Wurlitzer, Rudolph

***Drag City’s first foray into the wide world of audio books is a reading of RUDOLPH WURLITZER’s 1984 Hollywood-and-elsewhere opus, Slow Fade, read by WILL OLDHAM with D.V. DEVINCENTIS. Rudy Wurlitzer’s 1969 novel Nog was embraced by the burgeoning counterculture. The time following the success of Easy Rider was a period of wide-open opportunity for hip young writers in Hollywood. In 1970–71, Wurlitzer worked on a script for Monte Hellman, which became the cult classic Two-Lane Blacktop. Following his experiences during Sam Peckinpah’s production of Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid (which he also scripted), he withdrew from Hollywood for a time, writing the book Quake before returning in the ‘80s for further film work with Alex Cox (Walker), Robert Frank (Candy Mountain) and Bernardo Bertolucci (Little Buddha), among others. Reading the text are Will Oldham (BONNIE PRINCE BILLY). Will is countered by his good friend D.V. DeVincentis, who has worked in Hollywood writing and producing films all of his adult life. Slow Fade is the portrait of Wesley Hardin, whose life has been devoted to manipulations of all kinds—cinematic images, conference table negotiations, actors, technicians, and even (and especially) those closest to him. Nearing the end of the career, he tries to divest himself of illusions, to make peace with his demons and his past. The process is complex and at times appears to occur by committee. After his son Walker returns from a long spell in India, (where he was searching for Wesley’s daughter at his father’s behest), Wesley hires him to write a script about his experiences there, which Walker will not otherwise discuss. As Wesley grapples with control over one final film project, Walker roams the American landscape with a disaffected roadie named A.D., who is desperately trying to make a new career for himself outside of his rock ‘n roll experiences. The debauched wanderings of father and son are filled with comic misadventures and spiritual blind alleys, with a diverse geography ranging from the streets of Beverly Hills to the charnal grounds of India, a Mexican beach resort, New York’s Russian Tea Room and the backcountry of Labrador in northeastern Canada. Slow Fade is by turns spare and eloquent; dryly humorous and darkly savage, a deeply informed novel about the unshakeably transient worlds of the movies and rock and roll, as well as a rowdy account of the cultural and generational pas de deux that occurred throughout the 1970s—a dance that must occur when the torch passes through every generation. No Export to Europe. (STREET DATE - 4/19/2011)