bbc is doing a theme on american folk music right now, couple weeks back they had a night with his consecutive performances at the newport festival. 3 or 4 years or so in a row including the last one where he went electric. funny to see how he starts out all puny and happy and folksy and gradually starts developing his god-complex from year to year..:-]
agfa8x, modern times was not rubbish, you fool. the same concepts from 66 are still there, only more subtle.
and everyone should listen to visions of johanna, it's alright ma (i'm only bleeding), i'll keep it with mine, up to me, track 4 of another side, track 4 of blonde on blonde, track 8 of another side, track six of live 1966, wait - the entire blonde on blonde album, blood on the tracks, freewheelin, times they're a changin', highway 61, bringing it all back home, john wesley harding, all the bootlegs, the song not dark yet, well, come to think of it, you should just listen to every song he's ever created except for the horrible shit in the 80s.
fays - i liked the movie. i would like to see like an anthology sort of thing though, like what they did with the beatles. don't look back by d.a. pennebaker is fucking badass. it's in all black and white and shot in london. he rips apart the guy from time magazine. i wish more people did things like that; maybe our culture would become a bit more developed.
hey, c'mon, "Oh Mercy" was in the 80's, and the born-again albums, although they straddle late 70s/early 80s, have some of his most amazing songs (and you can ignore the christian messages and they're still great songs).
developing his god-complex from year to year
more like the god complex that was developed on him...he never went for that shit and says so in just about any recent interview he's given and in "Chronicles" (where you can read about hippies crashing through his roof in Woodstock to ask him about "where it's at".)
the eighties were good. oh mercy and infidels were both good albums. we could probably forget about empire burlesque. modern times i think was almost as good as time out of mind. love and theft i wasn't so in to.
more like the god complex that was developed on him
but he did his part in his first interviews inventing a sort of fictious gypsy character when he was just a "normal" guy tryin' to meet Guthrie and get a contract to do a record...
and I second a certain enthusiasm for the Oh Mercy and Infidels
though Infidels was to be produced by F. Zappa and not Knopfler... that would have been an interesting meeting: Dylan and Zappa doin' music together... "He hasn't too much sense of humor", said Zappa later... he talks about Dylan's interest in producing Infidels in his autobiography, "The Real Frank Zappa", which is as good as "Towards an Architecture" and definitely much more fun... those London Symphony Orchestra guys.. tsk, tsk.. :)
if I remember correctly, Zappa did not worked in the Infidels album because some legal problems with his records company, not because of Dylan's lack of sense of humour, btw...
wow, didn't know about the possible Zappa/Dylan collaboration...i bet that album would have been really interesting. Zappa was a protean creator if there ever was one and had his fingers in so many pies.
yep, like Corbu and Mies doin' a pavilion together in the 1930s..
I can't find my copy of 'The Real Frank Zappa Book', but have this other one, 'Electric Don Quixote' (by Neil Slaven, also a great book on his life and career) where it says:
"Infidels
Before Christmas [1982], Frank had given Robin Denselow a list of his projects: "There's a new album, The Man From Utopia, due out in two weeks, then I've just finished three film treatments and a treatment for a Broadway show. I've made a deal for an animated TV show on "Valley Girl". I've finished an 88-minute film, Baby Snakes, involving live concert footage and animation, there are two other 90-minute videos... I've waded through 300 of the 400 reels of tape from our last tour and there's enough for five albums there..."
He also told of a late-night visitor one recent December night: "I get a lot of weird calls [at home], and someone suddenly called up saying, 'This is Bob Dylan, I want to play you my new songs.' Now, I've never met him and I don't know his voice, but I looked at the video screen to see who was at the gate, and there, in the freezing cold, was a figure with no coat and an open shirt. I sent someone down to check to make sure it was not a Charles Manson, but it was him".
Dylan was led down to the studio, where he sat at the piano and played 11 songs and then asked Frank to produce his next album. "It could be funny", Frank grinned. "It's so ridiculous and off the wall that I feel I should do it. He doesn't have much of a sense of humour, but his new sounds are nice, so I'd like to produce them, though it would be a bit of an adjustment. I said he should sub-contract out the songs to Giorgio Moroder. I said he should do a complete synthesiser track and Dylan should play guitar and harmonica over the top".
