William S. Burroughs & Gus Van Sant - Millions of Images

This one seemed just too interesting to pass up. Naked Lunch meets Drugstore Cowboy on vinyl. Sure, why not? Burroughs reads bits of his own work in his dry death-crackle over Van Sant's artsy background music and looping effects.

Burroughs' readings are great, as you would hope they would be. There's a Talking Heads feel to parts of the first track. It's not quite as dynamic or as funky as they could be, but I think that's because the intention was for Burroughs to have center stage. The B-side uses a lot of loops, maybe a few too many, really. But again, it's a great reading, and sure enough, Burroughs supplies some good images of what a Hipster Be-bop Junkie is.

These tracks originally appeared on a 1985 12", long before Van Sant was famous for his films, entitled "The Elvis Of Letters". Seems that someone had the idea of re-releasing some of this material once Van Sant made a name for himself. Apparently, these two tracks make up the B-side. Produced by Tim Kerr, (not of the Monkeywrench, but the Portland label). I got this at a Newbury Comics as well. $3.99. A steal.

A: Millions Of Images
B: The Hipster Be-bop Junkie
Enjoy!

Sugar - Changes

I idolized Bob Mould back in the day. Sugar was a return to some seriously loud rock after Mould's mellow Workbook album. As loud as it was, it wasn't quite a return to Husker Du. Sugar had a lot more of a power pop feel to it.

I saw them at Pearl St. right when this came out. I was right up front and center, so the PA system at the edges of the stage was blasting away at everyone behind me. I turned around near the end of the show to find that just about everyone had left the room and was standing in the stairway or downstairs to protect what was left of their shredded ears. A bit excessive, I suppose. Bob's next show, a couple of years later at Amherst college, was solo and acoustic. I figured it was part of that "Unplugged" craze that MTV had recently created, but no. He explained that he was ditching the band and the amp because his ears were shot.

A: Changes
B: Helpless
Enjoy!