Who Is Watching (Anticipating) The Scorsese/Dylan Epic On Monday?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/index.html

I'm hardly a Dylan scholar, but not lacking in that area, and there was plenty I didn't know, and plenty I knew but enjoyed seeing/hearing in a new light.

This is as riveted as I've been by anything in a long time and, as I've said to some of you offline, this is the first time in probably as long that I got this excited about a release and then had it surpass even those expectations.

Yep, it's on there. Somehow seeing it makes it feel different. I suspect someone will revive the what did Dylan mean when he said I don't believe you thread.

however, its still one of the great artistic adventure storie and i don't mind being told it all again one more time. there's a lot of good detailed commentary from the old folkies about how dylan invented himself. bob himself is lucid and amusing. and the live footage from the 66 england tour is completely fucking transcendent.

and you're like, damn

the other thing the doc does is get across how fast it all happened and how scary it was for dylan. there's this clip from the steve allen show, and allen does this ridiculous intro where he's like "so bob, you're acclaimed as the spokesman for a generation, tapped into the zeitgeist of our youth, writing revolutionary poetry that will go down in history as some of our nation's greatest," or words to that effect. and dylan is sort of listening and shuffling uncomfortably. and then allen's like, "so, how long have you been making music." and dylan's like, "two years." it's hilarious.

actually, you could see the doc as bob's oprah moment. "My Pain: Bob Dylan on the suffering of revolutionizing popular music and being declared an instant genius."

Wonderful interviews with Dave Van Ronk, who was such a lovable guy.

Absolutely! That's a total run-to-the-record-store moment.

bob doing a pretty good job of remaining completely inscrutable so far.

-- JC-L

Yeah! Total agreement. A lot of musicians are going to get rediscovered via this.

Finding it pretty revelatory myself!

xp

Liam Clancy xp x 100!

vg

donovan is awful! i cringe whenever that commercial with "catch the wind" comes on. it's such a pedestrian dylan imitation.

I thought Part 1 was terrific. I'm glad that Scor personalized Dylan's soon-to-be abandonment of folk by including the bit that Seeger loved Dylan and was looking forward to the torch passing (Guthrie -> Seeger -> Dylan). I kind of wish that there had been a segment where person after person retold what Dylan had told them of his upbringing. He told a thousand different lies to people; it was humorous just seeing that one recollection of Dylan having bullshitted his back-story.

Martin Scorsese continues to explore the emotional, musicial and intellectual journey of Bob Dylan's early career.

At 23 Bob Dylan is already a newsworthy phenomenon and with that success comes expectations: expectations from the old left to become a political activist, expectations from the media to articulate the concerns of America's youth. It's a role in which Dylan is completely uninterested. He is already on the move, finding a new musical vocabulary to capture the complexity of a seismic cultural shift.

Scorsese delicately balances Dylan's internal world with images from the external world. Dylan's music is the backdrop as the war in Vietnam escalates and the nightly news brings home images people would never have dreamed of seeing on their television sets. Scorsese takes the time to let viewers really see the music unfold in revelatory concert performances.

By 1966 Dylan's personal world has become one of constant touring and press conferences. By the end of the film it is plainly obvious that for Dylan there are some journeys from which there is No Direction Home.

So when does Marty do his 4 hour doc on Tiny Tim? That I'd watch!

Vg

But weren't they standing? Was Moondog ever seen sitting?

"NOT A POP GROUP, NOT A POP GROUP"

In fact, all that Pennebaker footage from that tour is probably the best live footage of any rock act I've ever seen.

ha

I thought it was a pretty good film. Didnt seem exceptionally rockist to me (this was mentioned above). Liked how much of an outright liar dylan was/is. The whole thing was a complete act on one hand, but at the same time quite genuine. pretty fascinating.

"Let me add that I also had a wee bit too much of Liam Clancy."

yes. and most of it was current! at least show more of his performances.

Also, interesting that a lot of the interviews were done in 2001 and 2003.

Others have pointed out some curious parallels with "Lawrence of Arabia." There's even a motorcycle crash!

Ah! So Dylan's actually Welsh too?

"This project was co-produced by Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen. Scorsese was brought in well after Rosen had already conducted the interviews and approved the material."

- http://slate.msn.com/id/2126752/?nav=mpp

I don't agree that early Dylan is not interesting.

JtN has often told me that if it were the 1960s, I would be a booing folk purist. And I have often said: maybe so - OK. Well, last night did not change my mind, or make me feel bad about that. I sympathize greatly with the poor Northern folk who were so disappointed by Dylan. His live 'Like A Rolling Stone' was a cacophony; it was plainly an aggressive provocation, rather than a thrilling piece of music in its own right. Greil M and many others will tell you that this is as good as pop has got, or thereabouts, and that the dissidents are not with the plot. I disagree. I think that that performance was a waste of Dylan's great talent.

I don't mean to emphasize this over anything else, re. the fantastic Bob Dylan and the fantastic programme. But his 1960s detractors are always so easily mocked that I want to make a point of defending them.

The biggest impression confirmed, apart from all that, was the chameleon aspect / 'theatricality' / Dylan as 'actor' of himself, proto-Bowie. That seemed unmistakable.

It is all one of the greatest TV things ever, at least since Des joined ITV.

I'm a bit surprised by that myself!

OTM.

This was great...I loved that radio interview where Dylan is just plainly making up his background.....the stuff with Tony Glover on the train was great too.....

...it's funny, MN has so much pride in Dylan being from here, but in the film he's so NOT sentimental about Hibbing and his childhood, it was clearly just somewhere to get AWAY from....

I'm not surprised, it just MN has such a fever for claiming people as "native sons"...even Charles Schultz who barely even lived here...it's "funny" if you live here.....

Actually, I'm kind of surprised that MN hasn't done more to claim Dylan as a native son - for example, perhaps building something in Hibbing to commemorate his birthplace, like a statue or a plaque or something - even if just for reasons of tourism and cash.

Which one? there's a couple in the film. I think you could call Newport 65 a cacophony, mainly because the sound quality was poor. The English tour version rings clear as a bell though.

Of course, if your critique of a piece of rock 'n' roll music is to call it a "cacophony" and "aggressive provocation," then you're fairly clueless about the inherent formal properties of rock 'n' roll, but that's another matter...

"This project was co-produced by Dylan's manager Jeff Rosen. Scorsese was brought in well after Rosen had already conducted the interviews and approved the material."

the tip-off was the van ronk interview. he died in february 2002.

I do agree that the doc as a whole is a little too standard issue. I was expecting a slightly more interesting format, for some reason - more film clips, maybe, rather than so much of the usual "people reminiscing while the camera pans slowly over still photographs." But it's still a treat.

and of course the ginsberg interview (he died in 1997).

How so? It seems merely like a powerful way of inserting some dramatic foreshadowing into a well-worn story. I mean the last line in the show being that bit about having his finger on the pulse of the national culture. And knowing what happens next. It's pretty clever work on the director’s part without any rockist motivation as far as I can tell unless a dramatic narrative is rockist.

