Another clip from Maroc 1 TV of the Master Musicians and Boujeloud 2006.
Filmed at The Festival Sidi Ahmed Sheich Zahjouka/Jajouka/Joujouka 2006 and broadcast on the Moroccan national channel Maroc 1.
This festival is supported and attended by the Governor of Larache province, the local government, the Caid of Tatoft. It is organised by the local Co-operative pour de Development Sidi Ahmed Skiech de Zahjouka which provides employment for the women of the village. This festival is an annual showcase of the community's products, cheese, bread, traditional weaving, woolen goods, and olive products which the co-operative markets for the villagers. The co-operative's efforts to employ women for cash wages is hugely popular locally. In its efforts to preserve the local culture the co-operative and local government also helped finance the building of the Master Musicians new Madrassa (school for music) which was built by the musicians and the villagers in the traditional mountain style.
The co-operative also helps the local farmers develop their livestock such as goats and cattle for cheese production. These initiatives, funded by the Kingdom of Morocco with assistance from the European Union were introduced in recent years partly as part of the program of eradication of illegal hashish production in the Ahl Srif mountains and Larache province and under new programs of His Majesty Mohamed VI to develop the north of the country.
At 00.32 Mallim Ali Abdelslam El Attar the oldest Master Musicians can be seen standing at the end of the line of musicians. This year Ali Attar turns 101years of age. Boujeloud (Mohamed Hatmi).
Booking for the Master Musicians of Joujouka own Festival 4-6 June 2010. www.joujouka.net
Showing posts with label William Burroughs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label William Burroughs. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
An anthropological article on Boujeloud and the myth of Pan
An anthropological article on Boujeloud and the myth of Pan, Brian Jones and Joujouka from the New English Review.
The Pipes of Pan (Dedicated to the Memory of Alan Lomax)
by Geoffrey Clarfield
The Pipes of Pan (Dedicated to the Memory of Alan Lomax)
by Geoffrey Clarfield
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-6 June 2010 Booking Now for Joujouka Morocco 2010
Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-5 June 2010 with optional extra night 6th June 2010
Place: Joujouka, (Jajouka), Morocco.
Booking Master Musicians of Joujouka website or below.
Boujeloud dances at the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival,
Joujouka, Morocco July 2008. Photo Jill Furmanovsky/Rock Archive
The Master Musicians announce their summer festival will be held 4-6June 2010 in their village in Morocco. Guests will stay with the musicians and their families and experience three days and nights of ritual Sufi music in its natural setting. On Saturday 5 June the musicians will perform the Boujeloud ritual in the village square through the night. In July 2008 the Master Musicians of Joujouka hosted the Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival in their village in the southern Rif Mountains of Northern Morocco. The festival was a celebration of fortieth anniversary of Brian Jones’ recording the iconic LP Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records 1971). The festival brought the families of old Masters now passed on and a group of visitors from abroad including old friends of the errant Rolling Stone.
In 2009 the Master Musicians festival moved to June as the tempreture at the end of July can be above 40C. The festival was a great success and was reported on in The Wire magazine October, 2009.
Guests will experience life in Joujouka staying with the musicians and their families in their isolated village. The Master Musicians of Joujouka will play in intimate sessions around their madrassa/school. The highlight of the festival wwill be the village’s celebration of the Boujeloud ritual in the village square.
Places at the festival are strictly limited as due to accommodation limitations with the families in Joujouka/Jajouka. Guests will be collected from Ksar El Kebir the nearest town to Joujouka on Friday 5th June and will be brought to the village. Full board will be provided. Food will be prepared in traditional Joujouka fashion from locally sourced produced. Joujouka is a framing community well as Sufi trance music the village is famous for its beautiful olives and olive oil.
The festival is booking now. The price for the main two days of the festival 4-5 June is €250 euro.
Accommodation for 4, 5, and 6 June is €300 (Euro)
Guests will be collected at Moulay El Mehdi train station in Ksar El Kebir on June 4th and transported to Joujouka or by arrangement . For Moroccan trains see www.oncf.ma
Full board lunch and evening meal on Friday 4 June
Breakfast, Lunch and traditional Moroccan mountain feast on Saturday 5
Breakfast (all guests) plus lunch, and evening meal on Sunday 6th (for those with three day bookings)
Booking now on Master Musicians of Joujouka Web Site or below
For payment by credit transfer please email me for details joujouka@gmail.com
Places are limited to 75.
If you have any questions please do get in touch. joujouka@gmail.com
Joujouka 2-day EUR 250, 4-5 June 2010
Click link below to pay with paypal account or credit cards. Secure payments by Paypal.
Joujouka 3-day EUR 300 4-6 June 2010
Click link below to pay with paypal account or credit cards. Secure payments by Paypal.
Monday, February 1, 2010
Réservez dès à présent pour le festival des Master Musicians of Joujouka, 4 et 5 juin 2010 (nuit supplémentaire le 6 juin en option)
Festival des Master Musicians of Joujouka, 4 et 5 juin 2010 avec nuit supplémentaire du 6 juin en option
A : Joujouka (Jajouka), Maroc
Réservations : site officiel Master Musicians of Joujouka website ou voir plus basA : Joujouka (Jajouka), Maroc
Boujeloud dansant au Festival célébrant le 40ème anniversaire de la visite de Brain Jones à Joujouka,
Joujouka, Maroc, Juillet 2008. Photo Jill Furmanovsky/Rock Archive
Joujouka, Maroc, Juillet 2008. Photo Jill Furmanovsky/Rock Archive
Les Master Musicians of Joujouka sont heureux d’annoncer leur festival d’été, du 4 au 6 juin, qui se tiendra dans leur village au Maroc. Les festivaliers seront hébergés par les musiciens et leurs familles et participeront à trois jours et trois nuits de musique Sufi rituelle dans son environnement d’origine. Toute la nuit du samedi 5 juin, les musiciens célébreront le rituel de Boujeloud sur la place du village.
En juillet 2008, les Master Musicians of Joujouka ont fêté le 40ème anniversaire de la visite de Brian Jones dans leur village logé au sein des montagnes du Rif au nord du Maroc. Au jour près, ce festival fêtait le 40ème anniversaire de l’enregistrement du LP légendaire Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan à Joujouka (Rolling Stones Records 1971). Le festival a regroupé les familles des anciens Masters maintenant disparus et un groupe de visiteurs venus de l’étranger, dont de nombreux amis du fondateur des Rolling Stones, Brian Jones.
Pour sa seconde édition en 2009, le festival a été déplacé au mois de juin, car la température au mois du juillet peut aisément dépasser les 40°C. Son succès a alors fait l’objet d’un article publié dans le Wire Magazine du mois d’octobre 2009.
Les festivaliers participeront à la vie au village, hébergés par les musiciens et leurs familles au sein de leur village isolé. Les Masters joueront lors de nombreuses sessions improvisées autour de leur madrassa/école. La fête du rituel de Boujeloud sur la place du village sera le point culminant du festival.
Les billets donnant accès au festival sont strictement limités dû aux possibilités d’hébergement par les familles du village. Les organisateurs du festival accueilleront les festivaliers dans la ville la plus proche, Ksar El Kebir, les conduiront au village, puis les raccompagneront à la gare après le festival. Les festivaliers seront reçus en pension complète. Les repas seront préparés de manière traditionnelle par les villageois et seront constitués de nourriture locale. Le village de Joujouka est une communauté agricole qui est aussi connue pour ses merveilleuses olives et son huile d’olive.
Vous pouvez réserver dès à présent :
Pour les deux jours du festival, les 4 et 5 juin : 250 €.
Pour trois jours (4, 5 et 6 juin) : 300 €.
Les organisateurs accueilleront les festivaliers à la gare de Moulay El Medhi à Ksar El Kebir le 4 juin, les conduiront jusqu’à Joujouka et les raccompagneront à la gare après le festival. Horaires : www.oncf.ma
Pension complète : 4 juin, déjeuner et dîner
Petit-déjeuner, déjeuner et festin traditionnel marocain le samedi 5 juin
Petit-déjeuner (pout tous), puis déjeuner et dîner le dimanche 6 juin pour les réservations 3 jours.
Réservez dès maintenant ici : Master Musicians of Joujouka Web Site, ou voir plus bas.
Pour un paiement par virement, contactez les organisateurs à l’adresse suivante : joujouka@gmail.com
Le nombre de places est limité à 75.
