Here we go again.....anyone called Brion,not Brian,or Bryan, is certainly posh and reeks of privilege. With a brief bit of research these suspicions were confirmed.Educated at a Fancy public school near Bath (UK),and by the age of 18 he was studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. Hangin out with the likes of Max Ernst's missus, Salvador Dali and Picasso in the "Surrealists Group", from which he was inexplicably expelled by André Breton,as happened frequently were i came from,all at the age of 19. Needless to say,if you were of modest means it would be extremely doubtful you would be anywhere near André Breton, never mind being expelled from the community centre for crimes against Surrealism. I, for one,was never sent home from the local underclass abstract expressionism club and ,thankfully,never had to explain to my mum that Mark Rothko had me expelled for not being abstract or expressive enough,and could I invite Willem de Kooning over for beans on toast later?
The only art happening where I came from, was the odd swastika sprayed on a wall over the admitedly abstract phrase of "Pakis Out"*. Nowadays those very same 'Pakis' are spraying stuff like 'Brexit Now' to get rid of the Poles. Epitomised by the new tory Home Secretary, a child of ugandan asians,who is determined to shut the door on any more poor immigrants...like her parents were? Fucking Insane!
I don't wanna go through Gysin's life story, but lets just say, he never seemed to need a job,and drifted effortlessly around the globe meeting up with famous artist and bohemian types of all statures.
Most famed for the re-invention of the Dada-ist 'cut-up Technique, which was in fact nothing new,and gave it to William Burroughs to mess around with.Burroughs explained that Gysin was "the only man that I've ever respected in my life. I've admired people, I've liked them, but he's the only man I've ever respected."...slightly arrogant?
I suspect that Burroughs was the victim of that intellectual arrogance that all Public School boys,and upper class twits in England get drip fed at birth,even if they know fuck-all,which generally is the case.I'd say Bill respected Gysin because he was intellectually intimidated by those insideous British upper-class vibes,as most Americans are.
As far as I can see Gysin was just more inventive in his stealing from the past,and could explain it all away as his own doing, without actually saying so.
However These writings and sound experiments were a considerable influence on the Industrial Music,and culture of the late seventies......so says I.
Gysin enjoyed messing with language ,what makes a word a word,and how easily words change their meaning,or effect, by just rearranging a few letters or their speed.One short phrase could be transformed into a new language......or,as is the case in most of these pieces,into complete stuff of nonsense.
The same could be done with sounds,as in the Pistol Poems,with vari-speeded recordings of a gunshot,which he made for the BBC. A resurrection of another Dada-ist idea,'The Sound Poem'
This CD has all of Gysin's most influential recorded moments collected in one place.
Best listened to with one of Gysin's other claims to fame, he and Ian Sommerville's "Dream Machine",which was probably just the work of Sommerville,and Gysin named it afterwards?:
Build your very own Brion Gysin Dream Machine HERE!
*Paki is a derogatory term used generally for anyone from the asian subcontinent,and is even used for Arabic and semetic people by the ignorant.The equivalent of the 'N' word but for asians. I've even heard it used by Indians as an insult to white people, as in "White Paki"......its crazy ol' world out there innit?
Tracklist:
1 I've Come To Free The Words 1:16
2 Vocal Cut-Up 6:14
3 Where's That Word 1:58
4 Thoughts On The BBC 2:50
5 I Am That I Am 4:35
6 Pistol Poem 1:29
7 Pistol Poem - Part 2 0:39
8 Recalling All Active Agents 1:25
9 Thoughts On Censorship 1:53
10 No Poets Don't Own Words 1:01
11 Thoughts On Jean Genet 8:55
12 Readings At The October Gallery 5:36
13 Kick That Habit Man 1:08
14 Junk Is No Good Baby 2:04
15 Thoughts On Surrealists 5:27
16 Thoughts On Modern Art 2:29
17 Thoughts On The Dream Machine 4:19
18 Thoughts On The Value Of Art 2:29
19 Sound Poem 1:46
20 Duet 0:41
21 In The Beginning Was The Word 1:49
22 I Am This. . . 2:02
Live recording at an historic "summit",'The Nova Convention',a kind of tribute forward slash benefit, for William.S, including alledged counter culture and avant garde performers in New York City in 1979. Sadly,the music section of this convention,which included Suicide, B-52's, Bobby Fripp isn't available,but.....
Frank Zappa IS the talking asshole, and there's a nice picture of him on the inner cover bathing in the light of William Burroughs' credibility ray. Of course we also have Patti Smith....good isn't she(?),introduced as 'Great'...well as least she and a bunch of hack journalists thought she was.....waxing lyrical about similar asshole, Jim Morrison,with 'jokes' that fall as flat as her terrible adult orientated rock albums.