I think I explained the rockist comment in my post above. Rockist sort of because of the big lead up to the big '66 Greil Marcus moment. The overhyping of rock lore.

No biggie, really. I'm not like all steamed up because IT'S SO DAMN ROCKIST or anything!

is the '66 footage included in the (semi-buried) film made from that tour, with the famous lennon conversation?

Yeah, it's in Eat The Document.

We were vacationing in northern MN a few years ago and I made a side trip to Hibbing, mainly to see if there was anything like this, but no, nothin'. I went into one record store and they had three or four Dylan CDs. Disappointing.

It's dramatic because not only are the Hawks shows shocking in their juxtaposition, strength of the performances and audience reaction, but they're cutting into a narrative that only built (for this segment) in the adulation for Dylan as a progressive/folkie/political figure. Anyway, I saw it as a story telling element, setting him or his audience up for the fall in act 2. I mean we all know the story, he's just trying to breath some new life into it.

"In the documentary, we get only hints of the artful thievery that Dylan specialized in and profited from. "Blowin' in the Wind," for example, was lifted from the Negro spiritual "No More Auction Block," and Dylan's musical expeditions continue—on his most recent album, he was accused of lifting passages from an obscure Japanese novel. "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." T.S. Eliot said that. "Don't steal, don't lift." Bob Dylan said that. He did indeed steal and lift, but only in the service of an art that was all his. No Direction Home doesn't spell out this aesthetic, but in a 1964 clip, Dylan provides an answer of sorts to his critics. Steve Allen asks Dylan if he sings his own material or other people's. He replies: "They're all mine, now."

"The whitewashing doesn't end with that moment: Where, in this rock 'n' roll biopic, are the sex and drugs? The only mention of these essential Dylanesque tropes comes from the lewd, crude, and dangerous Peter Yarrow (usually seen on PBS in telethons with his partners in crime Paul and Mary), who wistfully recalls, "Everyone wanted to get high with Bobby. Everyone wanted to sleep with Bobby." Where's that documentary?"

There was a picture of Dawson from the 50s with a Strat in the Fender catalog from a couple of years ago and it looked a whole lot like the guy playing with Gene Vincent.

oh wow I didn't know that...that's a clever little "connection" I didn't pick up on....

Like I wrote above, I think the doc provided vital context that many folks often miss or don't know about. It never purports to be a straight bio, which is why it stops where it does. I'd contend that Dylan has been in confrontational '66 mode ever since, to various degrees of success. The kid folkie in the first half of the doc could have been the first great rock and roll death post Buddy Holly.

dylan covered "no more auction block" (it's on one of the bootleg series discs). i can't find a connection between the two songs.

You probably think that's a Punk thing to say. It's quite the opposite.

I mean, fucking come on.

http://www.rockabillyhall.com/RonnieDawson.html

It's not even that I disagree with you. It's just that what you're saying is meaningless. It's like hating folk music because it's played on acoustic guitars. Rock is meant to be cacophonous and aggressive. What's meaningful is talking about whether it succeeds on its own terms, not saying "I don't like the terms." Who cares what you like or don't like? Especially if you can't be bothered explaining why. Dickhead.

You probably think that's a Punk thing to say. It's quite the opposite.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

the melodies are very similar. Dylan changed a lot of the cadence on it to fit the words, obv., though.

and thanks Yancey!

Another fun fact in that book: the Band were originally signed to Capitol as the Crackers!

I thought it was The Honkies....isn't that the name that Manuel says is "a little too 'street'" in the Last Waltz?

Actually, RM mentions both in the movies and says they considered those names before choosing The Band.

Her sanctimonious trill is a menace.

she still has a total crush on him

so do i. if i could go back in time i'd pay serious money to see the kooper/bloomfield lineup.

ive been making an argument recently for Neil over Bob as the best (blah blah blah), but after seeing this, i feel like a fucking ass.

"Over the next 18 months we became quite pally before his sudden and tragic death on 11 July 2001 from severe allergic shock, possibly a reaction to a number of stings from the bees he'd just started to keep."

http://photos1.blogger.com/img/110/1442/1024/grammyDylanSoyBomb.jpg

Dylanus Interruptus.

Yeah, the only real problem is the way some of the live stuff is cut.

Yeah, that "Judas" thread looks to be gone :( My best guess is that it was from that period where we lost like two weeks of posts, last year. It has to be, I'm sure it wasn't intentionally deleted.

No shit. Is that Tom Wilson murmuring in the background on We're Only in It for the Money, bitching about VU?

"I thought it was really great but man -- there must be SO MUCH Pennebaker '66 tour footage and all of it in this thing looks incredible. Why can't somebody put together three hours of footage just from that? and include full versions of all 16 songs? This really needs to be done. Or better yet, a DVD boxset of ALL of it. Eat the Document is a waste of time."

This is what I don't get. Pennebaker could make about five volumes of his footage and I'd probably lap it up.

ooh, and what about the little clip with him and Johnny Cash singing? johnny seemed a little tipsy, but it was sweet to see.

No kidding. Not to mention Cecil Taylor, Coltrane, Soft Machine and many others.

ep 2 felt rushed, esp the second half. i mean, did they even mention 'blonde on blonde'? they had 3.5 hours, and i got bored by part 1. silly.

hahaha everyone EMP is showing Eat the Document October 7, and I live across the street. not the bootleg--Dylan's copy.

Two of the classics were the Swedish guy who had never even heard him sing and the woman who asked him if his songs had more of a subtle or an obvious message in them because people had said that the message was more subtle in his songs. Dylan questioned where she'd heard this, and brilliantly much to her embarassment she had to admit she had read it in a magazine. Very funny/ uncomfortable.

What was most enjoyable to me was his sense of fun & glee at the press confs etc - Pennebaker said, I think, that he showed Dylan the first day's rushes & thenceforth he was playing up to the camera & acting the role of Bob Dylan: this makes sense. The bit outside the poodle parlour in Knightsbridge was fantastic.

as far as I know, he's only let it be shown a few times in a couple of cities. Minneapolis was one, in '99 (I went, of course), and I think this is the second showing at EMP. I don't think it's "touring," which is too bad--it really should.

Still, he was a bit much but I really really enjoyed the two shows and I'm not even a big fan of Dylan.

Must find lots of Odette.

xpost (lots) AaronK, his voice WAS a surprise!

'i think of myself more as a song-and-dance man'

Does anyone remember hendrix night on BBC2 (about 2 years ago): I have skecthy memory but it was kind of like a doc followed by that amazing set at woodstock. I dunno...maybe they could've had a doc with lots of present day dylan and maybe just footage? Thought there wasn't enough present day dylan (maybe he didn't allow for much time as a pre-condition).

as the press stuff on the doc:

The creepiest of all was that really intense guy who asked him about the shirt he wore in the highway 61 cover.