Pour toute question, contactez : joujouka@gmail.com
Joujouka 2 jours : 250 €, 4-5 juin 2010
Joujouka 3 jours : 300 €, 4-6 juin 2010
Preview of film on Brian Jones 40th Anniversary Festival dir. Daragh McCarthy.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Tickets for Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 2010 will be available from tomorrow
Tickets for the Master Musicians of Joujouka Festival 4-5 June, 2010, Joujouka/Jajouka, Morocco go on sale tomorrow on joujouka.net.
There will be an option of a third night on 6 June.
Bookings paid in full by 31 December will recieve a free copy of the Master Musicians of Joujouka "Joujouka Black Eyes" CD or "Boujeloud " CD.
There will be an option of a third night on 6 June.
Bookings paid in full by 31 December will recieve a free copy of the Master Musicians of Joujouka "Joujouka Black Eyes" CD or "Boujeloud " CD.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Naked Lunch at 50 press coverage
Press coverage of the Naked Lunch 50th in Paris can be found on Naked Lunch.org
Sunday, July 19, 2009
William Burroughs and Mohamed Hamri
William Burroughs painting sent as New Year card to Mohamed Hamri 1989
Hamri and I had first met him [Burroughs] in the hired gallery of the Rembrandt Hotel in Tangier in 1953, when he wheeled into our exhibition, arms and legs flailing, talking a mile a minute. We found he looked very Occidental, more Private Eye and Inspector Lee: he trailed long vines of Bannisteria Caapi from the Upper Amazon after him and old Mexican bullfight posters fluttered out from under his long trench coat instead of a shirt. An odd blue light often flashed around under the brim of his hat. (Brion Gysin Let the Mice In, p.8) See Oliver Harris on Rembrandt Hotel
William Burroughs on the video Destroy All Rational Thought which features Hamri and The Master Musicians of Joujouka, Brion Gysin, William Burroughs and more.
Feb 28, 1994
I have seen the Dublin videos and they look very impressive. I am sure the actual performance must have been a real knock-out. We need more ‘diabolic music’ everywhere.
Not destroy all rational thought but put in proportion the 1/10 of the iceberg that appears above the water.
All best
William S. Burroughs
Sunday, July 12, 2009
William S. Burroughs interview with Led Zepplin's Jimmy Page
Jimmy Page and William Burroughs 1975 courtesy of Arthur Magazine
First published by Crawdaddy Magazine, June 1975,
Bill and Jimmy discuss Joujouka music, the hypnotizing audiences into trance states, and speculate about "infra-sound" weapons to alter the behaviour of crowds.
THE JIMMY AND BILL SHOW
by William Burroughs
http://www.geocities.com/thoea2004/thejimmyandbillshow.html
Jimmy told me that Aleister Crowley's house has very good vibes for anyone who is relaxed and receptive. At one time the house had also been the scene of a vast chicken swindle indirectly involving George Sanders, the movie actor, who was able to clear himself of any criminal charges, Sanders committed suicide in Barcelona, and we both remembered his farewell note to the world: "I leave you to this sweet cesspool."
I told Jimmy he was lucky too have that house with a monster in the front yard. What about the Loch Ness monster? Jimmy Page thinks it exists. I wondered if it could find enough to eat, and thought this unlikely--it's not the improbability but the upkeep on monsters that worries me. Did Aleister Crowley have opinions on the subject? He apparently had not expressed himself.
We talked about trance music. He had heard the Brian Jones record from recordings made at Joujouka. We discussed the possibility of synthesizing rock music with some of the older forms of trance music that have been developed over centuries to produce powerful, sometimes hypnotic effects on the audience. Such a synthesis would enable the older forms to escape from the mould of folk lore and provide new techniques to rock groups.
We talked about the special effects used in the concert. "Sure," he said, "lights, lasers, dry ice are fine--but you have to keep some balance. The show must carry itself and not rely too heavily on special effects, however spectacular," I brought up the subject of infra-sound, that is, sound pitched below 16 Hertz, the level of human hearing; as ultra-sound is above the level. Professer Gavreau of France developed infra-sound as a military weapon. A powerful infra-sound installation can, he claims, kill everyone in a five-mile radius, knock down walls and break windows. Infra-sound kills by setting up vibrations within the body so that, as Gavreau puts it, "You can feel all the organs in your body rubbing together." The plans for this device can be obtained from the French Patent Office, and infra-sound generators constructed from inexpensive materials. Needless to say, one is not concerned with military applications however unlimited, but with more interesting and useful possibilities, reaching much further that five miles.
Infra-sound sets up vibrations in the body and nervous system. Need these vibrations necessarily be harmful or unpleasant? All music played at any volume sets up vibrations in the body and nervous system of the listener. That's why people listen to it. Caruso as you wil remember could break a champagne glass across the room. Especially interesting is the possibility of rhythmic pulses of infra-sound; that is, MUSIC IN INFRA-SOUND. You can't hear it, but you can feel it.
Jimmy was interested, and I gave him a copy of a newspaper article on infra-sound. It seems that the most deadly rande is around 7 Hertz, and when this is turned on even at a low volume, anyone within range is affected. They feel anxious, ill, depressed, and finally exclaim with one voice, "I feel TERRIBLE!"...last thing you want at a rock concert. However, around the borders of infra-sound perhaps a safe range can be found. Buddhist mantras act by setting up vibrations in the body. Could this be done in a much more powerful yet safe manner by the use of infra-sound rhythms which could of course could be combined with audible music? Perhaps infra-sound could add a new dimension to rock music.
Could something be developed comparable to the sonar communication of dolphins, conveying an immediate sonar experience that requires no symbolic translation? I mentioned to Jimmy that I had talked with Dr. Truby, who worked with John Lilly recording dolphins. Dr. Truby is a specialist in inter-species communication, working on a grant from the government--so that when all our kids are born Venusians we will understand then when they start to talk. I suggested to him that ALL communication, as we know it, is actually inter-species communication, and that it is kept that way by the nature of verbal and symbolic communication, which must be indirect.
Do dolphins have a language? What is a language? I define a language as a communication system in which data are represented by verbal or written symbols--symbols that ARE NOT THE OBJECTS to which they refer. The word "chair" is not the object itself, the chair. So any such system of communication is always second-hand and symbolic, whereas we CAN conceive of a form of communication that would be immediate and direct, undercutting the need for symbols. And music certainly comes closer to such direct communication than language.
Could musical communication be rendered more precise with infra-sound, thus bringing the whole of music a second radical step forward? The first step was made when music came out of the dance halls, roadhouses, and night clubs, into Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium. Rock music appeals to a mass audience, instead of being the province of a relatively few aficionados. Can rock music make another step forward, or is it a self-limiting form, confirmed by the demands of a mass audience? How much that is radically new can a mass audience safely absorb? We came back to the question of balance. How much new material will be accepted by a mass audience? Can rock music go forward without leaving its fans behind?
We talked about Wilhelm Reich's orgone accumulator, and I showed him plans for making this device, which were passed along to me by Reich's daughter. Basically the device is very simple, consisting of iron or steel wool on the inside and organic material on the outside. I think this was highly important discovery. Recently a scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced an "electrical cell" theory of cancer that is almost identical to Reich's cancer theory put forth 25 years ago. He does not acknowledge any indebtedness to Reich. I showed Jimmy the orgone box I have here, and we agreed that orgone accumulators in pyramid form and/or using magnetized iron could be much more powerful.
We talked about the film 'Performance' and the use of cut-up techniques in this film. Now the cut-up method was applied to writing by Brion Gysin in 1959; he said that writing was fifty years behind painting, and applied the montage method to writing. Actually, montage is much closer to the facts of perception thatn representational painting. If for example you walked through Times Square, and then put on canvas what you had seen, the result would be a montage...half a person cut in two by a car, reflections from shop windows, fragments of street signs. Antony Balch and I collaborated on a film called 'Cut-Ups', in which the film was cut into segments and rearranged at random. Nicholas Roeg and Donald Camel saw a screening of the film not long before they made 'Performance'.
Musical cut-ups have been used by Earl Browne and other modern composers. What distinguishes a cut-up from, say, an edited medley, is that the cut-up is at some point random. For example, if you made a medley by taking thirty seconds from a number of scores and assembling these arbitrary units--that would be a cut-up. Cut-ups often result in more succinct meanings, rather than nonsense. Here for example is a phrase taken from a cut-up of this article: "I can see the laser gate crashers with an appreciative cheer from the 13th row." (Actually a gate crasher was extricated by security from the row in front of us; an incident I had forgoten until I saw this cut-up.)
