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Here We Go Again!

Rip-off alert pt 23... Once again Terry Wilson's notorious Here to Go: Planet R101—interviews with Brion Gysin, with a preface by William Burroughs—has been reprinted, this time by Creation Books, without due credit to the book's real originator, Savoy's own Michael Butterworth.

As stated on our book page for this title, the sole idea for the book was Michael's. He had heard that Brion Gysin was ill and wanted to produce a record of his thinking for posterity. He commissioned an interview-book, to contain other texts and photographs, which Wilson assembled for Savoy on full expenses. This volume has since been acclaimed as a classic, a book which gives Gysin a voice of his own and salutes his genius, away from being a footnote to the career of William Burroughs.

This is getting tiresome to keep repeating, but Terry Wilson was acting on the instructions of Michael in the preparation of this book. Over a period of years Michael regularly corresponded with Mr Wilson, pointing him in the direction the book should go. If it hadn't been Mr Wilson who got the commission, Michael would simply have used one of several others at his call. Wilson eagerly agreed to be the messenger boy. As is explained elsewhere, the weight of police raids and legal trouble that fell on Savoy in the early '80s put paid to the Savoy edition of the book but Michael was happy to see it published eventually in its RE/Search edition. He was less happy to see that Terry Wilson had offered no credit for his efforts anywhere at all. What might have been an oversight in the original edition becomes a compounded insult in the new version which contains additional material but still no decent acknowledgement of any kind.

Michael also commissioned William Burroughs directly for the book's introduction (which he paid for in full), and the wonderful interplay between Burroughs and Gysin at the front, with Gysin shouting "Point of order, Point of order!", is wholly down to Michael, as is so much of the rest of the book. At the time these interviews were being conducted Savoy were also planning on publishing a number of Burroughs' works in original UK editions (see the Meeting William Burroughs interview.)

All of the above is corroborated by correspondence between Michael, Mr Wilson and Brion Gysin, held in Michael's files, which may be examined by interested parties. At some stage, Savoy will be reprinting a selection of these letters and finally putting the nail in Mr Wilson's coffin. A disgraceful man.

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F e n e l l a !

Events are moving with the work-in-progress novel from David Britton, La Squab. On the week commencing Monday 29th July 2002 Dave and Mike with co-producer Stephen Boyce-Buckley were in the Strongroom Recording Studios, Shoreditch, with the legendary actress Fenella Fielding reading extracts from the book.

One of Fenella's first major theatre roles was in Sandy Wilson's Valmouth, based on the great Ronald Firbank novel (Firbank, of course, being a Savoy icon). In her distinguished career Fenella has played Hedda in Hedda Gabler, Nora in A Dolls House, Marion in Ayckbourne's Absurd Person Singular, Madam Pfeil in Mozart's Der Schauspieldirektor, the title role of Colette in New York and gave singular voice to Village announcements in the greatest TV series of the '60s, The Prisoner.

In the studio, she brought her unique vocal quality—that potent Fielding mix of innocence, seductive vampery and underlying sneaky unease—to her reading of La Squab, and perfectly captured the goony ambience and bizarre characters of the novel. The narrative sets-to with a journey on the Thames. On their nefarious prowl, young Squab and Lord Horror meet a jaunty collection of grotesqueries as well as all manner of Meat. Influential novels for these proceedings include The Golden Barge, The Faerie Queen, Boy in Darkness, Alice in Wonderland, Wind in the Willows by-way-of Motherfuckers and the pure rock-a-billy howl of Hellfire.

For a few fleeting moments a taste of genuine English Surrealism flowered in the much-hyped New Eastenders community of Hoxton Square, the current epicentre of Brit-Art.

This new reading at the Strongroom is the first in a series.

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New Nugent

Ted Nugent's last album, Full Bluntal Nugity, was the best in his long career—we give it full Savoy approval. If his forthcoming, Craveman (Spitfire Records), is anything like this standard it will be top-hole.

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