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Japrocksampler

Julian Cope’s Krautrocksampler is one of my all-time favourite music books, an expert guide to the psychedelic jungle of German rock from 1968–1975. (And it seems to be out of print. Damn.) Now he’s written a follow-up.

Julian Cope, eccentric and visionary rock musician, hip archaeologist and one time frontman of Teardrop Explodes, follows the runaway underground success of Krautrocksampler, a cult deconstruction of German rock music, with Japrocksampler. Japrocksampler is a short history of Japanese youth culture in the post-war years. It explores the clash between traditional, conservative Japanese values and the wild rock and roll renegades of the 1960s and 70s, telling the tale of six seminal groups of artists in Japanese post-war culture, from itinerant art-house poets to violent refusenik rock groups with a penchant for plane hijacking. Cope tours regularly and has just brought out a new album, Dark Orgasm. His website, Head Heritage, is widely acknowledged as containing some of the most entertaining and insightful album reviews on the web. Julian’s fans (Copeheads) as well as the generally interested reader will lap up this take on the Jap Rock phenomenon.

Via Arthur.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Chrome: Perfumed Metal
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer
• Metabolist: Goatmanauts, Drömm-heads and the Zuehl Axis
• The art of Shinro Ohtake
• Maximum heaviosity

The IoS Pink List: 2007

The IoS Pink List: 2007
“The Independent on Sunday‘s annual celebration of the great and the gay.”

The poster art of Marian Zazeela

top: Jon Hassell: Solid State. Richard Maxfield: Memorial Concerts.
bottom: The Theatre of Eternal Music Big Band. Pandit Pran Nath: Evening Ragas.

Artist Marian Zazeela’s beautiful hand-drawn posters can be seen (and bought) at the MELA Foundation website. Most of these were created for the Dream House productions hosted by Zazeela and partner La Monte Young. Zazeela has also used her distinctive calligraphic design on the sleeves of recordings by La Monte Young, Terry Riley and raga master Pandit Pran Nath.

• A gallery of Marian Zazeela posters

Previously on { feuilleton}
• The poster art of Bob Peak
• Posters by Josef Müller-Brockmann
• A premonition of Premonition
• Perfume: the art of scent
• Metropolis posters
• Film noir posters

1967: The summer of love

1967: The summer of love
“It was the moment that flower power went mainstream. But was it really a riot of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll? Forty years on, leading figures recall their part in the revolution.”

T&H: At the Sign of the Dolphin

James Joyce and his World (1978).

Despite my earlier statement about not being much of a collector, today’s book purchase (above) was enough to confirm some well-established patterns (obsessions, even) that should make me reconsider any hasty pronouncements. Not so much for the subject in this case—I already have enough books by and about James Joyce—the significant thing here is the three magic words on the cover: Thames and Hudson. The sight of Joyce’s name on the spine above the old T&H dolphin logo (signifying the two rivers that comprise the company’s name; or maybe a discourse between London and New York via the Atlantic) was enough to demand further investigation. I realised I’d been hoping to eventually find this book after seeing it listed in the back of its companion title, Beardsley and his World by Brigid Brophy. Both books form part of a series that T&H produced in the Seventies, a collection of heavily illustrated mini-biographies of writers, with the odd artist among them. Very worthwhile they are too, with lots of photographs, paintings or drawings of the people and places relevant to their subjects’ lives.

Continue reading “T&H: At the Sign of the Dolphin”