honest with himself when he moves? ... were Chuck Berry or Mick Jagger "honest" with themselves when they were on stage? was Dylan "honest" when he, white-faced, did things like this:



have you seen 'Renaldo & Clara'? because even Zappa's film '200 Motels' seems a normal movie when compared with that Dylan's 3-hour nonsense...

and still some people have the nerve to ASK...:



Zappa hated drugs by the way...

yes. to me, dylan was more honest than any of these people. where did chuck berry come into this?

look at that guy. he looks like gallagher or weird al yankivic.

in zappa's case, humor definitely belonged in his music with a stashe like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-Rt56n-vC4

pay attention at 1:04

blackharp I have seen both in concert and well dylan can be really bad or he can be really good. I did see him on a very bad day I was about 30 feet from the stage. Zapa I saw in 1971 where he played at Smith College, NorthHampton Mass. I was fortunate to be about ten rows back from the stage. It was by far the best concert I have ever been to and I have been to alot of concerts. When a band is as tight as he was with his, it is a beautiful sound, no matter if the guy looks akin to weird al yankivic. The fricking guy was writting symphonies. I also believe he was an anti-drug artist.

Chuck Berry performed on stage, music and theatrics. So did Zappa and so did Dylan. Why is Bob more honest to you than the others...? they all interpreted fictitious characters. Berry became a duck on stage, Zappa a buffoon, Dylan a prophet, Ozzy a devil... who cares, they were all entertaining us in the end... sure some Dylan songs were used for some more 'serious' social matters but that's what other people did with his work... he was just a song and dance man.
Some Zappa lyrics were in fact much more "intellectually" devastating than some Dylan songs.. only that he presented his arguments with much more sense of humour and sarcasm (which needed some extra theatrics on stage).

[funny coincidence, Dylan's 'I dreamed I saw St Augustine' is playing right now from my pc... some of his 'unknown' songs are deliciously good]

whoa.. snook now I'm jealous! Zappa in 1971! with the Mothers I guess... that was right after Hot Rats?

yes he hated drugs, even forbid them in the band.. and the guy was writin' musical scores for low-budget movies in the 1940s even before rock'n'roll existed...

Zappa and Dylan exist in different universes...well, definitely different sensibilites and ways to make music. I could throw another spanner in the works of this conversation and mention Tom Waits: also a prodigious talent and amazing song writer, and, like Dylan, has the problem that some people can't get past his singing voice...fools.

Emilio....Tom Waits is to Dylan as John Prine is to Frank Zappa...
just my giggling thoughts.

I just picked up The Yellow Shark, Zappa's last work. Phenomenal. Serves notice to the rest of the pretentious modern music world.

Emilio, i dont find anything wrong with Dylan's singing voice,, I know what you mean, but, I guess its acquired taste,,makes sense?

he's got a voice like sand and glue...

woody guthrie said dylan's voice was the best he'd ever heard

woody has been dead for so long I wonder if he even remembers what bob's voice sounds like.

fays, personally I've liked Dylan's voice in all the different incarnations, starting with the Woody imitation (yes, Woody is continuing to remain dead) right up to the "old bluesman" voice of the most recent albums. Recently, though, in concert he hasn't much more than a rasp left and it pains me to hear it. Same with Waits, his sandpaper voice started somewhere in the middle...maybe #80 grit?...and was a fine thing, but now it's more like a #30 grit rasp and too much for my ears. But I still listen to both of them.

guthrie lives

indeed he does, in his music, and always will

So he's got a new one coming out April 28, and he talks about it at http://www.bobdylan.com/#/conversation, and that interview is a perfect example of why I like Bob. My favorite part is:

I suspect that a lot of men will identify with MY WIFE’S HOME TOWN. Do you ever get in hot water with your in-laws over your songs?
No not really. The only person it could matter to gets a kick out of it. That song is meant as a compliment anyhow.
Do relatives come up to you at cookouts and ask when you’re going to write a song for THEM?
Oh yeah, one of my uncles’ wives used to pester me all the time, “Bobby, when are you gonna write a song about me … put me on the radio?” It would make me uncomfortable.
How would you get out of it?
I’d say, “I already did Auntie. You’re just not listening to the right stations.”

I like this :

Say you wake up in a hotel room in Wichita and look out the window. A little girl is walking along the train tracks dragging a big statue of Buddha in a wooden wagon with a three-legged dog following behind. Do you reach for your guitar or your drawing pad?
Oh wow. It would depend on a lot of things. The environment mostly; like what kind of day is it. Is it a cloudless blue-gray sky or does it look like rain? A little girl dragging a wagon with a statue in it? I'd probably put that in last. The three-legged dog - what type? A spaniel, a bulldog, a retriever? That would make a difference. I'd have to think about that. Depends what angle I'm seeing it all from. Second floor, third floor, eighth floor. I don't know. Maybe I'd want to go down there. The train tracks too. I'd have to find a way to connect it all up. I guess I would be thinking about if this was an omen or a harbinger of something.

I think I finally know what I'm going to say to Bob when I meet him.

"Depends what angle I'm seeing it all from."

"I'd have to find a way to connect it all up."

I said this a few times today in studio.

Do you guys know where I can listen to the new album? I'de like to listen to the ENTIRE album if you catch what I'm throwing.

bossman, I like that answer too (and the question, it really got to what interests him). It shows his acute powers of observation and eye for detail, which every good writer should have...and every good architect.

blackharp, there's one song, Behind Here Lies Nothin', that was available on the web site (might still be), and you can find it through blog aggregators like Hype Machine; don't know where to listen to the whole album, though.

I think that should be "Beyond here..."

I just watched Masked and Anonymous again, great movie

haven't seen it, although i have the soundtrack which is pretty good

emilio, do you like the new music you've heard? i still have not heard it, but i'll get the new album. i really liked modern times, so something tells me this one will be great, too. i was very surprised to hear he completed a new album already, since his previous ones beginning in the nineties were stretched so thin. i'm getting the feeling he is trying to get everything out before he's gone.

blackharp, i never got a chance to respond to above, but now the album is out and my wife just got it for me (she's so nice) and i really like it. it's a rollicking, chicago-blues based affair, well accompanied by david hidalgo's (los lobos) accordion and mike campbell's (heartbreakers) guitar. his voice, which now sounds mostly cracked in concert, is, just like on the past 3 albums, a raspy, well worn, and wonderful thing - just like an old bluesman's (i would love to hear him play this stuff in a cozy little club, where he wouldn't have to strain to sing against the wail of marshall amps). my favorite song right now is "it's all good": it's dripping with sarcasm and skewers that inane phrase.