Raised in Tamworth, in the English Midlands, Cope seems to have been a good little boy for a while. He wanted to make music, and he wanted to hang with the freaks. Escape to university was a beginning. And punk reigns, though its end is already clearly in the offing. It goes nowhere.
Bands are formed and fall apart left and right, sometimes just for a single gig, it seems.
Cope's The Teardrop Explodes and McCull's Echo and the Bunnymen. 1982, and it's all over. He's just as good on his visits to New York, and the American and Australian tours by The Teardrop Explodes. Cope has a breezy style and a sense of humour and he doesn't take any of it too seriously. This is not earnest or vindictive autobiography.