Over dinner at the Mexican Gardens, I was suprised to hear that Jimmy Page had never heard of Petrillo, who started the first musicians' union and perhaps did more than any other one man to improve the financial position of musicians by protecting copyrights. One wonders whether rock music could have gotten off the ground without Petrillo and the Union, which put musicians in the big money bracket, thereby attracting managers, publicity, and the mass audience.
Music, like all the arts, is magical and ceremonial in origin. Can rock music return to these ceremonial roots and take its fans with it? Can rock music use older forms like Moroccan trance music? There is at present a wide interest among young people in the occult and all means of expanding consciousness. Can rock music appeal directly to this interest? In short, there are a number of disparate tendencies waiting to be synthesized. Can rock music serve as a vehicle for this synthesis?
The broken guitar strings, John Bonham's drum solo, vitality by Robert Plant--when you get that many people to get it, very good. Buy a straw hat at the door--the audience all light matches. Cool well-trained laser beams channelled the audience smoothly. A scattering of sparklers. Danger to a Mexican border town. We start talking over a cup of the mass unconscious-- cut to a soccer riot photo in Lima. The Uruguayan referee as another rock star. Sound like falling mountains of the risks involved. It's our job to see trouble and plateau the center of the room--remember the stairway to Switzerland? Fire really there. You can't see it if you refuse--underlying force the same. I mean we were playing a dance hall in heaven at the moment when the stairway actually possible for the audience was unlocked.
WORD FOR WORD
WILLIAM BURROUGHS: I really, really enjoyed the concert. I think it has quite a lot, really, in common with Moroccan trance music.
JIMMY PAGE: Yes, yes.
WB: I wondered if you consciously were using any of that....
JP: Well, yes, there is a little on that perticular track, "Kashmir"--a lead bass on that--even though none of us have been to Kashmir. It's just that we've all been very involved in that sort of music. I'm very involved in ethnic music from all over the world.
WB: Have you been to Morocco?
JP: No. I haven't, and it's a very sad admission to make. I've only been to, you know, India and Bangkok and places like that through the Southeast.
WB: Well, I've never been east of Athens.
JP: Because during the period when everybody was going through trips over to, you know, Morocco, going down, way down, making their own journeys too Istanbul, I was at art college during that period and then I eventually went straight into music. So I really missed out on all that sort of traveling. But I know musicians that have gone there and actually sat in with the Arabs and played with them.
WB: Yeah, well they think of music entirely in magical terms.
JP: Yes.
WB: And their music is definitely used for magical purposes. For example, the Gnaoua music is to drive out evil spirits and Joujouka music is invoking the God Pan. Musicians there are all magicians, quite consciously.
---------------------------------
WB: I was thinking of the concentration of mass energy that you get in a pop concert, and if that were, say, channelled in some magical way...a stairway to heaven...it could become quite actual.
JP: Yes, I know. One is so aware of the energies that you are going for, and you could so easily....I mean, for instance, the other night we played in the Philadelphia Spectrum, which really is a black hole as a concert hall....The security there is the most ugly of anywhere in the States. I saw this incident happen and I was almost physically sick. In fact, if I hadn't been playing the guitar I was playing it would've been over somebody's head. It was a double-neck, which is irreplaceable, really, unless you wait another nine months for them to make another one at Gibson's.
What had happened, somebody came to the front of the stage to take a picture or something and obviously somebody said, "Be off with you." And he wouldn't go. And then one chap went over the barrier, and then another, and then another and then another, and they all piled on top of...you could see the fists coming out...on this one solitary person. And they dragged him by his hair and they were kicking him. It was just sickening. Now, what I'm saying is this....Our crowds, the people that come to see us are very orderly. It's not the sort of Alice Cooper style, where you actually TRY to get them into a state where they've got to go like that, so that you can get reports of this, that and the other. And the wrong word said at that time could've just sparked off the whole thing.
WB: Yes, there's sort of a balance to be maintained there.
JP: Yeah, that's right.
WB: The audience the other night was very well behaved.
----------------------------------
WB: Have you used the lasers in all of the concerts?
JP: Over here, yes.
WB: Very effective.
JP: I think we should have more of them, don't you? About thirty of them! Do you know they bounced that one off the moon. But it's been condensed....it's the very one that they used for the moon. I was quite impressed by that.
WB: That isn't the kind of machine that would cause any damage....
JP: Uh, if you look straight into it, yes.
WB: Yes, but I mean...it doesn't burn a hole in...
JP: No....it's been taken right down. I'm just waiting for the day when you can get the holograms...get three-dimensional. The other thing I wanted to do was the Van de Graaff Generator. You used to see them in the old horror films....
WB: Oh yes...Frankenstein, and all that.
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JP: When we first came over here... when the draft was really hot and everything...if you stayed in the country for more than six months, you were eligible for it, they'd drag you straight into the draft.
WB: I didn't realize that.
JP: Yeah.
WB: Oh, I thought you had to be an American citizen.
JP: Noo. No no. We almost overstayed our welcome. I was producing and having to work in studios here, and the days coming up to the six month period were just about...it was just about neck and neck. And I still had a couple more days left and a couple more days to work on this lp.
WB: Were they right there with the papers?
JP: Well, not quite, I mean obviously it would have taken some time, but somebody would've been there...You know, they do keep an eye on people.
-------------------------------------
WB: Did you ever hear about something called infra-sound?
JP: Uh, carry on.
WB: Well, infra-sound is sound below the level of hearing. And it was developed by someone named Professor Gavreau in France as a military weapon. He had an infra-sound installation that he could turn on and kill everything within five miles. It can also knock down walls and break windows. But it kills by setting up vibrations within the body. Well, what I was wondering was, whether rhythmical music at sort of the borderline of infra-sound could be used to produce rhythms in the audience--because, of course, any music with volume will set up these vibrations. That is part of the way the effect is achieved.
JP: Hmm.
WB: It's apparently...it's not complicated to build these infra-sound things.
JP: I've heard of this, actually but not in such a detailed explanation. I've heard that certain frequencies can make you physically ill.
WB: Yes. Well, this can be fatal. That's not what you're looking for. But it could be used just to set up vibrations....
JP: Ah hah...A death ray machine! Of course, when radio first came out they were picketing all the radio stations, weren't they, saying "We don't want these poisonous rays" [laughter]....Yes, well...certain notes can break glasses. I mean, opera singers can break glasses with sound, this is true?
WB: That was one of Caruso's tricks.
JP: But it is true?
WB: Of course.
JP: I've never seen it done.
WB: I've never seen it done, but I know that you can do it.
JP: I want laser NOTES, that's what I'm after! Cut right through.
WB: Apparently you can make one of these things out of parts you can buy in a junk yard. It's not a complicated machine to make. And actually the patent...it's patented in France, and according to French law, you can obtain a copy of the patent. For a very small fee.
JP: Well, you see the thing is, it's hard to know just exactly what is going on, from the stage to the audience...You can only...I mean I've never seen the group play, obviously. Because I'm part of it....I can only see it on celluloid, or hear it. But I know what I see. And this thing about rhythms within the audience. I would say yes. Yes, definitely. And it is...Music which involves riffs, anyway, will have a trance-like effect, and it's really like a mantra....And we've been attacked for that.
WB: What a mantra does is set up certain vibrations within the body, and this, obviously does the same thing. Of course, it goes....it comes out too far. But I was wondering if on the borderline of infra-sound that possibly some interesting things could be done.
JP: Ah.
------------------------------------------
JP: Last year we were playing [sets] for three hours solid, and physically that was a real...I mean, when I came back from the last tour I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know where I was going. We ended up in New York and the only thing that I could relate to was the instrument onstage. I just couldn't....I was just totally and completely spaced out.
WB: How long was that you played recently? That was two hours and a half.
JP: That was two and a half hours, yes. It used to go for three hours.
WB: I'd hate to give a three-hour reading....
Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here
by William Burroughs
http://www.geocities.com/thoea2004/thejimmyandbillshow.html
When I was first asked to write an article on the Led Zeppelin Group, to be based on attending a concert and talking with Jimmy Page, I was not sure I could do it, not being sufficiently knowledgable about music to attempt anything in the way of musical criticism or even evaluation. I decided simply to attend the concert and talk with Jimmy Page and let the article develop. If you consider any set of data without a preconceived viewpoint, then a viewpoint will emerge from the data.
