Interview: Destroy All Rational Thought's Director Joe Ambrose and Frank Rynne

Writer, musician and art-terrorist Joe Ambrose has seen a lot of the counter cultural world in his time. He and fellow musician, cultural historian, and writer Frank Rynne organized the Here To Go Show, put on in and around Dublin in the early nineties.

The film, Destroy All Rational Thought, which documents many aspects of the Here To Go Show, is a both a celebratory observance and an affirmation of the cultural impact and significance of the work of Brion Gysin and William Burroughs; both individually and collaboratively. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at PhotobucketTheir favoured location, in Tangier, determines the Show's wider subject spectrum. Lassoed under the happenings they, and other Beat writers, nurtured, the Tangier Beat Scene cannot be divorced from the Here To Go Show.


Joe and Frank themselves contribute under various guises and ongoing guerilla conditions. Usual rules apply.

I caught up with Joe and Frank to talk about the Destroy All Rational Thought DVD, the Here To Go Show and to understand more about the cultural significance of the Tangier Scene and its conspirators.

This DVD has just been released, could you tell me what spurred you to put this show on in Dublin in `92 ?

Frank Rynne: It was possibly fortuitous circumstances and being in the right place at the right time...

What was happening then ?

Joe Ambrose: ( right - Meknes, Morocco Feb 07 ): I was squatting in Brixton, London, from 1986 onwards. I was managing Frank’s punk band the Baby Snakes. Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket That time is partially chronicled in my first novel Serious Time. By early ’92 the band had some very recent highs and lows. They’d recruited a drummer called Nigel Preston – a founding member of The Cult, played on their big hit Sanctuary - Nigel brought the long-sought oxygen of publicity onto the band. I organised a meeting between the band, myself, and Johnny Cash when it was neither profitable nor fashionable to be associated with him. Every second of that meeting was filmed. Then Nigel died of a drug overdose in the Barrier Block in Brixton and the walls came tumbling down. Same time I met up with Terry Wilson, an English experimental writer and Gysin/Burroughs collaborator. That led directly to the Here To Go Show.

What do you remember from those times Frank ?

FR: From my early teens I’d been a great fan of Burroughs’ writing and his prophetic vision of the decay of the West. One of his close friends, Brion Gysin, had been largely ignored since his death in 1986. There were many people that knew Brion who felt unhappy about this; especially his close friends William Burroughs, Felicity Mason, and Terry Wilson.

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Article Author: Paul Hawkins

Paul H has been interested in popular culture, music, and all of life's rich themes and contradictions for most of his life. After some time living in his car and on friends' sofas, Paul is now re-housed and re-armed with a sawn-off laptop. …

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