WILLIAM BURROUGHS AND JIMMY PAGE: A CONVERSATION

[defrog]

ITEM: This has been out for awhile but only just come to my attention and it’s worth passing on – a 1975 article by William S Burroughs on a Led Zeppelin concert followed by a conversation with Jimmy Page on the nature of music and magic.


The key word is “conversation”, as Burroughs explains:

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.

By a wild coincidence, I’ve adopted the same technique in my day job as a journalist. I always try to structure them so they’re more like conversations than strict Q&A – they flow better and, more often than not, you get better answers.

Anyway, the article is recommended reading for any Burroughs fan. Or Zeppelin fan, come to that.

Stairway to heaven,

This is dF

Comments

[padiwack.livejournal.com]

I remember that issue because it had a blurb about Loudon Wainwright III. I was into the outskirts of music (of course I loved Zep too!)

I also adore Laurie Anderson!

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I've been a Laurie Anderson fan since "O Superman" – and, coincidentally, she was the person who first hipped me to William Burroughs (via his appearance on the "Mister Heartbreak" album). Her current album is pretty amazing. I highly recommend it.

And Loudon Wainwright III is great too, though I didn't really discover his music until the mid-90s. Before that, he was the guy with the guitar in a few early MASH episodes to me.

[figmentj.livejournal.com]

I'm not really a fan of either of them, but that was fascinating. Particularly the bits about infra-sound and direct communication.

[def-fr0g-42.livejournal.com]

I'm a bigger fan of Burroughs than Page/Zeppelin, so I'm biased. But this is probably the most unique rock-journalism article I've ever read. I got more out of this than anything I've read in a music magazine in the last 20 years.

[figmentj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, definitely. Today's journalists should take a cue (which it sounds like you're doing, unsurprisingly, as you are awesome).