Steve Buscemi and Elliott Sharp ... If you know the right spells

September 4, 2016 1:49 PM

Steve Buscemi began his career in, and continues to support experimental theater, writing and performance. Elliott Sharp is a central figure in the avant-garde music scene in New York City of over thirty years. The two have collaborated a few times in recent years, for example on Sharps' The Yahoos Trilogy, and more recently in celebration of the legacy of William S. Burroughs during the 100th anniversary of the writer's birth in 1914. Partnering with musician Elliott Sharp, the two have set to work staging poems of famed American Beat poet William S. Burroughs. They recorded their efforts, and have titled the album Rub Out The World (Bandcamp, some NSFW language, natch).

As Buscemi recites texts about writing, the cut-up technique, language as a virus, and the advantages and disadvantages of various recreational drugs—to cite a few topics—Sharp's guitar and electronics create an evocative background. Supportive and atmospheric, skittering and whirring by turns, it is music to set up the narration, never fighting with it for the audience's attention. Burroughs' words retain their hypnotic, hallucinatory power—a power only enhanced by the backing music.

- Mark Sullivan, All About Jazz

See also: William S. Burroughs – On Writing, written word available on Archive.org.

posted by filthy light thief (4 comments total)

Dang, Buscemi does a pretty solid burroughs voice. Obviously he doesn't have same vocal texture that years of junk provides, but close nonetheless.
posted by Ferreous at 2:04 PM on September 4, 2016 [1 favorite]

Ersatz Gravel: Minnesota State Patrol.

"Mame, tell me more about the funny looking one"

"Yauh-kay"

"Yage you say?"
posted by clavdivs at 2:26 PM on September 4, 2016

Buscemi was also a NYC firefighter from 1980-1984. He's a interesting person.

I went through school with a girl who pronounced her surname the way you'd expect from the Italian, so this has always confused me. (For the record, the correct pronunciation is what the person says whose name it is; it's just that this other pronunciation is ingrained from my childhood).
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 5:01 PM on September 4, 2016 [2 favorites]

Elliott Sharp has done so much interesting work. A creative life well lived, his. (Buscemi too, of course.) Also he's pretty nice about it when you recognize him next to you at a bar. (I'd imagine the same of Buscemi, fwiw.)
posted by Lyme Drop at 9:27 AM on September 5, 2016 [1 favorite]