Stylistic blending of ideas from William S. Burroughs Western Lands trilogy into a unique blending of the psyches of America and the Arab world.

10 MP3 Songs
ROCK: Acoustic, ROCK: Americana



Details:
Stray Shot: A Tribute to William S. Burroughs' Western Lands Trilogy.

The piano player says this cd is so different that it is outside of the existing genres, and at the same time could fit into several of them. It is quirky and at the same time grounded and with the pulse of the contemporary American psyche. Hassan i'Sabbah, for example, was a real person, Master of Assassins, whose castle was in what is now Northern Iraq. He arguably acquired the gift of communicating at a distance, and could order the assassination of a Prince by telepathic means, as there were no other forms of instant communication in the eleventh century. And Poppy Trail recasts a Persian mythical journey into the American West, while Real Eyes is set in a Cyberspace night club.

This work began as a response to a dream on the night after William S. Burroughs died. I'd been reading Burrough's Western Lands trilogy in depth. That is to say, I didn't just read the books, but read them several times, marked passages, read other books related to these books, and memorized dialogue from the books that I could quote at will. I had a lot of fun with these books, because they were an adventure into the extraordinary mind of Burroughs focused into his last novels

In the dream, Burroughs was walking down the hallway in an army barracks, or something like it. He was wearing boxer shorts and a t-shirt. Outside there was a big military transport truck waiting, with a driver in it. I was aware of both the inside scene and outside scene simultaneously, as can happen in dreams when the second attention comes into play. And Burroughs said, "I don't need a driver. I can drive myself."

From "Poppy Trail," to "Hassan i'Sabbah's Night Song," to "Just Follow That Truck," the flavor of the album is the blending of the American psyche with that of the Middle East, as reflected in the work of Burroughs, work which reflects his time in Tangier, in the International Zone.

Thank you Clay Hawkins, for your great guitar picking and production help in this project and for being a true friend. The other musicians include Bruce Gordon, a member of the Zydeco Flames, on Hammond B-3 organ, Yamaha grand piano, and accordian (Real Eyes); and Bhima Light, on the Didge, Irish Bodhran, and mouth harp (Planet Janet). My daughter did the cover art, and my wife the art production on Photoshop. Thank you all for helping me accomplish this project.