The Berkeley Concert [Explicit Lyrics]

Lenny Bruce | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 14, 2004)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Explicit Lyrics
• Label: Bizarre Planet
• ASIN: B0002VERF6
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #229,718 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Berkeley Concert - Lenny Bruce

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everybody's A** is Up for Grabs, February 9, 2009

By 

J. Merritt - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Berkeley Concert (Audio CD)

I'm not a fan of revisionist history unless history gets it wrong. In this case, I believe history definitely got it wrong. The long-time rep on this recording has been that it's sub-par Lenny; that at this point in his career (December of '65) his legal travails had rendered him not only broke but bitter, and that too much of this concert is given over to aggrieved ramblings. I'd be far more inclined to plaster that label on the "Lenny Bruce Performance Film" shot at the Fillmore in San Francisco in June of '66, even though I still value that film as history. For this show, no. Absolutely wrong. But appreciation of this recording requires a fundamental change in perspective.

If you come to this album looking for 'laughs' in the way that we customarily listen to stand-up comics, there's a good chance you'll be disappointed. Not that it isn't funny; it often is, sometimes uproariously so, but `laughs' are not the point. I think it's well past time to relinquish this categorization of Bruce. As he said himself on more than one occasion, he was not a comic. He may have started out as one, and vestiges of comedy may have remained in his act up to a point, but by 1965 what you are getting is something much more valuable: You are getting an undiluted commentary from inside the rising tide of 60's cultural shift.

What Lenny provides here is not 'bits,' but 79 minutes of what it was like to be caught in the middle of a legal tempest over obscenity that would change our social fabric. It's 79 minutes of where we stood in 1965, with American life about to come undone. It's the church and state, it's Kennedy and Johnson, it's drugs and sex, it's what we were supposed to stand for in this country and a fervent belief in law and the system even though that system was undoing Bruce. More to the point, it's the curve, because Lenny was not ahead of the curve. Lenny was the curve, and he died in that curve before it later become a straight road for others to drive on, and what we have in this recording is his testimony from inside the turn before it carried him off the road. It's not comedy, it's a lecture. An amusing lecture, to be sure, but far more significantly an educational lecture. These aren't just words that make you laugh. They're words that make you think.

Trust me, I'm no sycophant (to borrow one of Bruce's favorite words). I'm not a blind disciple who thinks every word that dripped from Lenny's lips was pure wisdom and that he could do no wrong. Far from it, but I do recognize him for what he was: An inherently funny man, unrelentingly allied to truth, unintentionally but defiantly caught in the crucible of socio-cultural change. I'd give anything to find someone who was actually at this show. If you were there, I hope you'll e-mail me. I have a thousand questions I'd like to ask. With or without an inside report, however, I can recognize this recording for what it is: History, as it was happening. Its preservation is essential, and a thing for which to be thankful.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Don't Start Here to Understand the Evolution of Lenny Bruce, July 17, 2007

By 

Barry P. Silber (Lutz, Fl. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Berkeley Concert (Audio CD)

The Berkeley Concert, complete and unabridged, provides insight into the brilliance of Lenny Bruce. Please understand that this concert took place less than a year before Lenny died, and most of the material is NOT funny. What the listener gets is a diatribe by a man so beaten down by the legal system, that he waxes on about the hypocrisy of the legal system. It is laughable and absurd to realize that Lenny was busted for language that is so tame by today's standards. Regular cable stations, such as FX, expose viewers to objectionable language that it is almost surreal to imagine that Lenny's transgressions took place a little over 40 years ago! This not to excuse the fact that Lenny was a drug addict, and this too, led to his demise.

Now, on to the CD: As I stated previously, the first half, Lenny is self indulgent about the law. Then, toward the latter part of the concert he returns to his time-tested comedy: the horniness of men, race issues, Catholicism, Judaism, women (he always mentions women), and the laughs emerge. Interestingly, he mentions Bela Lugosi's drug habit. Was he "projecting" here? Despite being a complete concert, the ending is rather abrupt.

If you want to explore Lenny Bruce, do not begin with this CD, but listen to his work chronologically. What you will witness with the Berkeley Concert,is the deterioration of a brilliant mind. It has been said many times before: There would be no Richard Pryor, Robin Williams, Lewis Black, Chris Rock, et.al, if Lenny Bruce had not paved the way.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent, August 16, 2009

By 

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber Print DJ ... (Mahwah, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Berkeley Concert (Audio CD)

Is this comedy funny? Is this even comedy?

You cannot deny the genius and contributions of Lenny Bruce. He made laughter of subjects no one wanted to speak of, much less laugh at, during his era. Race, sex, religon, political repression--all subjects that are now staples of modern stand up are so because of Lenny. He made a lot of money taking these risks, but continued to take them long after they got him into deep trouble.

But this 1965 concert is more about that trouble then it is the subjects that made Lenny famous, and proved him to be an innovator. Lenny was broke, facing jail, and worse, hooked on heroin, waiting to die. A junkie like any other junkie.

The humor here has all the Lenny earmarks. It is free associative, biting, and has the cadence of thorny jazz. But the content his about his legal fights. The court system and the absurdies he had in trying to work within it.

Lenny's legal battles were an absurd waste of state time and resources; especially when you listen to him and compare his work to what we accept as comedy today. This aspect is worthy of all the acid Lenny is able to dump on it, as he had dumped on race and sexual and religous hypocracy.

But this set also shows a broken man, crippled by narcotics and reeling out of control. His best days behind him and he knew it. His satire was not self referancal until this period, and it is interesting to wonder if this was an edgey new direction he was developing, or the last gasp of a genius being pulled under the water. He seems too consumed in his own distruction to find the laughs.

The contet here works on two levels, and it may be impossible to distinguish brillance and desperation. But for students of Lenny or comedy, this set is essental.

You might not know due to labal changes, but Frank Zappa was responsable for getting this released. I am unsure about this show, but Zappa finding merit in the performance carries me a long way towards endorsing this.