John Giorno places himself early in the tracklist once more,and everyone skips the needle forward,bouncing off the Patti Smith track like a skimming stone,to the safer ground of Glass,Cage Billy,and Brion,among others,aka the real thing.
Tracklist:
A1 –Terry Southern - Vingette Of Idealistic Life In South Texas 1:25
A2 –William S. Burroughs - Keynote Commentary & Roosevelt After Inauguration 5:52
A3 –John Giorno - Eating The Sky 13:30
A4 –Patti Smith - Poem For Jim Morrison & Bumblebee 11:45
B1 –William S. Burroughs - Benway 3:40
B2 –Philip Glass - Building, Excerpt From Einstein On The Beach By Robert Wilson & Philip Glass 3:04
B3 –Brion Gysin - Kick That Habit, Junk Is No Good Baby, Somebody Special & Blue Baboon 7:06
B4 –Frank Zappa - The Talking Asshole 5:25
B5 –William S. Burroughs - From The Gay Gun: "This Is Kim Carson" & "Just Like The Collapse Of Any Currency" & "The Whole Tamale" 13:27
C1 –William S. Burroughs - What The Nova Convention Is About 2:35
C2 –Ed Sanders - Hymn To Aphrodite From Sappho 8:50
C3 –John Cage - Writing For The Second Time Through Finnegans Wake 14:15
C4 –Anne Waldman - Plutonium Ode & Skin Meat Bones 6:35
D1 –Laurie Anderson & Julia Heyward - Song From America On The Move 12:50
D2 –Allen Ginsberg & Peter Orlovsky - Punk Rock, Old Pond; Feeding Them Raspberries To Grow, & Nurses Song 13:00
D3 –William S. Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Les Levine & Robert Anton Wilson Conversations 7:10
Mutant Disco was the big thing downtown,and Giorno wanted a piece of it. The irritating ranting through a delay effect has now gone, and been replaced by irritating ranting in front of a group of session musicians yawning out some over-produced elevator disco. Who said Giorno was a poet anyway?...oh yes...himself!
Even Brion Gysin gets in on the dance poetry act,with some afro-beat nonsense,which drowns out Bri's thoughts on 'Junk'....nothing like a diversity of subject matter in a lifes work is there?
There are other mutant disco poetry attempts,namely the Jayne Cortez track, which features the truly awful trendy instrument of 1982,the dreadful Fretless Bass. If the motive was to get the public to listen to the words, which apparently they can't unless one puts a disco beat behind everything;then adding some fretless makes this member of the public skip to the next track.
There's some ironic country and western,about Gay Cowboys which is...uhm... bearable.But the piece de restistence is the 'you can not be serious' moment by the 'Four Horsemen'. It's this kind of stuff that reafirms the public view of artists as lazy out-of-touch elitest piss-takers. Imagine stumbling into a primal scream therapy session with a middle income household in the suburbs(what you're doing there?I Dunno? Burgling the place maybe?).They break off from the screaming and ecstatic dancing to welcome you aboard.
"Come and Join us", says the one in the ethnicly inspired shawl invitingly.
Being of a polite dispostion, you accept the invitation and start waving your arms in the air awkwardly and emit a repressed,and slightly embarassed yell.They welcome you with eye contact and one of those insipid smiles Jehovah Witnesses have,then invade your personal space with....gulp!..body contact.....ugh!...(shudder)!
After the six hour session,you hand out your fake telephone number and e-mail address and leave.....never to mention this to anyone!..The kind of thing you do when you wake up hung over after a wild night of dancing in a mutant disco,in bed next to a morbidly obese balding shemale,with a memory lapse and your bottom hurts?Maybe the same goes for this album, except for the Billy Burroughs track of course,who can never do any wrong.
Tracklist:
A1 –John Giorno - Everyone Says What They Do Is Right 5:11
A2 –William S. Burroughs - The Mummy Piece 3:55
A3 –Amiri Baraka - Wailers 4:45
A4 –Jim Carroll - Just Visiting 6:30
B1 –Jayne Cortez - I See Chano Pozo 6:20
B2 –Ned Sublette - Cowboys Are Frequently Secretly 4:49
B3 –Brion Gysin - Junk 3:21
B4 –Rose Lesniak - She's So 4:35
B5 –Four Horsemen - The Dream Remain 2:35
The first of the dial-a-poem albums by the Dial-A-Poem Poets. Which thankfully doesn't include any rock stars.Just a bunch of post-beat, post-hippie wordsmiths who can string more than a few words together......hang on...isn't that the too clever by half front-man from the Fugs?.....Oh God...there's Jim Carroll too!.....apart from that, you're safe.....and No Patti Smith,which can only be a good thing.Although Anne Waldman sounds exactly like Smith would sound when the praise started to be chucked in her direction like so much shit at a wall.
