ON JACK MICHELINE TRIBUTE ALBUM
“An incredibly heartfelt tribute to Jack Micheline filled with some of his best recordings, insights and visionary words. The collection of poets who read Jack’s work is first-rate. Buy this album!”
–steve dalachinsky
“These are recordings culled from various sources from San Francisco to NY, the 1980s, even something from 1976. Quality varies but is generally excellent. Micheline in little clubs, a photo on the sleeve reveals him in full flow backed by Charles Mingus. There is audience participation in places, Micheline could handle the hecklers. There are interview clips. He is no wallflower, his voice defiant, though at points you feel he is holding back tears.
There is a double album vinly LP release. The label have done a nice job in how it is presented. And there is a double CD set. First half on both LPs and CDs is Micheline, the second set – various of his contemporaries read – Anne Waldman, Alan Kaufman, A.D. Winans, Neeli Cherkovski, Kaye McDonough, David Meltzer, ruth weiss, Kevin Killian, Amiri Baraka and many more.
It is to be hoped that this release will engage fresh listeners and readers with Micheline. He was never hyped and relied upon his own forceful poetic drive to stay ahead of the game. He said, ‘A real poet makes people dance.’ Congratulations to Unrequited Records for the love and care that has gone into this release. Micheline lives.”
–Extract from review by Pauline Reeves in Beat Scene #75
ON HERBERT HUNCKE
Urban Graffiti Review of Guilty of Everything
“Herbert Huncke, hipster gentleman junky from the old school could breathe a word that would launch a generation. His charm and sensitivity learned from the street up (like his ‘medical student’ Burroughs) always transcended any nefarious lifestyles.”
–Charles Plymell
“…have put together an elegant, first-rate, double-CD of Herbert Huncke – Guilty of Everything.”
–Peter Hale – The Allen Ginsberg Project
“When Huncke was on form he enthralled audiences. Here he is caught on form in Amsterdam and in a conspiratorial mood with his audience, all knowing nods and laughs as he tells his stories. For two hours he talks effortlessly and holds the crowd in the palm of his hand.”
–Extract from review by Dawn Swoop in Beat Scene #69
ON JACK MICHELINE IN AMSTERDAM
Silver Birch Press Review of Jack Micheline in Amsterdam
“Micheline was a self-proclaimed lyrical poet, he drew on old blues and jazz Rhythms, infusing the cadence of word music, while paying tribute to the gut reality of the material he wrote about. He didn’t attend the University; his school was the streets.
I remember him returning from Holland, still on a ‘high’ from his experience there. If you have never heard Micheline read, this is your chance to hear him at his best; if you have heard him read, but don’t possess the original cassette, don’t pass up the opportunity to obtain this newly produced CD.”
–A.D. Winans
“Micheline could be nuts, he was in your face as a poet, bleakly uncompromising. If Woody Guthrie had a guitar that slew his enemies, then Micheline has poems that he hoped would do the same. He never sat on the fence, he polarized opinion and made enemies. Here he is, in front of what sounds like an intimate audience and he is surprisingly mellow voiced, while still retaining an ‘edge.’ Not sure anyone could predict which way he would go on any one night. The reading includes ‘Imaginary Conversation with Jack Kerouac.’ Plus ‘Some Lines On Kerouac.’ While elsewhere he reveals a softer side to his nature.”
–Extract from review by Brian Dalton in Beat Scene #69
ON HAROLD NORSE
“They say Dylan Thomas’ recordings were the best recorded poetic voice of the twentieth century, but for my money, Harold Norse’s voice runs a close second. Hear this master of the American idiom, whose mind and knowledge were absolutely cosmic, on this must-have album for all audio poetry collections, Harold Norse Of Course…”
–Gerald Nicosia, author of Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac
“Norse’s voice and mastery of form make the ugly beautiful and true. Even as he nears 70, Harold’s voice never falters, but brings the audience, in his own imitable words to a ‘place mapped out in dreams, in poems, paintings, music, in trance.'”
–Douglas Field Manchester, UK
ON DAVID DONDERO
“David Dondero has road maps tattooed on his brain. He is a true prophet of the highways of America. Most importantly they are the veins that connect him to the next show. He doesn’t take them for granted. He’s run ruts in them, relentlessly back and forth over the years, through prairies and mountain ranges, and he’s got sermons memorized for most stretches.
He wakes me at 9am in a Super 8 motel after a really late show in Fredericksburg, VA and says, ‘Come on man, I gotta get outta this place. I’ve got ramblin fever.’ He tours more than anyone I’ve ever met, or heard of.”
–Darren Hanlon
“One of the ten best living songwriters.”
–Robin Hilton producer of NPR’s ‘All Songs Considered’