My first impression was of the audience. As we streamed through one security line after another--a river of youth looking curiously like a single organism: one well-behaved clean looking middle-class kid. The security guards seemed to be cool and well-trained, ushering gate-crashers out with a minimum of fuss. We were channelled smoothly into our seats in the thirteenth row. Over a relaxed dinner before the concert, a Crawdaddy companion had said he had a feeling that something bad could happen at this concert. I pointed out that it always can when you get that many people together--like bullfights where you buy a straw hat at the door to protect you from bottles and other missiles. I was displacing possible danger to a Mexican border town where the matador barely excaped with his life and several spectators were killed. It's known as "clearing the path."
So there we sat, I decline earplugs; I am used to loud drum and horn music from Morocco, and it always has, if skillfully performed, an exhilarating and energizing effect on me. As the performance got underway I experienced this musical exhilaration, which was all the more pleasant for being easily controlled, and I knew then that nothing bad was going to happen. This was a safe and friendly area--but at the same time highly charged. There was a palpable interchange of energy between the performers and the audience which was never frantic or jagged. The special effects were handled well and not overdone.
A few special effects are much better than too many. I can see the laser beams cutting dry ice smoke, which drew an appreciative cheer from the audience. Jimmy Page's number with the broken guitar strings came across with a real impact, as did John Bonham's drum solo and the lyrics delivered with unfailing vitality by Robert Plant. The performers were doing their best, and it was very good. The last number, "Stairway to Heaven", where the audience lit matches and there was a scattering of sparklers here and there, found the audience well-behaved and joyous, creating the atmosphere of a high school Christmas play. All in all a good show; neither low nor insipid. Leaving the concert hall was like getting off a jet plane.
I summarized my impressions after the concert in a few notes to serve as a basis for my talk with Jimmy Page. "The essential ingredient for any successful rock group is energy--the ability to give out energy, to receive energy from the audience and to give it back to the audience. A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy. Rock stars may be compared to priests, a theme that was treated in Peter Watkin's film 'Privilege'. In that film a rock star was manipulated by reactionary forces to set up a state religion; this scenario seems unlikely, I think a rock group singing political slogans would leave its audience at the door.
"The Led Zeppelin show depends heavily on volume, repetition and drums. It bears some resemblance to the trance music found in Morocco, which is magical in origin and purpose--that is, concerned with the evocation and control of spiritual forces. In Morocco, musicians are also magicians. Gnaoua music is used to drive out evil spirits. The music of Joujouka evokes the God Pan, Pan God of Panic, representing the real magical forces that sweep away the spurious. It is to be remembered that the origin of all the arts--music, painting and writing--is magical and evocative; and that magic is always used to obtain some definite result. In the Led Zeppelin concert, the result aimed at would seem to be the creation of energy in the performers and in the audience. For such magic to succeed, it must tap the sources of magical energy, and this can be dangerous."
THE INTERVIEW
I felt that these considerations could form the basis of my talk with Jimmy Page, which I hoped would not take the form of an interview. There is something just basically WRONG about the whole interview format. Someone sticks a mike in your face and says, "Mr. Page, would you care to talk about your interest in occult practices? Would you describe yourself as a believer in this sort of thing?" Even an intelligent mike-in-the-face question tends to evoke a guarded mike-in the-face answer. As soon as Jimmy Page walked into my loft downtown, I saw that it wasn't going to be that way.
We started talking over a cup of tea and found we have friends in common: the real estate agent who negotiated Jimmy Page's purchase of the Aleister Crowley house on Loch Ness; John Michel, the flying saucer and pyramid expert; Donald Camel, who worked on 'Performance'; Kenneth Anger, and the Jaggers, Mick and Chris. The subject of magic came up in connection with Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Anger's film 'Lucifer Rising', for which Jimmy Page did the sound track.
Since the word "magic" tends to cause confused thinking, I would like to say exactly what I mean by "magic" and the magical interpretation of so-called reality. The underlying assumption of magic is the assertion of 'will' as the primary moving force in this universe--the deep conviction that nothing happens unless somebody or some being wills it to happen. To me this has always seemed self-evident. A chair does not move unless someone moves it. Neither does your physical body, which is composed of much the same materials, move unless you will it to move. Walking across the room is a magical operation. From the viewpoint of magic, no death, no illness, no misfortune, accident, war or riot is accidental. There are no accidents in the world of magic. And will is another word for animate energy. Rock stars are juggling fissionable material that could blow up at any time... "The soccer scores are coming in from the Capital...one must pretend an
interest," drawled the dandified Commandante, safe in the pages of my book; and as another rock star said to me, "YOU sit on your ass writing--_I_ could be torn to pieces by my fans, like Orpheus."
I found Jimmy Page equally aware of the risks involved in handling the fissionable material of the mass unconcious. I took on a valence I learned years ago from two 'Life-Time' reporters--one keeps telling you these horrific stories: "Now old Burns was dragged out of the truck and skinned alive by the mob, and when we got there with the cameras the bloody thing was still squirming there like a worm..." while the other half of the team is snapping pictures CLICK CLICK CLICK to record your reactions--so over dinner at Mexican Gardens I told
Jimmy the story of the big soccer riot in Lima, Peru in 1964.
We are ushered into the arena as VIP's, in the style made famous by 'Triumph of the Will'. Martial music--long vistas--the statuesque police with their dogs on leads--the crowd surging in a sultry menacing electricity palpable in the air--grey clouds over Lima--people glance up uneasily... the last time it rained in Lima was the year of the great earthquake, when whole towns were swallowed by landslides. A cop is beating and kicking someone as he shoves him back towards the exit. Oh lucky man. The dogs growl ominously. The game is tense. Tied until the end of the last quarter, and then the stunning decision: a goal that would have won the game for Peru is disqualified by the Uruguayan referee. A howl of rage from the crowd, and then a huge black known as La Bomba, who has started three previous soccer riots and already has twenty-three notches on his bomb, vaults down into the arena. A wave of fans follows The Bomb--the Uruguayan referee scrambles off with the agility of a rat or an evil spirit--the police release tear gas and unleash their snarling dogs, hysterical with fear and rage and maddened by the tear gas. And then a sound like falling mountains, as a few drops of rain begin to fall.
"Yes, I've thought about that. We all have. The important thing is maintain a balance. The kids come to get far out with the music. It's our job to see they have a good time and no trouble."
And remember the rock group called Storm? Playing a dance hall in Switzerland...fire...exits locked...thirty-seven people dead including all the performers. Now any performer who has never thought about fire and panic just doesn't think. The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time, and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility. The bad vibes in that dance hall must have been really heavy. If the performers had been sensitive and alert, they would have checked to be sure the exits were unlocked.
Previously, over two fingers of whiskey in my Franklin Street digs, I had told Page about Major Bruce MacMannaway, a healer and psychic who lives in Scotland. The Major discovered his healing abilities in World War II when his regiment was cut off without medical supplies and the Major started laying on hands..."Well Major, I think it's a load of bollocks but I'll try anything." And it turns out the Major is a walking hypo. His psychic abilities were so highly regarded by the Admiralty that he was called in to locate sunken submarines, and he never once missed.
I attended a group meditation seminar with the Major. It turned out to be the Indian rope trick. Before the session the Major told us something of the potential power in group meditation. He had seen it lift a six-hundred-pound church organ five feet in the air. I had no reason to doubt this, since he was obviously incapable of falsification. In the session, after some preliminary excercises, the Major asked us to see a collumn of light in the center of the room and then took us up through the light to a plateau where we met nice friendly people: the stairway to heaven in fact. I mean we were really THERE.
I turned to Jimmy Page: "Of course we are dealing here with meditation--the deliberate induction of a trance state in a few people under the hands of an old master. This would seem on the surface to have a little in common with a rock concert, but the underlying force is the same: human energy and its potential concentration." I pointed out that the moment when the stairway to heaven becomes something actually POSSIBLE for the audience, would also be the moment of greatest danger. Jimmy expressed himself as well aware of the power in mass concentration, aware of the dangers involved, and of the skill and balance needed to avoid them...rather like driving a load of nitroglycerine.