For Dylan, that would have been over the top. He later maintaned that the project foundered because Frank asked for too much money and wanted to use his own musicians. In any event, Frank didn't hear from him again and the new album, Infidels, was recorded with co-producer Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor on guitars, and Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar provided the propulsion."
the excerpts of the interviews are from a The Guardian article from January 11, 1983, by Robin Denselow and titled 'The father of invention'
I guess that's all there is, but Zappa has talked about Dylan in a couple of interviews:
"Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' was a monster record. I heard that thing and I was jumping all over the car. And then when I heard the one after that, 'Like a Rolling Stone', I wanted to quit the music business, because I felt: 'If this wins and it does what it's supposed to do, I don't need to do anything else', but it didn't do anything. It sold; but nobody responded to it the way that they should have. (...) It didn't happen right away, and I was a little disappointed. I figured, 'Well, shit, maybe it needs a little reinforcing."
to me he's one of the absolute greatest. i just found it interesting to see the early career personality transformation. whether that was true megalomany or an act he put on i really don't know, but that there is something not simply constructed by media and the fans is to me pretty obvious if you watch the footage.
oh yeah, man. this is in don't look back. it's so so awesome cause donovan was so proud of his song (which was a good song) then dylan plays it's all over now baby blue and you can see the look in donovan's eyes like shit man this guys way more sophisticated. i'm screwed. it is all over now.
epea, i think it was a combo of both. he wanted to act a little more to entertain himself, and after all of the media's ridiculous questions and critique, it forced him to be someone he was not.
well, there's no question he created a persona and embellished his story, and likes to keep things a bit of a mystery, but as far as believing all the stuff about "saviour" and "voice of a generation", well, i think he jumped off that train real fast (or was it that motorcycle?).
i love hearing dylan imitations - the one from Walk Hard linked above is pretty funny - but this one is just inspired:
favorite dylan song? try naming only 1??
just 1? can't do it....no, just can't do it, sorry...although Idiot Wind might be it....then again....no, can't do it.
no; what are you referencing in relation to the comments on youtube?
ahh man. i can't do it. too many. i will say that on live 1966, just like a woman is brilliant. definitely top 3. the emotion in the way he says "there's too much pain in here, i can't stay in here" is fucking rocking. the harmonica solo is also amazing.
yea, live 66 is killer. "tell me momma" blows me away...the way he sings "something...is tearing....up your miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind"...with the band blaring along...just devastating.
She was workin' in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer,
I just kept lookin' at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear.
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same,
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue.
i liked the musical arrangement of sertab's version of one more cup of coffee in masked and anonymous i posted earlier. i thought it was a great song to fit in middle eastern sound. i wish she was a little more adventurous with it though.
well i hate to be judgmental, but i've seen quite a few live performances and he just seems over the top. it's like he's not being honest with himself when he moves. he does some really goofy things with his face that makes me think he's a crackhead.
bob dylan
discuss
quasi-folk begets creepy mustache
listen
enjoy
Thats totally wierd - I was just reading about him on Wikipedia
greatest songwriter that ever lived, bar none....
But me, I'm still on the road
Headin' for another joint
I think we should freez him and save him for future generations
at what point did he get deified or beatified or whatever?
... i mean, i likes me some 'lily, rosemary and the jack of hearts' as much as the next guy...
he ain't no god, he's just a song and dance man
i agree with emilio. he is just a song and dance man.
talked about this already, bout the time the doorknob broke...
hm, wasn't on archinect then...but really, what more needs to be said about mr. dylan that hasn't been said already?
his latest album was rubbish
what did you guys think about the movie?
bbc is doing a theme on american folk music right now, couple weeks back they had a night with his consecutive performances at the newport festival. 3 or 4 years or so in a row including the last one where he went electric. funny to see how he starts out all puny and happy and folksy and gradually starts developing his god-complex from year to year..:-]
One word: love
agfa8x, modern times was not rubbish, you fool. the same concepts from 66 are still there, only more subtle.
