Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

On the first Saturday in December, I rang the buzzer at Own Guru Records in Fells Point hoping to find some Beat vinyl. Alan, the owner, directed me to a copy of Listening to Richard Brautigan issued on the Harvest label in 1970. Normally, a purchase like this with its considerable back story, linking Barry Miles, the Beatles, Zapple Records, Bukowski, Charles Olson, and other leading lights of the counterculture, would make it onto the pages of the Bunker. Instead, Alan told me about an auction on eBay that was going to challenge all the records for the most expensive recording of all time. The write up on Brautigan went out the window. Rock historian Richie Unterberger recounts the major facts in his liner notes to the Brautigan LP.

The LP on eBay and in the news is an acetate of the landmark Velvet Underground and Nico. (Ebay auction | PDF) This is big news, not just to Velvet Underground fans but to collectors of all types as well as the general public. Burroughs fans should be interested as well. Burroughs was undoubtedly an influence on Lou Reed if not all of the Velvet Underground. In late 1964, Burroughs returned to the United States and briefly lived in New York before leaving for London. In the Spring of 1965, Burroughs attended Lester Persky’s Fifty Most Beautiful People Party at the Factory along with Warhol and Edie Sedgwick. So Burroughs was in the shadows of the Factory scene during the formative period of the Velvet Underground. Reed and Andy Warhol visited the Bunker when Burroughs was living in New York in the 1970s. Hopefully you would like to hear more about the LP, if you haven’t already. Several magazines and newspapers have reported on this story and the eBay page links to them.

Briefly stated in 2002, Warren Hill found the acetate while flipping through some fire damaged LPs in Chelsea, New York. Hill paid roughly 75 cents for the record and showed it to his friend Eric Issacson of Mississippi Records in Portland Oregon. What they heard absolutely floored them. This was not a promo or a test pressing of the album released with the banana sticker in 1967. The songs were in a different order and were in fact different versions altogether. These were previously unheard versions of the album recorded in April 1966 at Scepter Studios (the “lost” Scepter recordings) under the direction of Norman Dolph. The LP was pressed on brittle, cheap aluminum, covered with acetone. More than 10-30 plays of the LP would destroy it. This acetate remained playable through the ages and an apparent fire.

The bidding climbed by the tens of thousands until the record sold to the 253rd bidder for $155,401. Now the $155,401 question: Is it worth it? The Velvet Underground acetate completely shatters the previous high on eBay. According to Popsike, a Sex Pistols God Save the Queen sold in March of 2006 for almost $13,000. It was one of nine copies given to A&M record executives. Popsike lists the top twenty five most expensive LPs sold on eBay. Other high selling LPs on eBay include Elvis, the Beatles, garage psych, etc. Like the Velvet Underground, the Sex Pistols and the Beatles are beyond legendary bands with a rabid fan and collector base. Their work transcends rock and roll and enters the realm of high culture and art collectibles like a Picasso or Warhol.

By the way, Popsike is an indispensable website for vinyl collectors. The site tracks all sales over $50 relating to vinyl along with the eBay information concerning the sale. For record dealers, this functions like Abebooks allowing them to price records outside of their expertise. As I mentioned before, this adds to the decline of know-how in the collectible business as people can get lazy with their prices. These sites also hurt a collector’s chances of finding an underpriced item in the racks. Yet the upside for gathering information as a collector is sizable as well.

The Beatles provide an interesting benchmark for the Velvet acetate. The eBay sale was marketed as the ultimate LP collectible. The holy grail of record collectors is widely considered to be the Butcher Cover LP of Yesterday and Today. A still sealed Butcher cover sold for more than $38,000 at Good Rocking Tonight auctions. That was a record for an LP at auction. The value of this record lies in the cover art. A nice comparison would be the Digit Junkie by Burroughs. The controversial cover art forced the pulping of the book thus creating a legendary rarity. Like the Butcher Cover, the Digit Junkie fetches top dollar due to the rarity and iconic nature of its wrapper, not the uniqueness of its contents.

Another contender for the holy grail moniker is the first pressing mono of Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. This version of the LP features four tracks left off later issues. Prices range from $25,000-35,000. By the way, Christie’s just auctioned a bunch of high grade memorabilia on December 4th including the personal archives of Suze Rotolo. Who is she? She was Dylan’s girlfriend in 1963. She walks with Dylan on the cover of Freewheelin’. A demo copy of the album with track listings amended by Dylan’s hand was up for grabs at Christie’s. Here are the prices realized.

Technically, the most ever paid for an LP was $525,000 for a copy of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy. Lennon signed the LP five hours before his assassination in 1980. The man requesting the signature was Mark David Chapman. Chapman carried the album as he committed the murder. Chapman’s fingerprints are still on the album. Clearly, the value of the LP is based on the events surrounding the signature and not the scarcity or content of the LP itself.

Other high-priced acetates provide an interesting comparison. A Sgt. Pepper acetate sold for more than $8000 on eBay, but it was, I gather, a test pressing of the released version of the mass produced album. This is much like an advanced reading copy or review copy in book publishing. Such copies are earlier but identical versions of a mass-produced work. The limited number of copies as well as the different, more disposable format provides the value. Generally, the closer you get back to the original source material the greater the collectible nature of the item. Over the years, tons of acetates of major songs or albums have surfaced on the collector’s market in many cases fetching high prices. Hill and Issacson based their opening estimate on eBay on an acetate for Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde that sold for $32,000. I cannot get much information on this LP, but I would suspect that it contains tracks or versions not available elsewhere. See Google answers for another discussion on the highest price paid for a record or Wikipedia on record collecting.

