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

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.

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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
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"Joujouka via Johnny Cash" : Joujouka producer Frank Rynne interviewed by Paul Hawkins

JOUJOUKA (VIA JOHNNY CASH) Interview with Master Musicians of Joujouka producer and current manager Frank Rynne by Paul Hawkins

Ahmed Attar leader of Master Musicians of Joujouka dancing 1968 All rights Master Musicans of Jououka. Contact: joujouka@gmail.com

Paul Hawkins interviews Frank Rynne on the world's oldest Rock' n' Roll band : The Master Musicians of Joujouka

The Master Musicians of Joujouka were first promoted in Western literature by William Burroughs in the 1950s. Since they first attracted the attention of Burroughs' sidekick Brion Gysin in the early fifties, The Master Musicians of Joujouka have been feted and visited by a host of cultural luminaries including Paul Bowles, Brian Jones, Acid guru Timothy Leary, who wrote an essay on his trip in Jail Notes (1971), Ornette Coleman, The Rolling Stones, and latterly by producers Bill Laswell and Frank Rynne. The most recent celebrity to receive the musicians' hospitality in Joujouka (or Jajouka) was Smashing Pumpkins leader Billy Corgan who Rynne accompanied to the remote mountain top in 2006.

Rynne's Joujouka experiences are different from many westerners. Rynne, like Brion Gysin, who spent 23 years in Morocco so as to be close to the musicians, has kept up his contact and made dozens of visits to the village over the past fifteen years. Like Brion Gysin he was a friend of the Moroccan painter Mohamed Hamri who first brought his native village and their Master Sufi trance musicians to the notice of the Western avant garde. Rynne's knowledge of the village, the music, culture and the individual villagers is unparalleled.

I caught up with Frank Rynne to find out about his work with the Master Musicians of Joujouka, which is soon to enter its sixteenth year. Frank talks about recording three CDs, radio shows, films and soundtracks in Joujouka, as well as managing the Master Musicians of Joujouka.

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Being a fan of William Burroughs, Frank, getting to visit the Master Musicians in their home village of Joujouka must have been amazing. The village is linked closely to the Tangier Beat Generation; tell me about your first time out there.

There had been a bit of journey to get to that point. I don't think Burroughs was on my mind when I eventually got there. Not at first in any case. It took a few weeks to absorb the reality and put it into the context of things that I had read. At my side through my first adventures in Joujouka was Mohamed Hamri who was himself the equal to anyone else considered to be part of the beat generation in his personality, talent and his ability to tell a story.

I know that you first met Hamri at the Here to Go Show in Dublin back in 1992...Tell me about that.

In 1992 I co-organised the Here to Go Show, an art show celebrating the work of William Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Being a musician I was particularly interested in the musical connection between the painters we exhibited: Burroughs, Gysin and Hamri the Painter of Morocco. That music was of course the Master Musicians of Joujouka who Brian Jones posthumously made famous by recording them and later, in 1971, The Rolling Stones released his album as the first release on Rolling Stones Records.

Their presence was powerful one at the Here To Go Show..........the Destroy All Rational Thought DVD captures the aura really well.........

Hamri rightly insisted that the Master Musicians of Joujouka were essential to any event promoting Brion Gysin so I worked on getting Joujouka to the show. Gysin's love of Joujouka trance music kept him in Morocco for 23 years. After the show I kept in touch with Hamri by phone and he kept insisting I come to Joujouka. It took a few years to get there but when I came I had a contract with Sub Rosa Records to do a CD and it took precedence over other concerns. The result of my first three months there was the Joujouka Black Eyes CD released in 1995. Recording it was an amazing experience.

So how did the recording sessions go?

Around 10 am every day, as I awoke after another all night session of music, I would hear the musicians' voices outside. The sound of Hamri's slippers in the kitchen was my call to duty. Hearing the kettle put in place and the sound of eggs sizzling in a metal plate, I would go out and greet the Mallims (Master Musicians) on the veranda.