and everyone should listen to visions of johanna, it's alright ma (i'm only bleeding), i'll keep it with mine, up to me, track 4 of another side, track 4 of blonde on blonde, track 8 of another side, track six of live 1966, wait - the entire blonde on blonde album, blood on the tracks, freewheelin, times they're a changin', highway 61, bringing it all back home, john wesley harding, all the bootlegs, the song not dark yet, well, come to think of it, you should just listen to every song he's ever created except for the horrible shit in the 80s.
fays - i liked the movie. i would like to see like an anthology sort of thing though, like what they did with the beatles. don't look back by d.a. pennebaker is fucking badass. it's in all black and white and shot in london. he rips apart the guy from time magazine. i wish more people did things like that; maybe our culture would become a bit more developed.
hey, c'mon, "Oh Mercy" was in the 80's, and the born-again albums, although they straddle late 70s/early 80s, have some of his most amazing songs (and you can ignore the christian messages and they're still great songs).
developing his god-complex from year to year
more like the god complex that was developed on him...he never went for that shit and says so in just about any recent interview he's given and in "Chronicles" (where you can read about hippies crashing through his roof in Woodstock to ask him about "where it's at".)
the eighties were good. oh mercy and infidels were both good albums. we could probably forget about empire burlesque. modern times i think was almost as good as time out of mind. love and theft i wasn't so in to.
but he did his part in his first interviews inventing a sort of fictious gypsy character when he was just a "normal" guy tryin' to meet Guthrie and get a contract to do a record...
and I second a certain enthusiasm for the Oh Mercy and Infidels
though Infidels was to be produced by F. Zappa and not Knopfler... that would have been an interesting meeting: Dylan and Zappa doin' music together... "He hasn't too much sense of humor", said Zappa later... he talks about Dylan's interest in producing Infidels in his autobiography, "The Real Frank Zappa", which is as good as "Towards an Architecture" and definitely much more fun... those London Symphony Orchestra guys.. tsk, tsk.. :)
if I remember correctly, Zappa did not worked in the Infidels album because some legal problems with his records company, not because of Dylan's lack of sense of humour, btw...
wow, didn't know about the possible Zappa/Dylan collaboration...i bet that album would have been really interesting. Zappa was a protean creator if there ever was one and had his fingers in so many pies.
yep, like Corbu and Mies doin' a pavilion together in the 1930s..
I can't find my copy of 'The Real Frank Zappa Book', but have this other one, 'Electric Don Quixote' (by Neil Slaven, also a great book on his life and career) where it says:
"Infidels
Before Christmas [1982], Frank had given Robin Denselow a list of his projects: "There's a new album, The Man From Utopia, due out in two weeks, then I've just finished three film treatments and a treatment for a Broadway show. I've made a deal for an animated TV show on "Valley Girl". I've finished an 88-minute film, Baby Snakes, involving live concert footage and animation, there are two other 90-minute videos... I've waded through 300 of the 400 reels of tape from our last tour and there's enough for five albums there..."
He also told of a late-night visitor one recent December night: "I get a lot of weird calls [at home], and someone suddenly called up saying, 'This is Bob Dylan, I want to play you my new songs.' Now, I've never met him and I don't know his voice, but I looked at the video screen to see who was at the gate, and there, in the freezing cold, was a figure with no coat and an open shirt. I sent someone down to check to make sure it was not a Charles Manson, but it was him".
Dylan was led down to the studio, where he sat at the piano and played 11 songs and then asked Frank to produce his next album. "It could be funny", Frank grinned. "It's so ridiculous and off the wall that I feel I should do it. He doesn't have much of a sense of humour, but his new sounds are nice, so I'd like to produce them, though it would be a bit of an adjustment. I said he should sub-contract out the songs to Giorgio Moroder. I said he should do a complete synthesiser track and Dylan should play guitar and harmonica over the top".