The Velvet acetate and possibly the Blonde on Blonde acetate are different from most of these other LPs. The Velvet LP supposedly has material that has never been heard before by the public (more on this later). Plus it is also marketed as a one-of-a-kind object. The Sex Pistol LP and the Beatles Butcher cover are “merely” incredible rarities (of still several copies) that do not provide new content. The mono Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan provides unique content but several copies do exist.

The most accurate measuring stick of the Velvet acetate will probably never come up for sale. Paul McCartney owned the only known copy of the Quarrymen’s 1958 studio recording of Buddy Holly’s “That’ll Be the Day” and an original McCartney-Harrison recording “In Spite of All the Danger.” The 10″ 78rpm acetate would surely be the most expensive LP of all time if it ever reached the open market. McCartney digitized the recording and pressed it into 50 copies for friends and the recording appeared on the Beatles Anthology. The commemorative editions of the original LP are collector items in themselves fetching over five figures, thus making just the reissue one of the most expensive LPs of all time.

The most comparable gauge based on auction results of the Velvet acetate’s value is another Beatles item, or should I say, Quarrymen item. In 1994, Bob Molyneux, a retired policeman, rediscovered the recordings that he had made of a Quarrymen concert in 1957. Sotheby’s auctioned the recording featuring one Elvis Presley and one Lonnie Donigen song for 78,500 pounds (close to $160,000 today). EMI bought the tapes. This was the highest price ever paid for a recording. (For the details of the recording see beatlesource.com. For more on The Quarrymen see Wikipedia.) A comparable item to the Velvet acetate would be studio outtakes, live recordings, demos, even finished tracks, but of a one of a kind nature. The key to an accurate comparison lies in the recording more than the physical record or tape. Molyneux’s recording and McCartney’s acetate have history and uniqueness behind them: true one-of-a-kind recordings of the proto-Beatles. Unfortunately, the Molyneux’s recording is of poor quality and sits unused in the EMI vaults.

Supposedly, this is not true of the Velvet acetate. There are two scratches / skips on the LP, but the sound quality appears to be of a mainstream commercial nature given the market for anything by the Velvet Underground, such as the Quine Bootleg, the 1969 Live Vol. 1-2 and the Max’s of Kansas City recordings. Without a doubt whoever bought this acetate plans to commercially release it on a major label; that is what makes it worth the money, like the thinking behind the EMI purchase of the Quarrymen’s recording. It would be interesting to see how the other major label “bootlegs” sold and how much money they generated. I could see all types of special packaging, CDs, DVDs, VH-1 specials etc.

A parallel can be made to holograph manuscripts, draft versions of literary material, and the like. This is the raw material of the final mass produced version. One comparable in the literary world would be the On the Road scroll manuscript that sold for over $2 million making it the highest price for a literary manuscript. The difference being that the On the Road scroll is quite interesting as an object serving as the holy grail and physical symbol of the Beat Generation. Yet the content of the scroll is decidedly different from the Viking printing of On the Road in 1957. The general public will hopefully be able to see this for themselves in 2007 when the scroll version of Kerouac’s most popular novel hits the shelves. The Quarrymen tape also reminds me of the many taped conversations and readings offered for sale from the Allen De Loach estate on eBay. The common ground between the Quarrymen recording and the Velvet acetate is the uniqueness of the content more than the collectible nature of the object although acetates, holograph manuscripts, typed scrolls, and reel to reel tapes all have their own fetishistic qualities and people who covet them as objects and technologies.

And there lies a potential problem or two. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is that to die-hard Velvet Underground fans the content on this acetate might be old news. The bootleg market for Lou Reed and crew is incredible and comprehensive. (See bootleg CDs, bootleg CD sets, and Velvet Underground Bootleg Reference.) Velvet acetates are nothing new even if they are unusual. Some acetates of Sterling Morrison have been released on bootleg for example. In addition, Mo Tucker’s acetates of the Velvet Underground and Nico album were found in a basement box that were then issued in a Japanese bootleg called Ultimate Mono and Acetate album in 2005. (See Ritchie Unterberger’s review of the bootleg.) As the eBay entry suggests and much chat room banter has pointed out, this is all probably the same material. Therefore, the newly found acetate is not one of a kind as an object and quite possibly the content was and is available to those in the know. This is all murky territory and under debate as nobody seems to really know where the Japanese bootleg came from originally. The author of The Velvet Underground Handbook claims to have seen the Mo Tucker acetate and confirms its existence. The Tucker acetates are of poor quality compared to Warren Hill’s discovery, but still it seems to be the same songs. Nobody seems to agree if this acetate still exists, did exist; let alone where it is now and who owns it or the right to it.

