The LedaTape Organisation

It’s a searing indictment of contemporary publishing that the first full-length survey of WSB’s influential intrusions into the fields of film and music must come from the pen of the world’s most obscure and frustrating experimental novelist.

Boasting more than 323 items, this uh idiosyncratic survey is as comprehensive and insightful as it is undisciplined and incoherent, all of which qualities Strong appears to regard as cardinal virtues. If his self-designated mission is to somehow undermine the canon, his inspiration appears to be drawn from the charge of the Light Brigade.

Nevertheless, even the most ardent Burroughs scholar will find something new here, even if it’s just been made up for funty laff value. Nice try pal.

“There are many Burroughs: counter cultural icon, groundbreaking author, artist, theoretician of control and prophet of dark futures and escape possibilities. Simon Strong traces Burroughs through multiple cultural artefacts, drawing links simultaneously actual and imagined between these ebbs and flows, unearthing numerous possibilities and potentialities. This is a book that eschews academia and dry analysis, its roots deep in the counter culture publishing of the sixties and seventies, joyously anarchic and deeply inspirational.” – Jack Sargeant, author Naked Lens.

This book was a very nice surprise. It consists in a listing of discs, films and books related to William Seward Burroughs, with a clever rating system and short texts about every item. Some are very famous, some are rather obscure, and it makes every Burroughs fan want to find out what the music of The Mugwumps sounds like, or if The Braille Film is as good as it seems to be. Strange jokes and good writing keep you flying from page to page. A must-have for Burroughs lovers, and a good introduction to the Old Man’s influence on popular culture for others.
–  Adrien Clerc, author Guerilla Conditions.