I acknowledged what's arguably been the biggest music news of the past week - the release of The Beatles' catalogue on iTunes - in an earlier blog posting. However, I was chuffed to learn from the New Musical Express that the most downloaded song so far has been - you guessed it - "Hey Jude." Hey, 50,000,000 Beatles fans can't be wrong, right?
Both Rolling Stone and MOG Music Network published great interviews with Daniel Lanois this week. In the interview for MOG, he said this about his own personal aesthetic:
DL: If there’s a flavor that lives on in my work, it would be that I’m hoping to provide somebody with some kind of a life-changing experience, and I think that’s the job of art: to cause somebody to look at their own life, and through the art, they might want to modify something in their own life and be part of the movement.
I can say this - Lanois' aesthetic has certainly changed my life. In a future post I'll discuss the night I first heard Bob Dylan's album Time Out Of Mind, and how I knew from that moment on I would never be the same again.
He also had this fascinating quote about the difference between Dylan's and Neil Young's approach to songwriting:
DL: First of all, I should say that it was nice to work with an American national treasure [in Dylan] and now a Canadian national treasure [Young]. Bob’s lyrical journey occupies a lot of space through a work day, and it’s really what it’s all about. Neil’s just a little more casual about it and says, “Well, that’s what I wrote and that’s what we’re singing.” Maybe after a few days go by and I look at the lyrics, I realize Neil is a heavy-duty lyricist. But he makes less of a fuss about it.
From RS we learned that, among other things, he's got some Robert Plant recordings he's sitting on and that "we'll maybe put them on the next Black Dub record." May I be the first to say yes, please!
And speaking of Black Dub, here's their NPR Tiny Desk Concert. I think Tiny Desk Concerts should be mandatory at every workplace, but that's just me.
It was 38 years ago this week that Danny Whitten died tragically of an overdose. Here's a fine blog posting from my friends over at Thrasher's Wheat in remembrance.
The Marin Independent Journal reported on Friday that Joan Baez was recovering from minor injuries sustained after falling from a tree on her property. Feel better soon, Joan!
Florida Governor Charlie Crist is pursuing a posthumous pardon for Doors frontman Jim Morrison, according to Wednesday's New York Times. Morrison was tried and convicted in 1970 of two misdemeanor counts of profanity and indecent exposure, stemming from incidents that allegedly occurred onstage during a concert in Miami in 1969. He died in Paris while appealing his conviction.
It's never been unequivocally proven that Morrison actually exposed himself on stage, and at any rate this seems very tame considering what's happened at some concerts since then (Marilyn Manson, anyone?). Pardon him, already!
The accolades are rolling in for the new Bruce Springsteen box set The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story. I've not listened to it yet, but the fab press it's garnering has certainly piqued my interest. If you're also hankering for an earful, you can preview the previously unreleased tracks - gathered into a stand-alone album called The Promise - on Spinner.com.
And for those of my generation who think "Because The Night" is a 10,000 Maniacs song, get a load of this:
While we're discussing The Boss, he visited Late Night with Jimmy Fallon on Tuesday. Here's Springsteen and "Neil Young" delivering their heartfelt cover of Willow Smith's "Whip My Hair."
I believe there are two kinds of people in the world: those who "get" Bob Dylan, and those who don't. Or, put another way: those who expect Dylan to conform to their expectations of him, and those who know better. Why am I ranting, you might ask? NPR's Bob Boilen went to see Dylan's concert in Washington, D. C. this past weekend, and was left wanting:
But truth be told, it just wasn't good. Anyone who sees Bob Dylan live knows that his songs are often barely recognizable from the originals. I usually applaud artists who change their songs and find new ways of breathing life into them, but rarely is that true of Bob Dylan. Usually the melodies are gone, the singing is often staccato, small phrases stripped of their singable signatures. In the gym at George Washington University, it was nearly impossible to make out the words if you didn't already know them.
I've heard this argument time and time again, and quite frankly it just gets old. Look, I understand that Dylan has always been an acquired taste, and even more so nowadays. He's finally gotten that rough, hoarse, wizened old bluesman's voice he's been coveting since he was 20, and he NEVER plays the song EXACTLY as it is on the record. He's constantly reinventing his songs, tinkering with them sometimes to the point that yes, they are unrecognizable upon first listen. Personally, I love that; it doesn't detract from my enjoyment at all. The one time I've seen him live (April 29, 2006 in Jackson, MS) I was actually able to guess most of the songs within a few bars, with the exception of "Just Like A Woman" - I thought for sure we'd gotten "Every Grain Of Sand"!
And sometimes it can even deepen the song's meaning. That same night I heard an unforgettable version of "Desolation Row" that, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's devastation of the Mississippi Gulf Coast and New Orleans, I found deeply cathartic. It had an almost calypso-like feel to it - a nod to our tropical location, perhaps? Yet the mood was anything but calm and sunny. By the end of the song the band was hammering on the beat, and Dylan was spitting, howling, and snarling the words. He sounded positively pissed - and I can't be too sure, but from where I was sitting, it seemed almost as if he was enjoying giving voice to this anger. It destroyed me all over again, and it lifted me up - it said all of the things I wanted to say, and so much more eloquently than I could ever hope to. If I never see him in concert again, I will always be grateful to him for that one performance of that one song.
About four songs in I found myself wishing Dylan had left his talented band in the bus. I wanted him to step out from behind the keyboard, engage the crowd, strap on an acoustic guitar and sing. But I suppose that would be a bore to him. He seems more interested in keeping himself entertained than the audience, frankly, and who could blame him? Dylan has done over a hundred shows a year for the past 22 years, so I guess the thrill of reinventing his tunes is the primary motivation.
*Ding Ding Ding!* We have a winner, folks! Dylan doesn't do this for us; he's never done this for us. He does this for himself. I'm not saying you have to like it, nor am I saying you can't bitch about it - I'm saying that bitching about it is pointless. If there has been a single constant element in his career, it has been change. He has never stood still - Dont Look Back; I'm not there/I'm gone - and this, in my opinion, is what keeps him relevant and interesting. All I can suggest to those fans who are stymied by the Dylan of today is to try and find meaning within his art that is applicable to your own life.
In other Dylan news, Right Wing Bob's Sean Curnyn quotes Crain's New York Business in stating that literary agent Andrew "The Jackal" Wylie is shopping around several book deals on Dylan's behalf. Possible tomes include a book of poetry (yes, please), a collection of song backstories (ditto), and the next installment of Chronicles (sometime in my lifetime?). Hmmm . . . wonder what went sour with Simon & Schuster?
And finally, here's an interview from the Wall Street Journal with Bootleg Series co-producer Steve Berkowitz. This, dear readers, is the kind of job I want to have when I grow up.
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