Bureau of Lost Culture: William Burroughs and Friends (29/08/2021)
The ghosts of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Alan Ginsberg, John Giorno and Bob Cobbing make an appearance at the Bureau – as curator Steve Cleary plays us a selection of super rare recordings from the British Library Sound Archive. The Archive is one of the biggest curated resources of audio in the world and includes over 1 million discs, 185,000 tapes, and many other sound and video recordings from around the globe. Steve takes us on a wander through its unparalleled counterculture collection.
We also hear from the capital’s foremost chronicler of the counterculture, Barry Miles, on Burroughs’ life in London – along with a live recording of the beat writer at Manchester’s Hacienda, a sampling of his cutups, some deeply strange sound poems and a wonderful recording of Kerouac jazz scatting at Neal Cassidy’s house.
For more on the British Library Sound Archive
https://sounds.bl.uk