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The Ugly One
with the Jewels
& Other Stories

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[ Notes ] [ Stories ]

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Laurie Anderson – vocals, keyboards, violin
Cyro Baptista – gong on The Salesman, surdo & shakers on Same Time Tomorrow
Joey Baron – drums on Maria Teresa & The Rotowhirl
Greg Cohen – bass on Maria Teresa & Someone Else’s Dream
Brian Eno – keyboards on Maria Teresa
Gerry Leonard – guitar on Maria Teresa

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Produced by Laurie Anderson
Recorded by Ben Fenner at Sadler’s Wells, London, UK
Mixed by Stewart Lerman & Laurie Anderson
Mastered by George Marino at Sterling Sound
Digital Editing by David Kumin
Special thanks to Michael Morris / Cultural Industry

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Brian Eno appears courtesy of Opal Ltd.

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Laurie Anderson’s book, Stories from the Nerve Bible, is available from HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY

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Time: app. 71 minutes
All lyrics & music by Laurie Anderson
© 1994 Difficult Music BMI

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Design by Yolanda Cuomo / NYC

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Photographs by Laurie Anderson, Bob Bielecki, Mark Garvin, Chris Ha, Perry Hoberman, Marcia Resnick & Ebet Roberts

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Management: Linda Goldstein / Original Artists
Associate: Stephen Cohen
432 East 14^th Street, #1294, New York, NY 10009

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In 1994 I published a retrospective book, Stories from the Nerve Bible, that covered twenty years of my work as an artist. A lot of the material was made to be spoken, so it was really strange to see it in print. I believe that language is alive and that when you hear something it has an entirely different meaning than when you see it on a page. So I did a short tour in the United Stated and Europe in the spring of 1994 reading stories from the book.

This reading was the most low-tech show I’ve ever done. I sat on the stage with keyboards, digital effects machines, a violin and a twenty-four input mixing console and mixed the sound myself. There were no visuals, no cues except the ones I’d invent on the spot. Without all the effects of a multimedia show, it became a kind of mental movie. I really felt like I was in the place I was describing. And I was free to make jump cuts — a story from twenty years ago was suddenly next to something from last week.

After the readings there was a question and answer section. The most frequent question was — “Is this stuff really true?” The answer is yes, except for the songs. For example, I wrote a song about seeing a host of angels mowing down my lawn and I don’t even have a lawn. It just seems like I do sometimes.

This album is excerpted from the live recording of the reading at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London.

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