For Dylan, that would have been over the top. He later maintaned that the project foundered because Frank asked for too much money and wanted to use his own musicians. In any event, Frank didn't hear from him again and the new album, Infidels, was recorded with co-producer Mark Knopfler and Mick Taylor on guitars, and Robbie Shakespeare and Sly Dunbar provided the propulsion."
the excerpts of the interviews are from a The Guardian article from January 11, 1983, by Robin Denselow and titled 'The father of invention'
Zappa sampled Bob's guitar some years later:
http://www.edlis.org/twice/threads/flakes.html
from the link above:
I guess that's all there is, but Zappa has talked about Dylan in a couple of interviews:
"Dylan's 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' was a monster record. I heard that thing and I was jumping all over the car. And then when I heard the one after that, 'Like a Rolling Stone', I wanted to quit the music business, because I felt: 'If this wins and it does what it's supposed to do, I don't need to do anything else', but it didn't do anything. It sold; but nobody responded to it the way that they should have. (...) It didn't happen right away, and I was a little disappointed. I figured, 'Well, shit, maybe it needs a little reinforcing."
jesus, man how the hell are you discussing frank zappa? frank zappa is an overrated weirdo. fuck that guy.
that's a little harsh
Subterranean Homesick Blues isn't a record
I don't think that Zubin Mehta or Pierre Boulez would have spent a single second with "an overrated weirdo"...
and Subterranean was a record... a single record
that's not a record that's a single
misssinn the pointtt
oh, and i second the dont look back was kick ass
i got the point i just need to express how i am right about everything every time
don't look back seriously changed my life
^emilio:
to me he's one of the absolute greatest. i just found it interesting to see the early career personality transformation. whether that was true megalomany or an act he put on i really don't know, but that there is something not simply constructed by media and the fans is to me pretty obvious if you watch the footage.
oh yeah, man. this is in don't look back. it's so so awesome cause donovan was so proud of his song (which was a good song) then dylan plays it's all over now baby blue and you can see the look in donovan's eyes like shit man this guys way more sophisticated. i'm screwed. it is all over now.
epea, i think it was a combo of both. he wanted to act a little more to entertain himself, and after all of the media's ridiculous questions and critique, it forced him to be someone he was not.
did you read the comments on youtube??!!?
ok,,
favorite dylan song? try naming only 1??
well, there's no question he created a persona and embellished his story, and likes to keep things a bit of a mystery, but as far as believing all the stuff about "saviour" and "voice of a generation", well, i think he jumped off that train real fast (or was it that motorcycle?).
i love hearing dylan imitations - the one from Walk Hard linked above is pretty funny - but this one is just inspired:
dylan hears a who
favorite dylan song? try naming only 1??
just 1? can't do it....no, just can't do it, sorry...although Idiot Wind might be it....then again....no, can't do it.
panda:
no; what are you referencing in relation to the comments on youtube?
ahh man. i can't do it. too many. i will say that on live 1966, just like a woman is brilliant. definitely top 3. the emotion in the way he says "there's too much pain in here, i can't stay in here" is fucking rocking. the harmonica solo is also amazing.
haha i posted that right as you did without reading yours first, emilio
yea, live 66 is killer. "tell me momma" blows me away...the way he sings "something...is tearing....up your miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiind"...with the band blaring along...just devastating.
tell me momma, what the f*** is wrong with you (this time)
She was workin' in a topless place
And I stopped in for a beer,
I just kept lookin' at the side of her face
In the spotlight so clear.
And later on as the crowd thinned out
I's just about to do the same,
She was standing there in back of my chair
Said to me, "Don't I know your name?"
I muttered somethin' underneath my breath,
She studied the lines on my face.
I must admit I felt a little uneasy
When she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe,
Tangled up in blue.
ah yes, that interview...
i also like when other people do great versions of his songs.
i liked the musical arrangement of sertab's version of one more cup of coffee in masked and anonymous i posted earlier. i thought it was a great song to fit in middle eastern sound. i wish she was a little more adventurous with it though.
yes, that's a great version, and i like her voice...will have to pick up the cd.
blackharp...you are a young one...Zappa was a very talented individual. You obviously have not listened to his music.
well i hate to be judgmental, but i've seen quite a few live performances and he just seems over the top. it's like he's not being honest with himself when he moves. he does some really goofy things with his face that makes me think he's a crackhead.
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