William S. Burroughs: The Best of William Burroughs

I explained a while back how something from this boxed set might qualify for the old Simon Bates Our Tune feature. In truth, I'm not sure, once we got back to my apartment that night, whether we actually played anything from the collection — though, given my aptitude for judging the social mood, it's not impossible. I just like the idea of Bates fading out those syrupy strings at the end of our story and pushing up the faders on something like The Do Rights or The Unworthy Vessel.

Compiled by John Giorno following Burrough's death, it comes over like a genuinely affectionate portrait and sincere attempt to reflect one part of Burroughs' legacy — as well as an opportunity to maximise the return on investment for Giorno Poetry Systems and their ownership of these recordings. In the luxurious booklet, Giorno describes how he accompanied Burroughs and his amanuensis, James Grauerholz, on the reading tours that the latter organised to earn Burroughs a reasonable income in his later years. The eighties recordings from those tours are the most heavily represented here. Burroughs (apparently drunk and stoned by the time he took the stage) has, through this relatively intense performance schedule, refined his delivery, camping up the black humour and characterisations of evil protagonists.

As well as these sketches and routines from Burroughs' novels there are some of his cut-up tape experiments, as featured on The Doctor is on the Market and Break Through in Grey Room. I noticed in Summer Will a brief excerpt of Burroughs reading that passage from Blake about the desolate market where none come to buy.

The Burroughs recording industry didn't stop with The Best of William Burroughs. There's now a single-disk compilation called The Ultimate Collection (listen on Spotify, We7). It's pretty good, actually, and includes interviews with, and non-fiction talks by, Burroughs. I know it's heresy to say this, but I've sometimes felt that I've got more from his non-fiction books — such as The Job and The Adding Machine — than his novels.

Anyway, experience suggests that Ultimate Collections are rarely the last ones, so I look forward to The Best Junk-Influenced Cut-Up Spoken Word Album in the World… Ever.

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