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John Giorno is perhaps best known as the star of Andy Warhol's Sleep, the publisher of the Giorno Poetry Systems L.P.s and Videopacks, and the innovator of the Dial-A-Poem System. Dial-A-Poem - a 12 line telephonic system allowing callers to hear one of twelve different poems each day, and offering some 700 selections by 55 poets and writers - began in New York in January 1969. Receiving 1,112,337 calls in its first five months, it moved from The Architectural League of New York, to The New York Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and elsewhere despite the turmoil of being sporadically disconnected and threatened with lawsuits for broadcasting subversive and pornographic materials. Initially broadcasting recordings by Allen Ginsberg, Diane di Prima, William Burroughs, Anne Waldman, Ed Sanders, John Giorno, John Cage and other luminaries of the New York scene, Giorno's L.P.s expanded into the fields of new music and punk rock, with work by Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Philip Glass, and, more recently, Diamanda Galas, Lydia Lunch, Husker Dii , Psychic TV, Einstiirzende Neubauten, and Giorno's own John Giorno Band. In the following interview Giorno discusses the evolution of his poetry and performances, from the Pop Art era of his days with Warhol and Rauschenberg, via experiments with sound and synthesizers with Brion Gysin and Robert Moog, to his present work with rock musicians and the overlap between "new music" and performance art in the work of Glenn Branca and Laurie Anderson.
NICHOLAS ZURBRUGG Perhaps I could begin by asking you how you would describe your kind of poetry and performance? Would you call yourself a sound poet?
JOHN GIORNO I just think of myself... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline