William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'n' Roll

by Casey Rae

A history of the writer’s impact on some of the biggest names in rock music from the Beatles to Bowie, and his role as a secret architect in the genre.

William S. Burroughs’s fiction and essays are legendary—but his influence on music’s counterculture has been less well documented―until now. Examining how one of America’s most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll reveals the transformations in music history that can be traced to Burroughs.

A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs’s parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame—the stories of Burroughs’s backstage impact will transform the way you see America’s cultural revolution―and the way you hear its music.

“[Rae] writes with the passion of a teenager discovering new sounds, and the control and self-assuredness of a seasoned academic . . . William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll celebrates not only the gifted mind and bizarre life of a writer who changed literature forever with his magic and ideas; it also finally gives him the place he deserves in the pantheon of rock and roll.” —NPR 

“William S. Burroughs was as much a quiet rock star as he was an artist or a writer. His inroads into audio, spoken word, and music created paths that we still follow. Casey Rae’s book is a labor of love that offers a map to understanding Burroughs’s complex relationship to music and other art forms.” —Chris Stein, co-founder of Blondie 

“[A] fascinating new book . . . Rae is an engaging storyteller and often an enlightening one . . . I’m grateful for Rae’s study and recommend it highly, not only to those (still) interested in Burroughs and rock music, but to anyone curious about the possibilities for creative synergy between the arts.” —Journal of Popular Music Studies

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Cultural, Rock N Roll, Art

313 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 11, 2019

Reviews

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kimley and I will discuss this book on Book Musik.

[Lisastrawberry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I zipped through this looking for stuff for a project I'm working on. I'm sure I didn't give it my full attention but the bits I took time on were worth it. Burroughs is a complicated literary figure and it's interesting to think that some of my favorite musicians were fanboying out on him fairly continually, whether he appreciated them or not. He thought McCartney was good looking and thoughtful, so he's correct there. :)

[Marc Nash · Rating 3 out of 5]

Video review to follow

[Niklas Pivic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of his personal connection to musicians and how his influence continues to echo more than twenty years after his death.

That’s from the introduction to this book, and it’s a good yet imperfect synopsis; this tome manages, better than any other that I have read on William S. Burroughs, to both incorporate all pop-music elements that I’ve heard and previously not heard of, and also provide meaningful and deep analysis of that.

Not only does the author, Casey Rae, delve into the music, the musicians, and wrap all of that up with how Burroughs reacted, but also provides valuable context and analysis of how Burroughs’s work influenced both artists and entire musical genres.

Here was a homosexual drug addict, born in the Gilded Age, who killed his wife in a drunken game of William Tell and wrote infamous prose featuring orgasmic executions, shape-shifting aliens, and all manner of addicts, sadists, and creepy crawlies. But there exists a real person within the legend, a man who exhibited genuine kindness and hospitality to those who knew him, including many of the musicians discussed in this book.

There is a lot of hyperkinetic movement in this book; this is good, as Burroughs was undoubtedly hyperkinetic himself, not in a stressful manner, but more in that he kept his antennae to more than one world at a time, often while ingesting different types of drugs, which further expanded his consciousness.

Like this book says:

In many ways, Burroughs is a cipher, a puzzle to decode. Like a multifaceted prism or mirror, Burroughs reflects different things to different people depending on their own interests or agendas. To some, Burroughs is a junkie priest offering hardboiled wisdom from the narcotic underground. To others, he is a dark magus whose occult philosophies paved the way for today’s DIY sorcerers. Still others—especially recording artists and songwriters—find inspiration in his creative methods, including cut-up text and tape-splicing. That there are so many different ways to engage with Burroughs’ work and worldview is key to the perpetuation of his influence. It allows other artists to take his vision forward, often in mutated form. Over time, this gravelly voiced son of midwestern privilege has become like a space-borne virus from one of his books, hopping from host to host, medium to medium, each strain transforming culture in profound, though sometimes obscure, ways. This is just how he would have wanted it.

