Pages tagged “bob dylan”

Hometown: Leksand, Sweden
Album: Shallow Grave
Band Member: Kristian Matsson
For Fans Of: Neutral Milk Hotel, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, early Dylan

Toward the end of “Talkin’ New York,” the second track from Bob Dylan’s eponymous debut, the 20-year-old folksinger probed into American lives with precocious insight: “A lot of people don’t have much food on their table,” he drawled, “but they got a lot of forks 'n knives, and they gotta cut somethin'.” Dylan was wrought by his world. And his hunt for the right words, stories and sounds to comprehend its changes led him into all corners of creation—whimsical poetry, matter-of-fact protest tales, acoustic twang and electric echoes.

In honor of Paste’s new Lifestyle section (look for its debut in the Dec/Jan issue), let’s put together an outfit using seven of the best songs about fashion.

Start with the main attraction: a pretty dress. Pick a black one that gets you lots of compliments.

1.Sufjan Stevens “That Dress Looks Nice On You"

Last Wednesday night, a blue-collar hero went down in history. Toledo, Ohio’s own Joe Wurzelbacher—aka “Joe the Plumber”—was invoked no less than 26 times, making him more central to the third presidential debate between John McCain and Barack Obama than anything else, including taxes, education, the war, terrorism, the environment and energy independence.

Seeing as how a playlist about plumbers would’ve been pretty short, today’s Current Events megamix will focus simply on great songs about guys named Joe. Here’s to you, plumber man!

Live tracks and crisp, rootsy outtakes with a whole lotta Lanois

As Dylan’s every move seems to add weight and mystery to his legend, it’s no surprise that Columbia’s bootleg series—the cockeyed commentary to the canon—has finally caught up to the latter phases of his recorded output. Tell Tale Signs largely resists the temptation to sketch “latter-era Dylan” in favor of the more specific “Lanois-era Dylan.” Stocked heavily with outtakes from Time out of Mind and Oh Mercy, these “lost” tracks demonstrate producer Daniel Lanois’ influence in steering the legendary songwriter to a place of seemingly pure voice—a revived interest in roots fused with an elder jokester’s nostalgic delivery. The peaceful, assured studio creature gilded here is an interesting foil to the Dylan we’ve seen on the road the last few decades. While a proper encapsulation of the “Never Ending Tour” awaits, the scattershot of live tracks here teases the subject. Even if the collection omits Dylan’s acerbic and often consciously sacrilegious re-workings of his largest-looming ’60s works, the tearing grind of 2002’s “Lonesome Day Blues” hints at the moments of higher energy that Dylan and the Sexton/Campbell guitar duo found while glancing back toward the highway. Catching these dual modes, Tell Tale Signs subtly makes a good argument that Dylan’s later work is richer than expected.

Listen to Bob Dylan's "Mississippi" from Tell Tale Signs:

Bob Dylan fans, set your watches: Beginning tonight at midnight, his 2-disc, 27 song collection Tell Tale Signs will stream for free on NPR Music for a full week leading up to the album's official release Oct. 7. 

Recently in the Paste office, we received a press release about an Oct. 6 event called Gimme Shelter, which will feature Debbie Harry, Moby and Earl Greyhound, and which was described as a “concert benefiting NYC’s at-risk animals.” Being dog-owners ourselves, we were moved by the whole idea—moved, that is, to commemorate Gimme Shelter with a list of other significant collaborations between musicians and animals. We’re sure we missed some good ones. Add yours in the comments.

With the Nov. 4 presidential election looming and slowly becoming a reality (after what feels like an eternity of campaigning), Wilco has decided to take it upon itself to rally people to vote.

When Lucinda Williams fans pick up the Louisiana native’s 10^th LP Little Honey on Oct. 14, they might be surprised by the closing track, a cover of AC/DC’s “It’s a Long Way To the Top (If You Wanna Rock N’ Roll).” But the bigger surprise might come two weeks later on the digital-only EP of protest songs Lu in ’08—a live cover of Thievery Corporation’s collaboration with The Flaming Lips, “March of the Hate Machine (Into the Sun)."

Beginning this October, fans will have the opportunity to have a piece of Bob Dylan in their pockets. The grumble-voiced troubadour announced he will lend his name and signature to a series of harmonicas manufactured by Hohner USA, the brand he's been spouting out of for decades now.

The Raconteurs' Jack White at the New American Music Union Festival, photo by C.C. Chapman

Last weekend, American Eagle Outfitters launched its inaugural music festival, New American Music Union, in the SouthSide Works area of Pittsburgh.  A sold-out crowd of 10,000 was treated to performances from Bob Dylan, The Raconteurs, Gnarls Barkley, The Roots and Spoon, among others, all under the curation of Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis.

