The “Priest” They Called Him: A Dark Collaboration Between Kurt Cobain & William S. Burroughs

in Literature, Music | December 7th, 2012

It was a dark col­lab­o­ra­tion folks. There’s no deny­ing it. In Sep­tem­ber of 1992, the Beat writer William S. Bur­roughs entered a stu­dio in Lawrence, Kansas and record­ed a nar­ra­tion of “The “Priest” They Called Him,” a short sto­ry orig­i­nal­ly pub­lished in his 1973 col­lec­tion The Exter­mi­na­tor. It’s a grim tale about hero­in, addic­tion, with­draw­al, and the “immac­u­late fix.” Two months lat­er, the read­ing was giv­en a sound­track when Kurt Cobain, then the front­man for Nir­vana, stepped into a Seat­tle stu­dio and gave Bur­rough’s read­ing a sound­track full of harsh, dis­so­nant gui­tar riffs that cap­tured the spir­it of the sto­ry. Mixed togeth­er  by E. J. Rose and James Grauer­holz, the col­lab­o­ra­tive record­ing was released as a lim­it­ed edi­tion vinyl pic­ture disc in 1993, and then again on CD and 10-inch vinyl.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Nirvana’s Home Videos: An Inti­mate Look at the Band’s Life Away From the Spot­light (1988)

William S. Bur­roughs Explains What Artists & Cre­ative Thinkers Do for Human­i­ty: From Galileo to Cézanne and James Joyce

William S. Bur­roughs Reads His First Nov­el, Junky

William S. Bur­roughs on Sat­ur­day Night Live, 1981

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Dave Brubeck’s Surprise Duet: A Magical Moment at the Moscow Conservatory (1997)

in Music | December 5th, 2012

Sor­ry to bring you the sad news.  This morn­ing, the great jazz musi­cian Dave Brubeck died in Con­necti­cut, just a day short of his 92nd birth­day. He’s, of course, best remem­bered for his jazz stan­dard “Take Five,” record­ed and per­formed first in 1959. Below, you can watch a vin­tage per­for­mance from the Jazz Casu­al TV show in 1961.

Above, we’re bring­ing you a reprise of our favorite moment with Brubeck. The footage you’re watch­ing was record­ed in Decem­ber 1997, when the pianist paid a vis­it to the Moscow Con­ser­va­to­ry. Dur­ing his con­cert, an audi­ence mem­ber asked him to impro­vise on the old Russ­ian sea shan­ty “Ej, Uhnem.” About two min­utes into the impro­vi­sa­tion, a young vio­lin­ist rose from his seat and start­ed to play along. You just have to love Dav­e’s sur­prised look at 2:09. The young man turned out to be a stu­dent at the con­ser­va­to­ry. His name is Denis Kolobov and he is now a vio­lin­ist of inter­na­tion­al renown. We will sore­ly miss you Dave.…

Mate­r­i­al for this post was con­tributed by @MatthiasRascher

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 3 ) |

A Colorfully Animated Biography of Bluesman Skip Pitts

in Animation, Music | December 5th, 2012

Ear­li­er this year, the blues gui­tarist Charles ‘Skip’ Pitts passed away after a bout of lung can­cer. He had a musi­cal career that spanned many decades. But, he’s best remem­bered for his riffs on one song — Isaac Hayes’ theme song for the 1971 film Shaft. (Catch it below.) Pitts’ licks have been sam­pled by count­less younger musi­cians, every­one from Snoop Dogg and the Beast­ie Boys to Dr. Dre and Mas­sive Attack. Start­ing in the late 90s, the blues­man began play­ing with a band called The Bo-Keys, which became the sub­ject of a mini doc­u­men­tary in 2011. The short film yield­ed some insight­ful inter­views with Pitts. And, once he depart­ed from our world, the con­ver­sa­tions became the basis for the “ani­mat­ed inter­pre­ta­tion” you’re hope­ful­ly now watch­ing above. It’s the work of Loaded Pic­tures, a stu­dio based in Seat­tle, Wash­ing­ton.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Leg­end of Blues­man Robert John­son Ani­mat­ed