If you’re wondering just how much of Burroughs that seeped into musical culture, just check this short list:

It’s hard to imagine sample- and remix-based music without Burroughs, or at least without the artists he inspired—David Bowie, Throbbing Gristle, and Coil among them. Hip-hop and electronic acts like Michael Franti, DJ Spooky, and Justin Warfield embrace Burroughsian ideas in their work, and a few were lucky enough to have collaborated with him.

Arena conquerors U2 used video cutups on massive global tours and sought Burroughs out for their 1997 video for “The Last Night on Earth”—his last filmed appearance. Countless bands got their monikers from Burroughs’ novels or incorporated his phrases in song titles and lyrics. Steppenwolf, who are credited with bringing the term “heavy metal” to music, borrowed the phrase from Burroughs. Then there’s Steely Dan, who famously took their name from a state-of-the-art dildo in Naked Lunch.

And there are others—such as the Soft Machine, Nova Mob, Wild Boys, and the Mugwumps—to name but a few. Iggy Pop and Patti Smith lifted lines directly from Burroughs and weren’t shy about letting the world know. At one point, synth-poppers Duran Duran attempted to make a full-length film based on their video for “Wild Boys,” a song that took its inspiration from a Burroughs novel of the same name.

More recently, psychedelic rockers Howlin Rain borrowed the title for a song that bandleader Ethan Miller described as an homage to Burroughs. “There is little that we find astonishing about the present American landscape in all its chaos and turmoil that wasn’t uttered in a fearsome, frothing monotone of absolute contempt by Burroughs a long, long time ago,” Miller told Relix Magazine.

In the ’90s, Burroughs didn’t travel much anymore, but plenty of notables came to him. The final decade of his life saw him hosting the likes of Kurt Cobain, Sonic Youth, and members of R.E.M. and Ministry at his red bungalow in Lawrence. In 1992, bassist and producer Bill Laswell released The Western Lands, based on Burroughs’ book of the same name.

That same year, Ministry sampled Burroughs in the song “Just One Fix”; he also appeared in the video. Burroughs collaborated with the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy for Spare Ass Annie and Other Tales, released in 1993. Burroughs and Cobain released a record together, The “Priest” They Called Him, shortly before Cobain’s suicide in 1994. In 1996, Burroughs teamed up with R.E.M. for a cover of their song “Star Me Kitten” and time-traveled back to the 1960s for a bizarre mash-up with the Doors, “Is Everybody In?.”

That’s only a few of the countless examples of how Burroughs directly, or indirectly, affected popular culture, and still does. I mean, David Bowie still used cut-up techniques while making his last album, “Blackstar“.

Also, Burroughs’s words on The Word Virus is very contagious, and Rae explains this in an easy-to-read way:

He predicted a future where minds would be literally infected by “very small units of sound and image” distributed en masse and electronically, which we see in today’s meme wars on social media and at certain message boards like 4Chan, where hordes of young, mostly male raconteurs engage in ceaseless rage attacks against tolerance and reason. “Storm the citadels of the Enlightenment,” Burroughs once wrote. It is rapidly becoming a truism that on the Internet, “Nothing is true; everything is permitted,” to borrow one of his favorite turns of phrase. The stories captured in these pages demonstrate that Burroughs not only foresaw but may even have helped initiate our increasingly chaotic present and uncertain future.

One of the main themes throughout this book, and also Burroughs’s writing, was Control and the idea of language as a virus:

Commoditized as it may be, no one would argue against music’s power to move the masses, even in today’s so-called distraction economy. In 2014, hip-hop producer Pharrell inspired millions in every corner of the world to make fan videos for his song “Happy.” The track exploded on YouTube, a site whose global reach and influence has come to define “viral.” These days record labels, movie studios, artists, and political candidates all seek to capitalize on contagion.

This is the modern media hustle, where you’re either a pusher or a mark. Burroughs died nearly a decade before YouTube was a glimmer in its developers’ eyes, but he was a lifelong student of influence; specifically, how the virus of word and sound can shape the destiny of humankind. As he explained in 1986:

My general theory since 1971 has been that the Word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recognized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the Word Virus (the Other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of the human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn them in to the Pasteur Institute. But the Word clearly bears the single identifying feature of virus: it is an organism with no internal function other than to replicate itself.

