William S Burroughs: Dead City Radio

I remember when this album was announced, and it sounded like such a good idea in theory — Burroughs' reading over backing by the likes of John Cale, Sonic Youth and even Chris Stein from Blondie — that it could have been awful in practice (and another case of self-mythologising by the NYC avant-garde ghetto, to boot). Happily it works. I guess much of the credit for that must go to Hal Willner who co-produced the whole thing, which presumably includes selecting and directing the backing musicians. Upwards of 80 percent of tribute albums are shit, but just look at the list of those Willner has put together: they all look good on paper. I keep meaning to get the Rogue's Gallery collection of pirate ballads, which Willner put together a couple of years ago, but haven't yet.

Whether it's down to Willner's direction or the musician's humility — clearly all involved are big fans of Burroughs — the success of the backing music is that it knows that it's backing music, and almost keeps to the background behind The Voice. And when it does move forward a bit, as in the pizzicato strings of Ah Pook the Destroyer, it supports The Voice in just the right way — accenting Burroughs' Q&A delivery: "And what does death need time for? Death needs time for what it kills to grow in, for Ah Pook's sake!"). None of this would count for much if they hadn't selected some of Burroughs' best passages and performances. I reckon they did a good job on that front, too.

I was playing this last weekend while feeding the Boy, when his uncle and aunt walked in. This made Lucy and me nervous: would there be an embarrassing silence at precisely the moment when Burroughs explained about the Mugwumps secreting an addictive fluid from their erect penises? I think we got away with it.

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