The Living Rockumentary

Lit corner with Brian.
Welcome to the literary corner. I wonder how many other corners there are here? Is this a triangular room? Am I in the Pentagon? Is it an inward corner or a protruding corner?
Thanks for coming to the Literary Corner. See you next time.

Next time..
Hi, welcome to next time.
This time on next time--who has read the best ever rock bio (or in this case, autobio)? Head On/Repossessed by Julian Cope?

I read these (2 books in one) on a flight to California 5 years ago. But recently I took it off the shelf to reference something and got sucked right back in. The first half Julian is a Liverpool lad in the up and coming northern England punk scene--his band, The Teardrop Explodes do very well. Their peers on the scene include Echo and the Bunnymen, and the Manchester bands of the time (Joy Division, the Fall).
But the band falls hard and Julian goes from being a straight edge, hard-ass band leader to a complete acid-head. This is only one of the factors in their breakup.

In the second half (what I'm reading now--I think this part depressed me 5 years ago, but now I like it better) Julian is trying to establish a solo career. It's 1984-85 and he sees all his old friends on Top of the Pops etc. Meanwhile, he's putting out albums that don't sell OR please the critics. He's living in the countryside with his American wife (who he met at a Teardrops gig in ALBANY, NY--they're still married 25 years later). They get high and play with toys, dress up silly, hide from visitors and screen all their phone calls. They're in bad debt.
Eventually he gets back in shape for the public, has a couple hits and is back on top of the pops. This half ends in 1989.

But really, the writing is very entertaining--he knows what a f-ck up he is, and all his mistakes. He writes with a very clear head about not having a clear head.

One thing he mentioned that I could relate to--at one point he goes back to his old town and encounters a guy he hadn't seen in 15 years. He brings up something inane that had happened back then and the friend, who's addled with adulthood, is horrified that Julian would remember such a thing. But Julian says it was one of the funniest things ever, how could he forget?
I'm a bit like that. I'll remember a story someone told me in 10th grade, see that person now and recount it--the person has no clue what I'm talking about but it seems to me like it happened last week.
Why cast off things that happened in your youth as unimportant?

Welcome to Literary Audio Corner:
this weekend I'm driving a long way to see my special friend.
I'm bringing (on CD) Buddah by Karen Armstrong (a bio of the Buddah. Siddhartha is my fave book of all time so I think I'll dig it. Karen Armstrong is fascinating)
and (if it come in in time) The Know It All by ____??? (I forget) about a guy who recently tried to read through every volume of the Encyclopedia Britanica.

you can't just listen to music for 9 hours.

thanks.