Joujouka Black Eyes was recorded in organic moments. We'd eat, talk, then have some music, eat, move to the back of the house away from the sun, and have a little music. Day and night blended together. Time was marked by a Friday ritual; the older musicians were shaved by the younger ones before they went to the mosque. Occasionally Hamri would get restless and after 12 days we would return to Tangier for a weekend.

Which is where Hamri and Brion Gysin had their 1001 Night restaurant and where they insisted the Master Musicians played for the diners, who were often writers, artists and musicians associated with the Tangier Beats.........

Yes it was in Tangier that Hamri met Paul Bowles in 1950 and later Gysin and Burroughs. Tangiers was where the Beats gathered in Morocco in the 1950s and 1960s. It was an International Zone ruled by six powers who all vied for prominence. This was the Interzone of Burroughs' fiction and Gysin and Hamri were at the centre of that world. In Tangiers it was easier to connect with the Burroughs spirit. He drew on the city so much for his fiction and even though Dean's Bar is now covered in Real Madrid memorabilia it still retains something essentially seedy and Mugwumpish. Maybe it's the cockroaches.

Maybe! Burroughs championed their music, and by doing that, the whole culture and spirituality, didn't he?

Burroughs' reverence and respect for the Masters was without prejudice. He loved the music. He both appreciated and promoted its importance to the best of his abilities. In Joujouka it was easy to feel the spirit of Hassan I Sabbah which Burroughs felt had somehow been transposed to the place. Burroughs and Gysin imagined Joujouka as hilltop fortress populated by musicians and their families but connected by some mystical thread to Hassan I Sabbah's Alamut fortress (destroyed by Hugula Khan in 13th C.). The musicians did originate in Persia where Hassan had his fortress and his Hashishin (Assassin) followers. However religiously there is little connection between them and the Ismailis.

Describe what the village of Joujouka is like for me.

The best eggs in the world…………and olive oil…………..and chickens and the bread is magnificent! Joujouka changes radically through the seasons, from rain and mud slides to desert like dust. The village consists of some two hundred houses perched on a small hill. In the centre is the Sanctuary of 8th century Sufi saint Sidi Ahmed Scheich, the mosque and the graveyard. The people who live in the area and the nearby villages are intrinsically connected through family ties and land usage. They are mostly from the very large Ahl Srif tribe whose area runs from Ouzanne to Chefchouen. The Master Musicians of Joujouka are famous within their tribe. The Sanctuary in Joujouka is a central feature of the village. It is on the side of the hill that the graveyard is on and also the house of Hamri and the new guest house.

There is sometimes a unique micro climate existing in a high up craggy area....

The area is mountainous. Joujouka is a gateway to the higher mountains. The view to the east is of fifty small hills and a great lake. To the north are the higher Rif Mountains. However life can be very tough in Joujouka. The seasons bring their problems, drought and mountain fires in summer, mud slides and erosion caused by rain in winter. There are also other strange natural phenomenons.

Such as Frank? Tell me more.............

Once I saw the sky blacken with birds quite like starlings. The flock was 3 kilometres in width and several kilometres long. They flew over and attacked the olive groves of the valley. They blocked the sun and turned the day into twilight. The sound of their wings and their presence overhead created a pressure on top of us all. This was very Hitchcockian. Within twenty minutes they left with half that years' olive crop in their bellies. One of the musicians Abdelslam Errtoubi (the Errtoubi are the descendants of Sidi Ahmed Scheich) asked me "Why are you taking photos when our crops are being destroyed?" I asked him why he was not trying to stop the birds. He shrugged and said "How? Even with guns it would be useless". We both shrugged and I continued to photograph.

The villagers of Joujouka have a unique heritage....

There is a strong community in Joujouka. The people understand that their heritage is important. This has nothing to do with western influence or interest. They know that they want to keep their traditions and culture alive in their community. They have every right to do that.