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

President Obama Pays Tribute to Led Zeppelin in Washington D.C.

in Music | December 4th, 2012

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4Q3zKfBRnI

Led Zep­pelin — they start­ed off mak­ing a mess of bour­geois house­holds; now, like many of their 60s coun­ter­parts, they’re get­ting hon­ored by the pow­ers that be. This week­end, the band’s three sur­viv­ing mem­bers — Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and Jim­my Page — were hon­ored for their cul­tur­al achieve­ments at a fes­tive cer­e­mo­ny in Wash­ing­ton D.C.. Look­ing very at ease with things, Pres­i­dent Oba­ma remind­ed us that, 30 years after the band’s last album, the “Led Zep­pelin lega­cy lives on.” Some­where Paul Ryan is eat­ing his heart out.

Below we have footage of Led Zep dur­ing their hey­day — a full con­cert record­ed Live at the Roy­al Albert Hall in 1970.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Artist Ken Butler Turns One Man’s Trash Into Another Man’s Quirky Stringed Instrument

in Art, Music | December 3rd, 2012

Hey, hoard­ers, think you’re the only ones who see poten­tial in a sin­gle crutch, an emp­ty Scotch bot­tle, the jagged remains of a skate­board?  Not so. Musi­cian, artist, and all-around vision­ary Ken But­ler has been turn­ing such trash into trea­sure since 1978, when he fit­ted an ax with a tail piece, fin­ger­board and con­tact mic and snug­gled it inside a 3/4 size vio­lin case. Chop a cher­ry tree with it, or play it just like Bud­dy Guy plays his ax. Like most of the hybrids But­ler cre­ates in his Brook­lyn stu­dio, it’s a func­tion­ing musi­cal instru­ment, though he’s quick to point out that for him, the sound is imma­te­r­i­al. What real­ly counts is the poet­ic cou­pling of unlike­ly mate­ri­als.

Things real­ly get cookin’ at the 4:20 mark, when But­ler plays a few licks on a three-stringed shov­el before mov­ing on to a bow­able, elec­tri­fied ten­nis rack­et. The results are far love­li­er than the mas­ter would lead you to believe.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day can stum­ble her way through the Enter­tain­er if there’s a piano handy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Art of Mak­ing a Fla­men­co Gui­tar: 299 Hours of Blood, Sweat & Tears Expe­ri­enced in 3 Min­utes

Mak­ing Fend­er Gui­tars, Then (1959) and Now (2012)

The Joy of Mak­ing Artis­tic Home­made Gui­tars

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Radiohead-Approved, Fan-Made Film of the Band at Roseland for 2011’s The King of Limbs Tour

in Music | November 30th, 2012

Hav­ing seen Radio­head a few times since their post-2000 Kid A trans­for­ma­tion, I can tell you first­hand that while their last sev­er­al records have trend­ed toward bed­room rock, the live show is still a full-on expe­ri­ence. No twid­dling behind lap­tops and drum machines. And if you haven’t had the plea­sure of see­ing them per­form since their break with noisy alt-rock, now you can, thanks to the fans who pro­duced the above film, shot at NYC’s Rose­land Ball­room and the sec­ond of only three shows the band played in 2011 in sup­port of The King of Limbs.

Edit­ed togeth­er from the YouTube footage of ten dif­fer­ent fans, the video is a remark­able exam­ple of crowd­sourced ded­i­ca­tion. Radio­head gen­er­ous­ly donat­ed the audio straight from the sound­board, pro­vid­ing stel­lar sound, and the fan-edi­tors obtained at least two cam­era angles for every song, giv­ing this pro­duc­tion the look of a pro­fes­sion­al con­cert film. It’s quite an achieve­ment over­all (and not the first time this has been done).