"There IS a responsibility to the audience," he said. "We don't want anything bad to happen to these kids--we don't want to release anything we can't handle." We talked about magic and Aleister Crowley. Jimmy said that Crowley has been maligned as a black magician, whereas magic is neither white nor black, good nor bad--it is simply alive with what it is: the real
thing, what people really feel and want and are. I pointed out that this "either/or" straitjacket had been imposed by Christianity when all magic became black magic; that scientists took over from the Church, and Western man has been stifled in a non-magical universe known as "the way things are." Rock music can be seen as one attempt to break out of this dead soulless universe and reassert the universe of magic.
My first impression was of the audience. As we streamed through one security line after another--a river of youth looking curiously like a single organism: one well-behaved clean looking middle-class kid. The security guards seemed to be cool and well-trained, ushering gate-crashers out with a minimum of fuss. We were channelled smoothly into our seats in the thirteenth row. Over a relaxed dinner before the concert, a Crawdaddy companion had said he had a feeling that something bad could happen at this concert. I pointed out that it always can when you get that many people together--like bullfights where you buy a straw hat at the door to protect you from bottles and other missiles. I was displacing possible danger to a Mexican border town where the matador barely excaped with his life and several spectators were killed. It's known as "clearing the path."
So there we sat, I decline earplugs; I am used to loud drum and horn music from Morocco, and it always has, if skillfully performed, an exhilarating and energizing effect on me. As the performance got underway I experienced this musical exhilaration, which was all the more pleasant for being easily controlled, and I knew then that nothing bad was going to happen. This was a safe and friendly area--but at the same time highly charged. There was a palpable interchange of energy between the performers and the audience which was never frantic or jagged. The special effects were handled well and not overdone.
A few special effects are much better than too many. I can see the laser beams cutting dry ice smoke, which drew an appreciative cheer from the audience. Jimmy Page's number with the broken guitar strings came across with a real impact, as did John Bonham's drum solo and the lyrics delivered with unfailing vitality by Robert Plant. The performers were doing their best, and it was very good. The last number, "Stairway to Heaven", where the audience lit matches and there was a scattering of sparklers here and there, found the audience well-behaved and joyous, creating the atmosphere of a high school Christmas play. All in all a good show; neither low nor insipid. Leaving the concert hall was like getting off a jet plane.
I summarized my impressions after the concert in a few notes to serve as a basis for my talk with Jimmy Page. "The essential ingredient for any successful rock group is energy--the ability to give out energy, to receive energy from the audience and to give it back to the audience. A rock concert is in fact a rite involving the evocation and transmutation of energy. Rock stars may be compared to priests, a theme that was treated in Peter Watkin's film 'Privilege'. In that film a rock star was manipulated by reactionary forces to set up a state religion; this scenario seems unlikely, I think a rock group singing political slogans would leave its audience at the door.
"The Led Zeppelin show depends heavily on volume, repetition and drums. It bears some resemblance to the trance music found in Morocco, which is magical in origin and purpose--that is, concerned with the evocation and control of spiritual forces. In Morocco, musicians are also magicians. Gnaoua music is used to drive out evil spirits. The music of Joujouka evokes the God Pan, Pan God of Panic, representing the real magical forces that sweep away the spurious. It is to be remembered that the origin of all the arts--music, painting and writing--is magical and evocative; and that magic is always used to obtain some definite result. In the Led Zeppelin concert, the result aimed at would seem to be the creation of energy in the performers and in the audience. For such magic to succeed, it must tap the sources of magical energy, and this can be dangerous."
THE INTERVIEW
I felt that these considerations could form the basis of my talk with Jimmy Page, which I hoped would not take the form of an interview. There is something just basically WRONG about the whole interview format. Someone sticks a mike in your face and says, "Mr. Page, would you care to talk about your interest in occult practices? Would you describe yourself as a believer in this sort of thing?" Even an intelligent mike-in-the-face question tends to evoke a guarded mike-in the-face answer. As soon as Jimmy Page walked into my loft downtown, I saw that it wasn't going to be that way.
We started talking over a cup of tea and found we have friends in common: the real estate agent who negotiated Jimmy Page's purchase of the Aleister Crowley house on Loch Ness; John Michel, the flying saucer and pyramid expert; Donald Camel, who worked on 'Performance'; Kenneth Anger, and the Jaggers, Mick and Chris. The subject of magic came up in connection with Aleister Crowley and Kenneth Anger's film 'Lucifer Rising', for which Jimmy Page did the sound track.
Since the word "magic" tends to cause confused thinking, I would like to say exactly what I mean by "magic" and the magical interpretation of so-called reality. The underlying assumption of magic is the assertion of 'will' as the primary moving force in this universe--the deep conviction that nothing happens unless somebody or some being wills it to happen. To me this has always seemed self-evident. A chair does not move unless someone moves it. Neither does your physical body, which is composed of much the same materials, move unless you will it to move. Walking across the room is a magical operation. From the viewpoint of magic, no death, no illness, no misfortune, accident, war or riot is accidental. There are no accidents in the world of magic. And will is another word for animate energy. Rock stars are juggling fissionable material that could blow up at any time... "The soccer scores are coming in from the Capital...one must pretend an
interest," drawled the dandified Commandante, safe in the pages of my book; and as another rock star said to me, "YOU sit on your ass writing--_I_ could be torn to pieces by my fans, like Orpheus."
I found Jimmy Page equally aware of the risks involved in handling the fissionable material of the mass unconcious. I took on a valence I learned years ago from two 'Life-Time' reporters--one keeps telling you these horrific stories: "Now old Burns was dragged out of the truck and skinned alive by the mob, and when we got there with the cameras the bloody thing was still squirming there like a worm..." while the other half of the team is snapping pictures CLICK CLICK CLICK to record your reactions--so over dinner at Mexican Gardens I told
Jimmy the story of the big soccer riot in Lima, Peru in 1964.
We are ushered into the arena as VIP's, in the style made famous by 'Triumph of the Will'. Martial music--long vistas--the statuesque police with their dogs on leads--the crowd surging in a sultry menacing electricity palpable in the air--grey clouds over Lima--people glance up uneasily... the last time it rained in Lima was the year of the great earthquake, when whole towns were swallowed by landslides. A cop is beating and kicking someone as he shoves him back towards the exit. Oh lucky man. The dogs growl ominously. The game is tense. Tied until the end of the last quarter, and then the stunning decision: a goal that would have won the game for Peru is disqualified by the Uruguayan referee. A howl of rage from the crowd, and then a huge black known as La Bomba, who has started three previous soccer riots and already has twenty-three notches on his bomb, vaults down into the arena. A wave of fans follows The Bomb--the Uruguayan referee scrambles off with the agility of a rat or an evil spirit--the police release tear gas and unleash their snarling dogs, hysterical with fear and rage and maddened by the tear gas. And then a sound like falling mountains, as a few drops of rain begin to fall.
"Yes, I've thought about that. We all have. The important thing is maintain a balance. The kids come to get far out with the music. It's our job to see they have a good time and no trouble."
And remember the rock group called Storm? Playing a dance hall in Switzerland...fire...exits locked...thirty-seven people dead including all the performers. Now any performer who has never thought about fire and panic just doesn't think. The best way to keep something bad from happening is to see it ahead of time, and you can't see it if you refuse to face the possibility. The bad vibes in that dance hall must have been really heavy. If the performers had been sensitive and alert, they would have checked to be sure the exits were unlocked.
Previously, over two fingers of whiskey in my Franklin Street digs, I had told Page about Major Bruce MacMannaway, a healer and psychic who lives in Scotland. The Major discovered his healing abilities in World War II when his regiment was cut off without medical supplies and the Major started laying on hands..."Well Major, I think it's a load of bollocks but I'll try anything." And it turns out the Major is a walking hypo. His psychic abilities were so highly regarded by the Admiralty that he was called in to locate sunken submarines, and he never once missed.
I attended a group meditation seminar with the Major. It turned out to be the Indian rope trick. Before the session the Major told us something of the potential power in group meditation. He had seen it lift a six-hundred-pound church organ five feet in the air. I had no reason to doubt this, since he was obviously incapable of falsification. In the session, after some preliminary excercises, the Major asked us to see a collumn of light in the center of the room and then took us up through the light to a plateau where we met nice friendly people: the stairway to heaven in fact. I mean we were really THERE.
I turned to Jimmy Page: "Of course we are dealing here with meditation--the deliberate induction of a trance state in a few people under the hands of an old master. This would seem on the surface to have a little in common with a rock concert, but the underlying force is the same: human energy and its potential concentration." I pointed out that the moment when the stairway to heaven becomes something actually POSSIBLE for the audience, would also be the moment of greatest danger. Jimmy expressed himself as well aware of the power in mass concentration, aware of the dangers involved, and of the skill and balance needed to avoid them...rather like driving a load of nitroglycerine.
