Charles Bernstein
Early Recorded Works
Homemade Tapes, 1975-1976

Accused Cassette, 1975

1. Accused (45:06): MP3
In 1974, City College’s History Department erupted into a bitter political dispute in which older faculty members Stanley Page, Edward Rosen and others accused their younger colleagues of disruptive leftist agitation. In this work, I perform the 1975 CUNY faculty senate report on the matter.

2. Afternoon Tape (28:34): MP3
          Greg interrupts Phyllis; it's caught on tape.
          Greg and Charles reflect on the problem.

1975 Cassette

Side One:

1. #4: a portrait of one being in family living (1975)
(22:11): MP3

• narrative
  
• Casablanca (collage)
  
• father: speech
  
• David Cooper (the family)
  
• narriative (“why can’t it")
  
• Casablanca (“one woman …”)
  
• narrative (on O! Pioneers)
  
• parents (“my jewells”)
  
• narrative (“valued you too much”)
  
• David Cooper (paranoia)
  
• Billie Holliday (tyring)
  
• Casablanca (insistence)
  
• Billie Holiday (beaten)
  
• narrative (alone, my fear)
  
• Billie Holliday (what?)
  
• Poe (from Pym)
  
• Fats Waller
• Poe (in the light ahead)
  
  Counting Each Step of the Sun published, in 2009, a transcription of "#4" by Danny Snelson.

2. Class (1975)
(10:59): MP3
the title track on the cassette Class; stereo recording (note: earlier digital version was mono). Go to Class PennSound page for details. Michael Hennessey on "Class."

Side Two

1. Early Poems (4:15): MP3
2. to be an married (0:40): MP3
3. Asylum (from Asylums) (11:35): MP3
4. Lo Disfruto (from Poetic Justice) (8:04): MP3
5. My/My/My (from Asylums) (11:13): MP3
   [single track feed for Class version]

Coco-Rimbay Cassette

1. Three-voice Performance of Sentences from Parsing (1975) (Bernstein, Susan Bee, Greg Ball) (6:56): MP3
2. Asylums/Parsing medley (with Bernstein, Susan Bee and Greg Ball) (1975) (11:51): MP3
3. Coco-Rimbay (1975) (Bernstein & Edmond Chibeau) (13:40): MP3
4. Sen-Sen (1975) (Bernstein, Chibeau, Bee) (4:34): MP3
5. Goodnight (from Class) (1976) (0:53): MP3
6. My/My/My (from Class) (1976) (4:57): MP3

Class

A selection of these works was included in Class, a casette publication from 1982 issued by Widemouth Tapes. (Initial digial version of this tape on UBU was in mono.) Class included five works. See the PennSound Class page for more details.

1. Piffle (Breathing), 1976 (Stereo, 7:00)
    with Susan Bee [Laufer] & Greg Ball
2. 1-100, 1969 (3:00): original release: MP3; 2009 remaster: MP3
3. My/My/My, 1976 (Stereo, 5:00)
4. Class, 1976 (Stereo, 10:30)
5. Goodnight, 1976 (Stereo, 1:00)
    with Susan Bee [Laufer]

Produced for PennSound in collaboration with Ubuweb.

Stereo digitial versions of these early tape works engineered by Danny Snelson in 2009.

These recordings are being made available for noncommercial and educational use only. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. © 2009 Charles Bernstein. Used with permission of Charles Bernstein. Distributed by PennSound.