David Dondero – Chaos the Cat

“Chaos the Cat” takes readers on a journey into the heart of California’s cannabis legalization era, where a secluded pot farm becomes the backdrop for a clash between preservation and exploitation. Amidst this backdrop, a diverse group of characters converges, each seeking their own form of self-improvement. At the center of the conflict is a trio of antagonists whose schemes threaten the harmony of the farm, pitting greed against enlightenment.

The protagonists, an artist dedicated to meditation, a trumpet player on the journey to sobriety, a Vietnam POW with cultivation expertise, and a serene guru overseeing the farm, unite in a unique collaboration to safeguard their sanctuary. The tale is narrated by Chaos, the cat, reincarnated from an artist deeply connected to the farm. Through Chaos’s feline perspective, readers witness personal transformations, humor, and wisdom amidst the unfolding drama, fostering a sense of shared experience.

As the story progresses, the farm becomes a microcosm of larger societal changes, with characters banding together to defend their sanctuary. “Chaos the Cat” ultimately explores themes of resilience, redemption, and community spirit, underscored by the unpredictability of nature’s influence on their fate.

Limited Edition, casebound with debossed artwork on canvas, of 150 copies all signed and numbered by David Dondero.

We are reserving the remaining copies for the book release in San Francisco. Thank you to everyone who purchased the book!

El Sol poetry book by Rosemary Manno

The late poet Rosemary Manno moved to San Francisco in 1983. She grew up in Buffalo, New York and had lived in Paris whenever possible. Most winters she would travel to her beloved Mexico with artist-musician Roger Strobel. They shared a home life in North Beach for many years.

Rosemary was a poet, artist, lover of foreign tongues, the natural world and revolutionary struggle. Her work has appeared in numerous chapbooks, magazines and anthologies.

El Sol is a posthumous collection of poems that Rosemary and editor Tate Swindell worked on during the final years of her life. Faced with a terminal diagnosis of brain cancer these poems deal with the fragility of life with an uncompromising and unwavering fierceness that embodies the true spirit of Rosemary Manno.





Vali Myers, A Memoir

A legend in her own time, Australian artist Vali Myers was the premiere dancer with the Melbourne Modern Ballet at the age of seventeen. Leaving home in 1950, she spent years in Paris, where the Dutch photographer Ed van der Elsken photographed her and some of the other young people hanging out in the cafes. Those photos became the book, Love on the Left Bank. During that period she befriended George Plimpton, who published an article about her, along with some of her drawings, in The Paris Review, the first time her artwork was in print.

In 1958, Vali and her then-husband Rudi Rappold made a home for themselves in the wild Valley of Il Porto in Positano, Italy, where she would live for the next forty years, working on her exquisite drawings and looking after a large menagerie of animals. She fought local authorities who wanted to introduce loggers into the Valley, and succeeded in having it designated a protected wildlife oasis.

When she returned to Australia in 1993 for the first time since she’d left, she found herself welcomed as a national treasure. In this memoir by her long-time companion Gianni Menichetti, Vali’s life and life’s work are brought into beautiful, clear focus with wit, candor, and great affection.

Jan. 16th @ Bird & Beckett — book release & Q & A with Thomas Antonic – author of Amongst Nazis – William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37

Thomas Antonic will speak about his latest book Amongst Nazis / Unter Nazis (William S. Burroughs in Vienna 1936/37). The presentation includes rare WSB audio and photos related to the book. Tate Swindell will join Thomas onstage for Q & A.

Thomas Antonic’s essay Amongst Nazis (Unter Nazis) is an expanded version of his lecture Dr. Benway meets Dr. Pernkopf: Burroughs and the Nazi Doctors in Vienna 1936/37 held on 4 October 2018 in Vienna as part of the seventh annual conference of the European Beat Studies Network. Moloko Plus has now published this essay in both English and German. Complete with illustrations, footnotes, introductions and postscripts in both languages this edition has not only turned into a thorough study of Burroughs’s stay in Vienna but also into a beautifully designed edition in the hands of Kai Pohl.

In the blurb on the cover of the book Beat scholar and Professor of American Literature Oliver Harris writes: “His mid-1930s visit to Vienna has always seemed a brief but colourful episode in William S. Burroughs’ biography, but Antonic’s study has turned it into a transformative chapter in the writer’s life. Based on meticulous and extensive historical research, Amongst Nazis not only gives the first detailed and accurate account of Burroughs’ experience there but offers new insights into its impact on his literary life, including the reasons why the city where Burroughs studied medicine was the birthplace of his most notorious character, Dr. Benway.”