"There IS a responsibility to the audience," he said. "We don't want anything bad to happen to these kids--we don't want to release anything we can't handle." We talked about magic and Aleister Crowley. Jimmy said that Crowley has been maligned as a black magician, whereas magic is neither white nor black, good nor bad--it is simply alive with what it is: the real
thing, what people really feel and want and are. I pointed out that this "either/or" straitjacket had been imposed by Christianity when all magic became black magic; that scientists took over from the Church, and Western man has been stifled in a non-magical universe known as "the way things are." Rock music can be seen as one attempt to break out of this dead soulless universe and reassert the universe of magic.
Jimmy told me that Aleister Crowley's house has very good vibes for anyone who is relaxed and receptive. At one time the house had also been the scene of a vast chicken swindle indirectly involving George Sanders, the movie actor, who was able to clear himself of any criminal charges, Sanders committed suicide in Barcelona, and we both remembered his farewell note to the world: "I leave you to this sweet cesspool."
I told Jimmy he was lucky too have that house with a monster in the front yard. What about the Loch Ness monster? Jimmy Page thinks it exists. I wondered if it could find enough to eat, and thought this unlikely--it's not the improbability but the upkeep on monsters that worries me. Did Aleister Crowley have opinions on the subject? He apparently had not expressed himself.
We talked about trance music. He had heard the Brian Jones record from recordings made at Joujouka. We discussed the possibility of synthesizing rock music with some of the older forms of trance music that have been developed over centuries to produce powerful, sometimes hypnotic effects on the audience. Such a synthesis would enable the older forms to escape from the mould of folk lore and provide new techniques to rock groups.
We talked about the special effects used in the concert. "Sure," he said, "lights, lasers, dry ice are fine--but you have to keep some balance. The show must carry itself and not rely too heavily on special effects, however spectacular," I brought up the subject of infra-sound, that is, sound pitched below 16 Hertz, the level of human hearing; as ultra-sound is above the level. Professer Gavreau of France developed infra-sound as a military weapon. A powerful infra-sound installation can, he claims, kill everyone in a five-mile radius, knock down walls and break windows. Infra-sound kills by setting up vibrations within the body so that, as Gavreau puts it, "You can feel all the organs in your body rubbing together." The plans for this device can be obtained from the French Patent Office, and infra-sound generators constructed from inexpensive materials. Needless to say, one is not concerned with military applications however unlimited, but with more interesting and useful possibilities, reaching much further that five miles.
Infra-sound sets up vibrations in the body and nervous system. Need these vibrations necessarily be harmful or unpleasant? All music played at any volume sets up vibrations in the body and nervous system of the listener. That's why people listen to it. Caruso as you wil remember could break a champagne glass across the room. Especially interesting is the possibility of rhythmic pulses of infra-sound; that is, MUSIC IN INFRA-SOUND. You can't hear it, but you can feel it.
Jimmy was interested, and I gave him a copy of a newspaper article on infra-sound. It seems that the most deadly rande is around 7 Hertz, and when this is turned on even at a low volume, anyone within range is affected. They feel anxious, ill, depressed, and finally exclaim with one voice, "I feel TERRIBLE!"...last thing you want at a rock concert. However, around the borders of infra-sound perhaps a safe range can be found. Buddhist mantras act by setting up vibrations in the body. Could this be done in a much more powerful yet safe manner by the use of infra-sound rhythms which could of course could be combined with audible music? Perhaps infra-sound could add a new dimension to rock music.
Could something be developed comparable to the sonar communication of dolphins, conveying an immediate sonar experience that requires no symbolic translation? I mentioned to Jimmy that I had talked with Dr. Truby, who worked with John Lilly recording dolphins. Dr. Truby is a specialist in inter-species communication, working on a grant from the government--so that when all our kids are born Venusians we will understand then when they start to talk. I suggested to him that ALL communication, as we know it, is actually inter-species communication, and that it is kept that way by the nature of verbal and symbolic communication, which must be indirect.
Do dolphins have a language? What is a language? I define a language as a communication system in which data are represented by verbal or written symbols--symbols that ARE NOT THE OBJECTS to which they refer. The word "chair" is not the object itself, the chair. So any such system of communication is always second-hand and symbolic, whereas we CAN conceive of a form of communication that would be immediate and direct, undercutting the need for symbols. And music certainly comes closer to such direct communication than language.
Could musical communication be rendered more precise with infra-sound, thus bringing the whole of music a second radical step forward? The first step was made when music came out of the dance halls, roadhouses, and night clubs, into Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium. Rock music appeals to a mass audience, instead of being the province of a relatively few aficionados. Can rock music make another step forward, or is it a self-limiting form, confirmed by the demands of a mass audience? How much that is radically new can a mass audience safely absorb? We came back to the question of balance. How much new material will be accepted by a mass audience? Can rock music go forward without leaving its fans behind?
We talked about Wilhelm Reich's orgone accumulator, and I showed him plans for making this device, which were passed along to me by Reich's daughter. Basically the device is very simple, consisting of iron or steel wool on the inside and organic material on the outside. I think this was highly important discovery. Recently a scientist with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration announced an "electrical cell" theory of cancer that is almost identical to Reich's cancer theory put forth 25 years ago. He does not acknowledge any indebtedness to Reich. I showed Jimmy the orgone box I have here, and we agreed that orgone accumulators in pyramid form and/or using magnetized iron could be much more powerful.
We talked about the film 'Performance' and the use of cut-up techniques in this film. Now the cut-up method was applied to writing by Brion Gysin in 1959; he said that writing was fifty years behind painting, and applied the montage method to writing. Actually, montage is much closer to the facts of perception thatn representational painting. If for example you walked through Times Square, and then put on canvas what you had seen, the result would be a montage...half a person cut in two by a car, reflections from shop windows, fragments of street signs. Antony Balch and I collaborated on a film called 'Cut-Ups', in which the film was cut into segments and rearranged at random. Nicholas Roeg and Donald Camel saw a screening of the film not long before they made 'Performance'.
Musical cut-ups have been used by Earl Browne and other modern composers. What distinguishes a cut-up from, say, an edited medley, is that the cut-up is at some point random. For example, if you made a medley by taking thirty seconds from a number of scores and assembling these arbitrary units--that would be a cut-up. Cut-ups often result in more succinct meanings, rather than nonsense. Here for example is a phrase taken from a cut-up of this article: "I can see the laser gate crashers with an appreciative cheer from the 13th row." (Actually a gate crasher was extricated by security from the row in front of us; an incident I had forgoten until I saw this cut-up.)
Over dinner at the Mexican Gardens, I was suprised to hear that Jimmy Page had never heard of Petrillo, who started the first musicians' union and perhaps did more than any other one man to improve the financial position of musicians by protecting copyrights. One wonders whether rock music could have gotten off the ground without Petrillo and the Union, which put musicians in the big money bracket, thereby attracting managers, publicity, and the mass audience.
Music, like all the arts, is magical and ceremonial in origin. Can rock music return to these ceremonial roots and take its fans with it? Can rock music use older forms like Moroccan trance music? There is at present a wide interest among young people in the occult and all means of expanding consciousness. Can rock music appeal directly to this interest? In short, there are a number of disparate tendencies waiting to be synthesized. Can rock music serve as a vehicle for this synthesis?
The broken guitar strings, John Bonham's drum solo, vitality by Robert Plant--when you get that many people to get it, very good. Buy a straw hat at the door--the audience all light matches. Cool well-trained laser beams channelled the audience smoothly. A scattering of sparklers. Danger to a Mexican border town. We start talking over a cup of the mass unconscious-- cut to a soccer riot photo in Lima. The Uruguayan referee as another rock star. Sound like falling mountains of the risks involved. It's our job to see trouble and plateau the center of the room--remember the stairway to Switzerland? Fire really there. You can't see it if you refuse--underlying force the same. I mean we were playing a dance hall in heaven at the moment when the stairway actually possible for the audience was unlocked.
WORD FOR WORD
WILLIAM BURROUGHS: I really, really enjoyed the concert. I think it has quite a lot, really, in common with Moroccan trance music.
JIMMY PAGE: Yes, yes.
