling them back together, and being fashionable once every 15 years for about three months. At the same time," he adds, "they were a picnic compared to the working men's clubs. Because he was confident that in whatever borscht-belt dive he found himself theyd immediately get the reference: Hey, thats the place the Queen of England goes. What a thrill walking out there. 'Oh, you poor thing, I'll put your electric blanket on. It is the work of my long-term manager, Phil Jones. I dont possess the equipment. I dont graze. "It wasn't. For that reason, perhaps I am not best placed to objectively gauge the enigmatic appeal of Jon the Postman. Ganges 'Yes mother. The standards werent high. [12], Clarke released Zip Style Method in 1982, but thereafter performed his live act less frequently, spending much of the 1980s mired in heroin addiction, living in a "domestic partnership" with singer and fellow addict Nico. Back then there was only me and him doing poetry on stage, so we cranked it up a gear, not least because our audiences often had no prior interest in poetry. The sad truth is I never get to pick. I didnt get into show business to be pushed around by the likes of Mark E Smith. So, to answer Jarviss inquiry: by default, during the low-rise years, I strolled the feminine range on the ground floor of Marks & Spencer. He is married to Evie. harryrossgorman It was a time of letters left unopened, heavy curtains warding off the maddening reality of daylight and, as he would concede, anxiety and reclusiveness. At one point in London he addressed the problem of "The social menace of STIs - sexually transmitted infections, by which Britain leads the world by a sizzling 64%. What do you call my haircut? Where will it end? VD, with its hard, accusatory consonants. Nobody likes their own hair but Im glad Ive got hair to hate. I explained to him the format of this interview. But I persuaded my wife to drive me there one weekend and on arrival I turned to her and said: Weve never been here before, sweetheart, but I sure have dreamed about this place. The streets are all sand. John Cooper Clarke performing at the 3rd International Moscow Open Book Festival (3 ) at The . 10.00 gbp. Prison had become like a never-ending party. And that," adds the poet, who is 66, "is why I have lived to be considerably older than you are. "I do it myself," he says. We meet in the Kings Arms, a genteel coaching inn in the main street. Anyone would dig it. reviewed by James Webster What it is? Astra-nomical Blog Archive 2022 (44) 2022 (44) May (9) April (20) April (20) "Don't forget Eddy Arnold," he replies, referring to the country singer's version of a song by Hank Cochran. ", The work, once a struggle, is flowing freely from him. "I was ill all the time as a boy," he says. Trains coming down the middle of the road. The Luckiest Guy Alive by John Cooper Clarke is published by Picador (14.99). The fury of the crowds really was quite alarming at that time. Imtheaudioslave [1] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he released several albums. 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. I don't need to inquire whether the poet is wondering if this is how he himself might have wound up. I mean Elvis was a world-changing event for me. The Nationwide adverts, along with collateral backlash, have been sparking debates among poets on social media for several weeks now. Do you get some element of therapy from writing and performing your poetry? Are you a soothsayer? "I always assumed she must have had it first, being older. Grayclaret newmanshh It is fair to say we were not on expansive speaking terms. The sun has set. Cooper Clarke's audience, once a sea of grey, now has a healthy quotient of 16-25s. But mostly it is down to his brilliant rambling dramatic monologue of a stage show, which has become less staccato over the years. "I don't really look forwards in that way," he says. 'Haiku #1' I call it: 'To convey one's mood / In seventeen syllables / Is very diffic.'". Im not a handsome man and its damage limitation. But once I'd had the disease, it left me prone to every kind of pulmonary disorder. Because what I do isn't, 'work' as any sane person would understand the term. His agents saying: Dont go screwing it up again, youre opening for Doris Day at the London Palladium. And why did Lenny choose the Palladium for that routine? What else have we got?, Angie Thomas, author of The Hate U Give: 'Books play a huge part in resistance', 'Silly question!' Publicity Listings The one thing you could guarantee was that they didn't share an overpowering enthusiasm for poetry. And it caught on. TA: Would not doing it ever be an option?Not for me. "I believe I was thinking you know that bit in On the Waterfront where they throw the informer off the roof, and the line is: "He could sing, but he couldn't fly". 