And now, on to part eight in Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series of albums released since 1991, a two-disc collection of previously unreleased tracks, alternate song versions and various demos will be released as Tell Tale Signs on Oct. 7.

Listening to the upcoming album by Lucinda Williams, Little Honey, I was thrilled to come across the voice of Elvis Costello on a song called "Jailhouse Tears." Country/rock duets have a pretty long history and even some commercial success (see Jon Bon Jovi with Sugarland's Jennifer Nettles). But recently, they've also gotten pretty damn cool. Here are the best country/rock duets of recent years (and a few don't even involve Emmylou Harris):

In 1994, Random House published a small book of Bob Dylan's sketches, called Drawn Blank, to surprisingly little response. It seemed few critics were willing to deal with yet another musician-cum-artist. But when a German gallery director convinced Dylan to turn those sketches into paintings, he took the chance.

In support of his latest retrospective, the two-disc Dylan, his almost-50-year career and Barack Obama's presidential bid, Bob Dylan announced new tour dates recently, extending his world excursion past its current Eurocentrism and into the U.S.

The Pulitzer Board has awarded Bob Dylan a special citation for his hard-nosed investigative series tackling abuse and corruption in America's prisons "profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." Like Al Gore's Academy Award and Arnold Schwarzenegger's Gubernatorial victory, this honor carries an air of did-I-hear-that-right surrealism, as music Pulitzers have generally gone to jazz or classical performers like John Coltrane and George Gershwin. But the recipients of prestigious awards, they are a-changin'.

"I don't think Bob Dylan needs a Pulitzer Prize," San Francisco Chronicle critic Joshua Kosman was quoted as saying in the New York Sun in 2004. The piece follows, "Greg Sandow of NewMusicBox.com concurred, but argued that the prize needs Dylan."

American composer David Lang also won a Pulitzer for his piece, "The Little Match Girl," based on the Hans Christian Anderson story.

"I told my children I won the Pulitzer, and they were like, 'OK, big deal,'" Lang told the LA Times. "But when I said, 'OK, they gave a special award to Bob Dylan, just like me,' they said, 'Oh, this is really something.' "

Related links:
Pulitzer.org
BobDylan.com
YouTube: Dylan performs "Like A Rolling Stone" in 1966

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Once Upon a Time...
A lavish, but mostly superfluous Greatest Songs set

This new Bob Dylan retrospective makes landfall during the same hurricane season as Todd Haynes’ much-discussed film I’m Not There, and the contrast is devastating. A visionary matching of artistic approach to subject, Haynes’s film dazzlingly fractures (then reassembles) as many as six distinct “Dylans” across a sly concatenation of musical and visual styles; here’s an irresistible opportunity for anyone—perhaps even Dylan himself—to rediscover afresh his songs and life, and to refocus the challenges for sustaining art, politics and private integrity amid war (whether Vietnam or Iraq) and overwhelming media jabberwocky. Next to the Dylanesque reinventions of I’m Not There, this Dylan collection arrives like a lumbering white elephant—the 51-song selections uninspired, lazy and rote, although the red- and black-embossed cloth 3-CD box is really classy, the rock ’n’ roll analog to a coffee-table book.

That Dylan is the exemplary artist of our moment is now past argument. To speak personally—and Dylan always commands a personal response—I feel lucky to have coincided however briefly on the planet with Beckett, Nabokov, Borges, Balanchine, Callas, Welles and Fellini. I got to meet Robert Lowell, Andy Warhol, Elizabeth Bishop, Sam Fuller, and in his last years was a friend of James Merrill. Giants walked the earth, and I wouldn’t barter those experiences for everything south of Heaven. Yet Dylan’s achievement over the past five decades looms so singular, so audacious, large and various that 100 years from now it’s his recordings and live performances that will advance the signature narrative of what it was like to live and create during his lifetime.

Dylan’s importance isn’t the pressing mystery of Dylan (only his fourth “greatest hits” package over a recording career that started in 1961), but rather how feebly and trivially the set responds to his importance. Since the mid 1990s, when Dylan suddenly reconnected his familiar restlessness to mastery, he’s consecutively released three of his strongest, most ambitious recordings, Time Out of Mind, “Love and Theft” and Modern Times; written a surprising, likely classic American memoir, Chronicles Vol. I; co-scripted a fascinating political film, Masked & Anonymous; and toured the world vigorously, playing upward of 100 shows each year. His management and record company, perhaps freed by Dylan’s own contemporary resurgence, launched a smart succession of vivid looks back under the designation The Bootleg Series—not a superfluous repackaging of his old standards, but stunning unreleased songs, illuminating alternate versions and legendary concert performances.