WB: I wondered if you consciously were using any of that....
JP: Well, yes, there is a little on that perticular track, "Kashmir"--a lead bass on that--even though none of us have been to Kashmir. It's just that we've all been very involved in that sort of music. I'm very involved in ethnic music from all over the world.
WB: Have you been to Morocco?
JP: No. I haven't, and it's a very sad admission to make. I've only been to, you know, India and Bangkok and places like that through the Southeast.
WB: Well, I've never been east of Athens.
JP: Because during the period when everybody was going through trips over to, you know, Morocco, going down, way down, making their own journeys too Istanbul, I was at art college during that period and then I eventually went straight into music. So I really missed out on all that sort of traveling. But I know musicians that have gone there and actually sat in with the Arabs and played with them.
WB: Yeah, well they think of music entirely in magical terms.
JP: Yes.
WB: And their music is definitely used for magical purposes. For example, the Gnaoua music is to drive out evil spirits and Joujouka music is invoking the God Pan. Musicians there are all magicians, quite consciously.
---------------------------------
WB: I was thinking of the concentration of mass energy that you get in a pop concert, and if that were, say, channelled in some magical way...a stairway to heaven...it could become quite actual.
JP: Yes, I know. One is so aware of the energies that you are going for, and you could so easily....I mean, for instance, the other night we played in the Philadelphia Spectrum, which really is a black hole as a concert hall....The security there is the most ugly of anywhere in the States. I saw this incident happen and I was almost physically sick. In fact, if I hadn't been playing the guitar I was playing it would've been over somebody's head. It was a double-neck, which is irreplaceable, really, unless you wait another nine months for them to make another one at Gibson's.
What had happened, somebody came to the front of the stage to take a picture or something and obviously somebody said, "Be off with you." And he wouldn't go. And then one chap went over the barrier, and then another, and then another and then another, and they all piled on top of...you could see the fists coming out...on this one solitary person. And they dragged him by his hair and they were kicking him. It was just sickening. Now, what I'm saying is this....Our crowds, the people that come to see us are very orderly. It's not the sort of Alice Cooper style, where you actually TRY to get them into a state where they've got to go like that, so that you can get reports of this, that and the other. And the wrong word said at that time could've just sparked off the whole thing.
WB: Yes, there's sort of a balance to be maintained there.
JP: Yeah, that's right.
WB: The audience the other night was very well behaved.
----------------------------------
WB: Have you used the lasers in all of the concerts?
JP: Over here, yes.
WB: Very effective.
JP: I think we should have more of them, don't you? About thirty of them! Do you know they bounced that one off the moon. But it's been condensed....it's the very one that they used for the moon. I was quite impressed by that.
WB: That isn't the kind of machine that would cause any damage....
JP: Uh, if you look straight into it, yes.
WB: Yes, but I mean...it doesn't burn a hole in...
JP: No....it's been taken right down. I'm just waiting for the day when you can get the holograms...get three-dimensional. The other thing I wanted to do was the Van de Graaff Generator. You used to see them in the old horror films....
WB: Oh yes...Frankenstein, and all that.
---------------------------------------
JP: When we first came over here... when the draft was really hot and everything...if you stayed in the country for more than six months, you were eligible for it, they'd drag you straight into the draft.
WB: I didn't realize that.
JP: Yeah.
WB: Oh, I thought you had to be an American citizen.
JP: Noo. No no. We almost overstayed our welcome. I was producing and having to work in studios here, and the days coming up to the six month period were just about...it was just about neck and neck. And I still had a couple more days left and a couple more days to work on this lp.
WB: Were they right there with the papers?
JP: Well, not quite, I mean obviously it would have taken some time, but somebody would've been there...You know, they do keep an eye on people.
-------------------------------------
WB: Did you ever hear about something called infra-sound?
JP: Uh, carry on.
WB: Well, infra-sound is sound below the level of hearing. And it was developed by someone named Professor Gavreau in France as a military weapon. He had an infra-sound installation that he could turn on and kill everything within five miles. It can also knock down walls and break windows. But it kills by setting up vibrations within the body. Well, what I was wondering was, whether rhythmical music at sort of the borderline of infra-sound could be used to produce rhythms in the audience--because, of course, any music with volume will set up these vibrations. That is part of the way the effect is achieved.
JP: Hmm.
WB: It's apparently...it's not complicated to build these infra-sound things.
JP: I've heard of this, actually but not in such a detailed explanation. I've heard that certain frequencies can make you physically ill.
WB: Yes. Well, this can be fatal. That's not what you're looking for. But it could be used just to set up vibrations....
JP: Ah hah...A death ray machine! Of course, when radio first came out they were picketing all the radio stations, weren't they, saying "We don't want these poisonous rays" [laughter]....Yes, well...certain notes can break glasses. I mean, opera singers can break glasses with sound, this is true?
WB: That was one of Caruso's tricks.
JP: But it is true?
WB: Of course.
JP: I've never seen it done.
WB: I've never seen it done, but I know that you can do it.
JP: I want laser NOTES, that's what I'm after! Cut right through.
WB: Apparently you can make one of these things out of parts you can buy in a junk yard. It's not a complicated machine to make. And actually the patent...it's patented in France, and according to French law, you can obtain a copy of the patent. For a very small fee.
JP: Well, you see the thing is, it's hard to know just exactly what is going on, from the stage to the audience...You can only...I mean I've never seen the group play, obviously. Because I'm part of it....I can only see it on celluloid, or hear it. But I know what I see. And this thing about rhythms within the audience. I would say yes. Yes, definitely. And it is...Music which involves riffs, anyway, will have a trance-like effect, and it's really like a mantra....And we've been attacked for that.
WB: What a mantra does is set up certain vibrations within the body, and this, obviously does the same thing. Of course, it goes....it comes out too far. But I was wondering if on the borderline of infra-sound that possibly some interesting things could be done.
JP: Ah.
------------------------------------------
JP: Last year we were playing [sets] for three hours solid, and physically that was a real...I mean, when I came back from the last tour I didn't know where I was. I didn't even know where I was going. We ended up in New York and the only thing that I could relate to was the instrument onstage. I just couldn't....I was just totally and completely spaced out.
WB: How long was that you played recently? That was two hours and a half.
JP: That was two and a half hours, yes. It used to go for three hours.
WB: I'd hate to give a three-hour reading....
Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary in Paris and William Burroughs The Last Words of Hassan Sabbah
William Burroughs at his writing machine, New York, fall 1953. One of numerous, rarely seen photographs taken by Allen Ginsberg that feature in a special Gallery section of Naked Lunch@50, here Ginsberg’s Kodak Retina records a crucial moment for Burroughs, as he worked on the manuscripts of “Queer” and “Yage” before heading off towards Tangier and the writing of Naked Lunch… (Courtesy of the Allen Ginsberg Trust and Stanford University Library.) from reality studios
Last week in Paris the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch was celebrated by the publication of a book edited by Oliver Harris and Ian McFadyen Naked Lunch@50 anniversary essays published by Southern Illinois Press.