36acm If you haven't previously encountered his work, you might start with 'I Married A Monster From Outer Space', a poem inspired by the 1958 film of that name. The third punter - Jewish guy - hands over his fiver and says, 'paint my house. As a scene, that was the best treatment of drug addiction I have ever seen. The performer, who is still occasionally stopped in the street and asked how much he charges to haunt a house ("That," he replies, "would depend how many rooms you have") is the sort of figure that cab drivers don't stop for. John Cooper Clarke Albums Anthologia Miscellaneous Snap, Crackle & Bop O Est la Maison de Fromage? He has embraced old age as an opportunity to indulge the kind of recklessness traditionally associated with youth. Whereas I, in that situation, tend to err on the side of caution. I have no children. I'd love to get it published. I discovered your music and spoken word when I was a teenager, and it was very inspirational to me. I had friends but they were out indulging in robust pursuits, which I was excluded from because I had to stay indoors. You would persuade yourself that they could be Franciscan monks. I learned a long time ago that if you wear trousers where you can put something in the pockets, you will put stuff in those pockets and before you know it you are clad in jodhpurs. When two dozen paramedics have to put on high-vis tabards and possibly die in trying to rescue him? 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. "Evidently Chickentown" (recited by Christopher Eccleston) is featured in the made-for-television film Strumpet. l33wilko "Bloody hell," says Cooper Clarke. 1978 Disguise in Love. Poetry is a phonetic medium. To make the hips the focal point of a pair of trousers is, to me, a fashion mistake. Nick Cohen, our columnist, broke off from columnising to recite extended passages of Clarkes verse first committed to memory when the poet was sharing spittle-flecked stages with Buzzcocks and the Sex Pistols back in the day. You're late home.' Arctic Monkeys ", His father worked at Trafford Park, the biggest industrial estate in Europe. There are good reasons, he argues, for judging by appearances. Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. 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." 9.50 gbp. You wrote [in the refrain in Chickentown] the fucking train is fucking late, you fucking wait, you fucking wait back in the late 1970s. Actually if it sounds like anybody, it's Rimbaud. Charley Barnes hands over Sabotage Reviews Director to Heddwen Creaney! 9.50 gbp. It was hand to mouth. Dr John Cooper Clarke at the Firestation Arts Centre - 21/06/17. "I've been in Time magazine," he says, "but don't wait to hear me on [BBC Radio Four's] Poetry Please." It wasnt easy: it is an unnatural act to get out there and draw that much attention to yourself. I spent quite a while thinking of the right adjectives: greasy, cheesy and so on, and then looked for a street name that toned in, but was credible. Oh dear! The one message I would like to send out is that this is not something you can pick up and leave alone just like that, you know. Poet; Movie star; Rock star; TV & radio presenter; Comedian; Social & cultural commentator. He is married to Evie. [18], In July 2013, Clarke was awarded an honorary doctorate of arts by the University of Salford in "acknowledgement of a career which has spanned five decades, bringing poetry to non-traditional audiences and influencing musicians and comedians." But then things started to buck up. "Her writing has this effortless quality. Really, really badly. He was born in Salford, on the north side of Manchester on 25 January, 1949 and has one brother, Paul, 12 years his junior. ", The poet laughed. Evidently Chickentown E John Cooper Clarke 2. 12.99 gbp. Apart from them, I hated every second of school. "I told him the answer is that I read my stuff out loud and I get paid for it. Anything can kick you off. He had it all. Fool." To revisit this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories, John Cooper Clarke, who has suffered and survived the troubles that traditionally distract a poet - tuberculosis, poverty, and opiate addiction - stands on a corner in central London pondering a new and unexpected challenge: adulation. If memory serves, you are marginally safer in the Three Jays. I am so glad that they have had the huge success they have. Yes. "The hotel roof is decided on," Thomas wrote, "but the parcel needs a warning message. And get it off my shoulders.'". He has at least stopped Kim Wrong Un from exploding his bombs. (Play Loud)". Tim Adams: I imagine you held your own in those battles?Oh, I was the king of the block. But there is one attribute, very commonly found in lesser talents, that, you sense, John Cooper Clarke is never going to develop: an unshakeable belief in his own greatness. 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. It's called "Get Back on Drugs, You Fat Fuck". 271 people have seen John Cooper Clarke live. Privacy-Killing CISPA Bill Passes House [4] He also duetted with Reverend Jon McClure at a Reverend and the Makers concert at London's Spread Eagle, performing the poem "Last Resort", which would later be released as the B-side for the band's single "Heavyweight Champion of the World". "From way back. 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