I
wasn’t sure how I’d feel about this one based on a bunch of recent
conversations. For one, I just saw Weird Al for the second time. It’s no
surprise that all of Al’s Michael Jackson parodies have been scrubbed from the
performance. This dovetailed into reading Emily Nussbaum’s new book, in which
she discusses, among other things, the way that her perceptions of Louis C.K.
changed in the wake of allegations against the comedian. Closer to home,
apparently Morrissey is an alt-right asshole now, and as I mentioned in my
review of Ellen Sander’s Trips in
issue #112, members of Led Zeppelin assaulted Sander and had to be pulled off
by the band’s manager.
So where does this leave us in terms of fandom?
Nussbaum argues for a wrestling with the past. If we take Morrissey as an
example, the thought of cutting him from the conversation entirely doesn’t pain
me as much as allegations against other musicians might. But I have friends (and
I’m sure you do, too) who have hard choices to make regarding the weight of the
man’s catalogue vs. the weight of his heel turn.
In William S. Burroughs and the Cult of
Rock’n’roll, Casey Rae does an exhaustive job connecting ol’ Bill to scads
of musicians. The scope of Burroughs’s influence is stunning: the tendrils of
his cut-up method, heroin use, and world-weariness extend from Bob Dylan and
the Beatles to Throbbing Gristle to Grant Hart to Nirvana and Ministry. Rae’s
research connects specific songs and lyrics to Burroughs’s writing, and the
stories of rock luminaries’ relationships with Burroughs are interesting
throughout.
With all that said, I don’t see a lot of wrestling in this book. William
Burroughs is a guy who drunkenly shot his wife to death; William Burroughs is a
guy whose well-documented heroin use glamorized the drug. Rae mentions these
things, but there’s not much in the way of reckoning here. To be fair, I
haven’t read other Burroughs biographies, so I don’t know what’s already been covered.
That said, the members of the rock scene mentioned here are drawn to Burroughs
and his work like moths to bad behavior. I’m still not sure how to feel about
it all now that I’ve finished reading. But I’m a Patriots fan, so what do I
know? –Michael T. Fournier (University
of Texas Press,
utexaspress.com)