Their spiritual music is legendary; can you give me some background on the musician's beliefs and traditions?

There are seemingly overlapping traditions in Joujouka. The village celebrates the rites of Boujeloud on the first full moon after the Aid El Kebir. Boujeloud is a half-goat half-man figure that equates with ancient worship of Pan around the Mediterranean. Like Pan, Boujeloud symbolises fertility in springtime. The music that accompanies the ritual is the most ferocious music played by the Master Musicians of Joujouka. It is the most ancient in their repertoire. It first soothes and then repels the beast from the village. All who have been visited by Boujeloud are fertile and their crops are bountiful. Dancing to his music brings good health.

Boujeloud painted by Brion Gysin 1958 All rights reserved

I think we have so much to learn from these cultures whose ancient belief systems have remained intact and unsullied....

The second aspect of the spirituality of the village is the reverence for the Sufi saints buried there. Sidi Ahmed Scheich, the Cultivator with Lions and Healer of Crazy Minds, is credited with founding Joujouka. Having wandered from Persia in the 860s AD he and his seven companions encountered a tribe of musicians in the Ahl Srif Djebel. Hearing them play the saint felt their music was useful. He wrote music for them with a spiritual intent; to calm and cure ailments of the mind and to promote peace and harmony. Sidi Ahmed drew a line in the sand in Joujouka: those who follow his path, remaining on his side of the line may reap bountiful rewards and fertility, those who are outside the line can find no happiness in Joujouka.

Sidi Ahmed Scheich has, as you say, an influential place as the founder and guardian of Joujouka....

Joujouka is the country of Sidi Ahmed Scheich. When I first visited with Hamri we would always bring extra supplies to send to his sanctuary and to the mosque. Hamri was a great believer in the Baraka or blessing of Sidi Ahmed Scheich. He felt that the whole area was governed by his spirit including the music. The musicians believe this also. Another Sufi saint in Joujouka is Sidi Ghara whose sanctuary in an olive grove on the hill leading to the village. Visiting his tomb cures back pains and aids the chest. This is another Sufi tradition.

Let's talk about Hamri. What role did he have in the village of Joujouka?

He was from the village and was moved away as a child to the nearest town Ksar El Kebir. His family have always been in Joujouka, to this very day. Hamri invented what is now marketed in the West as both The Master Musicians of Joujouka and the breakaway Master Musicians of Jajouka featuring Bachir Attar. Hamri, a boy from the village, got street wise. When he returned and found the musicians, his cousins and uncles hungry, he took them on the trains to play and collect money. He organised them. In 1953, with Brion Gysin (painter and inventor of the Cut -up Method used by William S. Burroughs) he founded the 1001 Night restaurant in Tangier which employed the musicians in shifts of fifteen at a time to play two week stints there and then return to the village. This alone sustained the village for nearly ten years. Later Hamri brought William Burroughs to Joujouka and later again Brian Jones visited. After his initial introduction to Joujouka, Jones pledged money which was used to build a musicians headquarters and to buy them new outfits. When Jones returned in 1968 he recorded Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka.

Photo: Brion Gysin Algeria 1956 credit John Cooke

His work in the village has a potent and significant legacy.........

These were some of the results of Hamri's work with Joujouka for the twenty years from 1948 -1968. Later still he brought Timothy Leary when Leary was on the run from the Feds. Leary wrote about his visit in his book Jail Notes. The essay is called "The four thousand year old rock'n'roll band". In 1973 Hamri brought Ornette Coleman to record with the musicians, some of the results of this are on Dancing in My Head. The same year he worked on what became the 1974 release Master Musicians of Jajouka. This was the first use of that spelling for the musicians. This came about as the producer had argued with Hamri and sought to cut him and the musicians' association out of the proceeds of the record. Later, having lived in the USA for a few years, Hamri returned in time to save the musicians from being written out of their own history.

