Entertaining but frustrating & on balance, I'd advise you not to bother with it. It's the basic lack of facts & fact-checking that I find wearying. He writes about a lot of artists about which I have no great knowledge but I do know enough about Les Rallizes Denudes to know that half of that chapter is pure bull. And he knows it, but seems to actively want to print the legend, in the John Ford-ian sense, not the actual history. So I have no faith in what he writes about the other artists, which may or may not be true.
It's a frustrating missed opportunity, IMHO. The only other English language book about this scene that I'm aware of is the Sonore encyclopaedia, which is very dry & not really a book to be read, just dipped into, so I did have (perhaps foolishly) high hopes for this. But that book does have more actual facts in their one page on Rallizes than Cope has in his entire chapter.
Then there are the huge gaps in Cope's musical landscape...free jazz, avant folk, barely mentioned. If you want a hyperbolic, hypercharged trip through Cope's gonzo psyche, and are prepared to fling the book down in frustration many times & shout & argue with it, it is a fun read, but take everything with liberal doses of salt and be under no illusion you're getting the full story.
< my first post - been lurking for a while - hi everyone >