The pro­duc­ers of the film have made it avail­able for free down­load (via tor­rent). You can find more infor­ma­tion on the film at the project coordinator’s blogspot. The band and fan film­mak­ers ask that you con­sid­er donat­ing any funds you might have used to pur­chase the film to orga­ni­za­tions ben­e­fit­ting the Haiti Earth­quake Fund, or to those help­ing Hur­ri­cane Sandy vic­tims, such as Doc­tors with­out Bor­ders or the Red Cross. The film is ded­i­cat­ed to Scott John­son, the Radio­head drum tech­ni­cian who died in a stage col­lapse at an out­door con­cert in Toron­to last June.

Final­ly, in the spir­it of fan col­lab­o­ra­tion, YouTube user MountainMan1092 help­ful­ly typed up and post­ed the track­list below:

0:00:58 Bloom 0:07:23 Lit­tle By Lit­tle 0:12:07 Stair­case 0:17:02 The Nation­al Anthem 0:22:03 Fer­al 0:26:20 Sub­ter­ranean Home­sick Alien 0:31:24 Like Spin­ning Plates 0:34:50 All I Need 0:39:06 True Love Waits/ Every­thing In Its Right Place 0:44:49 15 Step 0:49:04 Weird Fishes/ Arpeg­gi 0:55:08 Lotus Flower 1:00:55 Codex 1:06:43 The Dai­ly Mail 1:10:33 Good Morn­ing Mr. Mag­pie 1:16:22 Reck­on­er 1:24:00 Give Up The Ghost 1:29:19 Myx­o­mato­sis 01:33:24 Bodys­natch­ers 1:41:28 Super­col­lid­er 1:47:17 Nude

via Slate

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Library of Congress Releases Audio Archive of Interviews with Rock ‘n’ Roll Icons

in Archives, Music, Radio | November 30th, 2012

Back in the mid-to-late 1980s, some of the fig­ures we con­sid­er Rock and Roll icons were near or at the nadir of their pop­u­lar­i­ty. With Duran Duran, The Police and Michael Jack­son at the top of the charts, artists like George Har­ri­son, Bob Dylan and even David Bowie had put out their last great records and were wait­ing for the nos­tal­gia wheel to turn.

Enter Joe Smith, record­ing indus­try exec­u­tive and for­mer disc jock­ey. Over two years in the late 80s, while pres­i­dent of Capi­tol Records/EMI, Smith record­ed near­ly 240 hours of inter­views with a cat­a­log of major musi­cal artists from Mick Jag­ger, Bowie and Paul McCart­ney to Yoko Ono, George Har­ri­son and Lin­da Ron­stadt.

Smith used excerpts of the inter­views for the book Off the Record, pub­lished in 1988. Now retired, he has donat­ed the archive of unedit­ed audio inter­views to the Library of Con­gress. The Joe Smith Col­lec­tion will fea­ture talks with more than 200 artists. As an indus­try insid­er Smith had extra­or­di­nary access. It’s not that these artists aren’t already heav­i­ly inter­viewed and doc­u­ment­ed. It’s the inti­mate tone of the con­ver­sa­tions that pleas­es and sur­pris­es.

In a leisure­ly con­ver­sa­tion with Smith, David Bowie (above) talks about tak­ing class­es from Peter Framp­ton’s father in art school. Yoko Ono, inter­viewed in late 1987, comes across as still liv­ing in the shad­ow of her late hus­band. By now, Ono has a big­ger rep­u­ta­tion as an artist in her own right. Lin­da Ron­stadt, who Smith signed to a record­ing con­tract, reflects on her years per­form­ing at L.A.’s Trou­ba­dour night­club dur­ing the rise of coun­try rock.

