John Cooper-Clarke and Bill

Was at the Manchester Apollo gig and I remember John walking out with his plastic bag of notes books of poetry and bottles of Guniness. A few murmers went around the audience, but a few poems in and they warmed to John's poetry and clear wit in between poems. His Salford accent tumberling down the seats ,obviously helping. Shame he got caught up in the drug culture, we lost so many unwritten poems to it, but on the good side he made it through it all to resurrect his career. As for Bill he's one of those totally underrated guitarists, that many guitar documentries seem to forget, instead reeling off the predictable names. A bit like Camel when it comes to Prog Rock. On a side note Bill your brother taught my wife, when she was younger how to play the saxaphone. Chilled a few times on his bench when visiting the sculpture park.

Wow. JCC opening for Be-Bop Deluxe on the "Drastic Plastic" tour? That was very forward thinking of Bill. I would have thought that having Clarke onstage opening would have made perfect sense to the audience. But maybe I'm being generous. Some might think of the music Bill made in the 70s then as Prog or Glam but I call it Art Rock. Yeah, he had commanding technique, but it was always in service of ideas that were served by the music. And his ideas had more congruency with New Wave than Prog. Looking back it seemed like Bill had been anticipating New Wave and once it was a thing he effortlessly slotted into it. All of his tastes for retro-futurism and kitsch were more at home there. As for JCC, I loved his album [singing!] with Hugh Cornwell on guitar a few years back.

I can't give you a page ref, because I have the audio book, but in Chapter 47 (there are quite a lot of chapters!) ,"A professional poet on tour with Bebop Deluxe" JCC says "[Bebop's] music was very much predicated on the extreme technical proficiency of Bill Nelson, their virtuoso guitar player [...] Unlike a lot of people in his corner of the rock biz, Bill Nelson was quite amenable to the more imaginative elements of punk rock. He liked The Clash and the Sex Pistols. The Bopsters however, didn't always agree with him on this, and saw people like me as an unwelcome intrusion". So that seems pretty positive to me.

I've not read the book, but this thread is rather contradictory. First Toby Howard says JCC speaks very highly of Bill, and then Jeff Green says JCC is very scathing and dismissive of BBD and Bill.....mmm.....Which is it?

Personally, I like John, and will probably get this book at some point, but the conflicting accounts here don't make sense...they can't both be right.

Maybe smack distorts facts 💥 He always seems the opposite of that sort of person in the interviews YouTube was recommending for me to watch. Maybe he’s like John Lennon was? 🤷‍♂️

hmmm, just finished reading "I Wanna Be Yours"

A couple of observations

I didn't realise he was such a smackhead - I assume he's now clean ?

He's very arrogant & incredibly self-centred

He's very scathing & dismissive of Be Bop Deluxe (& Bill)

Considering Bill went out of his way to help him (even played

on JCCs second album).

I can only concuude he's a complete turd.

Shame really ...

sigh ...oh the memories..

From a WordPress blog, this image is the first thing that popped up when I did a basic "Be Bop Deluxe Glasgow Apollo" Google search.

I've seen JCC many times, at concerts in Manchester and several times supporting The Fall. I wish my brain could keep up with his fast-talking wit.

Bill drove a Range-Rover in 1976?

I remember when you first played in Aberdeen. January 1976, Myself and a few friends, met you at the Imperial hotel when you arrived in the Range Rover.

You signed some autographs, allowed us to have some pictures taken with you, and you remarked, you were "So surprised anyone this far north, had heard of the band".

At the gig that night, (McRobert hall), I was at the front of the stage, on a friends shoulders, and during your extended solo at the end of No trains to heaven, you broke into the melody of, Scotland the brave, and knelt down at the stage front, holding your guitar in my direction, allowing me to stroke the strings, as the chord you were holding soared into feedback.

As you can imagine, I did not sleep that night, and felt I was both blessed, and destined to pursue my naive noodling on my Antoria Les Paul copy and be a "Proper" guitar player.

I felt I had been blessed, and did pursue a guitar playing career for the past 46 years, until COVID hit, last year, I have not gigged since March 2020. Longest break, ever.

Great memories of my teenage years

Thanks again, for the continued Inspiration, and Artisan songwriting.

Such a shame as Glasgow and Scotland were always, for me at least, the warmest and most enthusiastic of audiences for Be Bop Deluxe, especially after the 'hipper than thou' London audiences who sometimes seemed somewhat restrained by comparison. I always looked forward to playing in Scotland, (and not just because I had a Scottish grandmother on my father's side...) 😉

I think I have said this before but Glasgow Apollo was a very difficult venue for support bands, one reason as there was no bar in the venue, and loads of the audience would be a "bit under the weather" after getting tanked up before getting into the venue and the support band were seen as fair game, witnessed JJC with Be Bop Deluxe he didn't stand a chance, I actually seen worse than this in 1976 when Ultravox with John Foxx supported Eddie and The Hot Rods and Ultravox only lasted one and a half songs, before John Foxx stormed off the stage.

I was at the Glasgow Apollo show. It was the first time I had seen JCC and I really enjoyed it. It was a shame that he got such a hard time. I guess the fact he was different and not your run of the mill support act made him an easy target.

I was embarrassed and sad that, in some venues, John was not given a chance by some members of the audience, but other times he was given a warm reception. I guess some people were a little too conservative or not clued up about poetry enough to appreciate John's originality and brilliance. Now, of course, he's regarded as a 'national treasure.'

still the only person i have seen booed off stage and i think some objects were also thrown...a bit of a slur on us be bop deluxe fans for behaving like that ..and in glasgow as well !!! LOL It has at least given John a funny anecdote ..."we'll call it a draw !" LOL

Wish it was available for us USA people 😩