It is difficult to imagine now but once upon a time in the decade-that-taste-forgot that fetchingly haggard, slightly crazed, intense megalithic dude in the Luftwaffe cap we know and love today, was being marketed, to his own bemusement as an 80’s poster boy rival to Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet. The Teardrop Explodes were serious contenders 42 years ago.
As someone who came to Julian Cope arse-backwards* it is easy to just take the Teardrop Explodes as amounting to a couple of good, if not great singles before all the interesting drug stuff happened. Wrong.
One listen to Teardrop Explodes Kilimanjaro explains all.
The post punk scene in Liverpool crystallized around Echo And The Bunnymen, The Mighty Wah! and The Teardrop Explodes**. There was an embracing of punk energy, psychedelia^ and melody^^. It is I think the latter that gave the scene a defining characteristic compared to other areas of the country.
The temptation when writing about The Teardrop Explodes is to just write about Julian Cope^* but that is to do the band a serious disservice by focusing on their bassist/lead singer. On Kilimanjaro TTE featured Gary Dwyer on drums, Mick Finkler and Alan Gill on guitars and Dave Balfe on keys*^, as well as using Ray Martinez and Hurricane Smith^^* on trumpets. Kilimanjaro shows them to be a dextrous, supple-sounding outfit with some real melodic heft.
What surprised me most about Kilimanjaro is that there isn’t really anything on it to scare the horses, rhythm reigns and melody is queen on this particular mountain. The oddest tune here is ‘Sleeping Gas’ which is packed full of Germanic motoriktricity, gnomic lyrics and vocals that sound like Cope is trading lines with himself. The serious thrust and groove of this one is thrilling and really different.
All manner of tunes here tear it up and head for the hills, often powered by Cope’s bass locked in perfect tandem with Dwyer’s drumming. 1537 fave ‘Second Head’ being a case in point, if that spritely rhythm doesn’t make you want to improvise an entire interpretative dance routine then, my friend, brace yourself for bad news next time you check your pulse. ‘So how’s your second head?/Is it the same one you started out with?‘, quite. Ditto ‘Went Crazy’.
Every single track on Kilimanjaro is good verging on great, there is nothing here I can’t listen to on repeat. There is widescreen restraint and guitar chimes on ‘Poppies In The Field’ that U2 certainly listened to. I love the rapid ‘Books’, an Ian McCulloch co-write that Cope had before the band was formed. I also dig the way the band allow Kilimanjaro to flow to a gentle end with ‘Thief of Baghdad’ and ‘When I Dream’.
I have a peculiar kinship with the barnstorming ‘Treason’, quite apart from being a really good song the coda to it really does sound like he’s singing,
Do you realise, it's Joseph Storey
True stor(e)y.
Kilimanjaro is a great, unusual slice of the 80’s pop and although follow-up LP Wilder has its advocates (‘Passionate Friend’ is an ace pop song) it was all over by then. I really like the way that just like Roxy Music and Sgt Pepper, Kilimanjaro could have been made even better for the inclusion of a single, in this case ‘Reward’ – definitely one of the best songs of the decade; post 1981 copies of the album included it, we puritans sneer at such pandering to the masses.
As tune follows tune, follows tune etc. you can well see why Duran Duran regarded them as major rivals by 1981. Add in major label support, a tall, charismatic blonde frontman, a support slot for Queen at a huge UK gig and only a rapid chemically-fuelled descent into dysfunction and self-sabotage on a truly epic scale could derail them.
Oh. Bugger.
1132 Down.
PS: If you haven’t already, ahem, read it in books, may I direct you to Cope’s fricking incredible memoir ‘Head On’ that details this period in wonderful full-on drugovision. Music books don’t get much better.
PPS: Just because.
*as my great grandmother would have said.
**I’m simplifying, sorry Big In Japan fans.
^as long as it wasn’t from any sources tarnished by hippy-dippy-dom; some punk prejudices remained. Every musician in Liverpool is still pretty obsessed with Love Forever Changes to this day.
^^although nobody was allowed to admit they liked the Beatles, their shadow loomed too large and retro over Liverpool at the time.
^*I refer the reader to the above paragraphs.
*^before he founded Food Records and his rural domicile became a Blur song.
^^*engineer for every Beatles recording up to and including Rubber Soul and producer of Piper At The Gates Of Dawn and S.F Sorrow, no less.
It took a while to get through this post. Not because of the content or writing, both excellent, but due to getting completely sidetracked trying to work out whether your great grandmother was walking in circles. Isn’t arse-backwards the usual configuration for walking forwards?
But returning to yon Cope and his band. My recent first impressions were certainly positive. Hadn’t expected the brass, but enjoyed the vibrancy and energy of the whole thing. The cover of my (vinyl) copy is totally different, having a posse of zebras strolling past the titular mountain. Looks like it might be the 1981 re-issue.
My first Cope encounter was via *that* book we both love. I picked up a couple of later solo albums (liked them) and worked backwards through the crazed pagan wonder of Jehovakill and Peggy Suicide. So TTE are the final St Julian pilgrimage, in a way. I have ‘Wilder’ too but haven’t spun it as much.
Enjoyed this post a lot, Joe. True Stor(e)y.
‘Isn’t arse-backwards the usual configuration for walking forwards?’ OMG, you’re right! What WAS she thinking?!
The brass is very much from the Love influence. I prefer the zebra cover to be honest, especially if it had ‘Reward’ on it too.
And thank you very much Bruce.
I believe my path to T.E. was similar to yours, starting in my case with the now sadly petrified Head Heritage site. I only recently picked up Kilimanjaro — on vinyl no less — in what was almost certainly cosmic karma. I truly hope my creeping dementia does not impede my remembering to spin the LP while your words here are still known to me.
Ditto.
I’ver heard of Julian Cope, but not of this band.
Way too gnomic for my liking!
I never had you down as a gnomist. How long have you hated them?
It’s a long standing blood grievance passed down through generations
So it was that Tescos parking incident involving your auntie Morag then.
Aye. We will have vengeance!
Splendid. I would add the first Doors album to Forever Changes as the influence to the post punk Liverpool scene.
Are you a Bunnyman fan? my wife is, but I could never quite get to them.
I would not describe myself as a fan. There are some tracks I love and others that fall short.
I saw McCullough appear with the Manics in Liverpool to sing ‘The Cutter’. He seemed a trifle inebriated.
That has been a constant criticism of the man.
I forgot to say The Cutter is an outstanding song.