ROLL OVER
DEAN BENEDETTI
(AND TELL
DAVE BRITTON
THE NEWS)/
OPERATION MOONBEAM
“The music business was in a mood of high self-congratulation
this week after what is described as ‘the smashing of the biggest
bootleg ring in the UK’.” (‘Melody Maker’ 1 September 1979)
Manchester streets
squirm unclaimed sound,
a patina of noise
collecting in flesh-pools
oozing in gutters.
BUT DON’T PICK IT UP!!!
Manchester caves
r-e-v-e-r-b-e-r-a-t-e
with indecent exposures
of stolen sound,
sucked from hidden mics,
stacked in neat piles
across grotto’s where
Aubrey Beardsley and
Dante Gabriel Rossetti dance
(watched by fabricating
identi-machine wizards)
Mandible moonbeams
light gleams
stealth shift –
finger prods the gloom
sinks into viscous mounds
of round black sounds,
various, nefarious.
R-E-C-O-I-L-S
in legislative horror,
image screwed into retina’s
of vinyl germs
inviting aural disease –
wilderness is not a place
but a state of unordered sound!!!
Moonbeam wizards
disinfect ears,
check palms of hands
for masturbatory hairs,
flush offenders into
neat matrix catalogues,
and chains of books
synchronizing
gratuitous breathings
Sometimes they hear
Manchester streets
v-i-b-r-a-t-e
with a pulse
of bass lines
that coil and
snare unsuspecting
feet
and they ache…
(Addendum: Dean Benedetti, who invaluably pirated live Charlie ‘Bird’ Parker sessions in the 1940s, is the legendary first sound recording-Bootlegger. Dave Britton, publisher of ‘Savoy Books’ and co-owner of Manchester’s ‘Bookchain’ shop, was the victim of anti-Bootleg prosecution following the ‘Operation Moonbeam’ Police purge in September 1979)
Published in:
‘GLOBAL TAPESTRY No.9’ (UK – May 1980)
‘IT: INTERNATIONAL TIMES – Frivolous Summer Issue 1980’ (UK)
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