Written by: Dave Cantrell

Some associations are almost inevitable, and in our current day’s environment vis-a-vis vinyl releases, few – if any – examples of that assertion are more critically applicable than the ongoing stream of releases from the somewhat recently revived (2020, to be exact) Shimmy-Disc label, helmed, of course, by the estimable Kramer whose legacy when it comes to providing exposure to the innovatively enigmatic, crucially interesting and most often somewhat outré artists (which is also to say, almost by definition, the too-freqently overlooked) is pretty much unparalled, not least when one factors in the fact that the label’s hiatus implied above lasted nigh on twenty+ years. While one might point to a dogged defiance of the music business at large as being central to both Shimmy-Disc’s and its founder’s longevity, it’s also down to a kind of purity of intent, a belief in the very tenets of creativity that the industry at large has so long abandoned in pursuit of profit over art (a truism so true it’s barely worth noting anymore), a belief that leads to reissuing albums by the likes of Gregory Corso, a Beat writer/poet of some renown that history, as with many in that cohort not named Ginsberg or Ferlinghetti, has pushed via neglect toward near-anonymity which in turn makes it an ideal candidate for revival via Shimmy-Disc (and, I should mention, a personal delight to this writer who grew up in the East Bay in the 60s and 70s and thus found himself lured almost inevitably into the Beat shadow as a young, self-taught writer-in-training).

First released a year after the poet’s death in 2001, Die On Me features tracks that span from 1959 to mere days before his passing, as is the case with the track we preview today, a fact that can’t help but bring an unsurpassed pathos to what we hear. Gently enhanced by original producer Hal Wilner’s score, the poem unspools with a touching – and frankly, unmatched – candor that almost feels foreign when heard inside our current world’s daily, decidedly unpoetic, noise, and as such presents like a balm spoken by a mere immortal come to visit us and ground us once again in the messy purity of human existence. No bombast, no hollow pride, and, most importantly, no fear. Just the voice of a particular truth the kind of which is, alas, too often sorely missing from our collective consciousness in our current moment. Given that, its (first ever) vinyl reissuing by Shimmy-Disc on November 7th is something close to an act of mercy, offering this (and fourteen other tracks which include the passed immortal presences of Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Faithfull, Peter Orlovsky and Studs Terkel) like, well, an offering to the ineffable, a sense that, inevitably given its authorship, rather reverberates like a spiritual echo thoughout the visual treatment Kramer’s given it here. Entrancing, moving, inimitable, not to mention inspiring considering the brink Corso was speaking from when this reading was captured, among whatever more one could say about this recording, the humanity inherent, the fearlessness in the voice of the poet, neither resigned nor defiant, is simply deathless.