Bobby Seales' (the official Token Black on this predominantly white Album) speech about 'Racism' is a particular low point. If only for the sound of the wild applause and cheering from the ,almost certainly, 'White' audience when he explains why he hates white people. "Woooo Yeaaaah,I hate White people too", screams the dressed -down stockbroker at the terminally hip 'Filmore,East' venue.If this terror ranter asked these middle class fools to shoot themselves,they may well have done it with an eagerness last seen in Jonestown.Just to prove they're not racists.....,by any means necessary......shit, I hate White People too,for different reasons.Can't say the same for Blacks,(although why should they be exempted from contempt?),or i'll be pulled up as racist by the same type of 'whites' who applauded so enthusiastically at the prospect of their own extinction. A rare example of Mass Jesus Christ syndrome in all its narcissistic glory.....Also displayed by 'White Panther'and MC5 guru idiot, John Sinclair.......sure we're ALL racist, but postive discrimination is still...er...discrimination......innit? And I can say this, because i'm a person of colour too...Pink.
"Everybody's Coloured or you wouldn't be able to see 'um." (Don Van Vliet,1972).
Wait!Isn't that Robin Williams of Mork and Mindy fame grinning in the background on the cover,or Jesus Christ?
That's obviously me in the foreground,on my way for afternoon creme tea and scones with Richard Hell at The Ritz.
Tracklist:
A1 –Allen Ginsberg - Vajra Mantra 2:00
A2 –Diane Di Prima - Revolutionary Letters Nos. 7, 13, 16, 49 7:07
A3 –William Burroughs - Excerpts From The Wild Boys 6:53
A4 –Anne Waldman - Pressure 4:00
A5 –John Giorno - Vajra Kisses 8:20
B1 –Emmett Williams - Duet 1:50
B2 –Ed Sanders - Cemetery Hill 4:08
B3 –Taylor Mead - Motorcycles 1:52
B4 –Allen Ginsberg - Green Automobile 1953 6:30
B5 –Robert Creeley - The Messenger For Allen Ginsberg, I Know A Man 1:17
B6 –Harris Schiff - Poems 3:53
B7 –Lenore Kandel - Kali 2:20
B8 –Aram Saroyan - Not A Cricket 0:09
B9 –Philip Whalen - Excerpt From Scenes Of Life At The Capitol 3:07
B10 –Ted Berrigan - Excerpt From The Sonnets 2:35
C1 –Frank O'Hara - Ode To Joy, To Hell With It 4:52
C2 –Joe Brainard - Excerpt From I Remember 4:03
C3 –Clark Coolidge - Small Inventions: Suite V (Plurals) Secante, Suite IV 2:07
C4 –Jim Carroll - Excerpts From The Basketball Diaries 3:33
C5 –John Cage - Mushroom Haiku 4:55
C6 –Bernadette Mayer - These Stories About After The Revolution 1:50
C7 –Michael Brownstein - Geography 6:40
D1 –Brion Gysin - I Am That I Am 2:45
D2 –John Sinclair - The Destruction Of America 5:38
D3 –Anne Waldman - Holy City 2:05
D4 –Heathcote Williams - I Will Not Pay Taxes Until 4:50
D5 –David Henderson - The Louisiana Weekly No. 1 Ruckus Poem Part 1 2:00
D6 –Bobby Seale - Excerpt From Fillmore East Speech 3:10
D7 –Kathleen Cleaver - Excerpt From Fillmore East Speech 3:10
D8 –Allen Ginsberg - Blake Song: Merrily We Welcome In The Year 4:30
A bizarre tape collage, featuring interviews, readings and various sound experiment pieces,with/or by Brion Gysin, Bill Burroughs, and Genesis P. Orridge. The innovators of what became to be known as Industrial culture.
Dunno what the date of some of these interviews are,as it was released three years after Gysin's death!
But, it does contain some interesting insights on the origins of the "Cut-up" technique of writing(born on a Cold Spring morning in Paris 1958; is this the origin of the Cold spring Record label title?), and how it influenced a teenage Genesis.
Build your very own Brion Gysin Dream Machine HERE!
They used to have tonnes of tapes like this at the much missed Compendium Books on Camden High Street, London, which is where this was probably from. A bookstore that lives on in memory. Allen Ginsburg read there. Kathy
Acker worked there. Stewart Home lived in the basement (not literally).
The greatest collection of counter-culture books on everything from
Trotsky to tattooing.Altogether, a fine portal of alternative information that was forced to close by free market pressures and the advent of that bloody Internet thingy.
DOWNLOAD this cold spring HERE!
