My first introduction to this crazy Japanese "Group Sound" band was in the extremely mental Hanzo The Razor series starring Shintaro Katsu. The Mops did great, cheeseball 70s soul/disco sounds for the three movies released in the USA, and ever since I've been on a quest to find more by this far out group who cycle between The Strawberry Alarm Clock and Jefferson Airplane extremes to the aforementioned disco vibrations. Check out this brain-twistingly interesting clip and wonder why you never bothered to check YouTube for such OUT THERE goodness. I may have to go all the way to Japan to track down the vinyl for this, but it would be worth it, especially when armed with Julian Cope's JapRockSampler and all the bands mentioned in that one.

I picked this up yesterday in one of Chicago's finest vinyl sources, Reckless Records. I'm already four chapters into this amazing tome and I must say, Copey is right on the money. I got addicted to his confessional acid-soaked memoirs Head On and Reposessed ; since then Cope has written a slew of books including the vital KrautRockSampler. Julian Cope has a fascinating brain. He's not content to look at the music--he examines the cultural forces which shaped Japan's psychedelic music explosion--including the seeming contradictory anti-drug stance of some of these performers. Acid music without the acid? A stretch for the western mind, to be sure until you understand that Japan has a long-standing cultural association with meditative states and free-form musical expression. Take one part Shinto, one part Zen, and mix in an obsession with death and rebirth and you have a quite fertile breeding ground for the imagination. Cope hits all this, plus Commodore Perry's "opening of Japan" and more. I'm a huge fan of this book already and haven't yet put it down except to write this. All the bands listed in this book are on vinyl, glorious vinyl and I am afraid that I'm about to be drawn ...