Music Book Review: William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll by Casey Rae

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll
by Casey Rae (Music 781.66 Burroughs)

 

Novelist William Burroughs wasn’t a musician, and there are rarely descriptions of music or musical events in his writing, yet his evocative work is often referenced by musicians. Author Casey Rae has published a book that explores these links, called William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll, and while I ultimately find the book to be fairly flawed, there are some interesting musical moments documented here.

 

Particularly during the periods where Burroughs lived in London and then New York City in the 1960s and 70s, he was introduced to many people who were inspired by his work, among them many musicians. By the 80s and 90s, he was living in Lawrence, KS, and he often accepted musical collaborations that simply required him to record himself reading in a studio near his home. From there, his voice recordings were sent off to various musicians to use as they desired. I suspect that he thought of these collaborations more as work than pleasure—his income from writing was never particularly fruitful, and once he became known as a Beat Generation icon, he realized that he could leverage public appearances and collaborations as another form of income.

 

A brief introduction outlines most of the musicians we’ll learn about in more detail through the rest of the book. This is followed by a chapter about Burroughs’ single long-distance collaboration with Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, and a retelling of the later occasion where they met at Burroughs’ Lawrence home. Then the book dips back in time to the 60s, from which it moves forward again more or less chronologically to the end. I found this to be a strange formatting choice—his association with Cobain was minimal, to be generous, and is Cobain somehow more notable than other artists mentioned throughout the book like David Bowie or Bob Dylan? The author is a Gen-X fellow, as am I, so I’m sure his awareness of Burroughs is somehow associated in time with Cobain’s rise to stardom. But I don’t think there’s a compelling reason to place Cobain at the beginning of this book. It feels awkward.

 

As we get into each musician in Burroughs’ orbit throughout the book, a similar kind of narrative structure guides us along: we read a bit about a time and place in Burroughs’ life (and sometimes we flash back to earlier points for more context), and we get a quick summary biography of a musician, setting us up for a (usually fleeting) interaction between the two. As each of these meetings take place, the general theme of the book comes into view, which is that Burroughs as a counterculture figure has either influenced the musician in a general way, or that the Burroughs cut-up methods used in his early 60s “Nova Trilogy” are techniques they’ve found revelatory for manipulating lyrics, sound, or both. Musicians influenced by his counterculture status generally manifest the influence explicitly, through song titles, lyrics, or band names such as The Soft Machine, Steely Dan, or the Wild Boys. Musicians influenced more by his cut-up techniques manifest what they’ve borrowed from Burroughs more implicitly, like the rapid-fire audio cutups of John Oswald or the lyrical manipulation Bob Dylan and David Bowie tried on a few songs.

 

But what I find frustrating about the book is that the relationships aren’t mutual, or even relationships at all. Burroughs didn’t know much about the work of these artists, and didn’t particularly care, either. I felt the same way years ago reading the Victor Bockris book With William Burroughs: A Report From the Bunker, which documented many evenings of dinners at the Burroughs “bunker” in NYC. That book is a succession of folks being brought in front of Burroughs, many of whom obviously looked up to him while he knew little about them. It felt exploitative, like the people surrounding him were mostly interested in seeing what shenanigans might occur. That’s mostly the level of relationship in the musician/Burroughs interactions featured here. Among the musicians that he clicks more fully with, it’s because they have mutual interests, experiences or ideologies that have nothing to do with music.

 

There are a few little mistakes and omissions in the book as well. The Burroughs/Cobain collaboration EP is mentioned as being a “two-song set,” but there is only one. When the Gysin/Sommerville flicker machine is mentioned, it’s called a “Dream Machine,” but the actual device was marketed as the stylized “Dreamachine.” Interestingly, there’s no mention that Burroughs directed Cobain to David Woodard, a bespoke producer of Dreamachines, and that Cobain had some related electronic gadgets on hand as well. And some connections that might have made musical collaborations with Burroughs more interesting are omitted: both Daevid Allen and Bill Laswell are interviewed, for example, and both worked with Burroughs, but it would have been noteworthy to mention that Laswell got his start in the music business playing in Allen’s New York Gong band, which morphed into Laswell’s early Material project.

 

So there is an influence to be documented here, but it’s an abstract one, not really musical, and it’s fundamentally a pretty obvious kind of influence that might not have merited a book. If you’re a Burroughs fan, or a fan of various strains of prog, punk, folk, industrial, hip-hop and pop from the 60s to the 90s, you’ll find some interesting tidbits to read about here, but ultimately I think the notion that Burroughs was a pervasive underground influence on music is overstated. While he was involved with more music-related projects than many of his literary contemporaries, a lot of that came down to his relative accessibility and his need for income. While this book provides a unique way to navigate both Burroughs’ biography and popular music trends of the 60s through the early 90s, the two elements ultimately remain parallel stories rather than interconnected relationships.

 

(If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try Music of the Counterculture Era by James E. Perone, Gentleman Junkie: The Life and Legacy of William S. Burroughs by Graham Caveney or Nonbinary: A Memoir by Genesis P-Orridge.)

 

( official Williams S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock and Roll web site )

 

Recommended by Scott S.
Polley Music Library

 

Have you read or listened to this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

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