He was a great artist, I have been fortunate to see some of his work, and it really has an amazing quality, an earthy reality...............

Burroughs said of Hamri's painting "The Djinnoun spirits ripple and frolic through Hamri's paintings". He was a remarkable artist who could combine in his paintings the ordinary people of Morocco, the landscape and cityscapes with the subtle magic of daily Moroccan life. Hamri's paintings are among the most sought after in Morocco at the moment. He was a great artist. The musicians fully appreciate this as does the entire village. Without Hamri the music would never have been known outside of the mountains!!! Hamri was a great painter and raconteur, his vision of Joujouka as he expressed to Brion Gysin, Paul Bowles, William Burroughs and Robert Palmer is the accepted view…the legends about the village are all from Hamri's mouth and later published in his book Tales of Joujouka (Santa Barbara, 1975).

He sadly passed away not so long ago, didn't he?

Hamri died in August 2000 in Joujouka after a long illness. He is revered in Joujouka. He brought fame and glory to the village. He sought to make sure that the people's culture would survive. He knew from the time he was a boy that the Master Musicians of Joujouka are special, their music is important and it must be saved in as pure a form as develops.

Tell me about the recordings you made out there....How did they come about?

Recording was Hamri's idea. My first contact with him came from the English writer Terry Wilson who did Brion Gysin's Here to Go book. When we were organising the Here to Go Show in 1992 it seemed appropriate that Gysin's first major collaborator, Hamri, should be involved. We invited him and I maintained phone contact. As I said Hamri felt the musicians should be present at the show. William Burroughs agreed and the funds necessary were arranged by the shows' sponsor Gordon Campbell.

You weren't recording straight away though Frank, were you?

In 1992, the Here to Go Show was filmed and later released as Destroy All Rational Thought. My recording for CDs began two years later when I finally got to Joujouka. Ira Cohen, the beat poet, photographer and filmmaker from New York had his CD out on Sub Rosa and it featured some of Gysin's 1960s Joujouka recordings as well as music from the Velvet Underground's first percussionist/drummer Angus MacAlise.

I didn't realise there was a line linking them to The Velvets....

Through Angus and Ira the music of Joujouka entered the world of the Velvets and Warhol. John Giorno who was also a Warhol collaborator came to Joujouka several times. In 1996 I was doing the Festimad Poetics festival in Madrid with Hamri. John Cale and John Giorno were was also on the bill along with Richard Hell, Lydia Lunch and Tav Falco. The reunion between Hamri and Giorno was very moving. Hamri was in tears. I don't think they had met since the early 70s. It is important to remember, the Rolling Stones and the Beats aside, that Hamri and Gysin connected the Master Musicians of Joujouka into another important art movement of the 20th century, the Pop Art scene of Andy Warhol. This occurred before Brian Jones arrived in Joujouka. Of course Anita Pallenberg was also part of the Warhol scene before she was part of the Stones set.

The historical context to Joujouka just blows me away..........

Sub Rosa had Burroughs' recordings of The Master Musicians of Joujouka music out on his Breakthrough in Grey Room CD. They seemed the perfect label for authentic Master Musicians of Joujouka recordings. I contacted them and they wanted a disc. This put some pressure on me as I was now not just visiting my friends from the Here to Go Show but was also supposed to record their new CD.

What experience did you have of recording, especially a live band that uses traditional instruments?

Being Irish I always knew folk music. My father comes from an area of Co. Clare famous for its superb traditional musicians. I found it easy to approach Joujouka music with that knowledge of my own traditions.

You were involved as an artist in the rock' n' roll world for a number of years, did that put you in the groove for recording later on?

