Refrain

December 28, 2014admin

 

[Eric Drooker – illustration for The Ballad of the Skeletons, as it appeared in The Nation, October 23, 2012]

More Lion For Real amplification.  More early Ginsberg lyrics  – today’s offering – Refrain

To hear his 1989 version, see here Sleeve note:  “Among the earliest writings in this suite, echoing late Yeats‘ style. “Shadow changes into bone,” was my Kerouackian motto, 1948, intending to say that eternal prophetic poetic intuition (shadow) will turn out to be real (bone). Having heard (William) Blake‘s voice I was headed for the booby-hatch for a season. Michael Blair… Read More

Complaint Of The Skeleton to Time

December 27, 2014admin

Continuing with our re-visit and amplification of the Willner-Minzer  Lion For Real – see here, here, here and here

1997 - The Lion For Real

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

– here‘s another early (1949) lyric – “Complaint Of The Skeleton To Time”

Sleeve note – “1949 lyric influenced by Thomas Wyatt’s “My Lute, Awake!“ & Wm Butler Yeats‘ “Crazy Jane” – part of The Shrouded Stranger of the Night concept conceived same time as (Jack) Kerouac’s Dr Sax. Gary Windo‘s free jazz sounds a variant of drunken Mexican Day of the Dead… Read More

Ginsberg – Scribble

December 21, 2014admin

[Kenneth Rexroth  & Edith Piaf]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here‘s the very first poem that opens “The Lion For Real”  (published in Reality Sandwiches) – Kenneth Rexroth and Edith Piaf – a brief but poignant lyric, Scribble     

Steve Swallow‘ s on piano, Michael Blair on guitar, Ralph Carney on clarinet. Allen’s sleeve note – “Casual note, a long melancholic affectionate 1956 thought about the late irascible Bay Area anarchist Poet, Kenneth Rexroth, might be 4 A.M. in the soul that Michael Blair’s music mirrors”

Scribble 
Rexroth’s face reflecting human            tired bliss … Read More

The Shrouded Stranger (Three Renditions)

December 20, 2014admin

The Shrouded Stranger

Last weekend we featured two tracks from the Michael Minzer-Hal Willner-produced Lion For Real – “To Aunt Rose” and “Lion For Real”, this weekend, a couple more –  First, the very early lyric (from 1949) –  “The Shrouded Stranger” Shadow Death From Nowhere.jpg

The Shrouded Stranger Bare skin is my wrinkled sack

When hot Apollo humps my back
When Jack Frost grabs me in these rags
I wrap my legs with burlap bags
 
My flesh is cinder my face is snow
I walk the railroad to and fro
When city streets are black and dead
The railroad embankment is my bed… Read More

The Lion For Real – (Three Renditions)

December 14, 2014admin

Another from Michael Minzer and Hal Willner’s The Lion For Real – the title track. The musicians on this one – Arto Lindsay, guitar, Michael Blair, guitar (& glockenspiel), Gary Windo, tenor sax,  Rob Wasserman, bass, Beaver Harris, drums – sound effects by Richard Fussco. Allen’s sleeve note:  [“Soyez muette pour moi, contemplative Idole”] – “Be mute for me, Contemplative idol’, epigram from Tristan Corbiere‘s last stanza, “Rhapsody of a Deaf Man”.[“Rhapsodie du sourd“] –  Retrospective account of a “mystical experience” 1948 described elsewhere (Paris Review Interviews – Writers at Work … Read More

To Aunt Rose – (Three Renditions)

December 13, 2014admin

One of Allen’s most accomplished early poems is our spotlight today – “To Aunt Rose” –   “A memory flash 1958 Paris. My favorite Aunt Rose (1900-1940) took care of me weekends when my mother was ill – Books named are my late father Louis Ginsberg‘s. It was a big event to publish a volume of poetry in those days! –  Rose Gaidemak died of septicemia..” This audio is taken from a reading at San Francisco State University’s Poetry Center on April 27, 1959. It was written in 1958 and published in 1961, included as part of the collection, … Read More

Allen Ginsberg Reads Terry Southern

November 20, 2013admin

Terry Southern reading from “Flash and Filagree” – “The Clinic” (included on the album, “Give Me Your Hump! The Unspeakable Terry Southern Record” released in 2001 by Michael Minzer on his pioneering Paris Records. See here and here and here for other Paris Records gems  Terry is joined on this track by the voices of Allen and the voice of the legendary Rene Ricard… Read More

Made Up in Texas – 2 – (The Garland Symphony Orchestra)

October 29, 2013admin

A second cut from Michael Minzer‘s debut recording on Paris Records, Made Up In Texas. Allen with The Garland Symphony Orchestra, scored and conducted by Steven Taylor, recorded in the Fall of 1985 in Dallas, Texas. “(This) was Allen’s test, Minzer has been quoted as saying, “I think he decided that he was going to test me..to see if I was legitimate enough, or had the resources enough to do this thing. I get a phone-call from the music arranger, Steven Taylor. He tells me Allen has agreed to record. Okay..But on one condition. We need … Read More

Made Up in Texas – 1

October 28, 2013admin

 

 

Here’s yet another version of Allen’s delightful bitter-sweet Airplane Blues (see our earlier posting about that particular composition here). This one, with Bugs Henderson and Friends, recorded in Dallas, Texas in the Fall of 1985, is one of two cuts by Allen featured on the extraordinary (and extraordinarily hard-to-find!) compilation album, Made Up In Texas, the very first release on Michael Minzer‘s remarkable and visionary Paris Records.  For a later Paris Records project posting (Minzer now in collaboration with producer Hal Willner) see here    For more on Paris Records see here

Tomorrow, the … Read More

More Vintage Corso

July 6, 2013Simon Pettet

More Vintage Gregory Corso (culled from Michael Minzer/Hal Willner’s two Corso recordings – Die On Me and Lieders) – (We’ve already featured Marianne Faithfull, in collaboration with Gregory, a week or so back).

Here’s Gregory and Allen (and Peter) and Studs Terkel, in January of 1959, in Chicago, on The “Studs Terkel Show”.

Studs Terkel : [in media res] … no, no, but you couldn’t see..

GC: I want to see Al Capone‘s old heritage. I really dig him, you know. I pay homage to him. I mean..

ST: Once upon a time there was an

… Read More