Arguably the die-hard fans of the Velvet Underground already have this bootleg and have heard it. Given the high tolerance for sketchy recording by Velvet fans (case in point are many sub-par recordings on the bootleg market as well as the mass released bootlegs like the Max’s recording by Brigid Polk that is quite poor), I wonder how much superior the new acetate really is and if it matters. This is up for debate as record collectors, like book collectors, prize condition above all else. I have talked to and read comments from people who express great alarm at the fact that the acetate has skips and scratches. Condition and sound quality aside, the fact remains that this recording on eBay may not be one of a kind as object (although extremely rare) and even more importantly as content (although of better quality).

The second 800 pound gorilla lurking outside the door is the legal problems surrounding the new acetate. Like the second volume of Burroughs’s letters, the legal holdups around old Velvet material are as legendary as the band itself. Why is there such a bootleg market and why are the Mo Tucker acetates not available at your local Best Buy? It is not just sound quality. I would bet it is because of all the legal wrangling among all interested parties eager to get a piece of the pie and to protect the legacy of the band. Who controls these recordings anyway: the surviving members of the band and their representatives (not to mention Sterling Morrison’s and Nico’s interests), the record company, the engineer, Warren Hill, insert interested party here? I cannot imagine that anybody will see this material in their local music store anytime soon. The stakes are too high, the publicity is too great and the interested parties very uncooperative and protective. As comments to the eBay sale state, copyright will be an issue.

To my mind, the acetate is without a doubt a cool find and a cool story that goes beyond the merely collectible as object, but the potential headaches getting this material released are enormous. The legal questions more than the repetitive nature of the material seem the real issue. Velvet Underground fans, like Burroughs collectors, are rabid. The flourishing bootleg market proves this point. I am far from a Velvet collector, but I would buy this CD in a heartbeat, all the more so if there were all types of extras. Did the Quine Bootleg make the record company a considerable profit? I would guess that it did, as do all the Velvet Underground reissues and rarities. But will it outweigh the legal bills or even see its way out of the legal red tape? That is the real $155,401 question. I think many bidders and potential bidders realized all these issues by the end of the sale. Bidding slowed considerably the last couple of days and there was no final frenzy of bidding on the record. The real winners of the eBay auction are Warren Hill, an inspiration to collectors of all types everywhere searching for their version of the winning Powerball ticket, and, unfortunately, the lawyers.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

When it rains it pours. In the space of a week, several wonderful LPs fell into my lap. I found a beautiful copy of Jack Kerouac’s second record on Hanover, Blues and Haikus, at a bookstore in Washington DC. On eBay, I won a somewhat beat up copy of San Francisco Poets on the rare Evergreen Records label. Luckily, it sounds better than the sleeve looks. That same weekend at a record shop in Baltimore, I tracked down the Hanover Records reissue of the San Francisco Poets album.

The San Francisco Poets albums are a great listen and an interesting story. The tale begins with one of the most influential and important literary magazines of the post World War II era: Evergreen Review No. 2, also known as the “San Francisco Scene” issue. As I have mentioned before, Evergreen Review was Grove Press’s literary magazine outlet. The first issue of the magazine had a decidedly European flavor with contributions by Jean Paul Sartre, Henri Michaux, and Samuel Beckett. By the mid 1950s, Beckett was the star performer in the Grove Press stable. Waiting for Godot proved a big seller and created interest in Beckett’s earlier work like Murphy and Watt.

It was not until Issue Two that Evergreen Review really distinguished itself and made a mark with the general public. By 1957, San Francisco was the center of the literary landscape in the United States. This was in large part because of the activities of the Beat Generation. The Six Gallery reading, City Lights Bookstore, the publication of Howl, and the Howl trial all placed San Francisco under the microscope. In mid-1957, Evergreen Review devoted an entire issue to this burgeoning scene.

Barney Rosset, the maverick publisher of Grove Press, hired Don Allen to edit the early issues of Evergreen Review. Allen, who was centered on the East Coast, enlisted the help of Kenneth Rexroth and Allen Ginsberg to shape the second issue. The editorial assistance of Rexroth and Ginsberg highlights the fact that what was presented as a single, unified San Francisco Renaissance was in fact a highly competitive and divided community. Rexroth represented the old school, San Francisco / Berkeley community that wrote and taught in the city immediately after World War II, and in Rexroth’s case, before. Writers such as Jack Spicer, Robert Duncan, and Robin Blaser spearheaded the Berkeley Renaissance which began in the late 1940s. This group built the infrastructure of galleries, salons, college lectures and readings upon which the later Renaissance was built. The Berkeley poets were openly gay and highly learned. Much of their work harkened back to the mystical poetry of the Renaissance and Elizabethan eras. This poetic debt to the past was part of the reason the flourishing in Berkeley was called a Renaissance.

On the other hand, Ginsberg brought to the table the new San Francisco of Gary Snyder, Philip Whalen, Jack Kerouac, and Michael McClure. These poets and writers were hip and hot exploding old poetic forms and searching for new topics for poetic treatment. Many older poets felt this new breed stormed in and stole the spotlight taking advantage of the groundwork laid by an earlier community. The competition and bad feeling between the two groups were best exemplified by the adulterous affair carried on by Robert Creeley with Kenneth Rexroth’s wife. The incident symbolized the new turks’ invasion of the old guards’ turf.