In terms of experience I did my first radio session with a rockabilly band Those Handsome Devils for Ireland's John Peel, Dave Fanning, in 1984. Later my band The Baby Snakes were produced by Paul Thomas, who worked with Status Quo, Thin Lizzy and who engineered the first three U2 albums. In London I worked with Dave Goodman who produced the Sex Pistols Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle. In the few years before the Here to Go Show I had been working on, of all things, Johnny Cash. When my drummer Nigel Preston (co-founder The Cult, ex-Theatre of Hate, Sex Gang Children and The Gun Club) got arrested in 1990 I decided that the band would play only Johnny Cash songs until he got out. That was a year and a half later. In the meantime "The Baby Snakes play the songs of Johnny Cash" became a hot show in London. Johnny Cash himself met us after we sent him some recordings. He said "Hi I'm Johnny Cash I like the way you boys do my songs". We talked for twenty minutes before the show and we got front row seats and a song dedicated by Johnny to the band…….. Get Rhythm as I recall. That was 1991.

Did you have a recording technique you used in Joujouka?

We did so many sessions for the local BBC Greater London Radio that the engineers took a shine to us, especially after we met Cash. I asked them "How do we get the Sun Records' sound?" and in informal ............

...................all-night sessions we tried. A mono mike or three in the centre and recording live to master tape was the answer. Positioning and the performance were all that counted then, no mixing.

Ok, so we now have got the Beat Writers, that whole scene of artists and hipsters, The Rolling Stones, Ornette Coleman, The Velvets and Pop Art via Johnny Cash, Thin Lizzy, The Sex Pistols, The Baby Snakes and BBC radio engineers improvising in the search of the Sun Records sound! The weird and wonderful journeys that lead to the spiritually deep North African music are evocative and beautiful................and, of course, like life, circular...........How did the sessions go?

In Joujouka I was after a sound that preserved the folk music and had one eye on Sun Record's Sam Phillips work. After a few days I began to get the musicians and Hamri to listen to all the recordings on headsets. We discussed the dogs barking, spoon tapping
and other issues that were
evident on the tapes.

Photo boujeloud 1996. photo Frank Rynne

Field recordings, by default, have to include the country and the environment........

To an extent but I was looking for a pure sound that maintained the intimacy that I was experiencing and could be listened to on record over and over again. At first the musicians wanted me to sit in the centre of their tight group with the rhaitas or flutes on one side and the drums on the other. I experimented with many positions and over the weeks we got great moments on tape. They let me do what ever I wanted once they started to hear the results, and approved of them. This was a communal activity. Somehow they accepted me and they ignored the mike. I recorded on one stereo mike straight to master. Later I EQ'ed the tracks and did some slight things in post production with Vince DiCiccio engineering in London and the result of the first three months was Joujouka Blacks Eyes, released in 1995. I continued recording intensively on Sub Rosa projects for four years. Later I did work for the BBC World Service recording on their equipment in the village for the 2000 documentary Return to Joujouka.

That's a fantastic journey Frank , to get to an organic way of capturing such powerful music. How did you manage the language difference?

Hamri refused to translate fully for me saying "If you want to work with these people you must understand them. Know how to do things correctly". After ten days in Marrakech recording Gnoua musicians and getting fast track Arabic lessons, I returned to Joujouka able to say water, come, go, egg and chicken.

You since became involved as their manager, didn't you?

I have been with the musicians for fifteen years now and have seen their children grow up and the new ones arrive. Since Hamri's death his lessons have been well appreciated as I have had to bring the Masters to concerts outside Morocco, as well as record them and negotiate on their behalf and we understand each other and the issues. Hamri's first message was 100% accurate. In order to truly work for them it is necessary to understand the musicians and how they work both together as a group and, more importantly, in the wider community that they serve in their daily life in Morocco. Their trials and tribulations are real and matter to the music. The music is a healing music and also evokes the emotions of the musicians at the moment it is played. Hamri, Gysin and Burroughs thought it magic and they may well have been correct.

Photo Zuchina and Tizar El Attar Joujouka 2006 by Frank Rynne

Were you able to meet and chat with some of the elders who may have remembered and played on the Brian Jones album?

