Customer Reviews

Japrocksampler: How the Post-War Japanese Blew Their Minds on Rock 'n' Roll

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Follows up on Mr. Cope 1995's Krautrocksampler, which detailed Germany's (1st of 3 Axis powers) late 60's early 70's heavy pysch and experimental music scene.

This book details Japan's (2nd of 3 Axis powers) late 60's early 70's heavy pysch and experimental music scene.( Therefore, it Does Not deal with contemporary noise/pysch Acid Mothers Temple, etc or JRock scenes).

Beautifully written, enclosed in a hardbound, "trade paperback size" book. Divided into two books: Book One has four chapters that deal with Japan pre and post World War II, the impact of Western/American culture, rock'n'roll, (GS)Group Sounds(the Mops, Jacks, etc) emergence and decline, the confluence of the Japanese avant garde, jazz, and rock scenes with the youth culture explosion of the 60's.

Book Two has 8 chapters, which deal with specific bands as follows:

Come Together 1969 (Blues Creation)
Flower Travellin Band
Les Rallizes Denudes
Speed, Shinki, and Glue
Taj Mahal Travellers and Takehisa Kosugi
J.A. Caesar and the Radical Theatre Music of Japan
Masahiko Satoh and the Free Thinkers' Union
Far East Family Band

A Top 50 round up follows with a short list of albums to avoid.

A truly great treat for the open minded and curious listener, this book promises to be the groundswell moment just as Krautrocksampler was. This is a great Rock'n'roll read. You will be turned onto new bands. You will learn about new sounds and scenes. You will be hunting down new 'holy grail' albums.

(Mr. Cope is there a book on the 3rd Axis power, Italy, due? Pejoratively titled " Woprocksampler"?)

After having written the excellent Krautrocksampler more than 10 years ago, Julian Cope is now tackling 60's and 70's japanese Rock. As in his previous tome, this is a delightfully written book that not just reviews the records, but also provides historic anectdotes and places the book within its historic context. As an example of erudite rock list book writing there is nothing better. The main difference is that while many or most of the artists in the prvious germanophile effort pretty well known within normal rock circles, here this is absolutely not the case and these groups are pretty far-out there. It does make you want to go out and buy these records in these times when the current British or American rock scenes are tired and tiresome at best. Overall, a joy to read.

Julian Cope, the great rock 'n' roll literary yeti, follows up a book flouting his passion for Krautrock (i.e. psychedelic/electronic German music of the Seventies) with a book flouting his passion for Japrock (i.e. psychedelic/electronic Japanese music of the Seventies). The book goes waaaaay back to the thirties, forties and fifties, getting into Stockhausen, John Cage, and the first Japanese musicians to make avant garde music. At some point, Yoko Ono comes into the scene, and eventually John Lennon. The Japanese, at another point, become infatuated with the Ventures, and eventually rock bands appear. This movement goes corporate, and at one point rebels appear and dream up their own mind-bending experiments in sound and amplification. Cope launches into descriptions of his favourite bands Flower Travellin' Band, Les Razllizes Denudes (whose bass player got involved with the highjacking of a plane to North Korea - really!), Speed Glue & Shinki, Taj Mahal Travellers, JA Caesar, Far East Family Band, and a bunch of other long-hairs. Cope's passion is abundant, and it's clear that he's spend tens of thousands of dollars buying Japanese vinyl of all eras, and has probably made use of many Japanese volunteers who translated material and explained situations to him, lingering in the country at many points in his life too, perhaps. His writing is fluid, amusing and creative, and the story is fascinating as it unfolds. The book is intelligent and highly entertaining and Cope's descriptions make me want to hear more of these bands. As criticisms, I'd say that parts of the book are uneven - some musicians are given long biographies, while others are left as mysteries; and considering that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, what we really need to accompany the book is a sampler CD. Cope overuses certain words, such as "melted plastic brain" (we sometimes feel like we need to have dropped acid to understand his descriptions of some of these bands and their musical world-views, as well as his description of their sonic output) and "komische," and there are altogether too many mentions of the Velvet Underground and the various Krautrock bands; I could have also put together a decent list of Japanese typos. But these are probably quibbles - Cope has busted open a field that needs more recognition with humour and verve, a cultural and musical anthropologist (it's a small field) extraordinaire.

Having read countless band/artist biographies including Julians own Head on/Repossessed, and the history of Laurel Canyon and such,this was an extremely positive find.
I like Julian's writing.Also I had absolutely zero clue that Japan even had a music scene like the one described here.
Lots to sink your teeth into.
So if you are wondering if you should read another Bob Dylan or Beatles biography,you may want to change the scene, and read this one.

Great book, new Cope, awesome content - but nobody's mentioned the terrible printing quality of this book. It's been assembled and printed about as respectfully and with as much quality as an "Archie Digest" - even sitting on the shelf, all of the pages are warped and wavy, and it weighs about an ounce even though it's a 300+ page book. Since this is Cope, I was almost willing to intellectualize it and say that the cheap bootleg/disposable feel was intended to feel like a post-war japan artifact, but when the ink started comping off on my hands, I realized that this is just a cheap and lazy pressing. Wait for the American release.