Out of all this activity and product, only Dylan, by my reckoning, adds nothing fresh or necessary to the vista. If you’ve just risen from a mid 20th century coma, then you could twig the first disc (“Song to Woody” and “Blowin’ in the Wind” to “All Along the Watchtower”) a revelation. On the second CD (The Basement Tapes through Empire Burlesque), only “The Groom’s Still Waiting At the Altar” (originally a 1981 B-side), “Changing of the Guards” and “Dark Eyes” might lift an eyebrow, as the otherwise automatic Blood on the Tracks, Desire and Slow Train Coming choices unroll.

Still, the third disc, spanning the early 1980s to the present, will startle listeners who checked out on Dylan once his picture proved too blurry or too weird, mostly by sequencing one gorgeous song after another, all since he supposedly stopped writing such songs. “Brownsville Girl,” a 1986 collaboration with playwright Sam Shepard, contributes the major frisson here, a lost masterpiece like no other in his catalog. Yet this final CD also underscores the arbitrariness of the Dylan project. Sure, “Ring Them Bells” and “Everything Is Broken” from Oh Mercy are included, but why not “Most of the Time,” “What Was It You Wanted” or “Shooting Star”? Yes, of course, “Not Dark Yet” from Time Out of Mind, but why “Make You Feel My Love” over “Standing in the Doorway” “Tryin’ to Get to Heaven,” or (especially) the epic “Highlands?”

Fortunately Dylan isn’t the sole “new” Dylan release scheduled for this fall. Besides the brilliant Haynes film, there’s Murray Lerner’s The Other Side of the Mirror, which collects footage from Dylan’s storied appearances at the 1963, ’64 and ’65 Newport Folk Festivals. Over three summers, Dylan ages in reverse—ancient traditional musician; folk God; rock ’n’ roll rake. If there were still lingering controversy about the audience or Dylan at the infamous ’65 electric show, Lerner’s film should dispel it. Between songs you hear real boos from the agitated crowd, and when Dylan returns with an acoustic guitar for ferocious performances of “Mr. Tambourine Man” and “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” those are real tears sliding down his face.

Todd Haynes' I'm Not There hits theaters this week with six actors playing Dylan (including Cate Blanchett). Who else would you like to see portray Dylan? [614 votes total] Kirstie Alley (12): 2% Rob Schneider (31): 5% Dave Chapelle (136): 22% Jackie Chan (28): 5% Haley Joel Osment (42): 7% Queen Latifah (30): 5% William Shatner (134): 22% Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson (46): 7% Bea Arthur (102): 17% Other (53): 9% Full Results Comments

Release Date: Nov. 21
Director: Todd Haynes
Writer: Haynes, Oren Moverman
Cinematographer: Ed Lachman
Starring: Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger
Studio/Run Time: The Weinstein Company, 135 mins.

"I wanna be Bob Dylan," Adam Duritz once sang in an old Counting Crows song, expressing a romantic yearning to be, well, who exactly? Subversive writer-director Todd Haynes illustrates what most of us already knew in his nervy Dylan opus I'm Not There: the protean songwriter whose name is synonymous with "mythic icon" is a wellspring of personas. Here, he requires six actors to play him. Gimmicky as that sounds, the conceit gives this phantasmagorical hijacking of the rock bio-pic an edge of wacky genius.

Although perhaps overly schematic, these manifestations of Robert Zimmerman allow Haynes to revisit (satirically, metaphorically and speculatively) various stages of Dylan's life. There's earnest, boxcar-riding folk-singer Bob (depicted as a young black boy who calls himself Woody); conscience-of-his-generation Bob (Christian Bale, who suddenly renounces celebrity and goes to work for the Lord); movie-star Bob (Heath Ledger, impersonating Dylan in a movie-within-the-movie); Rimbaud Wanna-Be Bob (Ben Wishaw); the self-possessed Electric Bob of 1965 and '66 (Cate Blanchett); and Bucolic, Drop-Out Bob (portrayed as Billy the Kid by a grizzled Richard Gere).