(and the woman who asked about his 'subtlety' got it from a movie mag)

Did anyone see (I guess this is UK only) the BBC four prog on dylan covers afterwards? Lulu version of 'mr tambourine man' was horrifying but kind of entertaingly so. XTC's (live) version of 'all along the watchflower' was amazing. best thing on there.

Speaking of which, what is with him and the Napoleon references? Elsewhere in the documentary I think he describes something as being Napoleonic...and then there is the Napoleon in his lyrics... Is it a kind of generational thing? Like how back in the '50's really florid psychotic people used to imagine that they were Napoleon...but how nowadays someone would just have the delusion that they were the Pope or Alan Greenspan or something...

Also, I thought it was funny how the only time present-day Dylan really seemed to show much contempt for anyone was when he talked about the Turtles! He totally sneered when he said their name, too...as if it was an unthinkably absurd name for a band.

best bit was the new excuse for pete seeger trying to cut the sound at newport. 'his dad was deaf'. fucken folkies!

also, has anybody else read the CP Lee book about Manchester 66 that implies a lot of the booing on the tour was orchestrated by the Communist Party of GB, who kind of arbitrated folk in those days?

What's strange is that this contention did not strike me as coming from either Provacateur-Dylan ("They were booing themselves...") or Sphinx-Dylan ("They were booing a horse..."), nor like he was saying that they were booing a construct or whatever, that they were listening dishonestly. It sounded rather like it was coming from a TOTALLY DELUSIONAL Dylan, like he hadn't yet processed the fact 40 years on. He seemed to bristle at the question.

Did I miss the context? Can someone please explain this to me?

>

taped pt 1 of the Martin Scorese PBS two-part 4-hour NO DIRECTION BOUND dylan thing last night, and still not/never feeling the dylan thing in any respect but as a songwriter. on the Pt 1 he's a pretty cool crude guitar player in 1961, then he goes to hell (spastic rhythms) by 1964. and his electric bands...kill me now. horrible. Sam the Sham rocked harder onstage, i bet. i mean c'mon...the Band just plain suck. (except when they had a really good song their rocking-chair style couldn't fuck up). (although Mickey Jones's on part of the 1965-66 tours...ah, they had THREE different drummers that period, live. it was a farce. you gotta have THE drummer, one guy, c'mon...did the Stones in 1965 tour with three different drummers? don't think so.).

that said, even as a lousy peformer Dylan craps all over david bowie('s career). and the "metamorphosis" (from pre-Woody generic average folkie, to Fall 1960 obsessed Woody wannabe, and then the fast track as a songwriter by 1962) IS astonishing; it all happens within 12 months. (or 6 months, so say the Minnesotaeans he impressed when he went back there summer 1961 on his first visit back since the Jan 23rd, 1961 arrival in NYC lookin' for Buddy Holly's ghost, forget about that woody dope).

Martin Carthy? i bet you $100 they'll miss this part in the docu. when Dylan and schmuck/poser Richard Farina spent 3 months in england, late 1962-early 1963, he spends big time around Carthy who introduces him to UK traditional folk tunes for THE FIRST TIME. dylan had no clue. 2 or 3 of the tunes Cathy teaches him wind up on later dylan albums ("girl of the north country" one of them). this is a really interesting episode because it shows how small-time and fragmented the "authentic" pockets of the folk scenes were...that a big-time major-label folkie (coming from the "authentic" side on our side of the ocean) had no clue of the UK trad repertoire. even though Dylan (like all the others) had spent huge time poring through the archives at Gerdes Folk Center or whatever the fuck it was. Martin Carthy kicks mega ass. his Steeleye Span stuff = awesome. (the very first one, not originally issued in america, which was true electric folk rock and definitely as good as Fairport).

one tune that WAS really great on the 1st part: his early live version (1961 or 1962) of "man of constant sorrow" just kills the other versions (by other acts on the show, like the lame New Lost City Ramblers whatever), it's really damn good.

ah...and the Maria Muldaur footage (1964 probably, w/the even dozen crummy jug band, and present tense as interveiwee) is really great. she is one charming personality.

but overall: any two great Chubby Checker twist 45s (let's take "The Fly" and "Pony Time" for starters; there's many more before you even get to Dee Dee Sharp and the amazing cameo-parkway session drummer) shoved up the ass of the "authentic" folkies explodes the whole damn movement in 5 seconds. apparently this is where the "authenticity" song and dance came from, which has been a blight on rock and roll the minute it wormed its head in (by the late 60's). any musicologist will tell you that -- once it's anythng more fancy than one-microphone live-to-disc and un-EQ'd, for Robert Johnson or the Original Carter Family -- "authenticity" is a farce. recording by its very nature (in any but that case)
is an artiface. or as UK music mag columnist famed Jack Good described the early Gary U.S. Bonds hits, "modern impressionism!" in other words = i don't care if you're rocking up some 1843 UK trad song or a dopey original comp osition retrieved from your own bunghole = it's still impressionistic surrealism on that recording tape. or digital-whatever.

i guess that was Dylan's big contribution -- nuking the lamer (musically reactionary) parts of the folk-movement. but even Freddie & the Dreamers coulda done (or did) that.

Greil Marcus (writing all the way back in the late 60's) says that pre-Beatles AM radio just "felt stupid" in the early 60's, so i'll take his word for it. although i wonder if his tinted-recollection is just of one local station? you think?

if Dylan had had any balls he'd have hired the Turtles as his backing/touring band. THEIR drummer shreds all over the fucking Band. and you can ask Marc Bolan (who owed half of his UK hitmaking career to 'em) how good the howie/mark backing vocals are. i fuck the fucking Band to hell and back, they suck if you're talking about rock and roll. (as opposed to their perfectly fine Civil War snooze rock style).

and, snapping photographs at the reporters on the runway was hilariously funny.

loved joan baez's immitations of him.

I don't know, the "Dylan, can you suck on the tip of your glasses?" was filled with more sweaty, desperate creepiness.

Those early folkies (Seeger, Neuwirth, et al) were a pretty insufferable lot. The origins of ROCKISM.

haha people who sympathise with joan remain a complete mystery to me
She's a drag, a well-known drag.

i don't think anyone would make a case for dylan 65-66 based on how "hard" he "rocked" (god i hate when yankee music critics start going on how about who can and cannot Rock)

what was great about The Band + dylan was the organ. that's what really stands out about that live footage, levon helm is just going fucking nuts, he "shreds" al kooper...

-- Suzy Creemcheese (LostMyLogi...), September 28th, 2005. (SuzyCreemcheese)

man..that album cover guy looked totally scary...John Hinkley....It's easy to think "Oh shut up rockstar, the old 'i'm so uncomfortable w/fame thing is so cliche bullshit'" but seeing some of that footage, I sort of understood how unsettling and annoying all that must have been...

Other favorite interview part:

Scandanavian journalist: "Do you think you are the ultimate beatnik?"

Dylan: "Um...I don't know...what do you think?"

Journalist: "I don't know, I've never heard your music."

It was interesting to see how unscripted and unprepared some of the journalists were in the interview segments. I think it shows how much the PR biz has changed.

