1st of the Month...Time for Bills & More

Hit Laswell heavy last time around, so Nelson or Burroughs this time I guess. Was just reading The Job recently so looks like WSB gets the nod.

How about starting at the beginning.

Call Me Burroughs is the recorded debut of William Burroughs. For many of us not living in New York City (or Paris or Tangier or Mexico City or Lawrence,Kansas) this was our introduction to Burroughs' distinguished & incredible voice. Burroughs' deadpan drawl, pitches "routines" of Wild West gangster sci-fi fantasies, narcotic nightmares, & apocalyptic possible futures. Burroughs' usual fiction based on his real experiences on the fringes of the Interzone across the globe.

The excerpts share the exploits of junkies, prostitutes, street hustlers & croakers as they move through the netherworlds of reality & hallucination. As with all Burroughs' works, the juxtaposition of the hilarious & the macabre create the high-comic sinister mood.

Call Me Burroughs was originally released in June 1965 by The English Bookshop in Paris, then re-released the following year by ESP-Disk (ESP#1050),  New York.

Call Me Burroughs features the author reading from Naked Lunch, The Soft Machine, & Nova Express. These three works utilize the cut-up method developed by Burroughs & his artist cohort Brion Gysin.

Call Me Burroughs was originally the idea of Gaît Frogé, owner of The English Bookshop in Paris. Burroughs' friend Ian Sommerville engineered the readings on a tape machine belonging to Brion Gysin. In April 65, 1,000 copies were pressed. This small pressing meant the album had a limited reach yet the album went on to garner a wide audience, particularly in England. Barry Miles, in the liner notes to this 1995 Rhino re-release says, "The Beatles may have been the soundtrack to 1965 for the beautiful people of swinging London, but to the cognoscenti there was something even cooler to listen to".  Now you to can join the "In Crowd".

William Burroughs - Call Me Burroughs, Rhino Records R2 71848, 1995.

all decryption codes are in comments

Bradley the Buyer
Meeting of International Conference of Technological Psychiatry
The Fish Poison Con
Thing Police Keep All Board Room Reports
Mr. Bradley Mr. Martin Hear Us Through the Hole in Thin Air
Where You Belong (rewrite)
Inflexible Authority
Uranian Willy (rewrite)

Tracks 1-2 from Naked Lunch; tracks 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 from Nova Express; track 6 from The Soft Machine.



This time I think I'll follow through with two more releases...one with Burroughs & Gysin doing The Spoken Word & one of  Gysin hisself.

Here Burroughs & British-born artist Brion Gysin, the man Burroughs credited with the invention of the 'cut-up' technique, read their works on The Spoken Word. Featured here is a complete, previously unissued 42-minute recording of Burroughs reading live at the Centre Hotel in Liverpool in 1982 as part of The Final Academy tour, plus performances by Gysin of a selection of his 'permutated poems' as well as previously unheard home recordings made by the pair in Paris in 1970.

William S. Burroughs & Brion Gysin - The Spoken Word, 

British Library NSACD 111, 2012.

Into:
The Beginning is Also the End (excerpt)

Readings from The Final Academy event at the Centre Hotel, Liverpool, Oct. 5, 1982:
Foreword from The Place of Dead Roads
Man is an Artifact for Space Travel
Introducing John Stanley Hart   
Introducing Kim Carson
from the Diaries of Denton Welch   
The Old Chateau   
Daddy Long-legs   
from Federal Narcotics Hospital, Lexington, Kentucky Folkloric text
Twilight's Last Gleamings (written in collaboration with Kells Elvins) - WSB

Cut-ups Self-explained
Cut-ups Cut-up
I am This Painter Brion Gysin
Pistol Poem
I've Come to Free the Words
No, Poets Don't Own Words
Calling All Reactive Agents
Junk is No Good, Baby
Kick That Habit, Man
I Am That I Am -Brion Gysin

Invisible art (three versions) -William S. Burroughs 

'Silky Supple Mirrors to be Folded...' -Brion Gysin



Next we have Bill’s buddy, writer & painter Brion Gysin (born January 19, 1916, Taplow, Buckinghamshire, UK - died July 13, 1986 in Paris, France).

Gysin is well known for his rediscovery of Tristan Tzara's cut-up technique while cutting through a newspaper upon which he was trimming some mats. He shared his discovery with Burroughs, who subsequently put the cut-up technique to good use, dramatically changing the landscape of American literature using it.