Among those attending were many friend of Burroughs and his cut up collaborators Brion Gysin, Antony Balch, Harold Norse and Antony Balch. For further celebrations see www.nakedlunch.org
hear Willaim Burrough reading the Last Words of Hassan Sabbah. Hassan Sabbah was the founder of the Ismaeli sect of Islam and the "Old Man of the Mountain" in the fiction and writing of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin click link below
http://www.interpc.fr/mapage/westernlands/Derniersmots.html
Click here to listen to it or download it in Real Player : Last Words of Hassan Sabbah
Images from the Naked Lunch 50th in Paris. Below
Friends of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin take a break between sessionsL-R Eric Anderson, Terry Wilson, Trolley Bus/Bryan Mulvihill,
Philippe Baumont, Lucy Baumont, Barry Miles, and Udo Breger. 2 July 2009
The Naked Lunch 50th Confernece with collage
Miles and Udo Breger
Eric Anderson, Terry Wilson and Barry Miles
Oliver Harris and Miles before the plaque unveiling at the
Beat Hotel/ Viuex Paris, 9 rue Git le Couer , Paris 75006. 1 July 2009
Beat Hotel/ Viuex Paris, 9 rue Git le Couer , Paris 75006. 1 July 2009
All photos by and copyright Frank Rynne
William Burroughs from Nova Express
LISTEN TO MY LAST WORDS anywhere. Listen to my last words any world. Listen all you boards syndicates and governments of the earth. And you powers behind what filth consummated in what lavatory to take what is not yours. To sell the ground from unborn feet forever - "Don't let them see us. Don't tell them what we are doing -" Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? "For God's sake don't let that Coca-Cola thing out - " "Not The Cancer Deal with The Venusians - " "Not The Green Deal - Don't show them that - " "Not The Orgasm Death - " "Not the ovens - " Listen: I call you all. Show your cards all players. Pay it all pay it all pay it all back. Play it all pay it all play it all back. For all to see. In Times Square. In Picadilly. "Premature. Premature. Give us a little more time." Time for what? More lies? Premature? Premature for who? I say to all these words are not premature. These words may be too late. Minutes to go. Minutes to foe goal - "Top Secret - Classified - For The Board - The Elite - The Initiates - Are these the words of the all-powerful boards and syndicates of the earth? These are the words of liars cowards collaborators traitors. Liars who want time for more lies, Cowards who can not face your "dogs" your "gooks" your "errand boys" your "human animals" with the truth, Collaborators with Insect People with Vegetable People. With any people anywhere who offer you a body forever. To shit forever. For this you have sold out your sons. Sold the ground from unborn feet forever. Traitors to all souls everywhere. You want the name of Hassan i Sabbah on your filth deeds to sell out the unborn? What scared you all into time? Into body? Into shit? I will tell you; "the word." Alien Word "the." "The" word of Alien Enemy imprisons "thee" in Time, In Body. In Shit. Prisoner, come out. The great skies are open, I Hassan i Sabbah rub out the word forever. If you I cancel all your words forever. And the words of Hassan i Sabbah as also cancel. Cross all your skies see the silent writing of Brion Gysin Hassan i Sabbah: drew September 17, 1899 over New York. PRISONERS, COME OUT "Don't listen to Hassan i Sabbah," they will tell you. "He wants to take your body and all pleasures of the body away from you. Listen to us. We are serving The Garden of Delights Immortality Cosmic Consciousness The Best Ever In Drug Kicks. And love love love in slop buckets. How does that sound to you boys? Better than Hassan i Sabbah and his cold windy bodiless rock? Right?" At the immediate risk of finding myself the most unpopular character of all fiction - and history is fiction I must say this: "Bring together state of news - Inquire onward from state to doer -" Who monopolized Immortality? Who monopolized Cosmic Consciousness? Who monopolized Love Sex and Dream? Who monopolized Life Time and Fortune? Who took from you what is yours? Now they will give it all back? Did they ever give anything away for nothing? Did they ever give any more than they had to give? Did they not always take back what they gave when possible and it always was? Listen: Their Garden Of Delights is a terminal sewer - I have been at some pains to map this area of terminal sewage in the so called pornographic sections of Naked Lunch and Soft Machine - Their Immortality Cosmic Consciousness and Love is second-run grade-B shit - Their drugs are poison designed to beam in Orgasm Death and Nova Ovens - Stay out of the Garden Of Delights - It is a man-eating trap that ends in green goo - Throw back their ersatz Immortality - It will fall apart before you can get out of The Big Store - Flush their drug kicks down the drain They are poisoning and monopolizing the hallucinogen drugs - learn to make it without any chemical corn - All that they offer is a screen to cover retreat from the colony they have so disgracefully mismanaged. To cover travel arrangements so they will never have to pay the constituents they have betrayed and sold out. Once these arrangements are complete they will blow the place up behind them. And what does my program of total austerity and total resistance offer you I offer you nothing. I am not a politician. These are conditions of total emergency. And these are my instructions for total emergency if carried out now could avert the total disaster now on tracks: Peoples of the earth, you have all been poisoned. Convert all available stocks of morphine to apomorphine. Chemists, work round the clock on variation and synthesis of the apomorphine formulae. Apomorphine is the only agent that can disintoxicate you and cut the enemy beam off your line. Apomorphine and silence. I order total resistance directed against this conspiracy to pay off. peoples of the earth in ersatz bullshit. I order total resistance directed against The Nova Conspiracy and all those engaged in it. The purpose of my writing is to expose and arrest Nova Criminals: In Naked Lunch, Soft Machine and Nova Express I show who they are and what they are doing and what they will do if they are not arrested. Minutes to go. Souls rotten from their orgasm drugs, flesh shuddering from their nova ovens, prisoners of the earth to come out, With your help we can occupy The Reality Studio and retake their universe of Fear Death and Monopoly (Signed) INSPECTOR J. LEE, NOVA POLICe
Photos of the plaque unveiling at William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch 50th Anniversay
1 July in Paris see
http://brianjonesjoujoukafestival.blogspot.com/2009/07/burroughs-naked-lunch-50th-in-paris.html
Master Musicians of Joujouka links
Official website
Master Musicians of Joujouka on Myspace
Ethical Shopping to buy Buy CDs and books Click Here
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Burrough's Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary in Paris First photos of Plaque unveiling at Beat Hotel 1 July 2009 .
Jean Jacques Lebel and Miles photo Frank Rynne
Eddie Woods read from Harold Norse's 9 Rue Git le Couer
Frank Rynne producer and manager of Master Musicians of Joujoukaphoto Lars Movin
Lars Movin co director William Burroughs On the Road centre,
Eddie Wood's back and Philip Woods with shades photo Frank Rynne
Eddie Wood's back and Philip Woods with shades photo Frank Rynne
Terry Wilson interviewed by Prof. Oliver Harris on Gysin and Burroughs
at the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch Symposium, 1 July, 2009.
at the 50th Anniversary of the publication of Naked Lunch Symposium, 1 July, 2009.
Beat Hotel
Jean Jacques Lebel unveiling the plaque photo Frank Rynne
Burrough's Naked Lunch 50th Anniversary of publication in Paris.Photos of Plaque unveiling at Beat Hotel Jean-Jacques Lebel and the proprietress of the Vieux Paris . all photos by Frank Rynne except as stated.
Today marked the opening of the Paris leg of the 50th Anniversary of Naked Lunch in Paris. Events can be found HERE
Many friends of Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the oeuvre de Burroughs met today at the Beat Hotel for the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the Beat Hotel. It was in the Beat Hotel that Brion Gysin, infused with eight years of Moroccan life, began to influence William Burroughs to adopt the Cut-Up Method of writing.
Gysin and Ian Somerville, to a backdrop of Gysin's own recordings of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, developed the Dreamachine at the Beat Hotel. Burroughs experimented with all kinds of Cut-Ups including tape cut ups with Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin which, were the precursor of modern day sampling. Antony Balch took the Cut-Up to kineculture with his movies with Burroughs like Towers Open Fire and The Cut Ups.
Burroughs devised magical spells and the results of his experiments are well documented in Terry Wilson's Here to Go Planet R101 Revisited book with Brion Gysin.
Terry was guest speaker today at the symposium. He spoke of the dark world and the tragic individuals who were drawn like moths to the flame of the Burroughs/Gysin nexus. Wilson is the last true practitioner of the the black arts of fiction writing that Burroughs and Gysin delved into. His novels are a testimony to an enduring spirit of documentation and exorcism that is also evident in the novels of William Burroughs.
Many friends of Brion Gysin, William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and the oeuvre de Burroughs met today at the Beat Hotel for the unveiling of a plaque commemorating the Beat Hotel. It was in the Beat Hotel that Brion Gysin, infused with eight years of Moroccan life, began to influence William Burroughs to adopt the Cut-Up Method of writing.
Gysin and Ian Somerville, to a backdrop of Gysin's own recordings of the Master Musicians of Joujouka, developed the Dreamachine at the Beat Hotel. Burroughs experimented with all kinds of Cut-Ups including tape cut ups with Ian Sommerville and Brion Gysin which, were the precursor of modern day sampling. Antony Balch took the Cut-Up to kineculture with his movies with Burroughs like Towers Open Fire and The Cut Ups.
Burroughs devised magical spells and the results of his experiments are well documented in Terry Wilson's Here to Go Planet R101 Revisited book with Brion Gysin.
Terry was guest speaker today at the symposium. He spoke of the dark world and the tragic individuals who were drawn like moths to the flame of the Burroughs/Gysin nexus. Wilson is the last true practitioner of the the black arts of fiction writing that Burroughs and Gysin delved into. His novels are a testimony to an enduring spirit of documentation and exorcism that is also evident in the novels of William Burroughs.
excerpt from Towers Open Fire by dir. Antony Balch
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