Amazon.co.uk Review
It's a long time since Julian Cope had his 15 minutes of mainstream fame, fronting the Teardrop Explodes with their brassy, extravagant masterpiece
Reward. But over the last two decades he has maintained an impressive cult following, largely due to his mesmerising live performances--and more to the point, maintained an undiminished sense of his own importance, which has led to two, bulky volumes of his autobiography.
Head-On: Memoires of the Liverpool Punk Scene and the story of the Teardrop Explodes (1976-82) was published, acclaimed and lost to posterity in 1994; now thankfully it's been republished, back-to-back (literally--this is a book you can finish, turn upside down, and start again) with a sequel:
Repossessed: Shamanic Depressions in Tamworth & London (1983-89), which leads us through his 1980s solo career.
As the grandiose subtitles indicate, Cope writes on an epic scale, but his terms of reference are unapologetically personal. Much of Repossessed deals, bizarrely, with Pete De Freitas (the Bunnymen's drummer) weaving his way across America, not chemically unaided--a story which is relayed via transatlantic phone to Cope ensconced in Tamworth, like some postmodern, virtual Kerouac. Non-Cope devotees might find some of this rather allusive, not to say elusive, but there's no doubting the man's power with the pen, and soon enough you'll be there in the front row, throwing your knickers onstage. Or the literary equivalent. --Alan Stewart
Product Description
Julian Cope's highly acclaimed autobiography and its long-awaited sequel in one extraordinary volume. When Julian Cope published 'Head On' in 1994 he received astounding reviews: "Visceral, ballsy, bitchy, brutal, beautifully written. Book of the year. Made my heart burst". -- The Observer "...an enthralling saga of bitchiness, betrayal and unrepentent debauchery." -- The Sunday Times (Books of the Year) " Not only is the aarch-drude perfectly balanced mentally, but he has the longest and most detailed memory ( or the most extensive and exhaustive diary) in rock...As a glimpse of the essentially pathetic but amusing whims and eccentricities that lie behind the screwed down hairdos of rock musicians, it's equally essential reading. And as a genital -warts-and -all diary of madmen, it is simply supreme entertainment." -- N.M.E "one of the funniest, blakest rock reads you could wish for...and throughout, Cope never portrays himself as anything less than a self-serving, childish, whinging half-assed failure. He's wrong, of course, but it makes for insanely funny reading." -- Select Head-On has previously only been available via 'Head Heritage' Julian's own company. 'Repossesed' picks up in 1983 where Head On' stops and continues up until 1989. Written in Cope's inimitable style it is set to provoke the same kind of media excitement.
~ Julian Cope
~ The Go-Betweens
by Lester Bangs
