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TE2/1973/143

Allen Ginsberg performance 1973 (Part 3)

Ginsberg read at Scottish Arts Council building in Blythswood Square on the 10th August 1973. He was accompanied by two guitarists, one can be identified as Allan Tall and the other is named Victor but as yet we have no surname. Allan Tall remembers how there was little real rehearsal – as Ginsberg comments in the performance, they all had only met an hour before it started.

Date Recorded: 1973

Length: 27 min, 23 sec

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Additional Information

The last part of the performance documented in Tapes 140-142. Starts with a close-up of Ginsberg face as he wipes it with a towel, mid-way through reading a poem. It is a long, stream-of-consciousness type piece with varied imagery, lasting until about 16 and a half minutes in. After this Ginsberg performs a sung Sanskrit mantra for about ten minutes, accompanied by the two guitarists again. After wiping his face he talks about returning on the Sunday night (following what presumably was a Friday performance) to read more poems and play some more of William Blake's work set to music, adding to the guitarists that he’d like to play with them again. After around 27 minutes the tape cuts to the cameraman talking to the guitarist Allan Tall, saying ‘I got some great double frames of you and Allen, Allan.’ The camera work is continuous with close-ups and wider shots during the performance as before. The tape ends with the cameraman talking to Allan Tall.