Shuffling six separate narrative lines like a deck of cards, the film can feel drastically uneven. An extended send-up of the Greenwich Village coffeehouse scene that launched Dylan's career in the early 1960s telegraphs its gags, which were just as funny in Bob Roberts and A Mighty Wind. Yet, it's fascinating to see how Haynes remixes Dylan lore as a playful way of extracting fresh and unexpected meaning out of what, for many fans, is a sacred text. Blanchett's fine-boned and, yes, freewheeling vision of Dylan as a conceited pill-head, besotted with Edie Sedgwick, may be the performance of the year. She weightlessly propels the core of the film, which veers out of scenes inspired by the 1967 documentary Don't Look Back into a giddy ether of its own.

The movie is probably best in those moments of reckless abandon, in which Dylan is liberated from his own history, opening the way for us to slip into the psyche that produced all those songs. (I'm Not There would make a great double-bill with Being John Malkovich). Amid all the kaleidoscopic shape-shfting, the music – performed on and off-camera by Steven Malkmus and the Jicks and Calexico, amongst many others – almost seems like a bonus.

View the trailer for I'm Not There below:

Click above to watch "Most Likely You Will Go Your Way" from Bob Dylan. Remixed by Mark Ronson. Courtesy of Sony/BMG.

So, if you were preparing Madison Avenue’s newest “integrated marketing campaign,” and it just so happened that Bob Dylan was the centerpiece of this campaign, don’t you think you would rest your credibility on Dylan’s clout as a songwriter? See, that’s what Dylan wants you to think you would do.

But what you would never expect (and therefore should expect from Dylan) is that XM Radio and Cadillac would team up to promote each other based on Dylan’s expertise as a DJ. Everything Dylan does is pretty all right, but wasn’t Blood on the Tracks way cooler than Dylan’s XM gig Theme Time Radio Hour? Ok, you win: They are both cool.

According to the press release, the campaign promotes the XM radios that come standard with the Escalade, Cadillac’s SUV. And if you like videos of Dylan driving a Cadillac through America’s scenic deserts while listening to XM or Dylan narrating videos of Dylan driving a Cadillac through American’s scene deserts while listening to XM, then you would do well to scroll down.

The campaign:

Related links:
Theme Time Radio Hour with Bob Dylan
Cadillac.com
Paste: I'm Not There tribute concert: be there!

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Appropriately enough, all of the hoopla surrounding the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There has been marked by a conspicuous absence of Dylan himself. Sure, he granted his approval to the Todd Haynes-helmed project, but has otherwise kept off to his own devices, touring with Elvis Costello and releasing yet another all-encompassing box set of past material. Dylan doesn't need all of this tribute. But we need it, if only to confirm the significance of the Dylan myth to American culture.

Hence the acid trip of a film, the all-star, all-covers soundtrack, and now the star-studded live tribute concert in New York City. On Nov. 7, a mob of 16 eclectic artists will convene at NYC's Beacon Theatre to once again reinterpret Dylan's finest songs. The roster includes soundtrack participants such as Cat Power, Yo La Tengo, John Doe of X and the sublime pairing of Jim James and Calexico. But there's more excellence to be had at the show, including James' full-time outfit My Morning Jacket, The Roots and J. Mascis. Tickets range from $48 to $1,000 ("Platinum V.I.P." passes that include admission to the show's after-party). All proceeds go to 826 National, a nonprofit organization that tutors students in creative and expository writing.

For ticket and artist information, visit the concert's official site.

Related links:
I'm Not There soundtrack on MySpace
Paste: I'm Not There six-minute YouTube clip hits the Web
I'm Not There on IMDb

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

I'm Not There - the highly anticipated Bob Dylan biopic in which several different actors(both male and female alike) portray the iconic singer/songwriter - may not be released in the U.S. until Nov. 21, but that doesn't mean our European friends across the Atlantic can't give us a little taste of what's to come.

As the film has already been shown twice at the Toronto and London film festivals, as well as the full country-wide release in Italy, it's only natural that a YouTube teaser clip would pop up here and there to whet the appetites of rabid Dylan-ites across the U.S. (quite possibly increasing the amounts of foam already forming around the corners of their respective mouths).

The film's cast list is jaw dropping, bearing big names like Cate Blanchett (as one version of Dylan, above), Richard Gere (Dylan again, but this time doing his best "Billy the Kid" impression), and Heath Ledger. But even more impressive is the soundtrack that includes some of the most influential artists in music today. From Eddie Vedder to Stephen Malkmus, Iron & Wine to Sonic Youth, Jeff Tweedy to Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Here's the clip from the film, which includes a scene with Christian Bale as Dylan singing gospel music and preaching the word, references to the singer's infamously fan-panned born-again Christian phase during the late '70s to the early '80s:

Related links:
The Playlist's story on I'm Not There
I'm Not There on IMDB.com
Rolling Stone photos of Heath Ledger and Richard Gere as Dylan

