In late August, the Beatles had five singles on the American charts and were winding up a triumphal coast-to-coast concert tour of the United States. On August 12, the film A Hard Day's Night had opened in more than 500 theaters nationwide, earning more than $1.3 million its first week and making Beatlemania a performance for millions of fans to watch and join vicariously. In April the top five places in Billboard Magazine's Top One Hundred chart were Beatles songs. Those screams had rung in the Beatles' ears for seven months as the cresting wave of Beatlemania rose higher and higher with no end yet in sight. In their air-conditioned luxury suite high above the intersection of Park Avenue and 59th Street, the Beatles could hear the faint screams of fans who had gathered reverently on the sidewalks around the Delmonico Hotel, hoping to catch a glimpse of Paul, George, John, or Ringo peering from behind a curtain. On August 30, 1964, a Sunday, Manhattan lay swathed in the heat of a summer afternoon. " Tomorrow Never Knows brings to life the high points of the countercultural experience: the discovery of various drug highs, the radical shift in consciousness that these induced, the communal experience of music as binding and meaningful, the guiding, almost priestly role of musicians such as The Beatles, Dylan and Jimi Hendrix, and the realization that the psyche's dark side could not be escaped by getting stoned."Mark Kidel, Times Higher Education Supplement
Tomorrow Never Knows reads like the best journalistic criticism both stylistically and interpretivelyit's vivid, credible, and original."Robert Christgau Nick Bromell renders them like he's been there and understands them like he's thought long and hard about them afterward.
"Music historians and social historians understate the interrelations among drugs, rock and roll, and the sixties, in part because most are thoroughly daunted by them as writers and thinkers. Nick Bromell's Tomorrow Never Knows brings us closer to the heart of what we call the sixties than any other book I know."Jon Wiener, The Nation Instead, he seeks to recapture what he calls "the primal scene" of listening to rock music. Moreover, he doesn't focus on the musicians who created it. Bromell wants to do something elseto put the music of the sixties at the center of the story. There’s no doubt that the quartet shaped the sound of modern Japanese rock and have stayed at the epicenter of the genre ever since."We have many good books on the events and movements and ideas of the sixties, most of which agree that the music was important in expressing the spirit and energy of the times.
Mr.Children has continued to refine their sound and tackle a wide range of subject matter from love (“Hanabi”) to politics (“So Let’s Get Truth”). After a period where Eurodance-flavored pop ruled the Japanese charts, Mr.Children’s electrifying rock shifted the paradigm, powered by chugging cuts such as “Innocent World” and the twinkly, saxophone-assisted “Tomorrow Never Knows.” They launched a band boom that set the path for groups like THE YELLOW MONKEY and BUMP OF CHICKEN, while also inspiring ensuing bands. By the early ‘90s, Mr.Children connected with producer Takeshi Kobayashi, who added keyboards to their sound and shaped the band into a powerhouse act. Emerging from the ashes of another project, The Walls, the four used this new outfit as a fresh start to explore U2-esque anthemic rock built around sky-bound guitar playing and Sakurai’s metaphor-heavy lyrical approach. The group, composed of lead vocalist Kazutoshi Sakurai, guitarist Kenichi Tahara, bassist Keisuke Nakagawa, and drummer Hideya Suzuki came together in Tokyo in 1989. Crafting epic, soaring, guitar-based numbers designed to connect with arena-sized crowds, rock quartet Mr.Children helped kick off a Japanese rock revival in the ‘90s that continues to shape the genre today.