Great Demon Kings by John Giorno

Author:John Giorno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

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IN APRIL 1967, I released Raspberry & Pornographic Poem in a tape edition; it was a reel-to-reel quarter-inch tape in a square box. Les Levine designed the cover, a collage of close-up photos of my face in different sizes, printed in bright red, as well as the liner notes on the back cover. My first rock ’n’ roll album cover! I assembled it at 222 Bowery, duplicated the tapes on two reel-to-reel tape recorders, and pasted the printed covers on the boxes. It was a Giorno Poetry Systems project, a limited edition. I sold twelve, gave twelve to friends, and kept ten for the archive. It was a pleasure seeing it float around Bob’s house from floor to floor and room to room that spring. It had an audience of a few hundred people in the poetry and art worlds, and they all liked it.

In December 1967, it was released as an LP, with “Pornographic Poem” on side 1 and “Raspberry” on side 2, funded by the artist Dorothy Ioanonne’s wealthy husband. We pressed one thousand albums. Les did a poster, we did PR, and we sold a few hundred LPs, giving away about three hundred.

Yvonne Rainer really liked “Pornographic Poem” and chose three of the readings—Bob Rauschenberg’s, Peter Schjeldahl’s, and her own—for the soundtrack of a dance she did at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in 1968.

Raspberry

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