Click here for link to Sea-Urchin website to purchase the book.                  (Please note this book ships from Europe.)

Bob Kaufman broadside – TIN PAN ALLEY

 

This letterpress broadside, 10 x 14 inches, was exquisitely produced by Nick Whittington at Impart Ink in Oakland.

The poem was discovered, by poet S.A. Griffin, after the Collected Poems of Bob Kaufman went to print.

Bob wrote this poem in NYC in 1961. Thus, 61 copies were printed to celebrate Parker Kaufman’s 61st birthday. 100% of the sales of this broadside go directly to Parker.





Bob Kaufman – Rappin Elite

Limited Edition of 200
Heavyweight 180 gram
Available in 3 different colors of virgin vinyl
No digital version !
Release date  October 13, 2020
Culled from various source tapes this is Bob Kaufman as you’ve never heard him before! On stage, at home, in bars and cafés, Bob is Rappin Elite.




Gregory Corso – The Gold Standard

Limited Edition of 250
Heavyweight 200 gram
Gold colored virgin vinyl
No digital version !
Available August 1, 2019
This record was compiled from the recently discovered Scrivani Tapes. George Scrivani, Corso’s longtime friend, traveled with Gregory in the late 1970s throughout Europe. Having cut his bootlegging chops at various Operas in Europe, Scrivani recorded Corso at various readings, interviews and events. This included an impromptu lecture Corso gave at the JFK Institute, in Berlin, on the genealogy of the Beat Generation.
Upon returning stateside, Scrivani continued to record Corso in San Francisco, in the 1980s, at locations such as S.F. Art Institute, New College (r.i.p.) and the legendary Keystone Korner in the North Beach neighborhood.
The Keystone Korner tapes include a phenomenal reading with Allen Ginsberg in 1980. The two had not read together in San Francisco since 1956.
Another Keystone Korner tape features Jaki Byard on piano, the legendary multi-instrumentalist/composer/arranger,  joins Corso for two extended poems.
Each side contains 27 minutes of unprecedented Corso material.

Purchase

Click on the link below to Download these albums
Bandcamp.com

 

ATTENTION INTERNATIONAL BUYERS
Please send an email before purchasing and we will send you an invoice with the correct shipping amount. Most international shipping is $25.




Click above to purchase Gregory Corso – The Gold Standard
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters Vinyl Record
$20.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax



Click above to purchase Jack Micheline – Give America A Break (Double Vinyl Record)
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax

SOLD OUT!

Click above to purchase Jack Micheline – Give America A Break CD (2 Discs)
$13.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Herbert Huncke CD (2 Discs)
$20.00 does not includes shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Jack Micheline In Amsterdam CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Harold Norse (Double Vinyl Record)
$30.00 does not include shipping and tax

 

SOLD OUT!
Click above to purchase Harold Norse CD
$10.00 does not include shipping and tax

 

SOLD OUT!
Click above to purchase David Dondero ‘Golden Hits Vol. 1’ record
$22.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click Above to purchase David Dondero ‘This Guitar’ record
$18.00 does not include shipping and tax

Also available in these stores:

Beyond Baroque (Venice, California)

Please send check or money order to:
Unrequited Records
4304 18th Street #14903
San Francisco, CA
94114

Ronnie Burk – a man of letters

The first half of this album contains various rare recordings of Ronnie including radio interviews & call-ins, specially taped segments for the ACTUP pirate radio show, as well as a visit to local San Francisco Lowell High School.

Hear Ronnie read Arthur Rimbaud, his own poetry including a brilliant collage letter to Andrei Codrescu, on confronting internal homophobia, the Aquarian love revolution, the rainbow credit card, rage as healing & how love is our greatest weapon.

The second half features more than two dozen friends & admirers reading Ronnie’s poems or sharing their remembrances & tribute poems. Included among the readers: Diane Di Prima, Andrei Codrescu, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Bob Holman, Will Alexander, Inés Hernández-Ávila, Sam Green, Mia Stageberg, Valery Oisteanu, Elaine Katzenberger and more…

Available on 12-inch vinyl, digipak CD or digital download, each version is unique and contains material not available on other formats.




Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters Vinyl Record
$20.00 does not include shipping and tax




Click above to purchase Ronnie Burk – A Man of Letters CD
$10.00 does not  include shipping and tax
Released September 10, 2016

Reviews by Plymell, Nicosia, Field and Winans

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’

No Depression review of ‘This Guitar’