In the Burroughs worldview, language is a mechanism of what the author called Control with a capital C: an insidious force that limits human freedom and potential. Words produce mental triggers that we can sometimes intuit but never entirely comprehend, making us highly susceptible to influence.

But there’s an upside: language can also be used to liberate by short-circuiting preprogrammed ideas and associations. Burroughs believed humanity is held back by constraints imposed by hostile external forces that express themselves in our reality as various aspects of the Establishment. Using fragments of word, sound, and image, reordered and weaponized, Burroughs sought to dismantle Control and its systems. His stance inspired other artists across generations and genres to use similar methods to rattle the status quo in ways that even he could not anticipate. You’ll get to know them, and their connections to Burroughs, as his story unfolds.

[…]

In Burroughs’ philosophy, the most important thing an artist can do is fight back by attacking the Control apparatus—that is, the prerecording that constrains us to Control’s script. Insurgence is accomplished through “playback,” a technique where reality—as represented by its media artifacts—is cut up, cut in, or otherwise disrupted. Playback can also reveal aspects of reality that were previously hidden—like pulling back the curtain on the Wizard of Oz or seeing the hidden code comprising the Matrix.

Naturally, the book mentions Burroughs’s cut-ups:

Burroughs would spend hours recording, rewinding, slicing, and manipulating tape in order to produce his audio cut-ups. He can be heard explaining the method on “Origin and Theory of the Tape Cut Ups,” a track from the LP Break Through in Grey Room (Sub Rosa, 1986): The first tape recorder cut-ups were simply extensions of cutups on paper. There are many ways of doing these, but here’s one way: you record, say, ten minutes on the recorder. Then you spin the reel backwards or forwards without recording, stop at random, and cut in a phrase. Now, of course when you’ve cut in that phrase, you’ve wiped out whatever’s there, and you have a new juxtaposition.

Now, how random is random? We know so much that we don’t consciously know that we know, that perhaps the cut-up was not random. The operator, on some level, knew just where he was cutting in. Further results can be heard on Nothing Here Now But the Recordings—a 1981 Burroughs LP originally released on Industrial Records, the label of UK noise pioneers Throbbing Gristle, and recently reissued under the Dais imprint. Here Burroughs’ sandpaper incantations are interlaced with disembodied broadcasts and socalled “electronic voice phenomenon,” or EVP. The overall product is disorienting and can hardly be described as musical. Still, one can see why Patti Smith referred to Burroughs as “a shaman . . . someone in touch with other levels of reality.”

This book does delve into areas such as his wife’s death—whom Burroughs shot to death in a tragic Wilhelm Tell-like accident—his very close relationship with Brion Gysin, his travels through cities like Tangers and New York City (both where he lived for some time), his interests in the supernatural and cats, meeting Patti Smith, David Bowie, other celebs, and, naturally, writing "Naked Lunch":

As exploratory as rock music would get in the coming decades, it still pales in comparison to the headfuck that is Naked Lunch. Any number of musicians have attempted to capture the novel’s essence, either in spirit or through direct reference. Arch jazz-rockers Steely Dan took their name from a dildo mentioned in the book (“Mary is strapping on a rubber penis: ‘Steely Dan III from Yokohama,’ she says, caressing the shaft.”) Post-punks Joy Division recorded “Interzone,” named after the book’s most outlandish location, for their debut. Electro act Klaxxons have a tune called “Atlantis to Interzone.” The alt-country band Clem Snide took their name from a recurring Burroughs character who first appeared in Naked Lunch. The Mugwumps, a 1960s folk act, also borrowed from the book, as did psychedelic improv act the Insect Trust. The list goes on.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti of the legendary San Francisco imprint City Lights told Allen Ginsberg that no one would risk printing this “flow of junk and jizzom,” and he was nearly correct.

Altogether, there’s been a vacuum for this book, and it fills it nicely; even though the book is somewhat repetitive at times, it still holds up to both intellectual examination and has style, the mix of the two being hard to come by in success; this book pulls that off, with flair.

This book is original, well written, and a complete payoff. To everybody who’s both interested in Burroughs from a musical perspective or otherwise, this is a very good book.

