Neil Cooper
12th January 2023
Has there been a new discovery of the social and civic aspects of song -its historic powers? What are the sources and its outcomes of such a movement? How did it start up, where does it happen, who takes part and where is it going? Neil Cooper went to see and listen to the NVC in Perth.
11th October 2022
An addition to our 'Lost Institutions' series, Neil Cooper sings the praise of a much missed music venue - Henry's Cellar Bar. But is it really lost -is that the way it works with the subculture -does it ever get stuck on one place? Is Utopia a material, or a performance, or ...?
5th July 2022
BBC4 will be showing Alan Bleasdale's Liverpool-set 1980's series Boys from the Blackstuff starting Wednesday July 6th. It's an important anniversary of the work -but why and how did Liverpool theatre, film and TV become an almost institutionalised lingua franca for British working class expression and struggle from the 1980s on? What is it about the culture of that city that made it such a working class touchstone? Neil Cooper looks into the Merseyside context of Bleasdale's writing and gives us a fully researched and detailed examination of the history and legacy of the great work done.
26th October 2021
The loss of The Arches as a site for the eruption of anarchic creative collaborations of a generation through all forms imaginable was a shock. Did the forces of conservatism conspire to finish it off in 2015... or maybe its work was done there, and the spirit needed to move on anyway? Neil Cooper's review of Innes and Bratchpiece's history of the venue is epic and elegaic: it deserves all that and even more ...
26th May 2021
Comic Pranksters or Guerilla Interventionists? Why would anyone from a Scheme (or an ESTATE as they pump it up down there) scheme to burn a million quid? Neil Cooper lets loose on Jimmy Cauty's installation ESTATE and all the music and art and film around it which is coming your way...
20th November 2020
In an exceptional article for the Drouth, Neil Cooper writes to mark the release of Shadow of Fear, the first new album from Cabaret Voltaire for twenty years. The piece is exceptional in its musical profile for The Drouth, its exceptional in its extraordinary length, and also in its personal take on a rock story from Cooper.
27th September 2020
Artists have been adapting their practice to COVID-19 restrictions. In the open, is the Common Guild’s off-site response to the ongoing situation. Six artists have created new audio works designed to be listened to outdoors on headphones during government-sanctioned daily walks. Neil Cooper responds.
11th July 2020
For the second year in a row The Turner Prize takes a lurch towards acknowledgment of the collective. Is this democracy in action? Is it a definitive change? Should we rejoice? Or is the change dictated merely by temporary circumstances? Neil Cooper looks at the history and some contemporary realities.
CLAIRE M SINGER-
ROAMING FREE
by
Neil Cooper