Customer Reviews

Head-On/Repossessed

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Cope is to be commended for writing such an objective and humble account of his days with the Teardrops etc. Especially noteworthy is his ability to relay (and recall) how he felt at the time without letting later events color his words. Reading the account af his first meeting with Ian McCulloch, for example, you'd never guess at the bad blood between them at the time it was written.

I think I've always been a fan of Julian Cope. His first solo record came out when I was in college and was essential listening of the time. "Peggy Suicide" was the soundtrack for the summer of '91 (which I will always fondly remember as the best of my life).

I've followed him with a sort of detached attention which is natural with every musician with a low U.S. profile, but I've always been there.

So I picked this one up to take with me on some stupid business trip and read it in two really long nights. This is, without a doubt, the most compelling, happy, sad, sentimental (but not really), rock & roll memoir I have ever read. The sense of humble reportage and drug-clouded rememberance comes through with such clarity (!) and optimism makes this not only the story of the beginnings of a musical "mad" genius, but also a love story, an ill fated oddessey [sic], and, what could be, the makings of a great road novel.

The two memoirs read like a conversation with the coolest uncle ever and hold interest (even if the reader's formative years don't provoke similar memories).

This collection is a happy spring/summertime read and worth every second of effort. So much so that I have been pushing it off on everyone I went to school with. The musical journey here doesn't seem to take center stage to the personal development of the "Cope" and even if you weren't around at the birth of post-punk, this memoir still reverberates.

Heartstopping and beautiful. (No, I'm not biased. Nah. Not at all.)

Julian Cope is many things to many people - misunderstood musical genius, maverick rock n roller, devotee of Britain's sacred standing stone sites, and more. I loved this two-volume autobiography in which his intelligence and drive shine through. OK, his heavy drug use - acid-tripping and general semi-loony rockstar behaviour also shines through - but this is a thoroughly entertaining account of (firstly) the Teardrop Explodes and early punk scene in Liverpool and (secondly) the later more mature Copey as he copes (pardon the pun!) with a lack of commercial success but remains true to his inner vision.
Essential for any fan of his wonderful ("marvy Harvey!") music and the book also contains some hilarious moments, not least the game "sock" which Copey and his fellow band members used to play on long drives across America - putting a sock over their heads, climbing out the van window and over the roof of a moving vehicle and back into the other window, the idea being not to fall off and die! Check it out!

The amazing thing about Repossessed is that it is fascinating even though Cope spent much of the time documented in the book sitting in his home playing with classic toys! The term "mad genius" comes to mind reading Cope's work. The genius part seems to fit. Mad? I don't know. Certainly at least a little off-kilter! A great read.

I read a ton of music books and this is one of the most entertaining, enjoyable rock tomes I've encountered. Funny, self-deprecating and chock full of cool anecdotes. The people who wrote bad reviews of this are, to use a Cope-ian phrase, un-utopian planks. Look Out!

An enjoyable read. Cope is indeed a strange charector, but, perhaps surprisingly, he is also a fine and lucid writer. He comes across as crazy,wild, self-absorbed, intelligent and likeable. I thought Reposessed is the better of the two included books, as he matured as a writer.

Head On is by far the most entertaining book I've read by a musician. Cope is insane, and this book chronicles his crazy path from school weirdo, to rock star, to town weirdo. Absolutely compelling stuff.

This is importAnt..Here is the King of New Wav Ladies and Gentlemen of the Tear drop Explodes the Number one pop rocker of all time, the new wave Master. Here's his tale of his years with this group and his Echo and the BunnyMen exploits with their drummer aS a solo king. Thank you, and now buy Kilamanjaro by The Teardrop Explodes.

This is the best, most enjoyable, rock book I have ever read. Say what you like about the man's music (I love it), but there is no denying his way with words. If you have read Krautrocksampler then you already know this. After weeks of raving I convinced a friend who dislikes Cope's music to read this. He loved it and you will too. Do yourself a favor and buy this and then his other books too. I cannot stress this enough.

I threw this very long book into my concise garbage can. Maybe it's the music. Julian Cope has released so many incredible records with so much imagination for so many years. His first venture into writing, the oddball "Krautrock Sampler", was concise and fun, capturing not just his passion for the music, but some of mine as well. (Telepathic Cope?) You would think a book of his own career would be just as interesting. But no.

"Head On"/"Repossesed" tells long depressing anecdotes that make you wonder why you admired the man at all. John Cale's "What's Welsh For Zen?" is similar, in that it presents a great artist who seems a pretty poor human being. But I enjoyed that book, which was thorough, technically-detailed and gossipy. Julian Cope's book makes him seem a fundamentally dull sap who wanders around comparing people he doesn't like to lady genitalia.

Cope's book is unrevealing as personal history. You'd think a man who took hundreds of tabs of LSD in the '80s might have thoughts about it, a whole many wild ones in fact. Not Julian. He chronicles that bodily abuse as if he just drank too much tea.

The book is useless from a technical standpoint - there's no analysis of musical/recording equipment, songwriting philosophy, even his basic creative process. This is a curious thing, as Cope described a lot of that process in "Krautrock Sampler". Of course, those were other bands.

I realize self-analysis is difficult (and this book was clearly not ghost-written), but the overall result is that Cope set down a book with nothing to say. Deflating.