The 1981 Listening Post - Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs and John Giorno - You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With

 Reviewed by Jim Coursey

Released: 1981 Laurie Anderson, William S. Burroughs and John Giorno You're the Guy I Want to Share My Money With Genre: “New Music” / Spoken Word Rating: 3 of 5 Highlights: Born, Never Asked (Laurie Anderson) Excerpt From "Put Your Ear To Stone & Open Your Heart To The Sky" (John Giorno) I Don't Need It, I Don't Want It, And You Cheated Me Out Of It (John Giorno) This collaborative release features work from 3 generations of avant-gardists: Beat poet William S. Burroughs, sound artist and poet John Giornio (a Burroughs protege [1]), and up-and-comer violinist/speech manipulator Laurie Anderson. Each artist has a foot in the spoken word space, but with each generation represented here, the use of sound art and music becomes more pervasive. The album is like those “split singles” where each artist gets a side to work with, except here it’s a double album with 3 artists on it, as is commonly found in classical and new music releases. In order to divvy it up fairly, they all appear on the final side, but apparently the original vinyl album is cut as a triple-groove; which artist plays is determined by where the stylus lands in the lead-in groove. If the above doesn’t sound like it’s within the scope of a Listening Post review, well, it probably isn’t. But as we cover Anderson’s later releases, this early release seemed worth covering, if lightly. I’ve rated the album a rather neutral 3 out of 5 due to the prominent inclusion of spoken word, and the unevenness of Anderson’s work. Part 1 is Anderson’s, and it mostly shows her working through material from “United States”, her eight hour, two night performance piece which features tracks later released on “Big Science” and “United States Live” It all sounds very much like the Laurie Anderson we’d get to know soon – electric violin, primitive electronics, heavy use of modulated spoken word. “Born, Never Asked” ends the side, a favorite Laurie Anderson track, runner up to “O Superman” in my book. While it’s not particularly different from the version on “Big Science” except sounding less polished (and more mono), it's well worth a listen for fans. Meanwhile interspersed between them is a spoken word / audio collage piece called “It Was Up In The Mountains”, in which “Paul from LA” recounts a visit from a pack of tigers during some “ceremony” in the woods as a child. It’s somewhat interesting but feels a bit out of place given my expectation that Anderson’s work centers on her own manipulated voice. Part 2 is the first of the John Giorno section, which features two poetry performances using his voice, multi-tracked and run through echo effects. The first track is live, the second Memorex. Both are poems, presumably written by collaging found texts into a semi-coherent monolog which is practically screamed by multiple Giorno’s simultaneously. The result creates a cool effect that is similar to and yet quite unique from early Steve Reich tape pieces like “It’s Gonna Rain.” The many Giornio’s call out their lines, sometimes in unison and sometimes offset, creating a constantly evolving cacophony of voices all converging on the same basic text. When compared to the Reich’s work, which offsets at a predictable rate, the effect here is far more haphazard. I imagine that live, this would be performed by Giorno and a tape machine, where the magic would be seeing him synchronize with himself, fall apart, and synchronize again. Here in the recording of a live performance, the magic is that we can imagine a stage of Giorno clones all shouting their poem. Somehow for this reason I favor the live recording, maybe helped by its impassioned and almost anthemic opening lines: "I Don’t Need It, I Don’t Want It, And You Cheated Me Out Of It”. Maybe not something one listens to repeatedly but the effect of the thing is worth the price of admission. Part 3 is William S Burroughs and is straight up spoken word. As this is not really in my wheelhouse, or TLP’s, I will pass on analyzing it. If you want to hear 30 minutes of Burroughs’ deadpan drawl, there are probably easier and better avenues to hear it than here. Side 4 offers more of the same from Burroughs and Giorno, while Anderson’s work seems more like she’s still finding her voice. The first and last track here are instrumental, featuring rudimentary drum, guitar and violin tracks that are heavily processed with digital effects. Wedged in between it is another spoken word / sound collage piece using another person’s voice. The material here has moments of interest but I find the assembly to be somewhat incoherent, and after 40 years of electronic music development, the musical elements sound basic and dated. ********** 1. You might also say Giorno had a thing for pop art – he was a former lover of Warhol, Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns, and first came to prominence as the star of Andy Warhol’s 8 hour film “Sleep.”