Head-On/Repossessed

Julian Cope and The Teardrop Explodes had a short-lived wild ride on the showbiz rollercoaster in the late 1970s and 1980s. Cope's ability to recall stories, some of which were during long drug binges, is surprising. The stories are funny at times, and also often touching, particularly when he and colleagues begin to suffer the fatigue of a music career spent on the road with no consistency or vision. His point of view is tremendously flawed - his god/devil-complex self-obsession (and particularly his obsession with his own image) is often galling, and his observations of the world around him are also image focussed. I wondered throughout the book whether they ever wrote any music; maybe they didn't. It is a wild journey, and occasionally fun as a deviation.