Yet Evergreen Review presented these warring factions between the same covers. Kerouac, Ginsberg, and, strangely, Michael Rumaker were the centerpieces of the issue. Donald Allen included a lengthy piece of Howl (a very early appearance and a brave one as the Howl trial was underway) as well as Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth.” Short selections by Michael McClure, Ferlinghetti, Gary Snyder, and Philip Whalen were the other salvos of the young guns. The Berkeley poets were equally represented with selections from Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, and experimental film maker James Broughton. Henry Miller, Josephine Miles, Rexroth, and William Everson (Brother Antoninus) provided a nod to the early days of experimental writing in post-war San Francisco area. Don Allen’s experience in editing the early Evergreen Reviews provided the groundwork for his monumental undertaking of the late 1950s: the genre-defining New American Poetry anthology.

Evergreen Review No. 2 sent shockwaves throughout the San Francisco literary community. The failure to include Robin Blaser ruffled the feathers of the Berkeley poets while other writers like Kenneth Patchen refused to be included at all. Patchen wrote, “I refused to be interviewed or photographed by Life magazine in connection with their [San Francisco] story: I ignored all similar requests for material and the like from The Evergreen Review, The Cambridge Review, etc. Again, there is a simple, uncomplicated reason for this: I am not and never have been ‘a regional poet.’” Several writers agreed with Patchen and expressed dissatisfaction with their pigeonholing in the pages of Evergreen.

With the general public, the issue proved to be a major success encouraging many would-be poets and artists to come out to the Left Coast. Not surprisingly, Rosset sought to capitalize on the success of this single issue. He decided to recreate the magazine on vinyl and started Evergreen Records. In 1958, San Francisco Poets was pressed featuring Allen Ginsberg, William Everson, Jack Spicer, Kenneth Rexroth, Philip Whalen, Robert Duncan and others. The album was a nice mixture of old and new scenes. This recording effort reminds me of the East Village Other LP of the late 1960s. That underground newspaper attempted to recreate the feel and content of the periodical on wax. The resulting album is definitely a trip and captures the sometimes inspired and sometimes tedious lunacy of the times. Another similar undertaking was the Zapple label. Zapple was the Beatles spoken word outlet. Barry Miles in his memoirs details this story. Miles recorded Charles Bukowski, Charles Olson, Richard Brautigan and others, but none of these recordings were issued on Zapple.

The Evergreen LP is the model of simplicity. No jazz accompaniment with very simple (maybe even primitive) production values. The LP features Ginsberg reading Part I of Howl. This was Ginsberg’s first recording and, I believe, an early reading of Howl before the poem was finished. The text Ginsberg reads on the record differs from the text printed in Evergreen Review. The LP included a printed text to accompany the record. This piece of ephemera is highly prized by collectors since it rarely remained with the record. Sadly, my copy is missing the text. Ginsberg gives a very lively reading which is matched by the audience participation. The laughter and interplay of the audience adds considerably to the reading as does Ginsberg’s running commentary on the poem.

The rest of the poems sound as if they were recorded in a studio. Each poet states their name and begins reading a selection that was featured in Evergreen Review. I was much impressed by the spirited, powerful reading of Jack Spicer. Spicer was a notoriously reluctant performer, but he sounds confident and on top of his game here. This recording and his appearance in Evergreen Review would be the highpoint of his mainstream success. Spicer had a love-hate relationship with publication. Despite his distaste for print, he founded or helped found some legendary publications and presses. White Rabbit Press and J Magazine are beautiful examples of the small press and little magazine and important time capsules of the San Francisco Scene.

From what I can tell, Evergreen Records only issued this one record and the release must have been limited given its rarity today. Much more common is the Hanover Record reissue from 1959. Previously, I detailed the story surrounding the founding of Hanover Records. I believe this record was the second spoken word offering after Jack Kerouac and Steve Allen’s album. The Hanover San Francisco Poets features different sleeve art but it is the same recording. Both albums feature Harry Redl’s photographs of the poets on the back sleeve. These photos also appeared in the San Francisco Scene issue. Redl’s works, which include several shots of Allen Ginsberg around the publication of Howl, remain the iconic images of the San Francisco Renaissance.

So where does Burroughs fit in? Burroughs proves on one level just how arbitrary the creation of a single, unified San Francisco scene was. In Spring of 1958, the Chicago Review issued their Ten San Francisco Poets issue as a response to Evergreen Review and the San Francisco LP. Once again, Allen Ginsberg was a major force in the gathering of material. Ginsberg provided Irving Rosenthal, the lead editor of the Review, with most of the contributions for the issue. The Ten Poets issue is decidedly young in tone. Robert Duncan is represented but all of the other contributors were recent arrivals to San Francisco. Ferlinghetti, Whalen, Ginsberg and McClure appeared in Evergreen Review, but Kirby Doyle, Philip Lamantia, and John Wieners were new faces. Doyle and Wieners proved especially green and unknown in the literary world. Also included in the submissions were episodes of Burroughs’s Naked Lunch. Ginsberg, always seeking to promote the work of Burroughs, inserted Naked Lunch manuscript material along with the San Francisco portfolio. Burroughs had never been to San Francisco and clearly Naked Lunch possessed nothing of the San Francisco or Berkeley vibe. Interestingly, it was Burroughs’s work that won over Rosenthal and most of the editorial staff of the Chicago Review leading the Review to get behind Naked Lunch and to forge ahead with its continued publication. The rest (Big Table, the Post Office, censorship, Olympia Press, et al) is history.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

