Dreamweapon I—Angus MacLise + Tony Conrad + Jack Smith
Regular price
$30.00
“Angus MacLise was the Velvet Underground’s first drummer. He withdrew when he found out that at a paying job he had to start and stop playing when told to. No one told Angus to stop playing. So the job of a working musician was impossible for Angus, and he taught us all a lesson about purity of spirit.” — Lou Reed
“… MacLise was a living link connecting the Beats, the Fluxus and the Factory scenes, and the hippies.” — Flavorwire
Angus MacLise was an American polyglot and foundational multi-media artist. Working in dream-like calligraphy, poetry, small press publishing, and musical composition, he was active in New York, San Francisco, Paris, London and Kathmandu from the 1950s through the 1970s. MacLise is perhaps best known as the original drummer of the Velvet Underground—leaving the band after he felt they had "sold out."
But MacLise's most important work had only just begun. Jumping from one seminal scene to another, MacLise produced spiritually immense art in solitude and collaborated with 1960s art groups like Fluxus (George Maciunas, Yoko Ono), the Theatre of the Ridiculous, and underground filmmaker and exoticist Jack Smith. As a publisher, MacLise worked with the likes of Paul Bowles, Charles Henri Ford, Gregory Corso and Diane Di Prima among others. On Summer Solstice 1979, MacLise died in Kathmandu, and was cremated in the fashion of Tibetan Buddhist funerary rites.
A suitcase of Angus MacLise’s artwork, publications, and manuscript as well as more than 100 hours of recorded music was left with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela for safe-keeping forty years ago. This extraordinary time-vault was the foundation of the Dreamweapon series of records.
Dreamweapon I features previously unreleased recordings by MacLise, composer Tony Conrad, and Jack Smith. Tracks include "Les Evening Gowns Damnées," a 1964 meandering tale of textiles told by Jack Smith, accompanied by MacLise-Conrad atmospherics.
Vinyl LP published by Boo-Hooray. Silkscreened jacket. Art by Jack Smith.
These records are unplayed deadstock.