Barry Farber Interview – 2

April 8, 2018Simon Pettet

[Barry Farber]

Barry Farber’s 1975 radio interview continues. In this second segment, Allen engages with two studio guests (unlikely cohorts), the open-minded and wonderfully out-of-fashion “Bullets” Durgin, and Robert Goodman, “a young reporter, no longer just a collegiate reporter”

[George “Bullets”  Durgom ( 1915-1992)]

BF:  Poets, Allen Ginsberg, Peter Orlovsky, Jonathan Robbins (are here) with us, (and)  “Bullets” Durgin, the hero-manager, who began driving a truck for a big-name band and wound up driving big names with truck-driver power to success that, sometimes they gave him credit for, and sometimes they didn’t (his cases where they … Read More

Studs Terkel interviews Allen Ginsberg, 1976 – part two

May 14, 2017Simon Pettet

Allen Ginsberg and Studs Terkel continuing from here

[At approximately half-way through their conversation, approximately thirty-two minutes in, Allen sings “Gospel Noble Truths” (“Born in this world, you’ve got to suffer..”) making several improvised additions –  (“no permanent soul!”,  “the dharma chakra”,  “Look what you’ve done – 1968” – “Let go, Studs!”)

AG: You looked like you didn’t want to “let go” of  “earth heaven and hell” there!.

ST: And as Ned Kelly, the bandit, said, before they hanged him, and they sprang the trap –  “That’s life! “. You said,  “Die when you die”. I was about to … Read More

Allen Ginsberg Reading in Baltimore 1978 – 2

December 11, 2016Simon Pettet

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[Mind Breaths: Poems 1972-1977, the volume of poems by Allen Ginsberg published in 1978 by City Lights]

continuing from yesterday

AG: So, actually, I was in the hospital and I actually went out of my skull, I was full of antibiotics and fever and it seemed like it was about time to take a meat axe to that dirty Jew’s skull or something, (that was what I was telling my poor Jewish brother about Kissinger). So, finally, I wound up in a sort of state of punk ecstasy. So two poems about sickness, one a description and one a … Read More

Allen Ginsberg & Steven Taylor – 1996 at Texas State

October 4, 2014admin

We feature today a reading by Allen, recorded, just a year before his death, on April 11, 1996, at the Evans Auditorium, Southwest Texas State University. A noticeably weakened Allen – “I have bronchitis, so if my voice fails and I start coughing…” (and cough he does, finding it necessary to bum cough drops from the audience).  He is accompanied by Steven Taylor (“We haven’t played together in half a year or so, so.. but we played together for twenty or thirty years.. twenty years..” The tape begins with an introduction  by Steven M Wilson, Associate Professor … Read More

Ginsberg-Cherry-Rowan – Buddhism in Song

September 22, 2013admin
[Don Cherry]
[Peter Rowan]
[Allen Ginsberg]

Don Cherry at Naropa in August of 1976. We featured him yesterday, we thought to include him again today, alongside Peter Rowan (who we’ve previously featured here) in a discussion (and performance) of Buddhism–in-song. Audio for the occasion is here

Allen begins with a couple of his songs (Gospel Noble Truths and Guru Blues), beginning first with some spontaneous improvisations on the Prajnaparamita, Heart Sutra
Transcription follows.
AG: ….Do you know “Gate gate, para gate, parasam gate, bodhi svaha” – so I just made up one verse last night when … Read More