the new Dylan album, is out. Bob was quoted in the newspaper the other day saying that nothing sounds good any more and even this, his record, was twenty times better listened to in the studio than it is on cd. Don't think he likes the compression involved in digital formats. Anyway. The journo also asked him if it worried him that people would be downloading it for free off the net. Bob said, no, 'cos it ain't worth nuthin'. I went ahead and picked it up from LimeWire yesterday. My cd player, though, refused to read it this morning, I don't know why. Kept coming up with the err message. So I played it through on my mp3. Now, unaccountably, the cd player's decided it will accept the disc after all, so it's playing into the air as I tap ... this is not a review, it's too soon and anyway, who needs another one? There are already hundreds of 'em. Suffice to say that it sounds quite a lot like Love & Theft, which itself picked up on some of the bluesier numbers from Time Out Of Mind. And that there are echoes of so many other tunes. Bob's like a jukebox of the last few hundred years of popular song. Was reading the other day in a bookshop a description he gave of his 'creative method'. He said he starts out with an old song, usually something from Dixie or from the Carter Family, it goes round and round in his head, sometimes for days at a time, and then the words start to come ... of Modern Times he said: I wrote these songs in not a meditative state at all but more like in a trance-like, hypnotic state. Sounds about right to me.
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I have been following this keenly after falling back in like with Bob from his satellite radio shows. He has also cut out producers and I think from now on will just record with the touring band. The neverending tour continues $49.50 everyone (under 12 free) through minor league venues and small towns.
was always a minor league & small town kind of guy myself. just can't make under twelve ... album sounds a lot better now I've found the bass button on the cd player, but I'm on a Tom Waits jag, too ... the radio shows were/are great.
Interesting Martin, I am in the middle of a Tom Waits phase myself. Apparently Beefheart, a favourite of mine, told him to stop copying him early on.
I have also tracked the growing status of "The Waifs" since opening for Bob. Now Paul Kelly opens their tours!
came across a book of interviews called Innocent When You Dream, ed. Mac Montandon, in the Haberfield library. Lotsa laughs in there, along with weird facts & strange revelations. first encounter with Tom was about '75 or 6, borrowed Nighthawks at the Diner from the Wellington Public library ... lets' hear it for libraries!
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