Gysin recieved his higher educated at Downside College (1932-34). He then moved to Paris where he studied at the Sorbonne. While there he met many of the renowned members of the Surrealist group, including Max Ernst, Salvador & Gala Dali, as well as Pablo Picasso. Gysin's work was included in the Surrealist Drawings exhibition in Paris in 1935 (Galerie Quatre).

In 1938 he made his first journey to the Algerian Sahara, a sojourn that had a deep everlasting influence on his life. Equally significant to the form of his later giant landscape paintings were the years he spent in New York working as assistant to Broadway stage designer Irene Sharaff (1940-43). In 1953, having returned to North Africa, Gysin opened the Thousand and One Nights restaurant, where the Master Musicians of Joujouka played an 'extended residency'.

Gysin altered the cut-up technique to produce what he called 'permutation poems' in which a single phrase was repeated several times, with the words rearranged in a different order with each reiteration. Many of these permutations were derived using a random sequence generator in an early computer program written by Ian Sommerville.

He also experimented with permutation on recording tape, by splicing together the sounds of a gun firing recorded at different amplitudes in the BBC Radiophonic Workshop thus producing "Pistol Poem".  The piece was subsequently used as a theme in 1960 for the performance in Paris of Le Domaine Poetique, a showcase for experimental works by people like Gysin, Françoise Dufrêne, Bernard Heidsieck, & Henri Chopin.

The following is a collection of Gysin's songs, poems, & stories set to music by Ramuntcho Matta with Don Cherry, Elli Medeiros, Steve Lacy, Lizzy Mercier Descloux, Caroline Loeb, Abdoulaye Prosper Niang, & Polo Lombardo. Extensive booklet with info, lyrics, photos & much more included.

Brion Gysin - Self-Portrait Jumping, Made To Measure MTM 33CD, 1993.

Kick (that habit, man)
Junk (is no good, baby)
Stop Smoking
Sham Pain
V.V.V.
Baboon
All Those Years
Dream Machine
     a. Dreamachine
     b. Page 3
     c. Flies
     d. I Am That I Am
     e. Off the Ground
     f. The Initiate
Somebody Special
The Door

"Kick" recorded in Paris in 1983 with financial help from Sistan Limited.
"Junk", "Sham Pain", "V.V.V." & "Baboon" recorded & mixed in the country outside Paris in 1982.
"Stop Smoking" recordedin 1984 in Paris and 1990 in Lisboa.
"All Those Years" recorded in Lisboa and mixed in Brussels in Jan. 92.
"Dreamachine" recorded and mixed in 1992 at Ram Stud in Paris.
"Somebody Special" recorded & mixed in Paris in 1992.

"V.V.V." voices and mix done in 92 at Ram Stud in Paris.
"Kick" & "Stop Smoking" mixed in Brussels in October 92.

& as for an added bonus...

Various - One Night @  the 1001, Sub-Rosa SR142, 1998.

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This release contains Jajouka & other traditional Moroccan musicians specializing in exorcism & trance music. These recordings were made by Brion Gysin in the early 1950s.at his Thousand & One Nights restaurant in Tangier.

While we're at it, how about some music from the Masters themselves...

The Master Musicians of Joujouka - Joujouka Black Eyes, Sub-Rosa SR87, 1995.

Eyi El Arabi (My Brother & My Love) - Abduslam Hertobi
Joujouka Yei Cahilihown (Joujouka Black Eyes)
Hosemik (Pull up Your Belt & Dance) - Abdulah Ziat
M’Dahai (The Clapping) - Abduslam Hertobi
Brahim Jones Joujouka Very Stoned - Brian Jones
Liallah Mohamed (Mohamed My Prophet) - Achmed Titi Attar
Ana Ye Ela (Make Me Happy, My Love) - Abdulah Ziat
Jewash L’Hala (The Clapping) /Allah Hali (God is High)/Liallah Umi (God My Mother)
                                                                   - Abduslam Hertobi
Saudia Jibiliaya (Saudia, Girl of the Mountain) - Abdulah Ziat
Seeri Seeri D’Bah Farrush Rabi (Go, God Must Bless You) - Abduslam Hertobi
A Wedding in Joujouka, October 1994
El Faruk Saib (It's Hard to Leave Someone)
Le Hegera Saiyba (Leaving Makes You Sad)/Sharbuni a The (Your Eyes Make Me Want to Drink Tea)
Yehabti Oli Helalam (Come Back Home My Darling)
Joujouka Beli Jibel (Joujouka (Ice) Between the Mountains) - Abdulah Ziat
Abladi Abin Hassan (My Country Abin Hassan) - Achmed Titi Attar

Enjoy your day,
NØ