Dylan was a real nut when it came to movies. I guess up to the very last minute he refused to play "The Last Waltz." And he had final say on his footage in the "Concert for Bangledesh," supposedly choosing shots with his face obscured by some pole or cable (I've never seen it).

"And I'm asking how much you got..."

Also -- is present-day Al Kooper played by Tim Robbins in his High Fidelity character?

Worst email evah.

oops, i did know this! I used to have Band box sets and shit but it's a long time since i listened to them

martin did a really nice doc on the blues for BBC four so a doc on folk leading up (but not really) including dylan might have worked best for him. still awesome though, not least bcz dylan made his presence count...I really liked his point abt playing amplified music in those halls used to stage plays (don't know what that's like). not that the booing wd have stopped...

not at all. present-day kooper is not a new-age hippie, he's a very rich big-industry-macher-jew (tm) with a slight veneer of stonerness. he's hella funny, too.

Generally speaking, I like Dylan w/ the Hawks ca. '66 more than Dylan w/ the Butterfield/Blues Project guys. The Hawks had more character - and you'd THINK that some elements of this character might have been lost if he had been backed by Chubby Checker's band or the Turtles, wouldn't you?

I like Robbie Robertson's lead guitar playing on this stuff. Very biting and kind of skronky. More wild than Bloomfield, I think, even if Bloomfield had better chops. And Garth Hudson's presence. And the drummer they had on that tour sounds fine to me.

*raises glass*

If you want to see a terrible Dylan documentary, watch the one hosted by Mickey Jones made of Super 8 footage he shot during that European tour. There's no sound, so he walks you through every image in voice over.

IIRC, Pennebaker's film from the 66 tour was titled "You Know Something Is Happening" and Greil Marcus (if no one else) has actually seen it (it's mentioned in the Rockfilm section of the old Rolling Stone rock history book), and he claims it shits from high above onto Eat The Document.

i like dylan's messed up guitar playing. i think it suits him perfectly. what strikes me the most as a dylan newbie though are the lyrics. several times during both parts i was just gutted by what he was singing.

one other thing that really struck me about part two was the rather damning portrayal of music critics at the time. was there even one decent question asked?

As in fake AND neurotic or faking his neuroses? Either way that is damningly accurate.

Since these two statements directly contradict each other, they can't be "damningly accurate" either way

Well, he is a doctor.

Q: Who knows Bob Dylan?
A: Nobody. Not even Bob Dylan.

You come to Nashville and the best you can do is Bob Johnston?

But I have no license to this opinion.

Or neurotic-seeming, whatever.

umm this strikes me as the most intelligent thing a jerkoff fan ever said.

it doesn't just pertain to dylan, it pertains to art in general, or a certain strand of art i suppose. Go back to Hamlet, the prince's whole scheme to expose the truth is to pretend to be mad, which eventually swallows him whole.

in popular music, or painting, or writing, what pose is more hallowed than that of the tortured artiste? but, as fans or critics, what do we want of the artist? the impossible, we want him to be such a liar that he tells our truths. If he is too fake a liar, we call him contrived; in effect, we dress the artist as santa clause and then expect him to bring us just the gifts we desire. if he doesn't, he's just another mall employee.

(all things that have been rolling around my head since seeing the Newport footage for the first time last night)

I did enjoy the first installment of Dylan's autobiography. I admire him in a way but can't bring myself to listen to his music too much. more effort than I care to expend on words and occasional music, at this point in my existence.

The Turtles Thread (Cuz I Couldn't Find One) A.K.A. I Finally Heard Turtle Soup.

The most striking things have been mentioned, and I seem to recall a lot of the press footage, or general attitude from Dylan, from Don't Look Back (the Meeting People is Easy of the '60s?) "Put your glasses in your mouth." "I haven't listened to your records." The t-shirt guy, who if pressed, would have given Dylan a thesis on the meaning of his t-shirt on Highway 61.

But-- unless I missed mention on the thread-- that bit where Dylan was riffing on the words on the side of a building blew my mind. Not what he was saying necessarily but the free associated beat-minded wordplay, his clear admiration of words, goofiness, coupled with this notion of Dylan playing to the camera, playing "Bob Dylan", just seemed very poignant and bare and vulnerable. Many layers. Maybe I'm being just like the wank who asked about the t-shirt though.

Heh, I do like Ginsberg's Holy Spirit supposition..Infact all of AG's interviwed contributions were magnificent.

F*ck!!!

p

There were moments in this programme, actually mostly the interviews with older Dylan, when I thought Dylan physically resembled Bowie - all rather weird.

and he totally looks like david cross.

my admiration for dylan definitely increased since watching this - especially for his early, pre rolling stone work.

-- pete johnson (bongo_pedr...), September 29th, 2005.

OTM, they and a couple of the other folk sequences look like they were taken from some TV special. I'd love to know what is was and if it's available. John Jacob Niles and Odetta are going to experience a mysterious spike in records sales this week. Listening as I do nowadays to a lot of Joanna Newsom, Faun Fables, and Devendra Banheart's Golden Apples of the Sun comp, the early part of the doc reinforced the weird power of American folk music for me. The underbelly of mystery exposed by Niles and Odetta as opposed to the safe harmonies of Peter Paul & Mary and The Weavers.

Even the early Joan Baez stuff was striking which surprised me - she apparently got caught up in her own image / movement which makes her later 60s stuff unbearable, as someone similarly remarked upthread.

I've only watched the first part of the doc, but so far it's done a great job of grounding Dylan in the environment of the time. It clearly shows what he meant to folk music at the time, but also doesn't hide what he really was - an actor always looking for a new mask, an empty vessel for others to project onto. Was it William Carlos Williams who said that art should be "a fake garden with real toads"? In that sense, Dylan was a true artist - a real fake, a trickster.

By the time we get to the Madonna-era people are used to the concept of a "musical persona," adopting and disposing of one's image like others change shirts, and Scorsese did a great job of depicting how Dylan nearly invented this game and then paid the price of his grand innovation (deception). Dylan alternately satisfies/confounds his audience's desire for "authenticity" like a skilled Don Juan manipulator.

At one point Van Ronk mentions how he and the folkies thought Dylan was politically naive at the time but in looking back he admits Dylan was much more sophisticated than any of them were. It's true that Dylan was playing the game on a whole other level than the musicians around him, and this "way-of-being" needs to be judged separately from his actual words/music. The doc illuminates the performance-art aspect of his schtick, an aspect that's faint but always present, until he turns up the volume (literally and figuratively) in '65.

Another interesting observation from Levon's book: the first two Band records feature virtually no soloing from Robertson, despite him being a shit-hot guitarist. That's supposedly because he had gotten it out of his system on the '66 tour!

Does anyone else find it interesting that from "Biograph" on, Dylan's been relatively open with the vaults? I mean, the guy must be giving the go ahead to certain material, unless he's deligating the work to a crony. Seven volumes, several discs of the Bootleg Series, all historic shows or studio material: impressive. It makes me think Dylan's a lot more aware (of his legacy, of the historic value of his outtakes, of the world around him) than he lets on.

