Coffee-Table Notes

In the 1920's at a Surrealist rally Dadaist  poet Tristan Tzara created a poem on the spot by pulling words out of a hat. There was a riot, and the theatre was wrecked. Andre Breton expelled Tristan Tzara from the movement and grounded the cut ups on the Freudian couch. I originally thought Tzara did this in 1916 at the Cabaret Voltaire nightclub in Zurich, but I was wrong. In 1959, painter and writer Brion Gysin cut newspaper articles into sections and rearranged the sections at random. Gysin introduced the cut-up technique to William Burroughs. Burroughs published The Naked Lunch the same year. The Naked Lunch revolutionised literature and made Bill famous. That was Bill you heard just now. Bill once said that “Language is a virus from outer space.” He may have been right. Cut-ups were later used by the band Cabaret Voltaire. That's them you can hear just now. Musically speaking, cut-ups soon became known as samples. Sampling changed dance music forever. Just ask Grand...