[David Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm glad i bought this on paper rather than kindle because its a delight to leave out and pick-up at any page. There is rich gossipy anecdotes that are fun, intriguing and instructive - each story a road trip. That's not to say it's purely vignettes,  the book works as a larger thesis that trickledown subversion is a powerful force for change.

Burroughs' lifetime war on Control held fronts not only through his own work but the virus spread he achieved by holding court in New York and Kansas. He seemed to receive diverse visitors that worshipped his work and drank the halo effect. Perhaps this is Burroughs' great work -  the book admirably documents his influence, meetings, collaborations and musical (and in the case of Cronenburg, Waits, Gibson - visual) works that arose.

1 in 200 people are decended from ghengis khan, so, it's inevitable that any counter-culture infatuated youth in the 70s/80s is an epigenetic descendant of Burroughs via the artists that visited and collaborated with him. The book prtrays him hugely in demand in his final years - a testament to his deep (oc)cultural contribution.

Did the world need another Burroughs bio? The author admits to borrowing heavily from Bokris' and other published sources, so much you will have read/heard before but it is a heartful compendium written with love for both the protagnoist and all the musicians that drew inspiration from him - from this perspective any alt music fan will enjoy the book as a 'concept album'.

Sometimes it draws a long bow of the importance of Burroughs to musos: no doubt many just collected him as an experiential trophy, a story to tell, a box to tick. But his relationships with people like Patti Smith and Laurie Anderson are of a true gentle-man mentor.

Some themes I newly discovered from the book:
1. Old Bull Lee embodied "Doing Easy" (dramatised in Van Sant's 10min flick) whilst looking like Magoo - his life was actually a magical work that we can all learn from. Being an outsider, not as artifice, but the only life he could live, he was destined to be a magnet for youthful idealistic passionate fans.

2. That memetic language would be cut up/into culture - a long time before Dawkins coined the phrase. He literally predicted small units of virality that now dominate social media and political "best practice " comms.

3. That he may have inspired or contributed to the post moderness of chaos magick. The throbbing gristle chapter is illuminating in this without making the case itself. That the internet is the biggest cutup ever, constantly remixing.

Definitely a fun read.

[David Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock 'N' Roll by Casey Rae (University of Texas Press 2019) (813) (3429). William S. Burroughs is the junkie-godfather-grand old man of narcotics addiction. He is best known as the author of Naked Lunch.

Burroughs was also a lifelong dabbler in the occult and was much interested in the black magic practices of Aleister Crowley. His co-equal interests in heroin and the occult made him both a model and a lightning rod for many of today's rock musicians.

Author Casey Rae highlights the influence Burroughs had on a great number of rock stars including Kurt Cobain of Nirvana, Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead, Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, and Patti Smith, and Lou Reed.

My rating 7/10, finished 3/14/20 (3429).

[Dave · Rating 2 out of 5]

Burroughs influence on the likes of Bowie, Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain, Patty Smith, Sonic Youth, and others are detailed in this book.
Admittedly, I knew nothing of Burroughs diving into this read, but it was interesting enough to read about his far reaching hand in the arena of punk, classic rock, and grunge.

[Evie Lucas · Rating 3 out of 5]