The Newport vers. of Maggies Farm is a revelation...wow....it's funny...there's really only one chord change in the song (that comes on the parts like "they say sing while you slave, but I just get bored), but they only do it the first time...the rest they just plow away at that same repetitve groove...it's like bloooz Shellac.....I wonder if that was intentional or they just didn't know the song that well...

Also, really like the alt. takes of Desolation Row and It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry....and the previously unreleased Ballad of a Thin Man is fucking amazing...spooky...played it for a friend last nite and he said "Sounds like Dylan and the Bad Seeds" haha

It's possible to find a very similar recording to the Niles performance but I can't find any Odetta versions of Waterboy that come anywhere near this particular clip. I'd love to see the rest of it.

The programme also altered my understanding of Dylan’s worship of Woody Guthrie. I'd always though of Guthrie as THE pivotal influence on Dylan but, in this particular account, he seems to have simply been part of Dylan’s more general feast of inspiration at that time.
Which seems a bit contrary to the account in Chronicles...

Also, there's a lil' solo break towards the end of the live Newport "Maggie's Farm" where Bloomfield starts reminding me of Voidoid's era Robert Quine. It's skronky!

There's a post on Stereogum titled "Suck On Your Glasses, Judas". Thought that was pretty funny...

no one has a digital recording of that clip, now do they?

um, it's obvious that for the last five years at least dylan has been doing everything he can to make sure that he goes down in history in the manner that he feels appropriate. everything from time out of mind on has been one big self-managed publicity campaign to control his legacy.

Do you think you'd have the will power to do otherwise if you were in his position. Every human wants control, at the very least, of his own life...if you're famous it just becomes more transparent.

a guy at the record store said he did some electric rock band albums in the later 60s too, are they worth checking out?

everything from time out of mind on has been one big self-managed publicity campaign to control his legacy.

well if this nefarious plan includes continuing to release albums like Love&Theft, then I hope he continues!

I didn't say I had a problem with it! Chronicles is wonderful, the albums are wonderful etc. But we shouldn't be completely credulous about the version of his life/meaning of his work he's putting out there. And for the most part, people/critics are being completely credulous.

xpost

besides which, no documentary, no matter who it's by, is ever "simply how it was." there a million choices that go into what to leave out, what to include, and how to present it.

read, for instance, positively 4th street by david hadju. you'll get a different and somewhat less flattering perspective on dylan's greenwich village years.

it's not paranoid to say that dylan's people control the footage. it is literally true. they own all the footage of dylan that was used in the film, and they gave it to scorcese to use. there's plenty of stuff he never got to look at. this is common knowledge.

yes, i think what you are saying is that scorcese is good.

x-post

Anyway, I wish "Time Out of Mind" and "Love and Theft" were conscious attempts at (re)beuilding his legacy, because that means he can make a good album when he wants to, or when he tries hard enough to. But I'm not all sure.

I think it's REALLY interesting that i don't remember ANY mention of Ramblin' Jack Elliott, cuz EVERYONE stole from him. Especially Dylan. Dylan's whole early thang was all Woody and Jack. Maybe I missed a part where they discussed how much Dylan owed to Jack? Or do I cry conspiracy! (i missed some of the second part due to circumstances beyond my control.)

I find it quite amusing that you all seem to think i'm promoting some kind of conspiracy theory about dylan being a bad person here.

So what kind of dirt does Hadju dish up in Positively 4th Street? Dylan killed a small child? Slept with his best friend's wife? Skipped out on the rent? What?

In other news, I'm going to do a bit of speculation here and guess that the video clips of Odetta and John Jacob Niles are from a TV show that aired around 1959 - 1960 called The Revlon Revue aka Revlon Presents. It seems like it was a theme-based variety show; Harry Belafonte produced one in 1959 called "Tonight with Harry Belafonte" with a then-unknown Norman Jewison. It won an Emmy and featured Odetta.

There was also a Revlon Revue called "Folk Sound, USA" that featured Joan Baez, John Lee Hooker, Cisco Houston, Frank Warner, John Jacob Niles, Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys (Soggy Bottom Boys?) that aired in June 1960. The look of the Belafonte, Niles, and Odetta clips from No Direction Home are similar enough that I'm pretty sure this is where they are from.

I've been listening to some various John Jacob Niles stuff I've ferretted out of the Worldwide Internet Computer - boy, I hope Devendra Banheart is sending him some royalties... or would, if Niles weren't dead...

I'm sure there are. I'm not one of them, but Niles' trilling falsetto is the closest thing I've heard.

http://s53.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0TZJ3WJKZDX4Q3FQA6AZW9Z6EQ

Why, indeed: I wondered about it a lot, till it kept me awake at night as I tried to boil it down - to

1) Dylan's failure to come to terms with, or talk convincingly about, his own career. Either he doesn't understand it, can't see it as we can - OR, he does but is being massively evasive and disingenuous. I can understand why a frazzled, creative young man of 24 runs from questions and definitions. I don't dig it so much in a geezer of c.60, denying that he ever did things that we all know he did (notably, writing songs with clear reference to contemporary political events and issues; 'Hattie Carroll', for starters). Joan Baez talks with such perspective and clarity about the past; Dylan is still sending out smoke and mirrors. And yet - perhaps the mind (or the idiom) that can do that, or can do no other, is part of his greatness.

2) the move from (roughly) Folk to Rock, from 1963 to 1966, from Greenwich Village coffee-house to Judas in Middlesbrough -- this has long been seen as a creative move, a liberation, a daring flight from constricting convention into experiment, challenge, poetry, even avant-gardism. Greil M, for one, pretty much presents it that way in Invisible Republic - I think. His 'Rolling Stone' book seems to carry the same line. And why not? - it's an important one: it really was creative, daring, expansive, what Dylan did. Bringing It All Back Home, say, still throws at me that sense of crossing a border, of taking chances, of making something that hadn't done before - and we love him for it.

