Head-On - Julian Cope

 HEAD-ON - JULIAN COPE

The story of Julian Cope is like one of Bill Hicks' positive news drugs stories: 'Today, a young man on acid realised that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration - that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here's Tom with the weather.' Being a one-time consummate drug taker, however, isn't the only string to Julian's bow of course as he's also a musician, a writer, an antiquarian, an activist, a visionary and an eloquent user of the English language which is what makes his autobiography, Head-On - Memories of the Liverpool Punk-scene and the story of the Teardrop Explodes (1976-82), such a joy to read.

Combining perfect English phrases such as 'bless my cotton socks' and American West Coast, Haight Astbury-like phrases, Julian Cope's uses of language is endearing. The title of the book, 'Head-On', is a double entendre referring to 'head' not only in the fellatio sense but also in the sense of where someone is at. For example, anyone with a penchant for music is a 'music-head', anyone who simply likes going to the pub is a 'pub-head', and anyone seemingly without any particular obsessions is a 'non-head', and so on and so forth.

But never mind all that. Let's just cut to the chase shall we and get straight to the drugs? Julian was 22 years old before he smoked his first joint and before that he'd never even smoked a cigarette. In fact he had always been vehemently anti-drugs until one day Teardrop Explodes guitarist Alan Gill told him that he was a tense asshole and needed to relax properly. 'Oh, that seemed fair enough' Julian says before describing the moment he lost his drug virginity.

'I sucked hard on the joint, a massive toke. It tasted really good. My head cleared up. My aching which had been there since my early teenage years, started to evaporate. Out of the top of my head I could feel all my little devils flying off. Yes, I was saved. I felt clean. I was 22 and I felt free. Not hippy free, just cooler about myself. I realised that it was okay to be me. And so it began. The turning point.'

With the slightest of skips and the barest minimum of jumps, Julian quickly progresses to constantly dropping LSD and from then on there's no looking back as he transforms into - as one fan describes it - a king of psychedelia. When appearing on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test, Julian is on a cocktail of weed and amyl nitrate, and when appearing on Top Of The Pops he's on acid - staring down the camera into the living rooms of millions of viewers.

In America, fans queue up backstage calling out to Julian that they've got some LSD for him, whilst on arriving in San Francisco he's given a clear plastic bag full of 'sherbert', 'It's pure California Crystal,' he's informed by the bearer of the gift 'A thousand trip bag. I live out on the rock and the Dead sent it for you.'

Can you imagine? It certainly puts that night you got really drunk down the pub into perspective.

At one point Julian mentions a couplet that he's had spinning round in his head that went: 'I'm a Turner sky, and I look from above. It's all right for now, but how do I get down?' It's a brilliant line and one I'm not sure he ever committed to an actual song but it aptly describes the state he must have ascended to from his prodigious intake of hallucinogens. This all begs the question of course as to what effect such copious drug use might have upon a person in the long term? Well, have you seen what Julian Cope looks like nowadays and how he dresses? He's in a league of his own though we shouldn't be deceived by appearances because beneath the matted hair, beard, leathers and military cap there's a genuinely lovely human being concerned with environmentalism and cultural revolution whose railing against 'greed-heads' never lets up. Or as Julian describes himself: 'A forward-thinking motherfucker'.

It could be argued that Bill Drummond was wrong when he told Julian not to do drugs because he was bad enough straight so just think what a pain in the ass he'd be when high? Certainly, as evidenced by his book, before his drug-induced revelations and the pulling away of the veil from across his eyes, Julian never concerned himself much with the wider world beyond that of music and the societal politics of punk rock. In fact, throughout a large part of his book Julian comes across as a petulant queen bitch with hardly a good word to say about anyone - and that includes himself.

For example, according to Julian a band like A Certain Ratio were 'crap', Monochrome Set could 'fuck right off', Essential Logic were 'London free jazz', and Paul Weller-inspired Mod stuff 'sucked shit'. As for individuals, Ian McCulloch of Echo And The Bunnymen was a 'shit head', NME journalist Dave McCulloch was 'a plank', the Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark vocalist, Andy McCluskey, was like Leo Sayer; and as for erstwhile manager and fellow band member David Balfe he was 'a twat, a dwarf, and a satanic son-of-a-bitch'.

Those who do meet with approval are Pete Wylie, The Clash, Mark E Smith and The Fall (who he sees 28 times in 1978), Arthur Love, Scott Walker and even Lydia Lunch who visits Julian one night backstage and informs him that watching him on stage was like masturbation, before whisking him away and shagging his ass off.