kind of a repetitive puffpiece but super informative and incredibly interesting

3.5

[Brian Shevory · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting take on Burroughs and his influence on popular culture, specifically rock music in the 70s, 80s and 90s. I appreciated reading his book before reading some other books like Rebel Girl by Kathleen Hannah and Sonic Life by Thurston Moore. Although Hannah didn’t talk about Burroughs, she did write a lot about Kurt Cobain, and Rae dedicates at least a chapter to talking about Burroughs in the 90s and Kurt Cobain. Similarly, Thurston Moore talked about meeting Burroughs with his daughter Coco, and I think that Rae brought up the same story. Overall, I liked this book. Rae discusses Burroughs’s biography, his writing career, and then goes in to talk about Burroughs and different musical movements, spending some time exploring Burroughs and Punk Rock, Bowie, and how Burroughs’s writing tied in and was influenced by music. I had also recently read two books about Bowie, and the one about Bowie’s album Low by Hugo Wilcken also mentioned some of Bowie’s interest in black magik and the cut and paste method of writing that Burroughs employed, so I really enjoyed Rae’s recounting of the interview between Bowie and Burroughs, and how these two seemingly different artists aligned in some ways and actually met. It is interesting to think about how adaptive Bowie was; people described him as like a myna bird, just taking on the influences around him. I think that Burroughs was also kind of like that—able to blend in and adapt by kind of taking in influences and making them distinctly his own. In any event, this book provided a unique insight and perspective on one of my favorite writers. I really liked learning about this different perspective to see how engaged Burroughs was with some of these musical movements, even though I don’t always think of him as a musical artist per se. Yet, Burroughs viewed media in general as a powerful tool to convey ideas and messages, and I can see how certain movements like punk rock have a similar idea, even if it might be advocating for more independent thought and pushing back against this kind of mind control. I can see how Burroughs’s ideas about music, media, and language in particular may have been shaped by the changes to popular music that he witnessed in his lifetime. Although the author uses extensive research and analysis in examining Burroughs’s connection the popular music (and not so popular music), at times I felt that the chapters were either repetitive or not well synthesized with the overall thesis of the book. That is, there seemed to be events and ideas that re-appeared, but were introduced as a new idea or example rather than reiterated or integrated within the overall ideas about Burroughs’s influence. I kind of felt like this was a book of separate essays that were pulled together with one main focus or that the author wrote some of these pieces in different places, eventually gathering them together into one whole. It’s not such a bad thing, but I definitely think that having some kind of unifying chapter or thesis that brings these separate chapters together would have strengthened the overall work. Nevertheless, Rae has developed a unique perspective about one of the most original writers and artists of the 20th century.

[Murray Ewing · Rating 5 out of 5]

I came to this book not knowing a huge amount about Burroughs, and interested to learn more. I knew his cut-up technique had been taken up by David Bowie, but I have to admit was a bit sceptical this writer born in 1914 could have exerted a book’s worth of influence on the rock music of the 60s, 70s, 80, and 90s, not to mention such now-ubiquitous aspects of modern music as sampling. But I came away from Casey Rae’s highly readable book convinced, and fascinated to find out more about Burroughs.

Burroughs, of course, appeared on the cover of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper album, thanks to his introducing Paul McCartney to the idea of using “found sounds” as part of the band’s music. (This coming from the way Burroughs idea of the cut-up branched out from the purely literary to embrace any means of cutting up the experience the world offered you, including in this case the use of a tape recorder.) Burroughs was also hanging around, like a sort of rock-n-roll Zelig, about the time Bob Dylan made the change from acoustic to electric.

The influence is more obvious in the case of the more artier and experimental type of musician, such as Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Laurie Anderson, or Genesis P Orridge, but even here Burroughs’ influence wasn’t as some remote literary man giving a far-off blessing to the young folks who showed an interest in his work: Burroughs was there, in New York, receiving everyone at his apartment known as “the Bunker”, spreading his ideas on techniques for breaking out of a creative rut, as well as actually collaborating with some of the people he met. After all, he already had a career issuing spoken-word recordings of his own work, and was perfectly happy to lend his at world-weary, down-to-earth and authoritative tones to a number of musicians’ projects.

There was another reason rock musicians were drawn to him, of course. Burroughs wrote openly about his use of drugs, and was utterly non-judgemental of the many mixed-up rock stars who came his way, including Kurt Cobain towards the end of both their lives.

It’s a fascinating book that will leave you wanting to know more about Burroughs (if you didn’t already), and certainly seeking out some of the musical projects he took part in.

[Bradley Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rae’s book brilliantly connects the life and writings of the Pope of Dope with his influence on rock music and beyond, even two decades after the legendary author’s death. Documenting Burroughs’ sordid iconoclastic history as a junkie and homosexual, Rae illustrates how Burroughs’ cut-up writing style and realistic portrayals of drug abuse influenced musicians looking to distance themselves from the demands of the music establishment. Through stories from friends, musicians, and even Burroughs’ own words, Rae connects the origins of Burroughs fight against Control and how his understanding of language, and the power of words at the hands of diabolical entities, translated to the world of music, especially artists in the underground. From Dylan adopting more surrealist imagery in his songwriting to Bowie’s interest in the occult and from hip-hop’s reliance on sampling to Zappa’s random audio splicing, Burroughs’ legacy as a writer and his philosophies on the written word made a direct impact in how music is created, shared, and experienced.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

