October 21, 2005

Richard Brautigan, Listening to Richard Brautigan, CD: Collector's Choice Music, 2005.

The liner notes do a fair job of explaining the history behind the project: it was supposed to come out on Zapple Records (the avant-Beatle label back in the day) but didn't. When that venture folded after only two Beatle-related projects, Listening was salvaged and came out istead on EMI Harvest in 1970 as a US only release.

Brautigan oddly enough sounds a lot like he looks in those pictures of him and his girlfriends on all his books; although before hearing the CD, I heard him much differently in my head than the voice that came out of my speakers. That is, I pictured him sounding differently without the aid of a mental picture, as it was all sonic and mental.

There are tracks that seem more Fluxus than you can shake a stick at: a discussion to decide what to buy at Safeway for dinner (steak and corn), a seemingly real phone call, and other environmental recordings of his life in 1969 San Francisco. It's so bathetic as to border on the boring, but at least in my initial listening, I was glad that these tracks were there deviating from the usual "reading" recording structures of the time. Imagine Ezra Pound on the Cadmus recordings talking about meal preparations. No, the humanization here is definitely good and seems fitting with Brautigan.

Of course, the core of the album is Brautigan reading his work. Like many writers, he might not be the best reader of his material. Track three, "Love Poem", explores this by having 18 different people read the same short poem. The effect is powerful and a highlight of these tapings.

A good re-issue, but for fans only. This album shouldn't replace the lazy weekend reading of In Watermelon Sugar or The Pill Versus the Springhill Mining Disaster.