Citizen
Cope’s tour manager, speeding down the streets of San Francisco,
has just ignored a police cruiser’s flashing lights. Cope
is incoherent, he’s laughing so hard into the phone. When
he’s finally able to speak again, it’s still almost
impossible to understand just what the hell he’s rambling
on about.
At first, I think it’s the Memphis-born, D.C.-raised singer/songwriter’s
unique drawl—extra lazy, like a drunken slur. Then I wonder
if it is a drunken slur, but I chalk it up to an accent amalgamated
from so many different sources that it’s become indescribable.
Sort of like his music, except the music makes more sense than what
he’s saying to me at the moment.
“I didn’t really put too much thought into it,”
he says, after the cop decides not to pursue. We’re talking
about his name, which grows out of his full name Clarence Copeland
Greenwood. “”It was kind of a noun and a verb at the
same time. I’ve always gone by Cope.”
Okay. What about the title of the new album? Cope’s last offering
was self-titled (Dreamworks), while his latest, The Clarence
Greenwood Recordings (RCA), again bears an incarnation of his
name. “It just felt right,” he answers. “It was
the title I was into.”
Cope, you’ve got to understand, doesn’t like to talk
about his music. At least that’s what I get from speaking
with him. How to proceed? I’ll give you bit of background.
The Clarence Greenwood Recordings won him a spot in Rolling
Stone’s most-recent “10 Artists to Watch” list,
and rightly so. While you might yet be unable to identify a Citizen
Cope song, you’ve heard his earthy jams on TV, trust me, maybe
on One Tree Hill, Summerland, or a Pontiac commercial.
There’s more too, but he says he does turn down some requests
to exploit his art. Personally, I don’t mind it, though. It’s
damn near impossible these days to get heard, so as long as you
don’t compromise your sound for profits (which Cope doesn’t),
then you’re “keeping it real” in my book.
The sound in question is, as critics love to call it, a “genre-defying”
one that melds just about every musical style into something that
falls somewhere between alt-pop and narcotic-induced haze. Quite
seriously, he is the sum of all of musical history. Now, does that
mean it’s aural gold? Nah. More like aural copper. But I’d
love to have a house tricked out in copper trim, just like I love
how Cope’s hip-hopped-up, countrified reggae-rock makes me
want to light some incense, toss the recliner back, and tap my foot
to the bass line.
His songs run the gamut from hallucinogenic (like the surreal “Pablo
Piccaso”), to social commentary (“Bullet and a Target”),
to something entirely sublime (“Penitentiary”). When
I probe about what goes into their creation, given how diverse they
are and how unpolished they sound, he expounds sans the typical
rocker aplomb. “That’s what the big question is. I’m
there and I just let the song take me where it’s supposed
to go. You can’t really describe how you make music. You just
do it.”
Alright, I hear you, Cope. I’m liking where you’re going
with this. Continue.
“If it’s something you’ve been doing for a long
time, there’s an element of doing it or it happening to you
while you’re doing it.”
You’re losing me. Just one more quote? Something to help me
close out the article?
“I think all music that gets to you comes from the soul or
the heart, no matter what form it takes.”
I hang up the phone. Hopefully his tour manager slows down, or they’ll
never reach Ann Arbor in one piece.
Citizen Cope plays Wednesday, June 22, at the Blind Pig with Abdel
Wright. 208 S. First Street, Ann Arbor. (734) 996-8555. Doors 8:00.
18+. $12 advanced purchase, $14 day of show.
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