By now each of these super­stars has writ­ten his or her mem­oir and the gold­en era of major labels has been dis­sect­ed by musi­cal dig­gers. So lis­ten­ing to these inter­views from the 1980s takes on a nos­tal­gic feel of its own. Smith’s ques­tions sound naive now. Isn’t it amaz­ing, he remarks to the leg­endary pro­duc­er George Mar­tin, that the Bea­t­les were so heav­i­ly influ­enced by African-Amer­i­can blues?! It’s sweet to hear leg­endary artists and an indus­try insid­er stum­ble upon obser­va­tions like that one, which have now been so thor­ough­ly digest­ed.

Smith tran­si­tioned from broad­cast radio to record pro­mo­tions, even­tu­al­ly ris­ing to exec­u­tive ranks as pres­i­dent of Warn­er Broth­ers, Elektra/Asylum and Capi­tol Records/EMI. He signed the Grate­ful Dead, Jimi Hen­drix and Van Mor­ri­son, so it’s no sur­prise that Mick­ey Hart is inter­viewed, shar­ing an inti­mate sto­ry about his father.

So far, audio for only 25 inter­views is avail­able on the library’s site. More inter­views will be uploaded over time, includ­ing one with Smith him­self in which he talks dirt about his rela­tion­ship with for­mer busi­ness part­ner Frank Sina­tra.

Kate Rix writes about dig­i­tal media and edu­ca­tion. Read more of her work at and thenifty.blogspot.com.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Woody Guthrie’s Fan Letter To John Cage and Alan Hovhaness (1947)

in Letters, Music | November 28th, 2012

I’ve always felt a cer­tain close affin­i­ty with Woody Guthrie. Could be my admi­ra­tion for his unstint­ing working-man’s pol­i­tics or that he hails from my mother’s home state of Okla­homa. Those are strong appeals, and I sup­pose it’s all of that and more: Guthrie could carve out com­pact gran­ite sen­tences even Robert Frost would envy. If the let­ter above doesn’t con­vince you, read the man’s auto­bi­og­ra­phy. In the let­ter, the unapolo­getic work­ing-class folksing­ing Okie who embod­ied depres­sion-era authen­tic­i­ty writes to “Disc Com­pa­ny of Amer­i­ca” to enthuse over John Cage for his “over­haul of the fam­i­ly piano” and his “choked down odd and unusu­al kinds of things.”

Odd and unusu­al are two words that spring to mind when imag­in­ing Guthrie writ­ing a let­ter in praise of Cage. (He also prais­es Armen­ian com­pos­er Alan Hov­haness—Guthrie spells it “Hov­aness”). Writ­ten in 1947, it is the kind of text one wants to quote in its entire­ty. For­tu­nate­ly, we have the repro­duc­tion above, and you can read it for your­self. What isn’t repro­duced is the post­script, in which Guthrie wrote: “I need some­thing like this odd­strik­ing music to match the things I feel in my soul tonight.” He also wrote that that morn­ing, his wife, Mar­jorie, had “giv­en birth to a big 7‑pound boy”—Arlo.

Guthrie’s let­ter ref­er­ences a (now extreme­ly rare) two-disc set enti­tled Piano Com­po­si­tions by Alan Hov­haness and John Cage played by Maro Ajemi­an and Alan Hov­hanes, fea­tur­ing a hand-drawn cov­er by acclaimed jazz-record illus­tra­tor David Stone Mar­tin. Accord­ing to LA Times music crit­ic Mark Swed, the Cage com­po­si­tion on Guthrie’s 78-rpm record was the pre­pared piano solos from Cage’s Amores, com­posed in 1943. Below, watch a per­for­mance of the “odd­strik­ing” Amores by Span­ish ensem­ble Neop­er­cusión.

Thanks to Tris­tan for point­ing us to this let­ter orig­i­nal­ly blogged over at Stool Pigeon.

Josh Jones is a doc­tor­al can­di­date in Eng­lish at Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty and a co-founder and for­mer man­ag­ing edi­tor of Guer­ni­ca / A Mag­a­zine of Arts and Pol­i­tics.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 8 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast