Re: Devo & William S. Burroughs

TP #70 (Feb '82, [www.trouserpress.com]) featured a conversation between Devo & William S. Burroughs. I emailed Gerry Casale of Devo last year asking if the full conversation was longer and available anywhere. He replied, "Yes, it was very long and only trouser Press would know if the original survives. They own it and we never saw it."
Can anyone please help me (and Devo themselves!) find the full transcript?
This site says that New Musical Express reprinted the conversation with permission; does anyone know if they printed the entire thing?
Many thanks.
Stuart Gardner

I would have to check with Scott Isler, the TP editor who set this thing up (after failing to get Marilyn Chambers to interview Devo) and actually did the taping, whether or not he has a copy of the tape.

My recollection of the project was that the actual encounter proved to be a lot less entertaining or illuminating than we hoped it would be and that it took a lot of editing for Scott to fish out what we published. Anything the NME ran we gave them, and I'm sure we didn't give them anything we also didn't publish. So the short answer is probably not.

Consider the interview complete as published.

First, can you believe we posted messages within one second of each other?
Thanks for your reply but could you please explain it a little fuller for me (maybe I'm slow)? Gerry Casale tells me the interview was "very long," so "complete as published" confuses me.
Did Mr. Isler still have the tape or transcript?
Thanks!

I don't know, and have no way of confirming, if the tape exists. Scott doesn't recall. What I meant is that we published the usable contents of the interview; whatever else was said during that unusual summit was not deemed worthy of making public at the time and is not likely to be further augmented.

I'm glad the Chambers thing fell through; pairing Burroughs with Devo just had to happen.
Hardcore fans of both (like me, and there are a lot others since the author and the band share the same concerns) are >really< anxious to read or hear the rest of this, so please do ask Mr. Isler if he could please dig up the tape... we will appreciate it very much indeed.
I'm sure Devo themselves would be happy to finally revisit the moment in full.
Thanks again.

I understand.
I'll check w/ the Burroughs estate on the (very) slim chance that he had a copy.
Thanks.

not to beat a prob dead issue deader but i contacted the 2 authors of the devo book and devo's orig manager/idea man and although friends 2 made it clear to me that i was crazy.

i'm holding out for a consensus, however, and will report back.

NP
Jellyfish Box Set

very nice...



Post Edited (08-09-05 16:37)

re: what?

oh

if they remember it or want to say anything about it

not THE article--just the "moment"