13 Comments

A natural storyteller as always. 100% classic SNB

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The excerpts make me determined to read this book. I’ve read most of Simons books and find them totally intriguing, hysterical and in your face honest. I’m sure this one is no different and won’t disappoint

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A great read Simon ... I really like your attitude 😎

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I loved Japan’s first two albums and lost interest when they went arty and conceptual. They were a very stylish and tasteful pop group but didn’t, in my opinion, have the originality or intellectual equipment to be “artists”. That might be very unfair. I saw them at the Music Machine in Camden (now Koko) in 1978 or 1979 and they were brilliant.

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I have to admit I was very partial to David's voice on those first two albums - I was really surprised Adolescent Sex wasn't a hit single, stil sounds like one today.

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He had it all- style and musicality and obviously genderfluidity…. I was surprised he didn’t become huge. We’re they ever on top of the pops? Maybe they were three years too early or three years too late. I still listen to them. Hope you have a great day!!! Px

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Great story. At least you had the team at Quality Records in Canada that loved both you and the band. I was with your old friend Larry Macrae from Quality last week.

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Quality were brilliant. We could do sell out shows in Canada while the idiots in New York were telling us we'd never find an audience in North America.

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Japan I think could have been huge or at the very least, a "cult artist status," if CBS followed the Virgin UK releases. Japan was a great entry into another world.

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Too true. And a brilliant live band too.

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Transfixed , as always, by your story telling ability ! The chocolate king !

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Thank you Anthony. Your chocolate consumption is pretty transfixing too.

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Japan were my life at the end of the 70's -1980. It nearly destroyed me when they appeared on TOTPs . I was so in love with David, and their extraordinary Music . I hung around and caught them after a concert at Hammersmith Odeon having forged a letter and bunked off boarding school. So surreal. I find it too hard to go back to those albums now .

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