Rae seeks to show that Burroughs was a central influence in rock and roll culture. He is able to show that many famous artists, from McCartney and Dylan to Reed and Cobain, were familiar with Burroughs work and that many of them even had met Burroughs. However, I think he only manages to show that they were all part of the same movement and that Burroughs had some influence by being part of the scene, perhaps as Andy Warhol did as owner of the Factory. It feels as if he mistakes being able to find connections with being able to declare influences that go beyond those brief and momentary connections. Like someone overreading the fact that Kevin Bacon is connected to every great actor of the 20th Century by six or fewer degrees. Still I kept reading because he was sharing interesting facts about some of my favorite rock and roll artists and about the beat writers that I appreciate quite a bit myself. But then Rae attempted to inform me that John Cale of Velvet Underground fame was a cellist. Say what? I put the book down.

[Kimley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tosh and I discuss this on episode 18 of our Book Musik podcast.

William Burroughs has always been a magnet for the music crowd. Icons as diverse as Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Patti Smith, Jimmy Page, Thurston Moore, Kurt Cobain and so many more have all made a pilgrimage to sit at the feet of the outlaw writer. Steely Dan and Soft Machine cribbed their names from Burroughs and countless others have cited his cut-up technique as an inspirational tool. Now considered classics, books like Naked Lunch, Junky, and Queer were not so gently pushing the boundaries of polite society and challenging obscenity laws. It’s no wonder the rock ‘n’ roll crowd came knocking.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very entertaining book about William S. Burroughs and a wide range of musicians (not just rockers). Find out how the likes of Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Kurt Cobain, Patti Smith, and Richard Hell were all heavily influenced by the author of Naked Lunch. Casey Rae has written a witty, informative, and comprehensive book that will definitely offer something new for even the most obsessive of Burroughs fans.

[Jay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helped fill in a few gaps in specific Burroughs knowledge. You should streetview his house in Lawrence. It's still red.

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a really lot of William S. Burroughs. And a little about the musicians who intersected with him.

[gabriela arcos · Rating 4 out of 5]

compre este libro en la primavera del libro del 2024 a Club de Fans porque había leído hace poco a Patti Smith y hablaba de lo mucho que admiraba a Burroughs. Súmale que me gustan las biografías porque amo el chisme. La idea de un libro lleno de chismes de un escritor controversial y su conexión con las voces mas importantes del rock y el grunge todo en uno, no pude resistirme. Lamentablemente tome la decisión de leer primero El Almuerzo Desnudo -que me dejó agotada- para poder contextualizarme, cuando debí haber empezado por Yonqui que es harto mas amigable. Recomiendo harto este libro si te interesan esas anécdotas que no importan mucho pero son chistosas de contar a otros y quedar de bacán. No me va a pasar porque se me olvida todo. Terminado el libro recuerdo los nombres que influenció como Bowie, U2, Paul McCartney, Lou Reed, Kurt Cobain, Dylan, Debbie Harry, entre miles de otros. Mi anécdota favorita que recuerdo ahora es de cuando Burroughs estaba cenando con Ian Curtis con mas gente y el cantante de Joy Division le pregunta al escritor que opina de Suicide la banda a lo que le responde "estoy muy en desacuerdo", al par de semanas Curtis se quitó la vida,, para pensar. Una conclusión es que todos estos músicos que se nombran eran tan cuicos que la mayoría vivía con una mesada que les mandaban los papás incluyendo a Burroughs y este ultimo si que me incomoda. Después de matar a su esposa ✨accidentalmente✨, le entrega su hijo a sus papas para que lo críen y se pasa la vida yendo y viniendo drogado de Inglaterra a USA con su regia mesada. Todo esto para decir: que ganas de tener una regia mesada.

