Julian Cope in concert at the 2008 Latitude Festival in Suffolk, England Louise Wilson / Getty Images
You've heard it by now: according to some, the critics are full of frustrated musicians.
It is not true, although there are cases of journalists who jumped at the first opportunity.
The opposite route is rarer.
Due to economic reasons and job demands, there are not many successful musicians who practice specialized criticism.
That is why the activity of Julian Cope (Wales, 63 years old) is extraordinary.
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That nasty genius named Frank Zappa
Cope, you know, piloted The Teardrop Explodes, one of the fanciest bands
from Liverpool's
second
boom
. From 1983 on he developed a solo career that inevitably led him to self-publish, after too many clashes with record labels. In the 1990s, he began publishing his irreverent writings. He has produced two autobiographies but also very popular volumes on the traces of paganism in Europe.
Musically, he
has explored the sounds of the Federal Republic of Germany
(Krautrocksampler,
1995) and postwar Japan
(Japrocksampler,
2007). The latter has just been translated into Spanish by Contraediciones and deserves attention.
From the outset, a complicated task. The Japanese script makes access to primary sources difficult; Cope boasts that he has toured there several times, but that doesn't mean time for research. And they are not just a few references: we are talking about Japanese rock from the sixties and seventies, a music destined for domestic consumption, within one of the most powerful record markets on the planet. With particular nuances: after the defeat in World War II, Japan embraced democracy without totally freeing itself from hierarchical structures or the power of large corporations.
That helps explain the popularity of genres like
eleki
or
group sounds.
The former was essentially the instrumental rock of the late 1950s, with the American Ventures as the main model, a trend that avoided the trance of singing. The difficulties in pronouncing certain phonemes explain why rock & roll was changed to
group sounds
to name the avalanche of groups that emerged in the wake of the Beatles. Notice that researchers in this universe logically tend to focus on the most salvageable - the garage fondness, for example - ignoring the reality that it was an industrial product, where practices as sinister as those of current K-pop reigned.
Happily, Julian Cope broadens the focus to include contemporary music, discovering such characters as the cosmopolitan Toshi Ichiyanagi (to understand us: Yoko Ono's first husband) and revealing unexpected affinities: it is astonishing to learn that the illustrious composer Toru Takemitsu recommended Polydor Records that will sign rocker Magical Power Mako. Try to imagine something similar in Spain: impossible, right? It is also close to jazz: according to Cope,
free jazz
did not flourish in Japan due to general adoration for Miles Davis, a headstrong dandy who preferred to drift slowly towards electric instruments.
Cope is really interested in
new rock,
insurgent music made under the influence of drugs. Real or imagined: few narcotics circulated in Japan, so the most audacious were placed with paint thinner and industrial glue, something recognized in the name of the Speed, Glue & Shinki trio. It doesn't matter, Cope explains: the protagonists had frankly psychedelic lives. Members of the Flower Travellin 'Band tended to appear nude on their covers, something delicate given the Japanese taboo on pubic hair.
JA Caesar was a
yakuza
turned music provider for experimental theater.
The Taj Mahal Travelers traveled the world looking for suitable places to perform their improvisations.
Les Rallizes Denudés took their radicalism to the point of refusing to enter studies;
his discography consists of concerts recorded (and edited) by fans.
And they are only the tip of the iceberg: after the restrictions of the sixties, Japanese rock experienced years of creative expansion.
The mystery, when
Japrocksampler
first
came out,
was how that sounded, beyond what was suggested by the author's leafy metaphors;
other than Stomu Yamashita, little had been published outside the archipelago.
Fortunately, now the reissues of
rock made in Japan
are multiplying
,
both in the planetary wave and in heavy metal alloys; There are even
Spotify
playlists
that clear the way for the curious. For the context, yes, the book by Julian Cope or the forums and blogs that discuss or broaden his perceptions of
gaijin
who - as he is constantly reminded - neither speak nor read the language
is indispensable
.