Yet there was clearly a downside to all this, that hasn't been that much stressed in pop history. I guess it had various overlapping dimensions, like ...

a) The affront or damage to the folk revival community - a quite fragile coalition who were doing something improbable and difficult in the midst of hypermodern USA, and who had nurtured and supported Dylan

b) The political correlative: because that community had, more than just about any other pop movement I can think of, been affiliated with a mass progressive political movement. Dylan was part of that - the archive shows it. He surely had a right to walk away from that role, but did he have to do it with such aggression, such a failure to explain, to communicate, to take people with him or to leave bridges unburned? (And yet, a supplementary doubt: maybe as much aggression came from the folk crowds; maybe they started it. I wonder if it's true that he was shaken and surprised by the response at Newport, as was said in the film? Had he really had no idea what would happen?) (BTW: among my main reference points on this would be Mike Marqusee, Chimes of Freedom, who is pretty evenhanded about the Newport controversy.)

c) the offence and hurt to people he left behind - Joan Baez most famously, maybe (I reread last night her 1980s memoir of the later Dylan's spaced-out offhandedness - once again she seems to understand things more clearly than he does; but then, it's her memoir, she would make it seem that way) - but more plainly, perhaps,

d) the damage to Dylan himself, from this wrench, this bloody rupture. I've always thought I loved the Dylan of Don't Look Back, but even he now seems more alienated and alienating than the earlier model; the 1966 colour-footage Dylan, though, is another animal again. Paranoiac/ish, sarcastic, impatient, seemingly drug-affected (though I know nothing about drugs; but I can't think their presence is a good sign), all aggression and no sweetness. So the complexities of early Dylan (funny, polemical, gentle by turns) have actually been planed down to a simpler model - the sneering rocker - contra the usual model of Dylan embracing complexity. That seemed a loss. The motorbike accident (whatever the truth about it - I have no idea) seemed a logical sort of climax to this headlong, angry flight - which must surely make us question the value of the flight, the persona and mode of living that he shows at this point?

e) come to think of it, even the Rock music didn't do much for me live in 1966. Blonde on Blonde still sounds terrific - and like others, I was mesmerized by the Newport 'Maggie's Farm', an ace groove - but the 1966 live sound as shown on TV still seems to be less about musical exploration and subtlety, more about provocation and confrontation. Even supposing that those things were valuable (and I'm not sure they were: see a) to d) above), the music in itself might lose as a result.

No Direction Home initially seemed a glib, average sort of title. But by the end it seemed profoundly appropriate. He had cast aside a 'home' that had been offered by the folk & progressive community (divided and multiple as it no doubt was); he has no desire to recall his own real origins (talking of having no history, no past); he plunges headlong into a future of creativity and danger (Ochs' comment seems to make sense, in an age of gunmen). The Woodstock years are an attempt to re-establish a very literal home (cf Chronicles, 'New Morning' chapter, on his attempt to defend this vs intrusion); after it breaks up, Rolling Thunder is maybe an attempt to reconstitute somewhere to belong? - and we end up with the so-called / maybe-not-Never-Ending Tour and a man aged abut 60 saying you should never settle, always be in the process of Becoming. Admirable, awesome, exemplary - but exhausting, sad, melancholy too? Yet no-one on the film seemed to see it that way.

>Bob Dylan = imagine dylan trying to sing/play "Almost There" (any 1965 backing band or none at all)

Turtles = imagine the Turtles trying to play "It Ain't Me Babe."

oh...wait a minute.

game, set, and match to the Turtles.

i'd almost forgotten what a great rockin' cut that Turtles first B-side is.

maybe it's time for Phil Delio to repost his infamous Milli Vanilli vs Bob Dylan mathematical sleight-of-hand album-grading essay?

too bad Buddy Holly died

he was LIVING in greenwich village of course ya know, and surely would have quickly put Dylan to work as roadie/songwriter/harp blower/2nd guitarist/songwriter/drum roadie...anything but a singer, that is.

and "folk rock" would have been "invented" in summer 1961, six months after the famous 1/23/61 Dylan landing in folkie-ville.

on the side, they could have done a "cash-in" hootenanny faux-folk lp as "Buddy & Bobby," on Chess/Checker (a duo whose name started with Pickle, carefully alphabetized in the faux-folk section in my storage bin racks) or Roulette (like the Cumberland Three and the Cafe Au-Go-Go Singers).

and maybe written some songs protesting the "damn folk singers."

hell, maybe they would've invented rap by the end of 1962.

done a couple "Beatles protest" 45s later like Vito and the Salutations' fabulous "Liverpool Bound."

finger pointin' songs you dig. <

X-Post

Ramblin' Jack had already invented rap in the 50's. He was known as the rapping cowboy.

Buy this:

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:gvtZU0tZv5wJ:www.mp3.com/albums/651520/summary.html+ramblin%27+jack+elliott+u.k.+folk&hl=en

"Woody Guthrie was a hero to a generation of folk musicians, Bob Dylan among them. Guthrie travelled through the Depression-era midwest to sing songs about oppression and hope, and McTell heard them first sung by Ramblin' Jack Elliott, a wealthy New Yorker in hobo's clothing. "I was actually quite disappointed when I heard Woody Guthrie for the first time because Jack sounded so much more authentic," says McTell. "He was more believable than the real thing, and this happens all the time - Dylan actually copied Elliott, not Guthrie. Jack adopts an impossible hillbilly accent. But Guthrie was great because his playing was always rudimentary, his message was always direct, and he's a great inspiration for a young man learning to play guitar and write songs. You can learn his entire repertoire in three weeks."

Woody Guthrie (among other folx) invented it even earlier than that, especially in "Talking Columbia" or "Talking Dust Blues" or whatever the song was where he told us "that old tractor got my homeboys."

yeah, i know, i was kinda kidding. sorta. but nobody ever called woody the rapping cowboy! and he called what he did "rapping" cuz he was in tight with the beats.

http://www.punkhart.com/dylan/reviews/ballad_of_ramblin_jack.html

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/index5.html

Roger Ebert points out the lack of mention of Ramblin' Jack in his review of NDH, and refers to the RJE documentary:
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/dylan/index5.html

Bob Dylan, true, is merely hawking Victoria's Secret -- lesser fate? -- but he strikes me, too, as emptied by the experience, rattling, on stage and on record and in the few interview clips I've caught, like a shell. But Jesus, who wouldn't be??
-- Dr. Gene Scott (marcherinorang...), September 30th, 2005.

I guess I look at this from a completely different perspective - Bob was *always* a shell. He adopted a persona (folk singer) so completely that it was taken for "authenticty" or "identity" - but when the shell switched out for a new mask, the audience (and the folk scene) felt betrayed. That's what I got out of No Direction Home. It's true that the rocket to fame made him jaded, but there was no other choice for him. He was never going to be the next Woody Guthrie or Pete Seeger, solidly (predictably?) belting out dustbowl anthems.

Dylan was ambitious and driven. He found a scene and joined it, wrote some exemplary songs within a genre he enjoyed, and exploited the scene and genre to make his name. The selfish boy we see telling lies and stealing stuff in Minnesota is not that far removed from the Dylan we see performing at Civil Rights Marches. The audience (even now?) is blinded by his talent at that point.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050919/REVIEWS/509200301/1023

But I'll read your link with interest.

a) because I don't really seem to understand Big Star, though I own a CD of their songs;

b) because I don't know what Memphis is like, or is supposed to be like.

that's so cute!

Then we could post it to that thread where the geezer Momus attacked Bragg at great length.

Bob listening to Bragg on Mermaid Avenue? What a thought! But then, yes, why not: it would be odd if he didn't. I would like to know his response. I guess that someone somewhere must know what it was he said about Bragg.

