Friday, November 18, 2011

The Warhol Tapes

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh put out a book that included a CD of excerpts from Warhol's private audio tape collection. The album is narrated by John Giorno, the poet who starred in some of Warhol's early films.*

Warhol used to carry tape recorders with him everywhere, and the Warhol museum has thousands of hours of 'em. This is but a wee sample, but a fascinating one, featuring goodies like a raw Velvet Underground jamming on "I'll be Your Mirror" with Nico, and some songs I don't recognize; Andy discussing a commissioned portrait of a guy with a hard-on that has never been exhibited in public; a campy Pope Ondine; a no-nonsense Edie Sedgewick; a Man Ray photo session; Holly Woodlawn on why it's a pain to be a drag queen; and a discussion of art featuring famous people's private parts. Yes, Mick Jagger and Studio 54 are here, but we also go shopping with Warhol at a grocery store. As Andy would say, "Oh, gee!"

The Andy Warhol Museum

The book/CD is way out of print and going for crazy sums on Amazon: $160 is a bit out of my price range. There is one (1) copy in the entire L.A. County Library system, and it's in the "closed stacks," meaning a librarian has to retrieve it for you and you can't take it out of the library. So I had to bring my wife's laptop to the library at a later date, they sat me in a special section, and I loaded in and copied the CD. Dang, the things I do for you people. Send me booze and chocolates! Remember me in your will!


*
But I know Giorno for the boss albums he put out in the late '70s/'80s on his own label that featured everyone from Laurie Anderson and William Burroughs to The Butthole Surfers. Good stuff.

5 comments:

Frank said...

Wow Mr Fab,
This is a real gem! thanks for going through all the trouble!

Holly said...

Wow, indeed, Thanks!

Holly said...

Many thanks! And those Giorno lps are good, soundtracked my college years...

Marquis DeLuxe said...

any chance for a reupload of this gem?

Mr Fab said...

Hey Justine, it's now available here:
http://www.ubu.com/sound/warhol_tapes.html