Beginnings

Alongside @jeanetteleech's film a week and the equally awesome Milla I've decided to take on a "something every week" project. Having finally just finished J's Seasons they Change and thinking that it would have been the perfect book for an 18 year old me, opening up a new world of music and adventure, I decided to revisit the book which did just that when I was 18. The all mighty Krautrock sampler:

My interest in this book came from a school friend (Neil?) who was a big Julian Cope fan and through a shared love of the Fall he introduced me to the Copester. Cope was all over the place at the time promoting said book and so I was quite excited about it. It turned out to be difficult to source as the distribution wasn't great. Finally a convergence - Spiller's records in Cardiff had a copy and I was visiting on a University open day. Thus I managed to secure a copy and read it very quickly on the train home from Cardiff.

The book is in two halves - the first part are essays about Krautrock in general and more detail on some of the specific bands involved. The second part is a top 50 records list, with detailed descriptions. Over the years I've bought a fair few of these (about half though I thought it was more) and some have become my favourite records of all time. Every now and then I'll return to the book and it always pushes me to investigate further. So this year I've decided to complete my set and to write about them - probably not as eruditely as Mr. Cope but I'll have a go. I'm going to try and listen to each one at least 5 times in the week and may even resort to doing the dirty and buying some on iTunes.

Assuredly I'll have fun.