Frank Zappa and his Naked Lunch

March 26, 2013 4:20 PM

Frank Zappa Reads NSFW Passage From William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch (1978) The occasion was the Nova Convention in 1978. Recordings of it were released as a double album.
posted by Eekacat (11 comments total)

If anyone would to hear this in context, the great UbuWeb has the Nova Convention LP, which also features contributions from Philip Glass, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson, among others, on its site.
posted by the sobsister at 4:33 PM on March 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Here's Burroughs himself reading the same passage, although you have to listen over some poorly considered disposable hip hop mixed on top of it.
posted by Nelson at 4:39 PM on March 26, 2013

Nelson beat me to it - Burroughs' reading is pretty chilling, and as much as I love Frank Zappa his rendition was kind of flat by comparison.
posted by usonian at 4:44 PM on March 26, 2013

Lovely. :) Burroughs' performance is fantastic and definitive, of course, but Zappa's angle is nice, too. Burroughs had kind of a tangential, but interesting relationship with rockstars (e.g. Bowie using cut-up to write lyrics). Thanks for the post!
posted by Drexen at 4:50 PM on March 26, 2013

I apologize, I didn't mean to threadshit with my comment. I think it's kind of like how you wind up preferring whichever version of 'A Christmas Carol' you saw first (George C. Scott 4eva!)

Burroughs had a pretty good resurgence during the 90's, between the above album with Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy, his collaboration with Kurt Cobain, his Nike Ad with soundtrack by G. Love & Special Sauce (?!) and of course Cronenberg's film adaptation of Naked Lunch. But those were the early days of the web, and I never knew about The Nova Convention... interesting to see that he had that pop culture crossover going on in the late 1970's too.
posted by usonian at 5:06 PM on March 26, 2013

Ah Pook Is Here
posted by Golden Eternity at 5:12 PM on March 26, 2013

Disagree, usonian. Sims for the win. :-)
posted by parki at 5:15 PM on March 26, 2013

If anyone would to hear this in context, the great UbuWeb has the Nova Convention LP, which also features contributions from Philip Glass, Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson, among others, on its site.

If anyone cares, I've wasted some past interesting evenings listening to my bunker-mate's vinyl copy of You're the Guy I Want To Share My Money With...
posted by ovvl at 6:53 PM on March 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

Is there a SFW passage from Naked Lunch? Like, at all?
posted by dephlogisticated at 7:02 PM on March 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

‘I do not wish…my nose nailed to other people’s lavatories’: Dame Edith Sitwell on ‘Naked Lunch’
posted by homunculus at 7:53 PM on March 26, 2013 [2 favorites]

Serendipitous - my good friend, David Hamilton, who introduced me to the dial-a-poets many years ago, died last week. His record collection was diabolical, and we listened to these recordings while smoking dope and drinking whisky. I miss him so.

Sugar Alcohol & Meat
posted by a non e mouse at 3:32 AM on March 27, 2013