http://brightlightsfilm.com/39/cutups1.php#.UvJbCM7Sads
This just screams "Fluxus" to me...
Maybe ca. 1960?
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Allison A. Smith
Archivist, Wisconsin Public Radio
821 University Avenue, Suite 7151
Madison, WI 53706-1497
P (608) 263-8806
F (608) 263-9763
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It's not true I had nothing on, I had the radio on - Marilyn Monroe
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-----Original Message-----
From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Greg Schmitz
Sent: Wednesday, February 05, 2014 02:30 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] William S. Burroughs Centenary
On 02/04/2014 09:57 PM, David Lewis wrote:
> Today is the 100th birthday of author William S. Burroughs. One
> technique that he pioneered was the audio tape "cut up;" a random
> collection of spoken word bits achieved by turning on and turning off
> a tape machine at random intervals during newscasts. His efforts
> towards this end occurred years before anyone else worked in this way,
> and it would later become a major component in industrial music,
> particularly in the 80s.
>
> This is one of the few early examples of such work ever to be
> published. I have long wanted to truly date it, as "Early 1960s" is as
> close as anyone ever got to a date, and I'm sure Bill had no idea
> himself. The source appears to be New York City radio, flipping across
> the dial. WINS is mentioned at one point.
> Of course, fragments are fragments, and the aim was to achieve
> combinations of fragments that would tend to transcend the meaning of
> what was spoken and to create new meaning. But as close as I can get
> to a date for this is late April, early May 1965, owing to references
> to snipers in the Dominican Republic during the Civil War there.
>
> Can anyone else get closer, or am I on the wrong track?
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6N2PZbkxzk
>
> David N. Lewis
> Lebanon, OH
Ahh, "The Junky's Christmas"
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Junky%27s_Christmas> - required listening every holiday season. --g
To the end of his life, Mr. Burroughs remained pessimistic about the
future for humankind. In "Ghost of a Chance," he lamented the
destruction of the rain forests and their creatures and wrote: "All
going, to make way for more and more devalued human stock, with less
and less of the wild spark, the priceless ingredient - energy into
matter. A vast mudslide of soulless sludge."
"William S. Burroughs, the Beat Writer Who
Distilled His Raw Nightmare Life, Dies
at 83"
- from obit by Richard Severo. NY Times,
97 August 4