A true Burroughs vinyl rarity just sold on eBay: a signed copy of Nothing Here Now But the Recordings issued by Industrial Records ($330/9 bids). This gets into territory I know little about, but it seems to me that signed Burroughs LPs are very unusual. The most famous signed Burroughs LP would have to be the limited edition “The Priest They Called Him” released in 1993 by Tim Kerr records. There is a picture disc of 5000 copies ($100/$150 from booksellers) as well as a signed copy. On this record, Burroughs reads accompanied by Kurt Cobain’s guitar. Both Burroughs and Cobain signed the back of the vinyl. Cobain signed “Cohbain.” These records appear on eBay quite often. More information on this would be appreciated.

In any case, I have not seen too many signed Burroughs records. This copy of Nothing Here Now But the Recordings was signed near its release in 1981 for a Los Angeles record store owner. The signature is very nice and the provenance is great. Jeff Gold of Record Mecca offered the record on eBay. According to Rolling Stone, Gold is one of the top five rock memorabilia collectors on the planet along with Paul Allen. Go to RecordMecca.com to see the article. Apparently, Gold owns Jimi Hendrix’s record collection with doodles and annotations. Paul Allen owns Hendrix’s guitar from Woodstock. In addition, check out the website for other rock items for sale. Rock enthusiasts and bibliophiles should be blown away by the incredible items for sale. I found the Velvet Underground material very interesting and worth the trip.

As for the LP in question, Nothing Here Now is an expensive record unsigned. It is up there with the two Call Me Burroughs LPs. I see copies routinely crack $100 on eBay. I have not been able to get one, but the recordings on the LP are similar to the final CD of the William Burroughs set on the Giorno Poetry Project and the LP Break Through in Gray Room. Nothing Here Now documents Burroughs’ tape experiments in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is an incredible peek into the goings on at the Beat Hotel with Gregory Corso and Brion Gysin. This record accompanies Minutes to Go and The Exterminator and demonstrates the early use of the cut up technique. Genesis P-Orridge, founder of Throbbing Gristle, salvaged these recordings from Burroughs’ archives and was responsible for their preservation and release. The recordings highlight Burroughs’ influence on concrete poetry and industrial music. The recordings also spotlight Burroughs’ link with the sound experiments of Carl Weissner and Henri Chopin who published Burroughs on vinyl and in magazines in the late 1960′s and early 1970′s.

In my mind, Burroughs vinyl is an essential part of a Burroughs collection. Best of all, Burroughs recordings are great fun. There is nothing like Burroughs’ voice and his readings are lively affairs. Nothing Here Now is especially important for a collection specializing in work from 1953-1965, like mine. As this auction shows, there must be others out there who think the same thing.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

For the past several months, pieces from the estate of Allen DeLoach have been auctioned on eBay. These items, including photographs, small press chapbooks, little magazines, and manuscripts, chronicle the counterculture literary scene of the 1960s and 1970s. In my opinion, they rank as some of the most exciting material up for sale on the internet. I wrote a column on a manuscript for sale by the estate a few weeks ago.

Once again, a couple of items from the DeLoach collection piqued my interest. The first is an original cassette from a reading Allen Ginsberg gave at the University of Buffalo in March 1966 just before the publication of Wichita Vortex Sutra. (PDF) The second is an original cassette of William Burroughs reading at the University in December 1975. (PDF) The Ginsberg cassette features classics like Kval Majaks, sections from Wichita Vortex Sutra, and At Ken Kesey’s House – Hells Angels. Several other poems are on the tape but not listed. Burroughs’ tape contains a reading of Ah Pook is Here (entitled “APOOGH is here”), the “When Did You Stop Wanting to Be President” piece for Harper’s Magazine, and bits of Nova Express and Wild Boys.

With a quick glance and not knowing all the Ginsberg poems, I assume that all the material on these cassettes have been collected in the Burroughs and Ginsberg CD box sets in some form. What is exciting is that these particular readings might be completely undocumented, except for these original cassettes. I take it that these cassettes are the only recording of the events. I can only compare them to a one of a kind bootleg of a Bob Dylan or Grateful Dead show long thought to be lost to posterity. Mass produced cassettes by Burroughs or Ginsberg appear on the collectible market occasionally. Abebooks features several Burroughs cassettes including Junky, Naked Lunch, or You’re the Guy I Want to Share My Money With. EBay offers a cassette of a Naropa reading of Ginsberg and Anne Waldman. These tapes sell for $10-15.

What is the market for these one of a kind tapes? As these auctions show, there is a market and quite an expensive one. The Ginsberg tape sold for over $300; the Burroughs tapes received bids at around $200. I am ambivalent about these tapes. Part of me would love to hear these largely forgotten readings. Perhaps Burroughs and Ginsberg were especially good those nights. Maybe they felt talkative between readings and answered questions, spoke about their work, or reacted to the audience. The content of the tapes is fascinating. Less interesting is the format: the audio cassette. I am attracted to the fact that audio cassettes are a dead technology, like vinyl. Yet I love the feel of vinyl. This includes the act of placing an LP on the turntable and of course the pops and crackles of the sound. I do not get the same feeling pushing play on a walkman. In addition, the record and its packaging appeal to me as object and art work. The LP cover is large and substantial, a physicality that can be read and handled again and again, like a book. I cannot do that with a tape.