By the sound of it Julian needed to write Head-On so as to get it all off his chest and to enable him to move on. And moved on he certainly has to become nowadays a polymath of sorts; expert in all things Krautrock, post-war Japanese experimental rock, stone circles and European Megalithic culture. As well as continuing to explore his own musically creative urges in the form of over 30 albums of original, fascinating and innovative near-sonic orgasms, as he might put it. 

Julian Cope is a gentleman and a scholar, a floored genius, an endearing writer and a veritable national treasure. And Head-On is a good book.

John Serpico

Zapata Of Mexico - Peter E Newell

 ZAPATA OF MEXICO - PETER E NEWELL

Everyone has at least heard of Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, I presume? If only from a slew of cowboy films where they and the Mexican Revolution are a backdrop to the main story? If not, then why not? If yes, then you might wonder what significance they have to the modern day world? Or if you know of the Zapatista slogan 'Tierra y Libertad' - 'Land and Liberty' - you might wonder how it might be relevant to a densely-packed urban population living in any of Britain's major conurbations where the closest a lot of people get to land is a window box on a tower block balcony? And of course, you wouldn't be wrong to wonder because Emiliano Zapata and the Mexican Revolution of 1910 do indeed appear to be a world away from the modern day world. But then on closer inspection and examination, however, they might actually be a lot closer than you think?

In January 1994, under the guidance of Subcommandante Insurgente Marcos, the indigenous people of Chiapas in Mexico declared independence of the Mexican State, creating an autonomous zone that is still in existence to this day. The indigenous people declared themselves to be Zapatistas, named after Emiliano Zapata from seeing themselves as his natural ideological heirs. They aligned themselves with anti-neoliberal sentiments and actions gaining traction at that time, recognising as natural allies the huge swathe of people around the world who were also questioning and physically challenging the concurrent global economic system.

A trade deal going by name of The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) had been struck between Mexico, America and Canada and it was going to leave the peasant land workers of Mexico in a very much worse off position to that which they were already in. It was this that instigated the people of Chiapas to not only reject the Mexican State but to also declare war against it. All driven by the confidence and belief that rather than a world of exploitation being thrust upon them, another world was possible.

As any would-be revolutionary should know, taking on the full military might of any State power is commendable but at the same time potentially foolhardy or even suicidal which is why Subcommandante Marcos and the Zapatistas of 1994 not only looked to Emiliano Zapata for inspiration but also for tactics.

"Amigos! It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees," Zapata had once famously declared "The land free, free for all, without overseers and without masters, that is the cry of the revolution."

And so with these words echoing down from the past along with an additional cry of 'Basta!' (Enough!) the Zapatistas of 1994 armed only with machetes, clubs and a few guns launched their attack upon the Mexican State.

Emiliano Zapata had understood that sudden, hard, merciless attack is the best form of defence and that formal battles with the Mexican Army should be avoided unless victory was fairly certain, thereby denying the enemy the opportunity to destroy them at one blow. The Zapatistas were more an insurgent people than an army but were instead masters of guerrilla warfare. They laid traps and ambushes, cut supply lines, took small towns by storm, destroyed the smaller enemy units and harassed the larger ones. These tactics completely disconcerted their enemy who could never put their firepower into effective use. If the Mexican Army advanced with a large force, they never found anyone to fight and if they divided their forces they exposed themselves to destruction in ambushes and assaults.

Just as importantly, Zapata also understood the power of the word and that the written word in particular was also a weapon. Subsequently, circulars, decrees and manifestos would pour forth from the Zapatista headquarters. For Zapata, a printing press was just as valuable as a gun.

These are the lessons learned by Subcommandante Marcos in regard to the Mexican Revolution of 1910 though by 1994 there was of course also the Internet to be used as well, enabling therefore effective global communication to all fellow travellers and supporters. And vice versa.

Zapata Of Mexico by Peter E Newell is the sprawling, rolling story of Emiliano Zapata and how he came to symbolise unmitigated and unrepentant revolutionary zeal. It's the story of a man of great principle who could not be bought out or brought down by concessions or the lure of wealth and luxury. A man who was never interested in the seeking and gaining of power but in only the destruction of it. A man who still to this day symbolises a purity of intent that due to its very simplicity is at odds with everything that the modern day world of global economic capitalist power represents. A man who rather than trying to impose his will upon a people sought only to serve and protect that peoples' will.

Peter E Newell's book is not an easy read by any means as it's often difficult to keep up with the gamut of characters and place names stemming from how incredibly well researched it is. It is, however, an invaluable book and a useful gateway into the history of Mexico and the meaning of what it is to be a revolutionary in a world of exploitation, reactionary politics and compliance to the idea of greed being an inherent condition of human nature.

John Serpico