Head-on
Julian Cope
203 pages including index
published in 1994

So this Julian Cope is a bit of a character. For about two years in 1980-81 he was one of Britain's pop idols, having hordes of 13 year old fangirls following his band, The Teardrop Explodes from concert to concert, fullfilling almost the same role as bands like Duran Duran and Spandau Ballet would fill a little bit later. All this while the band started as a serious, proper grim post-punk band. No wonder Cope went of his rocker and the band disbanded. It wasn't the end for Julian Cope though, as he would start a succesful solo career in the mid-eighties, become a cult figure in later life and even find the time to write two big, influential books on the surviving prehistoric monuments of Britain and Europe. Head-on is his autobiography.

Well, the first part of his autobiography, the story of his life from childhood to fame with The Teardrop Explodes to the point that it all went south. The rest he's written about in another volume, Repossessed, which I haven't read yet. I was a bit Coped-out after reading Head-on, which wasn't an easy read, especially in the second half of the story.

Why? Because Cope is a right asshole in the book. Unflinchingly honest in portraying himself as he was then, warts and all, but that doesn't alter the fact that you're reading about a self-centered asshole. The only thing that kept me going after a while was the knowledge that he grew out of it. I swear, at times I could almost hear Cope winching while writing about the things he did.

Head-On starts with a quick sketch of Cope's childhood, before he went to school in Liverpool, just in time for the punk revolution of '77. He fell in with a crowd of punks and prot-punks, sort of dropped out and got involved in the local music scene, first as hangeron, then involved in some local bands himself, though doing little of interest. He cofounded a lot of shortlived bands, including one that was a sort of premature supergroup, The Crucial Three, together with Ian McCulloch, who would go on to found Echo & the Bunnymen and guitarist Pete Wylie (future member of The Mighty Wah). Through various name and lineup changes this finally evolved into The Teardrop Explodes.

Almost despite itself, The Teardrop Explodes became huge in 1980-81, with various Top of the Pops appearances, extensive tours of the UK and the States and two both commercially as critically well recieved albums. From the outside everything looked to go very well for Cope, but Head-on makes clear how much of an illusion this was. Cope had been one of those people who are very straightlaced about taking drugs, so it wasn't a surprise that when he finally started to try the occasional blunt or two, he went overboard in the other direction, smoking weed and dropping LSD almost by the pound.

From that point on, what had been an enjoyable look at the late seventies Liverpool music scene and Cope's involvement in it becomes almost unreadable as he becomes somewhat of a monster, his first, too hasty marriage disintegrates and he gets involved with an American fan, the band goes through various lineup changes as people fall out with each other and everything goes south slowly. The book ends with Cope having disbanded the Teardrop, holed up at his parents, having survived the ordeal and started to come out of his drugs addiction.

As I said, this wasn't a pleasant reading experience and I had to force myself to finish it. However, it did one thing very well: it got me interested in checking out The Teardrop Explodes and Julian Cope. I'd only ever heard their most succesful single, "Reward", tucked away on one of those Paul Morley narrated eighties videoclip dvds, which was a great if slightly strange song. Now however I've become a bit of a fan, having acquired the three albums (one posthumously) the band has put out and listening to them quite a lot. It's so far away from the stereotypical grim seriousness "let's imitate Joy Division" of so many post-punk bands. Here's a taster below, a live version of "Ha Ha I'm Drowning" from the first album:

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