That said there are several tapes that I would love to own. Charles Bukowski appears on a number of tapes reading his poetry. I am certain he has been bootlegged over the years. One particular tape stands out for me: a limited edition reel-to-reel tape issued by Black Sparrow in 1968. Bukowski reads from At Terror Street and Agony Way, an early collection. Black Sparrow put out 50 signed reels. The tapes came with a handmade plastic box with a photo of Bukowski on the cover and his name in colored plastic letters. The signature, tape, photograph, and box make the item irresistible to me. Black Sparrow knew how to issue a collectible limited edition. This item fetches over $500 on the market now.

In 1967, Carl Weissner, the man who popularized Burroughs and Bukowski in Germany, issued a 23 minute tape of Burroughs reading Nova Express. Weissner was a concrete poetry pioneer. I believe the tape came with an issue of Weissner’s influential magazine, Klactoveedsedsteen. The magazine, named after a Charlie Parker song, published sound and text experiments. Burroughs’ tape experiments were transcribed for a few issues of the magazine, most notably in Klacto 23. These transcriptions are similar to the experiments included on the LPs Break Through in Grey Room and Nothing Here Now But the Recordings. See my column on those records. As mentioned in other columns, tape and tape experiments were very important to Burroughs’ creative project in the 1960′s. In fact, Burroughs’ essay “The Invisible Generation” posits the theory that tape and tape recorders have the power to change world events and be a force in the counterculture revolution. During the period of the recording in Buffalo, Burroughs was still fascinated by the possibilities of tape. In 1976, he lectured at Naropa about his theories on audio tape.

In the mid-1960s when the Ginsberg tape was recorded, Allen Ginsberg also experimented with tape recorders although not as a weapon of insurrection. Ginsberg also shied away from the sound and cut-up experiments performed by Burroughs, Gysin, and Ian Somerville in the Beat Hotel. Instead, Ginsberg used a tape recorder, given to him by Bob Dylan, to utilize and to explore the spontaneous prosody techniques of Jack Kerouac. As Ginsberg drove from coast to coast, he composed the poems that comprised The Fall of America on a tape recorder. As a result, Ginsberg’s immediate sense impressions and thoughts could be recorded as quickly as an action occurred or an image appeared. Kerouac’s sketching technique received a technological spin. These experiments by Burroughs and Ginsberg make the presence of tape in the audio cassette a little more pertinent, but an actual reel of tape would be even more interesting.

As one of a kind artifact, as dead technology, and as a key component of Burroughs and Ginsberg’s artistic process, the audio tapes for sale on eBay prove desirable on many levels. Hopefully, these readings will someday make their way onto CD or better yet the Internet. In addition to the two cassettes mentioned above, a tape of William Burroughs in conversation is also for sale. (PDF) Burroughs talks about Mexico, London, Africa, drugs and other matters. For those interested in hearing readings and lectures similar to the material on this tape, I encourage going to archive.org. Anyone interested in the Beats and post-WWII literature in general will find a goldmine of material here. The full value of the Naropa archives remain to be discovered, but this site is a start. You can lose yourself for days on this site. The Grateful Dead recordings are not bad either. Enjoy!!

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

EBay is a fantastic place isn’t it, if place is the right word for it. For example, the vinyl fanatic or budding fanatic can supplement or create an entire collection of some note in just a click of the mouse. Just Kids Nostalgia is auctioning an incredible collection of pop culture vinyl containing over 1,000 records. (PDF) The collection features movie soundtracks, records by pop culture personalities of all shapes and sizes, picture discs, Disney, pin up art compilations, and sports related vinyl.

I mention the collection here because it also features a great number of Beat vinyl as well. Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, Ferlinghetti. All the names one would expect are there. The three Kerouac albums on Hanover and Verve are included. Unfortunately, the Dot LP remains out of reach. The jazz poetry stylings of Ferlinghetti, Rexroth and Kenneth Patchen are also present. The collection possesses much of the Beat spoken word from the 1950s but there are records from through the 1980s as well. Call Me Burroughs from 1965/1966 (no mention if English Bookshop or ESP), the 2 X LP Nova Convention from 1978, and several Giorno Project LPs make sure that Burroughs is accounted for. Ginsberg also makes a strong showing. I will write about many of these records in more detail in later posts, but this collection with its photographs captures the Beats on vinyl in such a comprehensive way that I had to mention it.

