Comments on: Frank Zappa and his Naked Lunch

Frank Zappa and his Naked Lunch

Eekacat — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:20:21 -0800

Frank Zappa Reads NSFW Passage From William Burroughs' Naked Lunch (1978) The occasion was the Nova Convention in 1978. Recordings of it were released as a double album.

By: the sobsister

the sobsister — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:33:46 -0800

If anyone would to hear this in context, the great UbuWeb has the Nova Convention LP, which also features contributions from Philip Glass, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson, among others, on its site.

By: Nelson

Nelson — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:39:50 -0800

Here's Burroughs himself reading the same passage, although you have to listen over some poorly considered disposable hip hop mixed on top of it.

By: usonian

usonian — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:44:19 -0800

Nelson beat me to it - Burroughs' reading is pretty chilling, and as much as I love Frank Zappa his rendition was kind of flat by comparison.

By: Drexen

Drexen — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:50:03 -0800

Lovely. :) Burroughs' performance is fantastic and definitive, of course, but Zappa's angle is nice, too. Burroughs had kind of a tangential, but interesting relationship with rockstars (e.g. Bowie using cut-up to write lyrics). Thanks for the post!

By: usonian

usonian — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:06:15 -0800

I apologize, I didn't mean to threadshit with my comment. I think it's kind of like how you wind up preferring whichever version of 'A Christmas Carol' you saw first (George C. Scott 4eva!) Burroughs had a pretty good resurgence during the 90's, between the above album with Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, his collaboration with Kurt Cobain, his Nike Ad with soundtrack by G. Love & Special Sauce (?!) and of course Cronenberg's film adaptation of Naked Lunch. But those were the early days of the web, and I never knew about The Nova Convention... interesting to see that he had that pop culture crossover going on in the late 1970's too.

By: Golden Eternity

Golden Eternity — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:12:22 -0800

Ah Pook Is Here

By: parki

parki — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:15:48 -0800

Disagree, usonian. Sims for the win. :-)

By: ovvl

ovvl — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 18:53:53 -0800

If anyone would to hear this in context, the great UbuWeb has the Nova Convention LP, which also features contributions from Philip Glass, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson, among others, on its site. If anyone cares, I've wasted some past interesting evenings listening to my bunker-mate's vinyl copy of You're the Guy I Want To Share My Money With...

By: dephlogisticated

dephlogisticated — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:02:00 -0800

Is there a SFW passage from Naked Lunch? Like, at all?

By: homunculus

homunculus — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 19:53:47 -0800

'I do not wish...my nose nailed to other people's lavatories': Dame Edith Sitwell on 'Naked Lunch'

By: a non e mouse

a non e mouse — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:32:53 -0800

Serendipitous - my good friend, David Hamilton, who introduced me to the dial-a-poets many years ago, died last week. His record collection was diabolical, and we listened to these recordings while smoking dope and drinking whisky. I miss him so. Sugar Alcohol & Meat