Last one...
Star Questions:
I've been listening to this fantastic Japanese music from the '60s called Group Sounds, but I don't really know much about it. Does Julian covier it in his new book, Japrocksampler?
Björk
Oh yes. This was music made in the mid-'60s, by Japanese kids trying to copy The Beatles, in such a fastidious way that it's excrutiating, yet often brilliant. You can spend £3,000 on Group Sounds records on eBay and come out with 50 seven-inch singles, of which three will be listenable. The rest sound like fucking Val Doonican. But when they're great, they're amazing.
Are you ever going to reprint or update the Krautrocksampler book? It's a classic.
Stuart Braithwaite, Mogwai
No. Krautrocksampler was just a first step. I'm an experimental artist, and true experimental art should be rendered obsolete by what comes next. I was just the frontiersman, asking the questions that no-one else was asking. If it was republished, I'd have to totally rewrite it, because we know so much more now. I already get people saying "Hey Cope, you forgot to write about, I dunno, Billy Nobsuck from Dresden." So I'm happy for others to do that.
What's your favourite Roman Polanski film?
Ethan Miller, Comets On Fire/Howlin Rain
It's a 1976 film called The Tenant. It has a deep resonance for me 'cos I once lived next door to a moronic, mohicanned punk. His favourite song was "Pulsar" from my LP, St. Julian, which he'd blast constantly, to drive me insane. And I went round one day and said, "You're driving me mad. You don't wanna kill the bloke who wrote that song, do you?" He paused and said, "Well, it's got an appeal, hasn't it..."
It was a real Polanski moment, to be driven mad by your own song. It could have been a scene from The Tenant.
What are your favourite music books, given that you're something of a master of the craft?
Malcolm Ross, Josef K
In terms of rock biogs, there are two unexpectedly brilliant ones: Freaky Dancing by Bez, and David Lee Roth's Crazy From The Heat. David Lee Roth is a bit like Pete Burns - he does everything to make you think he doesn't have two brain cells to rub together. But, like Pete Burns, he's a cloest intellectual. When he was playing 50,000 seaters, he would insist on getting to the stage before the crew and clean every square inch of it. Because that was his altar. That's fucking hardcore. That's a guy who understands the shamanistic nature of rock'n'roll.
I just read Krautrocksampler on tour. Why did you diss Future Days by Can? It's an Animal Collective favourite!
Geologist, Animal Collective
Yes, there are several great unexpected moments in late Can. But, when I wrote Krautrocksampler, I had to take on a fundamentalist stance, because nothing had ever been written about it before, so my attitude had to be weighted towards the pre-Ege Bamyasi stuff. And also, when Future Days came out, I was the Can-head at school who was disappointed by the album, so that gutted 16-year-old character informed my stance.
There's yer lot.
Erudite Barbarian indeed.
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