Yes, of course. When I first got there many of the old masters were still alive and even the current leader Ahmed Attar, at the age of twelve, played with Jones when he was a dancing boy and apprentice drummer. I knew the Mujdoubi brothers Ali and Mujehid, who were between eighty and ninety years old, and then had free access to Berdouz (Mohamed El Attar) the leader of the drummers, the Boukhzar and Errtoubi families, Mohamed Mokhchan, and all the Attars including the off shoot families like the Jagdhals.

Family ties are intrinsically woven into the culture present in Joujouka, aren't they?

The Master Musicians of Joujouk photographed in 2005 by Frank Rynne

The Brian Jones recordings form part of the cultural heritage and inheritance of the village. The musicians living and dead who played on it mostly still have strong family connections in the village. I am often introduced to the sons and daughters of late great masters or former leaders of the Master Musicians who have returned to visit their families. The relatives of Mallim Fudal, Berdouz, Sherkin and of course Ahmed El Attar the current leader is son of Master piper Titi and is also the nephew of the late Hadj Abdelslam Attar, who was lead piper in the mid seventies and the father of Bachir Attar. El Hadj died twelve years before I got to Joujouka. The old generation were something…………strong uncompromising men with a great sense of humour. Berdouz loved sweets, I used to meet him in the village and he always wanted sweets. He had a demeanour like the Dalai Lama but less complicated. A beautiful soul. I have a painting Hamri did of Berdiouz in 1994 when I was there first. As the years went by, on each of my returns, I was greeted with the bad news of many musicians passing. Mohamed Mokchan is the oldest now at 76 years. The rest of the musicians are between the age of 45 and 65 but thankfully there are many young musicians too.

Who were the musicians on the albums you recorded and what did they play?

Ahmed El Attar drum and vocal

Mohamed El Attar lira and rhiata and vocals

Mustapha El Attar drum

Ahmed Bouhsini rhiata lira

Abdelslam Boukhzar drum vocal,

Abdelslam Errtoubi rhiata and lira

Mujehid Mujdoubi lira

Muinier Mujdoubi drum

Muckthar Jagdhal drum and vocal

Mohamed Mokhchan rhiata and lira

Abdelslam Dahnoun drum, rhiata, lira

Abdellah Ziyat Rhiata, lira, vocal

El Hadj clapping and vocal

Si Ahmed violin

There are more whose names escape me right this moment and of course Hamri sang on the song he wrote in honour of Brian Jones, "Brian Jones Joujouka Very Stoned" which is on the album Joujouka Black Eyes.

How do the Musicians teach and pass their skills on?

The music is part of life in the village so people learn the tunes very young. Playing the flute is a great way for a boy to pass the day when minding sheep. You can hear their attempts in the distance when in the higher mountains. Rhythm is for dancing to and at weddings and festivals the rhythm of Joujouka seeps into the consciousness of the young Joujouki from the feet up.

Not every Joujouki becomes a Master Musician though, what instruction do those who want to be one get?

Some are soldiers, shoemakers, shopkeepers and the rest. Hamri's brother is a weaver. If a musician wants to join the masters he gets his first instruction at home or develops natural ability. Later when the masters play together young musicians join them and get instruction from the collective group. It is a very organic and lifelong process. The skills needed to play the rhiata and do circular breathing are learned over years. Likewise the complex rhythms must be learned. The repertoire of the village forces the younger musicians to learn different skills when playing the different types of Sufi music and Boujeloud. Even the old musicians discuss aspects of each others performances. Each has his own recognisable signature.

Are you still recording in Joujouka?

I still record music but I have recently been filming again in the village. Last year I began work on a DVD project when Billy Corgan came down with me. Maki Kita, who is a talented Japanese visual artist, filmed their Porto show and I have several things being filmed right now in Morocco. The DVD will be on Sub Rosa's new film label and will show the real life of the musicians and their work in Morocco as well as abroad. The next recording project will be on a grander scale than my early field work but it will be recorded in the village.

