by Joe Wallace

I like strange experiences. Weirdness. So the title of this vinyl record promised me a great deal and it DOES NOT DISAPPOINT. Jim Carroll’s  “A Peculiar-Looking Girl” is worth the price of the record alone, and I’ll buy just about anything with William Burroughs reading on it.

Better An Old Demon Than A New God has fascinating backstory–it’s the one result of John Giorno’s Dial-A-Poem, which started in 1968 after a great deal of audio experimentation and recording with Beats and other artists.

Giorno recorded a lot of these sessions over the years and this album is only one result. You can also check out the Dial-A-Poem 15 Year Anniversary Album You’re A Hook for more of this sort of thing–You’re A Hook features Burroughs, Ginsberg, Phillip Glass, and Frank Zappa among other luminaries.

But what was REALLY creepy and fun to do was to put this record on along with a simultaneously-spinning Coil disc, Unreleased Themes From Hellraiser.

Hearing Jim Carroll doing “An Unusual Looking Girl” while the Coil tracks for the main titles and the Hellraiser Box theme played was absolutely priceless. Mash-ups are great fun, and it was an experience to be had–I strongly recommend it.

While flailing around to find an audio excerpt from Better An Old Demon Than A New God, I found the most excellent Chromaphobia blog, which has the Jim Carroll cut in its entirety. So check out that, but also, I thought, why not try to share my Coil/Carroll mashup experience?

Here’s what you can do–open one browser window with the Chromaphobia blog page for Better An Old Demon Than a New God, then open this page on Discogs.com for the Coil Unreleased Themes For Hellraiser 10″ disc. Start playing the Jim Carroll track first, then start the Hellraiser Box Theme clip so helpfully provided and you’ll get about the same experience I did when I did my version of this…I enjoyed it so much, I did it again using the method just decribed–great spooky fun.

(Transparency alert: I also have a copy of Better An Old Demon Than A New God available for sale on Discogs.com. Just sayin’.)