The Comedy of Errors: Cop Shoot Cop - Room 429 [Peel Session] (16 May 1992)

In the days after John Peel’s death, one of the best eulogies that I read about him was provided by TV Cream.  Not only was it brilliantly written, but it included a sound file which showcased Peel at his most endearingly fallible.  It still works on the TV Cream page and in its own way summed up the spirit of the man’s charm brilliantly. Amid the offers of unintentionally unpleasant prizes from Ned’s Atomic Dustbin and a suddenly ubiquitous Radio 1 newsdesk jingle, I caught the first mention of Cop Shoot Cop in a repeat of their debut session on Peel’s 19 May 1991 programme.  So until the day that I discovered the world of online Peel show sharing, my only mental association with this wonderful band was with STDs and one of whipping boys of the UK music press in the early 90s.  Although, it should be noted that both Cop Shoot Cop and Ned’s Atomic Dustbin made a virtue of using 2 bass players.
A year on from Peel’s brain-freezes and butter fingers with the jingle machine, Cop Shoot Cop were back with a new session.  I only caught Room 429 and their 1992 Peel Session is unavailable to share so I’ve had to use the studio version which barely differs from the live one.
The main thing which strikes me when listening to this reflection on madness, murder and psychological eclipse is how much Cop Shoot Cop sound like any number of other bands and musical sources had those same bands/sources drunk a bubbling, green potion and transformed themselves from crowd-pleasing Dr. Jekylls into debased Mr.Hydes.  My notes highlight this by stating that singer Tod A. (Ashley) puts me in mind of a more extreme and unhinged Paul Jones.  Yes, imagine if Uncle Jack had stayed with Manfred Mann in 1966 and led them towards a Dr. John direction. No singer in the 60s had a better flair for the characterful  than Jones - such touches populate both the best and - from a 2019 perspective - most problematic work of the band.
On a more contemporaneous (for 1992) note, I hear elements of Unsane here.  Now they were a band who were never shy about the dark side of human nature, but had they slowed things down and released an album of blues ballads it strikes me that Room 429 would have been the kind of template they would have looked for.
But with it’s metallic, haunted house keyboard lines, the thing that Room 429 really put me in mind of was the children’s TV show, Trap Door.  For as long as I can remember, this everyday tale of an overworked servant and the monsters he serves/lives with has been supposedly either been coming back to television or due to have a big screen version made of it.  If it happens, and Room 429 isn’t on the accompanying soundtrack album, I shall be very disappointed.
What becomes clear though is that, as with the Trap Door and whether Room 429 is either a place where dark deeds take place, a room in an asylum or, as I suspect, simply a safe mental space for the song’s protagonist, you should not enter it without Cop Shoot Cop to guide you.  And even then, there’s no guarantee of safe escape, but the flair for a melody that surrounds the darkness is a dangerous and winning enticement.

Video courtesy of Conor.