On Electric music: Howlin' Wolf is shown playing R&B at Newport, to a keen crowd; and Muddy Waters is shown playing electric R&B elsewhere. Maybe those who disapproved of electric Bob could have tried to see him in that light. They could at least have tried to hear how traditional the music was; 12-bars and all that. But then, one disapproving UK fan does call it 'corny', which is quite cutting. Maybe R&B is corny after all. But - 'Pill-Box Hat' sounds good on part 1, crisp and cool; and I have come round to the 'Ballad of a Thin Man' performance (a touch of Jerry Lee Lewis?).

Johnny Cash at Newport is a nice touch, a sign of connections - between folk and country, 1963 and 2003, and all that; a reassuring presence somehow. His laconic voice reminded me more than ever of Stephin Merritt's, which reminded me in turn of Merritt's take on the folk revival: I always tend to think of him in terms of Broadway, musicals etc, but his ukelele side goes back down this road too, and who else in recent years has sought out Odetta and Melanie? Apart from Roger McGuinn.

b) The political correlative: because that community had, more than just about any other pop movement I can think of, been affiliated with a mass progressive political movement. Dylan was part of that - the archive shows it."

Yes, the folk revival was affiliated with the political movement of the day (civil rights et al) but surely more as window dressing than anything else. I'd say "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (or "Like a Rolling Stone") had more direct political impact, changed the way people lived and thought, than did "Blowing in the Wind" or "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". The British Invasion made the folk revival seem instantly corny, at least to Dylan and 50,000,000 other Beatle fans.

OTM

-A fascinating take on the subject. I don't know
that I agree with his perspective entirely, but I definitely like hearing
his questions asked. I felt that the documentary faltered somewhat in the
second half - what had previously been drawn in loving detail and with some
patience became very rushed and arbitrary as Dylan's velocity increased.
And while I felt that the first half told a definite story, the second half
seemed to start glossing over things and not really stopping to get to the
heart of it.

Dylan's betrayal of the folk movement is unquestionable, but as I am of the
opinion that no artist should continue an affiliation that has become
stifling, or should continue to work in a form to which he feels he has
nothing left to add. And we can see that he had already started taking
stick from the leading lights of the movement when "Another Side" came out.
No artist likes to be told what to do, and he was being told what to do by
the people who were supposed to be his closest allies. As to how
tactlessly he did it, it probably seems easy to dissect it in hindsight,
but at the time, I imagine one bit of stubbornness or cussedness led to
another in a snowballing effect, not to mention the effect of drug
paranoia, which was probably considerable given the prodigious quantities
of speed he was doing by all accounts. I mean, look at him in 1966 - he's
obviously out of his gourd. I guarantee. I spent a lot of time either on
a wide variety of drugs, or else around people who were when I was
straight, and I know wasted when I see it.

It probably wasn't good for him
to do all them chemicals, but their impact and his artistic progression are
so inextricable (IMO) that speculating on whether he should have been doing
them is like war buffs who speculate on how the siege of Leningrad might
have been waged differently. It's part of the story, and I doubt very much
that his perspective was as well-rounded and gentle as this guy's.

Another perspective to consider is that splits were never Dylan's strong
point - Rotolo, Baez, Lowdnes, none of them were what you'd call
well-reasoned acts of separation. Some people just don't know how to say
goodbye properly. (see J. Tweedy)

The place where I differ entirely is his appraisal of Dylan's 1966 live
material. First of all, "Maggie's Farm" at Newport is ok, but Bloomfield's
repetitive licks wear on the ear, and its tentative approach pales compared
to the majesty of the 1966 band at their committed best. And how he can
say that it's not exploratory is beyond me when one hears the inspired
interplay on songs like "Tom Thumb" and "Thin Man." And, again, the
confrontational aspect of the music seems a natural response to being
continually boo'ed for making the music you want to make. The Newport
material isn't especially confrontational, and even the Hollywood Bowl 65
tape doesn't hit the level of dread of the UK 66 dates. Honestly, even the
australia 66 soundboards have a lighter touch. When you hear the Melbourne
show, there are moments of lighthearted banter with the audience that
harken back to his friendly 1964 persona. I think the real bile comes out
on the europe/66 shows, at the end of the road after being mistreaded the
whole way. Hell, Levon couldn't take it and left months earlier. It
sounds like it was hell.

Criticizing Dylan for the hostile nature of the
1966 UK/Europe playing is like criticizing someone for hitting back when
punched in the nose. It was not a one-sided affair, and the sheer insanity
of people actually daring to boo him, as if to say, "I am buying a ticket
to come to your show so I can tell you how much I hate your present work
and want you to go back to doing what we liked last year." That's an
insane statement. You can't tell an artist what to do - why would you want
to? Maybe they want to come over to Bob's and help him write his next song
too? Morons. If you don't like what an artist is doing, then don't go.
Maybe other people will enjoy his work, and maybe you will find new art you
like. If I no longer enjoy an artist's work, and it upsets me, then that's
too bad, but it's my problem, not the artist's. I didn't like Jeff Koonz'
phase when he was making pornographic art about himself and his wife, but I
didn't show up at his openings and boo him. An artist owes his public
precisely one thing: to do the best, most truthful work he can. It's one
thing to review the work negatively in print and offer comment on how it
failed to move you, but when the protest crowd shows up and starts
protesting Dylan with the same hostility with which they would protest a
nuclear test or a civil rights issue - well, wouldn't that make you get the
hell away from the protest movement?

To have people turning out in droves
to display this kind of hysterical, ignorant arrogance, must have seemed
like the very height of provocation to Dylan. It's like the chorus of
screaming nerds that crowds AintItCoolNews's talkbacks at every twist and
turn of the development of a movie they are anticipating. If this guy
doesn't see that, then he is the mellowest man on earth and could not be
stirred to anger by someone persistently poking him in the eye with a
pencil. If I was showing art and people were constantly turning up at my
openings to corner me and tell me how much they hated my work and why, you
better believe I wouldn't respond with kindness after the first few times.
When you look at it, everybody freaks out because at the root of it, what,
Bob Dylan wasn't a very polite or considerate person in his mid-twenties?
Call the feds, Ma Barker!! It seems like a weird thing to criticise an
artist for. But we've had this conversation before, about Tweedy.

Really, I guess I'm not sure what this guy wanted from Dylan? Sack cloth
and ashes? He's never been much for a straight answer - I thought he was
positively lucid. ;^) The feeling I got was that he wrote the political
songs because it was a situation he was steeped in and interested in at the
time, but that because the songs were so perfectly allied with the aims and
tastes of the folk/protest movement, the people who were really committed
lifers in that movement felt that he was now a signed-up member for life.
He was freakin' 24 or something. A kid. Young men often tend to move from
scene to scene, from group to group as they become themselves. The basic
failure of the folk elders to recognize this simple and very human fact is
puzzling and a little sad. I would agree with the writer's take on his
current persona - I think the rootless, creatively helpless figure of the
recent tours is a fairly sad sight. For [my wife] it's positively
heartwrenching. I think the official line on it is valid and a positive
spin, but how can you watch the guy who slept through that Auditorium
Theatre [which we saw together] show and not shed a tear?

yes, but only to say that the songs on it were songs that he was supposed to pick up from Guthrie's house and work on, but ended up not getting (in other words, he should have been the original collaborator with Guthrie on the album)

My reaction to this was the same (WTF??) as pinefox's. Turns out people had been playing loud, distorted, electric rock n roll at Newport for years. Who knew? I didn't.

