0:55 to 1:53
In the early 70's, David Bowie was on the Dick Cavett show...Cavett opened up the interview by addressing the question about whether or not Bowie in fact had a machine/weapon/device called a "Black Noise"
The story goes like this..for time immemorial, the French Patent Office or who knows what put up in their lobbies (in a fashion similar to our wanted posters) and one could order or just copy the patent. It had, before Bowie's appearance been pulled by the French govt. Bowie said that, yes, he in fact had either the machine itself or the patent-i can't remember which, and that it had the capacity to destroy a city!
Part referring to black noise below
"Cavett: Oh, I'm sorry if you didn't want that out. But...what is Black-noise?
Bowie: Black-noise?
Cavett: Yeah.
Bowie: Black-noise is something that Burroughs got very interested in. It's a...one facet of Black-noise is that...um...everything, like a glass if an opera singer hits a particular note, the vibrations of that hit the metabolism of the glass and cracks it, yeah? So a Black-noise is the register within which you can crack a city or people or...it's a new control bomb.
It's a noise — bomb in fact, which can destroy...why do you ask that?
Cavett: I mean is it a real thing? Is it something...
Bowie: ...Oh yeah it is. It was invented in France.
Cavett: Could a tiro use this to...
Bowie: ...well, up until last year you could buy the patent for it in the French patent-office for about 3-4 dollars.
Cavett: And it would wipe out a...
Bowie: ...It depends how much money you put into it. I mean a small one could probably kill about half the people here. But a big one could ...destroy a city. Or even more...I mean...
Cavett: It's a wierd idea, isn't it?
Bowie: Well, it's not my idea...(laughs)...so...
Cavett: Let's not give the instructions on how to do it. Can you recommend a good book to your fans?"
etc, etc
Bowie - Burrough's Interview 1974 - Black Noise Bomb:
http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Appearances/Press/1974/0228/rsinterview/
Beat Godfather Meets Glitter Mainman - Rolling Stone - February 28, 1974
by Craig Copetas
William Seward Burroughs is not a talkative man. Once at a dinner he gazed down into a pair of stereo microphones trained to pick up his every munch and said, "I don't like talk and I don't like talkers. Like Ma Barker. You remember Ma Barker? Well, that's what she always said. ' Ma Barker doesn't like talk and she doesn't like talkers.' She just sat there with her gun."
This was on my mind as much as the mysterious personality of David Bowie when an Irish cabbie drove Burroughs and me to Bowie's London home on 17 November ("Strange blokes down this part of London, mate"). I had spent the last several weeks arranging this two-way interview. I had brought Bowie all of Burroughs' novels: Naked Lunch, Nova Express, The Ticket That Exploded and the rest. He'd only had time to read Nova Express. Burroughs for his part had heard only two Bowie songs, 'Five Years' and 'Starman', though he had read all of Bowie's lyrics. Still they had expressed interest in meeting each other.
...
Burroughs: Politics of sound.
Bowie: Yes. We have kind of got that now. It has very loosely shaped itself into the politics of sound. The fact that you can now subdivide rock into different categories was something that you couldn't do ten years ago. But now I can reel off at least ten sounds that represent a kind of person rather than a type of music. The critics like being critics, and most of them wish they were rock-and-roll stars. But when they classify they are talking about people not music. It's a whole political thing.
Burroughs: Like infrasound, the sound below the level of hearing. Below 16 MHz. Turned up full blast it can knock down walls for 30 miles.
You can walk into the French patent office and buy the patent for 40p. The machine itself can be made very cheaply from things you could find in a junk yard.
Bowie: Like black noise. I wonder if there is a sound that can put things back together? There was a band experimenting with stuff like that; they reckon they could make a whole audience shake.
Burroughs: They have riot-control noise based on these soundwaves now. But you could have music with infrasound, you wouldn't necessarily have to kill the audience.
Bowie: Just maim them.
Burroughs: The weapon of the Wild Boys is a Bowie knife, an 18-inch bowie knife, did you know that?
Bowie: An 18-inch bowie knife.... you don't do things by halves, do you? No, I didn't know that was their weapon. The name Bowie just appealed to me when I was younger. I was into a kind of heavy philosophy thing when I was 16 years old, and I wanted a truism about cutting through the lies and all that.
Burroughs: Well, it cuts both ways, you know, double-edged on the end.
Bowie: I didn't see it cutting both ways till now.
http://exileonmoanstreet.blogspot.com/2010/09/repost-william-s-burroughs-david-bowie.html