Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 356

March 9, 2018Simon Pettet

Beyond Beat, the five-day Los Angeles Beat  convention continues. Among the highlights tonight, a group reading of “Howl” (also a performance of Gregory Corso’s “Bomb”, and a poetry reading by Neeli Cherkovski and Paul Vangelisti). Tomorrow (Saturday) will include a “Punk and Beat” panel  (with V. Vale, Jerry Casale, and S.A.Griffin), a panel on Bob Kaufman, and a showing of Billy Woodberry‘s documentary on Kaufman, And When I Die, I Won’t Stay Dead.  Sunday includes Steve Silberman (on the Legacy of “Howl”), a “Howl” panel (with Steve Silberman, Marc Olmsted, and … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 355

March 2, 2018Simon Pettet

Publication date next week (March 8), we’re very happy to announce and very much looking forward to it  – Simon Warner‘s new book  Kerouac on Record – A Literary Soundtrack 

Olivier Julien, (Lecturer in the History and Musicology of Popular Music, at the Sorbonne in Paris) writes:

“Following Text and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Beats and Rock Culture  (2013), Simon Warner partners with Literary Executor of the Estate of Jack Kerouac, Jim Sampas, to go deeper into his exploration of the connections between the great figures of the Beat generation and the music of the so-called ‘rock … Read More

Howl Vinyl Release

February 22, 2018Simon Pettet

There will be a celebration at CIty Lights tonight (Thursday the 22nd) for the Concord Music box-set re-issue, Allen Ginsberg reading “Howl”, 

The Howl deluxe box set includes a reissue of the classic 1959 Fantasy Records red vinyl LP, a replica of the original poetry book, published by City Lights in 1956, a photograph of Allen, and a booklet with liner notes by Beat scholar Ann Charters and poet Anne Waldman.

Following opening statements by Garrett Caples (editor at City Lights), an appearance by Bill Belmont  (producer of the set), and remarks by Ann Charters, the evening will … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 312

April 21, 2017Simon Pettet

Great news! – Omnivore Recordings, and Pat Thomas, (who gave us last year the extraordinary The Last Word on First Blues), are issuing, as a two-CD package, Allen Ginsberg’s The Complete Songs Of Innocence And Experience,  is both a reissue of Allen’s original Blake release from 1969 on MGM, with the unreleased 1971 recording sessions that were to be Blake Volume 2.  The release will include, along with the two CDs, a booklet featuring several unseen photos, alongside revealing new interviews, conducted by Thomas himself, with the original session musicians. Release-date is June 23.  

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Harold Norse

October 22, 2014admin

[ Harold Norse (1916-2009) – “Poet Harold Norse in his apartment kitchen, 157 Albion Street, San Francisco, May 28, 1988 – For HN with old affection from Allen Ginsberg- AH” – Photograph by Allen Ginsberg]

[Harold Norse executing a tour jete en l’air, circa 1938]

Harold Norse‘s Selected Poems have just appeared lovingly presented in an essential little edition from Talisman House.  Here’s Harold singing the praise of William Carlos Williams and recollecting how he first met Allen “…Earlier, as a matter of fact, in 1944, Allen Ginsberg and I met on the subway in New York. it … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 179

June 13, 2014admin

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[Allen Ginsberg’s signed copy of his Collected Poems 1947-1980) to the Living Theatre (Julian Beck and Judith Malina) – “On With the Show of Eternity!” –  from the Living Theatre Archives – courtesy The Boo-Hooray Gallery, NYC]

Here’s a sweet little snippet of grainy video – Allen Ginsberg, in 1976, in Larry Rivers‘ loft in Manhattan, improvising a twelve-bar blues, recollecting the life-changing experience that he’d had the previous months (specifically, an extended Vajrayana meditation retreat, with his teacher Chogyam Trungpa and students, at a hastily-convened seminary at Land O’Lakes, in Northern Wisconsin)   – “I haven’t been … Read More

Friday’s Weekly Round-Up – 135

July 19, 2013Simon Pettet

[Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930) photographed by Alexandr Rodchenko, 1924]

Mayakovsky’s Birthday today. We’ll alert you to some of our earlier Mayakovsky postings – here, here, and here.

Michael Kurcfeld’s video over at the LA Review of Books on the Jean-Jacques Lebel Ginsberg & Beats celebration is well worth perusing. See here.

San Francisco’s Beat Memories, the travelling show of Allen’s photographs is still up (so, if you’re anywhere in the vicinity of the CJM (Contemporary Jewish Museum… need we say more?)

Did we run this review? – one out of of
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