You told me about a new guest house that should be ready for the Festival in Joujouka at the beginning of August. What stage is the building at?

The new guest house being built by The Master Musicians of Joujouka will be opened on 1 August as part of the four day Festival Sidi Ahmed Scheich de Zahjouka. It is a small traditional Joujouka house. It has a garden with olive trees. The musicians have long needed a new headquarters and a place to let guests stay. This is a great local initiative. Every year people show up randomly in the village often at dusk and the people have to scrabble around to try and put them up, children get moved around to free rooms up for the unexpected guests. The guest house will allow the musicians to put up visitors and take bookings from small groups for short breaks in the village.

Tell me more about the Festival.

The Festival Sidi Ahmed Scheich de Zahjouka is now in its sixth year. It hosts readings, discussions on culture and the arts, discussions on the local co-operative movements and helps bring attention to the folk arts like weaving, baking and of course The Master Musicians of Joujouka play each night. The local co-operative in Joujouka employs many women in traditional arts and is a great initiative for the area. Cash jobs for the women in the mountains are rare so this is important as it may help some women stay in the mountains rather than seek a livelihood in the nearby towns of Ksar El Kebir, Larache or Tangier.

The Festival and the guest house are both very important for the village to survive. How will the guest house be booked?

Anyone who wants to go should email joujouka@gmail.com and they will be forwarded to a local who speaks French and English. They will take their bookings, arrange to meet them and bring them to the village if necessary. Visitors will experience a unique Morocco with the Master Musicians of Joujouka in an ethical and sustainable way. All money will be paid directly to the musicians.

From a Europeans point of view, how much of the village of Joujouka is able to continue with its traditions and not bow to outside influences?

Much abides, but like everywhere in the world, the rush towards mobile phones, TV, and DVD is unavoidable. "Japanese shit" Hamri called it. However there are tribal traditions that survive all this. People from Joujouka have to have the Masters play at their weddings and festivals. August and September are very busy months for the Masters as many people return to the mountains to get married. The musicians hardly sleep all month.

And what of local crafts and diet?

The diet in Joujouka is generally home produced and the olive oil is second to none. In a world where people pay premium for organic, Joujouka is and always has been organic. The food tastes great. The people know about the quality of food. However the price of some local items is quite high. Very good mountain honey can cost $20 a litre in the village. It is used medicinally. Manufactured plastic goods are a big problem and threat to local crafts. The weaving of mats and rugs, blankets and traditional high quality wool has been affected by cheap Chinese plastic versions. I think that the Master Musicians of today are very firm in what they want to preserve in their culture but they know that the only way to keep young people active in the arts is for them to have a credible income from their work.

Boualem Hamri, brother of Hamri and friend of Brion Gysin weaving in Joujouka/Jajouka 2007. by Frank Rynne

And how far has the village embraced the 21st century?

In the last few years electricity has reached Joujouka. Therefore the people have light and some have TVs and DVDs. The mobile phone has also arrived; indeed Joujouka has a large mast. The musicians have all seen the internet and see their Myspace and website when they visit Ksar El Kebir. The young people learn French in school which is a big development there. The road has been paved and is no longer in danger of being washed away with every rain. This means Joujouka has a taxi service linking it with Ksar El Kebir. These are recent developments and it is unclear how much the change will be. I think it will influence the children more but they still grow up in those remote hills. That in itself has a balancing effect.

And there we bring the interview to an end. That was a fascinating and incredible story Frank, thank you for telling it..............There is much to deliberate and meditate on. This music, culture and spirituality, has incredible historical connections, resonance and power. I cannot overstate how much so.

To hear the albums Frank talks about buy them from their online shophere.

The Master Musicians have a website as well as a myspace page, where there is lots more information.

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For info on booking accommodation in Joujouka or The Master Musicians of Joujouka email joujouka@gmail.com
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