[Mason Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very enjoyable survey of the intersections between good old Burroughs and various musicians from the '60s through the '90s. In more or less chronological order we get everybody from Dylan and Bowie to the Velvet Underground and Patti Smith, punk rockers, and industrial artists. There were some surprises and plenty of good stories, even though I was already quite familiar with both Burroughs and the musicians. It's a rather odd book in some ways: it is a catalog, with no over-arching theme or conclusion other than, Hey, it's pretty interesting how much Burroughs influenced scene after scene of musicians. And yeah, it is interesting and makes for fun reading. But if the book has a weakness it's that the chapters don't build on one another; they just continue the chronology. Which is okay, but I couldn't help wondering if there weren't a deeper meaning to be found. Much is made of the cut-up method and how it's been used in one way or another by musicians from Bowie to Al Jourgensen of Ministry. And Burroughs' philosophy of fighting against Control is a major theme of his books and many of the musicians he influenced. But these stories are pretty surface-level, and it felt like there was depth unexplored that would have made it more meaningful. Despite that lingering feeling, though, I quite enjoyed the read.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before reading this book my only knowledge of William S. Burroughs were the handful of books I've read by him and a casual glance at his Wikipedia page. This book is a great look into the life of Burroughs with a focus on his encounters with notable musicians of the late 20th century. A lot of these accounts and interactions were things I had never seen or heard about anywhere else. For that reason I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in modern music; as its clear Burroughs' influence has been underrated and rarely credited otherwise.

While reading this book I noticed a lot of repetition of information and oversimplification at times that really detracted from the flow of the narrative. There were plenty of times where different people, events, or facts were brought up as if for the first time (even though they had already been mentioned in a previous chapter). It was as if these chapters were all written separately without much consideration as to how they would flow together. While this didn't ruin my reading experience it definitely was a noticeable annoyance. I also wish the author would have gone more into the concept of "cut ups" as an influence on our modern culture as it was a fascinating subject but one that never felt fully explored.

[W. Koistinen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The bad thing about this book is the first half, which eloquently describes Burroughs' life until the seventies. After that starts the rock'n'roll part. Burroughs lived a very interesting life - more eccentric than anyone I have heard of. The only problem is, that if you are a Burroughs fanatic like me, you have already read his life story from few biographies and then it is recited also in some other books about the writer. So nothing really new in there. Except the style it is told, which is entertaining enough. So not really a minus.

So, then to the rock-part. Here comes some new information. Also the death of the author and his last years were very touchingly described. Liked the book. And if you know more about rock'n'roll than Burroughs, then you get a very fascinating life story with it, nicely packaged.

All in all, what ever your interests, I'd say, go on and read the book, it's worth it.

Oh, and there were many minor errors. I don't remember them now, except that Iggy Pop is said to taken Johnny Yen from The Soft Machine, when in fact it was The Ticket That Exploded. This kind of errors I noticed a few in the first half of the book, which made it feel more like an entertaining fan book than a reliable reference.

[Alec Downie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delving into Burroughs without warning can be daunting, discomforting and damn right disturbing.

Casey Rae has done an excellent job of smoothing the way and enticing those who want to know more into the creative and chaotic world of arguably one of the most important artists of the last 100 years.

By using music as a catalyst to engagement, and dropping with names like Bowie, Iggy, Patti Smith, Sonic Youth etc the author provides a compelling gateway to the insanity Burroughs invited and welcomed into his life.

My only criticism of this well researched, well presented and essential book is that each chapter suffered from repetition from previous chapters. Perhaps each chapter was written so it could be read as a stand alone essay or in a non-linear fashion so people wishing to delve in for only the artists they love, would still take away the essential themes.

A must for any fans of Burroughs, Bowie and Patti Smith or those just wishing to know more about this unique, contentious and brilliant individual.

[Doug Newdick · Rating 2 out of 5]

For Burroughs or alternative music fans only. William Burroughs is an interesting guy, and he has often been referenced by musicians from a certain set. This book attempts to trace Burroughs' influence on rock - putting together a large number of different stories that are largely well known individually (and a few that I'd never heard of). That's useful. However, like many books that are attempting to uncover an influence you wonder how much is being discovered versus invented. Every event is interpreted as evidence of his influence. How many of these connections were effective at the time and how many are just after the fact rationalisations we will never know as Rae takes the claims of all of these artists at face value. Coincidences and similarities between artists and Burroughs are taken as evidence of connection. This and an over-blown style, and my overall impression is one of self-indulgence rather than insight.