I thought it was quite amusing/passable, but I only saw about 20 mins of it.

1) Dylan talking about how he started to notice groups like The Byrds + The Turtles having hits with his songs, or other groups having success by aping his style. Something to the effect that he never paid attention to the Billboard charts until then, giving the impression that "Like A Rolling Stone" was on some level a premeditated attempt to break out of the folk scene "ghetto."

2) Scorsese mentioning that growing up in Brooklyn, he never heard of Dylan until "Like A Rolling Stone" was a hit. The guy was rewriting the rules of songwriting just one borough away and Scorsese didn't know he existed until he hit the Top 40. Something to remember about the pre-music weekly, pre-Internet era; news traveled slow.

Gave me a new perspective - although Dylan was rewriting the rules of songwriting and giving jawdropping performances at Newport Folk Festivals around '62 to '64, he was a big fish in a small pond - it didn't mean much outside of that world (granted, Dylan was working his mojo from inside the industry via the many covers of his material and general influence on songwriters). The '65 electric move does seem like more of a pop move ("time to gets mine") than a pure aesthetic evolution to me now, but I can't really blame the guy for leaving a scene he'd outgrown in a big way.

There would've been considerably less drama from '65 - '66 if he'd completely broken with the scene (e.g. not playing the Newport Folk Festival, booking himself on a rock tour with other established rock groups) rather than try to bring the new material to his existing audience. It's almost like the whole thing was a failure of marketing (or a brilliant success, considering we're still talking about it).

Did anybody notice the blown-up posters of the cover of Dylan's first record during the scene with the disgruntled folkies calling him a "fake neurotic" - were these actually marketing posters (which would explain some of the audience's disconnect with the actual music) or some bizarre form of picket signs the folkies brought with them?

Very good thinking, Edward. Good post.

Masked & Anonymous was silly and rambling as all Dylan post-1967 or so can be -- and yet, yes, it was likeable. Dylan almost 'acted' OK, if that is the word. Did anyone else notice his strange limp? And how tiny he is!

Ive only seen it once, but DL'd a live version of this song from the "Washington Square Memoirs: The Great Urban Folk Boom 1950-1970" compilation. It's tagged onto the end of "I've Been Driving On Bald Mountain" and sounds similar to what I remember on the Dylan show.

Aside from the great concert footage ...the press conferences, oh man. "Why don't YOU suck on my glasses?"

pinefox, don't forget Stephin's (absent) father was a folksinger.

"I can't really say whether the girls took a liking to me....The first girl that ever took a liking to me was Gloria Story....Gloria Story...that was really her name...The second girl that took a liking to me was named Echo...see? That's strange....I never heard of anyone called Echo."

It's amazing to think how rich one person's mostly third-person, mostly second-hand life can be!

But I think it's true to say that all this is connected to his greatness; even to the civil-war-against-cliche that Ricks has long found in his words.

Yeah, can't remember exactly what Scorsese said - maybe he meant he was hanging around in Brooklyn? Maybe he said the Bronx?

I have just remembered Dylan's claim to have written a verse for 'Everything is Broken' that finished: 'Crossing the bridge, going to Hoboken / Maybe over there, things ain't broken'.

I don't think I believe in most of his 'alternative verses'.

The other funny thing was right after that he says "Now...both of these girls brought out the POET in me."....and he kind of stares at the camera with this sly half-grin and holds it for like 2 seconds more than would be normal...sort of like he's made some dirty joke or something....

My interpretation of this is that Dylan is coming clean to the camera, the audience, and the world, and making a simultaneously sheepish and swaggering admission that that his much-celebrated poetry began as a way to pull chicks.

in some circles this statement would get you killed. fortunately, i HATE those circles.

>>it seemed like they wanted scorsese's stamp on the movie but honestly it comes across not much differently than a long a&e biography

I find it hard to imagine what else he could have been trying to convey.

oh, you know, all italians are from brooklyn. even the ones from italy. but the sopranos, they're from jersey. and everyone from jersey is like the sopranos.

Of historical interest is a piece of 14th-century folklore that arose from the Lycosa tarentula (actually a wolf spider) of southern Italy. Certain individuals who thought they had been bitten by this spider would attempt to exhaust themselves by dancing wildly. This condition came to be referred to as tarantism. It has been suggested that the arachnids responsible for these episodes were actually widow spiders of the genus Latrodectus.

Also from the Middle Ages are reports of a dancing mania known as Tanzwuth that was attributed to spider bites. So-called victims would seek out minstrels who would play instruments with shrill tones; this music caused the victims to dance until they fainted. Seizures, demonic possession, and tarantula bites all have been proposed as causes of this behavior. However, no true etiology has been identified, and dancing mania still remains a mystery.

of course the mythical dance that came out of taranto, italy, is well-known as the tarantella:

No Italian wedding or celebration would be complete without the rhythmic song and dance of the tarantella. It is the most popular of all the Italian songs and it is even considered by many as the song of Italy. The song is both lively and graceful and the dance is one of light and quick steps mixed with passionate gestures. Its origin dates back to the Middles Ages and traces of a similar song can even be found in Magna Graecia.

Legend states that between the 15th and 17th centuries an epidemic of tarantism swept through the town of Taranto in southern Italy. This was as a result of being bit by the poisonous tarantula spider. The victim, which is referred to as the tarantata, was almost always a woman but never a high ranking lady or one of an aristocratic upbringing. Once bitten the tarantata would fall into a trance that could only be cured by frenzied dancing. People would surround the victim while musicians would play mandolins, guitars and tambourines in search of the correct rhythm. Each beat would have a different effect on the tarantata causing various movements and gestures. Once the correct rhythm was found it was almost certain that the tarantata was cured.

As legends have it there always seems to be more than one version. Another version states that a woman who was depressed and frustrated from the subordinate lifestyle would fall into a trance that could only be cured by music and dance. This normally lasted three days and during that time the tarantata would be the center of attention, which in turn would cure them of their frustrations and depressions.

Of these two variations that most popular is the one in which the victim is bitten by the poisonous tarantula. This is why the tarantella is sometimes referred to as the dance of the spider.

'mean streets', which is set in little italy, is often held up as kind of 'rock'n'roll' filmmaking, it has the famous ronettes opening bit and the great 'jumpin jack flash' scene. anyway allen klein's back cat is far outweighed by this weird, quasi (?) italian music, lots of novelty hits, etc.

most of the film was actually shot in LA, but the world of these guys isn't quite as hermetic as people are saying: johnny boy picks up two jewish girls in the village and brings them to the bar for a seven and seven. for marty's 'rents it may have been different, of course.

-- 100% WJE (theundergroundhom...), October 4th, 2005.

I'm from Jersey and I find this offensive... you fuckin' hump.