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Think of Bob Dylan as a sort of musical godfather. When you step to the man for a favor, you had best kneel and kiss his ring. Do things properly, and he just might grant his approval to your feeble little request. Apparently, film director Todd Haynes made all the right gestures of respect to the famously fickle Dylan, because crazy ol’ Bob has signed off on the Haynes-directed biopic I’m Not There. The film makes use of what Haynes terms an “open structure,” with a menagerie of actors portraying Dylan at various stages of his career. The film premiered at the Venice Film Festival a week ago, with Cate Blanchett’s portrayal of Don’t Look Back-era Dylan drawing the most critical raves. Other performers include Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Richard Gere. Curious fans stateside should prepare for a limited US release on Nov. 21.

Related Links:
Paste: Experience Dylan at Newport on DVD
I'm Not There Trailer
Todd Haynes at IMDb

Got news tips for Paste? Email news@pastemagazine.com.

Bob Dylan is thoroughly electric at this point. From his celebrated DJ gig on XM Radio, to his recently premiered biopic, to his latest “must-have” CD boxset, it’s become rather hard to get your Dylan fix without access to a power source.

It was not always thus, however.

Back in the early ‘60s, Dylan was the anointed messiah of New York’s Greenwich Village folk scene, an acoustic guitar-wielding Woodie Guthrie fetishist who had everyone believing in the power of rustic protest music. Then came the bombshell. Sometime around 1965, Dylan caught the subterranean homesick blues, picked up an electric guitar, and in the eyes of folkie purists, went from savior to Judas.

Now, at long last, Dylan lovers have the chance to watch that transformation unfold via the songwriter’s latest DVD release. The Other Side of the Mirror - Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963-1965 showcases Dylan’s three performances at Newport and keeps the focus on the music. There’s no James Earl Jones narration (drat), and very limited use of interviews. However, given the importance of this trio of sets, perhaps it’s best to let the songs stand on their own. The DVD arrives Oct. 30 courtesy of Columbia/Legacy.

Would you believe, though, that you can still see the old guy live on tour? Does he ever stop?

The answer, my friends, is surely blowin' somewhere...

September
16 - Austin, Texas @ Austin City Limits Music Festival
19 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Ryman Auditorium*
20 - Nashville, Tenn. @ Ryman Auditorium*
22 - Duluth, Ga. @ The Arena at Gwinnett Center**
23 - Clemson, S.C. @ Littlejohn Colliseum**
25 - Norfolk, Va. @ ODU Constant Convocation Center**
27 - Charlottesville, Va. @ John Paul Jones Arena**
28 - Columbia, Md. @ Merriweather Post Pavilion**
29 - Kingston, R.I. @ URI Ryan Center**
30 - Bridgeport, Conn. @ Arena at Harbor Yard**

October
2 - Worcester, Mass. @ DCU Center**
4 - Portland, Maine @ Cumberland County Civic Center**
5 - Manchester, N.H. @ Verizon Wireless Arena**
6 - Albany, N.Y. @ Times Union Center**
8 - Syracuse, N.Y. @ War Memorial at Oncenter**
9 - Rochester, N.Y. @ RIT Gordon Field House**
11 - Pittsburgh, Pa. @ Peterson Events Center**
12 - Ypsilanti, Mich. @ Eastern Mich. Univ. Convocation Center**
13 - Columbus, Ohio @ Schottenstein Center**
16 - Dayton, Ohio @ Nutter Center**
17 - Louisville, Ky. @ Freedom Hall**
19 - Bloomington, Ind. @ Indiana University Assembly Hall**
20 - Bloomington, Ill. @ US Cellular Coliseum**
22 - St. Louis, Mo. @ Fox Theatre**
26 - Omaha, Neb. @ Qwest Center**

* w/ Amos Lee
** w/ Elvis Costello, Amos Lee

Related Links:
BobDylan.com
Bob Dylan: The Man in the Attic (A Memoir)
Dylan's Lyrics

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Come gather ‘round, actors who look like Bob Dylan, and hope the makers of his new music video don’t say, “It ain’t you we’re lookin’ for, babe.” The Daily Swarm recently pointed out a Craigslist-announced New York casting call for “Bob Dylan look-a-likes at any stage of his life between 5’7” – 5’9” in height” (Dylan himself is 5’7” and ½, to be precise). The concept compliments Todd Haynes upcoming Dylan biopic I’m Not There, in which he is played by six different actors, most of whom would not meet the standards of the music video (see: Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale). Tryouts for the video, which shoots tomorrow, sh