[Carolynn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting history of William S. Burroughs and the many musicians that he inspired. It sometimes felt like reading the author's thesis paper, and following his meandering, circling, and sometimes repetitious narrative was challenging at times. But it was worth it. The insight into Burroughs' character and life is fascinating. The author does his best to elicit as many musicians as possible that were inspired by Burroughs' work and lifestyle. Burrough's use of cut-ups and how musicians embraced the technique in songcraft is well-detailed throughout the biography. Who knew that Burrough's novel Naked Lunch inspired so many songs, albums, titles, and band names? Burroughs inspired the New York punk scene to such an extent, that he was nicknamed the "Godfather of Punk," even though he was not a fan of the music. Author Casey Rae mostly succeeds at proving his thesis that without William S. Burroughs, rock and roll music would not have evolved in the way that it did.

[Jakub Brudny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bardzo długo zastanawiałem się nad tym, jaką opinię wystawić na temat tej książki, bo jest to chyba najgorzej edytowana książka jaką w życiu przeczytałem, w swojej istocie jest biografią koncentrującą się na anegdotach związanych z innymi znanymi osobami, ale czasami opowiada też skrócone życiorysy tychże osób, zamiast streszczać po kolei życie samego Williama S. Przy tym niektóre interakcje które zapewne miały uchodzić za legendarne, w tej książce wydają się niczym szczególnym - no spotkali się na whiskey pogadali i tyle. Ale w sumie - skoro tak właśnie było to nie mogę przez ten pryzmat oceniać książki. A książka jest to dobra, nie porywająca ale wystarczająco ciekawa ze chce się iść dalej.

[John Spiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining book. I'm not sure who is the target audience for this book, presumably people who know very little about William Burroughs and very little about the musicians he influenced. Did we really need mini-biographies on David Bowie, Jimmy Page, and Lou Reed? Parts of the book look as though they were lifted verbatim from the Burroughs documentary "A Man Within". When the author compared the Warhol Factory scene to the Kardashians, I threw up a little in my mouth. If you have heard of William Burroughs but know little about his life or his cultural impact, then this is a good place to start.

[Clif · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very good book on the influence William Burroughs had on a medium he really could care less about. The most fascinating stuff was when the author would relate some of Burroughs' "science fiction" that has turned into a reality since his death. There is a lot about the cut ups and Gysion, with song writing methods and media manipulation. I also found the parts about the work Burroughs did with the underground rock press in London in the 60's interesting.

The main reason it loses a star is because I don't know if we need a "rock bio" of all the artists mentioned in the book. It would occasionally kill momentum.

[Enue · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es más sencillo preguntarse, ¿quién no fue influenciado por Burroughs en la música? En un inicio me parecía un poco más biográfico que esta conexión con la música pero más allá de la mitad del libro, Rae da una vuelta y pone en primer plano a varios músicos y la inspiración que lograron a través de William. Fue entonces donde Burroughs se vuelve la musa de grandes músicos, no solo por sus textos, sino por técnicas, actitudes e ideologías.

Terminar este libro me deja la incógnita si es que actualmente hay una persona que genere la misma inspiración que Burroughs en la música, cine y/o arte.

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was really enjoying the book by the halfway point, but by the end I was counting the pages until it would be over. What happened? There was too much repetition of his theories. Explain them once, some twice, and include all the stories of his interactions with the world of Rock 'n' Roll. The book would have been much more interesting, and achieve the same goal, more concisely.

[Shane Bordoli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great exposition on Burroighs' influence on and relationships with some of music's greatest iconoclasts from Loud Reed through David Bowie to Kurt Cobain and many more. We also come across such cult luminaries as Genesis P Orridge along the way.

It also documents Wlliam Burroughs' life. The prose is lively and interesting. The audiobook version is well read.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

A grab bag of anecdotes about rock musicians meeting a man (a Jazz Age relic, as it is pointed out) who did not really like rock and roll, except maybe as a weapon against Control. Not especially enlightening about anyone concerned.