William S Burroughs birthday: Sun Tea, part 1

The basic tracks for this week's piece are from Real English Tea Made Here at ubu.web.  

WSB's birthday is commemorated on this site because of his singularly Promethean act: breaking the hold of the Word virus on the Human mind, by cutting up the input that sustains it.  A concept derived from Marcel Duchamp's cutup work, innocently applied to the serial stream of social control built into language, with unexpected results.  

The tapes in Real English Tea were compiled in the mid-sixties and published by Ubuweb when the CD was issued in 2007.  They include pieces that stand by themselves, and some in which the content is more scattered and perhaps even meant as a do-it-yourself challenge for anyone coming across them later. 

I accept the challenge.  My goal in these birthday things is to present, in effect, a cut-up lecture from the old Doctor, summarizing and demonstrating the remarkable mind-altering principles of cutup as he practiced it, for those of us who wish to do the same.

His birthday is Feb 5 (1914).  Here is part 1 of this year's mix, entitled Sun Tea, part 1.

If you're interested in more Burroughs birthday bits on this site, there's a search box over there on the right.

A necessary behind-the-scenes note

 

I recently committed to giving you folks a new audio bit every week.  Something about making a commitment like that has brought Entropy roaring out of its hole, and my life is being wrenched around quite a bit.  

I'm mentioning it here because of the kind of spotty nature of posts up to last month-- if you're coming around b/c I'm doing stuff again, great!  Thx for your interest.  Something by me will be posted every Friday. It might be a while before I have enough control of my time, for it to be very complex.  I hope it's new.  We'll just have to see.  Bear with us.

America's Musical Frontier Heritage, part 1

 

Let's see, that's 3 new posts in the last 3 weeks, so maybe I can get away with a rerun this week, if I promise something special next week.

This week's post (a rerun, yes) is from a piece of 1960's vinyl, featuring the voice of Ken Nordine. 

It was originally meant to narrate a filmstrip about pioneer music, and included a sound cue ding for an operator to advance the frames.  I have, of course, thoroughly processed it for your enjoyment.  

Play

The promise is-- I found another Ken Nordine filmstrip record.  Will it end up like this one?  Come back next Friday and see.

Update, 1/28-- see the next post.  There wasn't enough time and TLC available this week.  The Radio God graciously allowed a substitute inspiration to occur, with enough time to complete the post.  

It's hard to believe something won't be done with our old buddy Ken's record, sooner or later.  I have faith. 

Breakin' In a Brand New Dub

6 years ago, I posted a workfile...and I want to know where you kids put it!  Seriously though-- it was eventually finished, and included in the podcast archived on this site a little over a year ago.  Then it was lost in the general foo-frah.  I recently realized the fershligginer thing was actually done, and, unless you tuned in the podcast, it wasn't anywhere else, on this site or Bandcamp.

It's interesting, at least as an experiment-- the premise being, how would an extremely overdubbed song sound, even more overdubbed?  Connie Francis's 1961 hit, Breakin' In A Brand New Broken Heart, is something like a sound-river.  

Play