Beat-Nova Convention-Frank Zappa-William Burroughs LP
Beat Poetry & Beat Erotica-Cafe Bizarre-Madness-LP
Beat Poetry-Allen Ginsberg at ICA-British Press-LP
Beat Poetry-Allen Ginsberg Howl LP-Black Vinyl
Beat Poetry-Allen Ginsberg Reads Howl-Red Vinyl-LP
Beat Poetry-Allen Ginsberg-First Blues-LP
Beat Poetry-Beatsville-Rod McKuen-LP
Beat Poetry-Blake Reed Beat Generation-Vol II – LP
Beat Poetry-Call Me William Burroughs-LP Naked Lunch
Beat Poetry-Grimm’s Hip Fairy Tales-Don Morrow-LP
Beat Poetry-Hip Fables-Art Roberts-LP
Beat Poetry-In Cellar Kenneth Rexroth Ferlinghetti-LP
Beat Poetry-Jack Kerouac Blues and Haikus-Zoot Sims LP
Beat Poetry-Jack Kerouac Steve Allen-Beat Generation LP
Beat Poetry-Jack Kerouac-Beat Generation-LP
Beat Poetry-John Giorno Dial A Poem-Ginsberg-LP Sealed
Beat Poetry-John Giorno Intravenus Mind-LP
Beat Poetry-Kenneth Patchen Chamber Jazz Sextet
Beat Poetry-Lawrence Ferlinghetti-Eisenhower-LP
Beat Poetry-Mother 9-Allen Ginsberg-Tom Clark-LP
Beat Poetry-Poetry/Jazz Kenneth Rexroth LP Red Vinyl
Beat Poetry-Rebellion-Jack Hammer-LP
Beat Poetry-Robet Baker-First LSD Trip-LP
Beat Poetry-San Fran Poets Ferlinghetti, Ginsberg LP
Beat Poetry-Smoke Dreams-Fred Engelberg-LP
Beat Poetry-William Burroughs-John Giorno-LP

Mixed in with the Beat are a few novelty Beatnik albums, like Grimm’s Hip Fairy Tales or Hip Fables. These Beatnik LPs are incredibly collectible as well. Ken Nordine’s Word Jazz series and Rod McKuen’s Beatnik Fly come to mind as particularly entertaining Beatnik records. The soundtracks to the Beat Exploitation films The Beat Generation and The Subterraneans are also great examples of Beatnik LPs.

The comparison of Beat and Beatnik vinyl in terms of packaging and content provide an interesting case study in the commodification and assimilation of the original Beat impulse by the mass media in Hollywood films and Madison Avenue advertising and publishing. The Kerouac and Ferlinghetti LPs for example are serious explorations into the combination of two marginalized art forms: jazz and modern poetry. The spoken albums of the Beats attempted to capture the magic of their readings performed in smoky clubs and coffee shops. The Beats redefined the poetry reading by making them more democratic in terms of audience and location. Poetry was no longer just for the upper class literary salon or the staid university lecture hall. The poetry reading became a poetry show and the poet returned to the oral tradition of Homer. The modern sound of rap, poetry jams, rock operas, and open mic nights everywhere echo off of these records.

On the other hand, Beatnik vinyl echoes in the mind like a catchy jingle on a commercial more likely to annoy after repeated listening than inspire. Beat records are artistic explorations and the Beatnik vinyl is largely exploitation. The Beats attempted to touch the heart, mind or soul through their art. The Beatnik craze was a mass market creation designed to touch the funny bone while reaching for the wallet. This is not to say that Beatnik LPs or films do not deserve serious attention. Just like the Beat records, Beatnik vinyl provides a unique insight into 1950′s popular culture. A detailed study of this seemingly disposable media reveals much about issues of race, sex, and class in 1950′s America. For example, studies of Beatnik film, like The Beat Generation, are just as fulfilling and fruitful as the study of Pull My Daisy. Books, such as Naked Lens Beat Cinema and Mad to be Saved: The Beats, the 50′s and Film, perform just this function. I am unaware of a similar study of Beat and Beatnik spoken word but I am certain that a dissertation on the relative merits of Beatnik Fly exists somewhere.
A similar process occurred in the 1960s with the emergence of the artistic and political counterculture that was packaged by the media to mainstream America through hippies and flower children. This record collection also reflects this phenomenon.

Hippie-Abbie Hoffman-Wake Up America-LP
Hippie-Acid Test-LSD-Ken Kesey-Grateful Dead-LP
Hippie-Dope Kings Last Stand-Frank Sinatra-Pat Boone-LP
Hippie-East Village Other-Fugs-Velvet Underground-LP
Hippie-How to Have A Freak Out Party-LSD-LP
Hippie-Hugh Romney-Third Stream Humor-LP-Wavy Gravy
Hippie-LSD-Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test-Jerry Garcia-LP
Hippie-LSD-Psychedelic Drug Crisis-LP-Sealed
Hippie-LSD-Psychedelic Drug Crisis-Promo LP-Dr. Cohen
Hippie-LSD-Psychedelic Experience-Timothy Leary-LP
Hippie-LSD-Timothy Leary-LP-Sealed
Hippie-Overdose Board Game and LP-Get Stoned-Marijuana
Hippie-Soundtrack-Turn On Tune In-Timothy Leary-LSD-LP
Hippie-The Groupies-Documentary-LP Sealed
Hippie-Timothy Leary-This Time Around-LSD-LP
Hippie-Wilburn Burchette-Occult Concert-LP

The records above highlight several levels of the 1960s psychedelic culture from higher learning to drug hysteria to drug humor. Some individuals like Timothy Leary seemingly had their hands in all these levels and more.

All these records whatever there artistic or academic merits are great fun. Placing the needle on the record is like entering a time machine. The LP featuring The Grateful Dead and the Merry Pranksters is an incredibly rare artifact documenting a friendship and partnership that had musical, literary, political and cultural implications if you such divisions are possible. The East Village Other LP is just plain weird or just plain unlistenable depending on your mind set. The Kerouac Blues and Haikus album is just plain beautiful.

