Customer Reviews

Die on Me the Final Recordings

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(This review was written by Matt Cibula and posted by Michael Minzer. Thank you, Matt, for your kind review of Die On Me.) So what the hell was my problem, not putting this record on my top ten list of 2002? It's everything a record is supposed to be:
beautiful, brave, strange, adventurous, lyrically untouchable...
But I was afraid, I guess, afraid of pushing something this hard and this out on you, random member of the poor unsuspecting public. Trust me though, if I was making my list today it'd be on there, probably at #6 or so. Or higher. Damn it's good. See what fear can do? But I'm not afraid anymore.

Here's the deal: Gregory Corso was, right there with Allen Ginsberg, one of the great Beat Generation poets. His stuff is always bizarre and hilarious and deep--I consider "Marriage" and "Poets Hitchhiking On The Highway" and "Dream Of A Baseball Star" ( none of which are on this disk ) and "Bomb" and "Hair" and "Last Night I Drove A Car" ( all of which are ) to be some of the most important poems written by any American in the last 50 years.

Hal Willner is this dude who takes the work of poets ( Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, E.A.Poe ) and sets them to music, and this is the last one in the series; mostly this seems to be because he and partner Michael Minzer put so much into this disk, especially because Corso died shorly after the sessions in Minnesota. Die On Me is a record of amazing Beat poetry set to orchestral and jazz and electronic music, so if you are a dyed-in-the-wool poppist, stay far away from this stuff. But if you're a good, smart person with a heart and soul, give it a shot.

i got out of a cab one day in the '80's & spotted him. shouted a greeting & he stopped, friendly, "hello", waved & smiled & ambled up the street. i knew giorno & ginsberg & burroughs & alot of their friends. working with them as a teen was mind-blowing but i kept my head. but gregory was elusive. notoriously banned (at that time) from naropa, he exasperated anne, "ginsie" & trungpa & all. ginsberg, giorno & burroughs were friends but gregory was exiled for a bit. i saw him once again before he died. i thought he was a mean drunk. but by then, so was i. hearing these recordings brings back an era for me that i never really had but wished i did. i contented myself at the time with reading his standards. the first thing i got my hands on, in high school, was gasoline & i ripped through it or it ripped through me. then, everything else in print. i never heard him read his work at a proper reading. just one drunken memory of him muttering lines somewhere for our amusement (who was i with?). only that and the bright greeting on the street (w.4th & 6th ave.). the recordings on this cd entertain, perplex, are forthright & honest & are elusive & confused just like the man. the recollection/disagreement with ginsberg is emblematic of the man & his elusive legend. & at the end of the day, he was a poet. & an excellent one. alot of that comes through here. give it a listen. it'll be worth the raw, weird ride.
-bobby cormier

Here, on "Die On Me", the energy, rythym, and timing of the language of the beats shines through. Corso is complex in his imagination, naked in his honesty, and brutal in his resolve to caress the face of the modern world with his romantic bard fingers.
There is a lot to be reckoned with in these recordings.
Also beautiful, there are tracks of both the timeless and invincible youth of Corso, and the aged worldly quiant Corso.
Ginnsberg is there to shoot his mouth off as well on a few tracks, as a fair warning.