There are plenty of LPs here that deserve closer attention, but consider this an opportunity to see in one place, in one collection an introduction to several overlapping and distinct areas of counterculture spoken word vinyl collecting. Part of me is hoping that the seller gets his asking price so the collection stays in one piece, but the collector in me would love to have a shot at some of the individual LPs for sale here.

Reports from the Bibliographic Bunker

Jed Birmingham on William S. Burroughs Collecting

Did you know that Neil Young and Rick James were in a band together? I had no idea. I stopped in a local record store to take a look at a beautiful copy of Timothy Leary’s first LP, The Psychedelic Experience, on Broadside, and got into a conversation with the owner about eBay and legendary vinyl rarities. As a Neil Young collector, he said the holy grail was a single (I think) by a band called The Mynah Birds which featured Rick James as the lead singer and Neil Young. The band briefly signed with Motown in 1965-1966 before James had to turn himself in to the FBI, because he was AWOL from the military. Apparently, the band had time to cut a couple of forgettable singles. Young left Toronto with fellow band member Bruce Palmer to form Buffalo Springfield in Los Angeles. James became a Super Freak and the rest is history.

One of the reasons I began collecting Beat Generation vinyl was to avoid stoppers like the Neil Young record. A complete Burroughs book collection presents many challenges due to the fact that some items are just out of reach to the average collector because of rarity or price. When I started collecting Beat Generation vinyl, a couple of hundred dollars seemed like the ceiling in price and every record dealer possessed a record I needed. After a year or two, I have discovered that even Beat vinyl possesses the unattainable.

For the Burroughs collector, the limited edition Ali’s Smile published in 1971 by Unicorn Books is one of the rarest Burroughs items. One of 99 copies, this book was signed and numbered by Burroughs, but for the vinyl collector it was issued with a 12″ LP of Burroughs reading the second draft of Ali’s Smile. Side B contains miscellaneous data about the recording process and is at 78rpm. Ali’s Smile was written in the 1960s and was not generally available to the public until it was included in Exterminator! in 1973. This is not to be confused with The Exterminator published by Auerhahn Press in 1960. The Exterminator is a collection of early cut up experiments with Brion Gysin. I have seen the book available without the LP and the LP available without the book. The book by itself is over $1000. The complete item can command up to $7000 on the rare book market. For those unwilling or unable to pay those prices there is a less expensive alternative. Ali’s Smile is available on the Vaudeville Voices CD that combines Call Me Burroughs with Ali’s Smile. This CD is not the easiest thing to get a hold of either as it is out of print. In addition, there was some controversy regarding the copyrights or permissions surrounding the CD so it may have been pulled from stores in the 1990′s.

The ultimate Beat Generation collectible on vinyl might be Jack Kerouac’s Poetry of the Beat Generation on Dot Records. Attempting to capitalize on the bestselling On the Road of the fall of 1957 as well as the West Coast craze for jazz poetry readings, Kerouac began a short, troubled career as a spoken word artist. In December 1957, Kerouac signed up for a multiple date engagement at the Village Vanguard. Kerouac lasted about a week. His first show was an out and out failure. Audiences failed to respond to Kerouac; Kerouac was nervous and unsure in his performance; and the musicians just did not mesh with Kerouac. In the second performance, Kerouac read with TV personality Steve Allen playing piano in the background. Kerouac found his voice and his sideman. The decision was made to cut an album. Kerouac and Allen worked with Allen’s friend Bob Thiele who was a producer at Dot Records.

Kerouac showed up at the recording studio with a bottle of rotgut wine and read with Steve Allen for about an hour. The recording engineer congratulated Kerouac on an excellent first take. Kerouac responded that it was the only take. According to the philosophy of spontaneous prose and first thought best thought, Kerouac sought to capture the spirit of his initial creation. Kerouac read both short and extended pieces. “October in the Railroad Earth” is especially wonderful. The entire LP is fresh and alive showing Kerouac to be an accomplished performer of his work. As an example of jazz poetry readings, Poetry of the Beat Generation might be the finest example and it remains to this day one of the best spoken word albums of all time.

It almost did not see the light of day. Randy Wood, Dot President, heard the record just before its release to the public. He was outraged by the frank language and subject matter. Today the record seems tame. Wood declared the record obscene and stated that he would not let his son listen to it. Wood believed that every record on his label had to be family entertainment and suitable for children. He ordered the record to be destroyed. Fortunately for collectors 130 copies (Dot 3154) were sent to reviewers before Wood’s announcement. Copies have survived over the years but the LP is incredibly rare. I saw a copy on eBay years ago that sold for a couple thousand dollars. I have not seen a copy since.

Thiele and Allen left Dot Records with the master tape and formed Hanover Records. The Kerouac album was released intact on Hanover in June 1959. Kerouac released another LP on Hanover called Blues and Haikus with Zoot Sims. Soon after Kerouac released another LP on Verve titled Reading by Jack Kerouac on the Beat Generation. All these albums are highly sought after fetching $100-$200. These records are now available on CD on the Kerouac Collection set.