-
neumu
Friday, March 29, 2024 
-
-
--archival-captured-cinematronic-continuity error-daily report-datastream-depth of field--
-
--drama-44.1 khz-gramophone-inquisitive-needle drops-picture book-twinklepop--
-
Neumu = Art + Music + Words
Search Neumu:  

illustration
44.1kHz = music reviews

edited by michael goldbergcontact




Editor's note: We have activated the Neumu 44.1 kHz Archive. Use the link at the bottom of this list to access hundreds of Neumu reviews.

+ Donato Wharton - Body Isolations
+ Svalastog - Woodwork
+ Tim Hecker - Harmony In Ultraviolet
+ Rosy Parlane - Jessamine
+ Jarvis Cocker - The Jarvis Cocker Record
+ Múm - Peel Session
+ Deloris - Ten Lives
+ Minimum Chips - Lady Grey
+ Badly Drawn Boy - Born In The U.K.
+ The Hold Steady - Boys And Girls Together
+ The Blood Brothers - Young Machetes
+ The Places - Songs For Creeps
+ Camille - Le Fil
+ Wolf Eyes - Human Animal
+ Christina Carter - Electrice
+ The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
+ Junior Boys - So This Is Goodbye
+ Various Artists - Musics In The Margin
+ Rafael Toral - Space
+ Bob Dylan - Modern Times
+ Excepter - Alternation
+ Chris Thile - How To Grow A Woman From The Ground
+ Brad Mehldau - Live in Japan
+ M Ward - Post-War
+ Various Artists - Touch 25
+ The Mountain Goats - Get Lonely
+ The White Birch - Come Up For Air
+ Camera Obscura - Let's Get Out of This Country
+ Coachwhips - Double Death
+ Various Artists - Tibetan And Bhutanese Instrumental And Folk Music, Volume 2
+ Giuseppe Ielasi - Giuseppe Ielasi
+ Cex - Actual Fucking
+ Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
+ Leafcutter John - The Forest And The Sea
+ Carla Bozulich - Evangelista
+ Barbara Morgenstern - The Grass Is Always Greener
+ Robin Guthrie - Continental
+ Peaches - Impeach My Bush
+ Oakley Hall - Second Guessing
+ Klee - Honeysuckle
+ The Court & Spark - Hearts
+ TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
+ Awesome Color - Awesome Color
+ Jenny Wilson - Love And Youth
+ Asobi Seksu - Citrus
+ Marsen Jules - Les Fleurs
+ The Moore Brothers - Murdered By The Moore Brothers
+ Regina Spektor - Begin To Hope
+ The 1900s - Plume Delivery EP
+ Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror
+ Function - The Secret Miracle Fountain
+ Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped
+ Loscil - Plume
+ Boris - Pink
+ Deadboy And The Elephantmen - We Are Night Sky
+ Glissandro 70 - Glissandro 70
+ Calexico - Garden Ruin (Review #2)
+ Calexico - Garden Ruin (Review #1)
+ The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics
+ The Glass Family - Sleep Inside This Wheel
+ Various Artists - Songs For Sixty Five Roses
+ The Fiery Furnaces - Bitter Tea
+ Motorpsycho - Black Hole/Blank Canvas
+ The Red Krayola - Introduction
+ Metal Hearts - Socialize
+ American Princes - Less And Less
+ Sondre Lerche And The Faces Down Quartet - Duper Sessions
+ Supersilent - 7
+ Band Of Horses - Everything All The Time
+ Dudley Perkins - Expressions
+ Growing - Color Wheel
+ Red Carpet - The Noise Of Red Carpet
+ The Essex Green - Cannibal Sea
+ Espers - II
+ Wilderness - Vessel States

44.1 kHz Archive



peruse archival
snippet
    
artist
Bob Dylan
recording
Live 1975: The Rolling Thunder Revue
Sony
snippet
rating


One of the reasons, I think, that Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder period is so loved by Dylanphiles is that it's kind of absurd. This isn't meant as an insult — but the idea of a traveling gypsy show rumbling around the Northeast is one of the few bits of sustained public whimsy that Dylan's put forth in his long career. Considering that they fall in between the not-so-fun failing of his marriage and the really-not-so-fun Christian period, the general good-naturedness of the shows have taken on a mythic quality. Among Dylan bootfans, these shows are some of the most prized. So after a quarter of a century, we've finally been obliged with an official release, Vol. 5 in the "Bootleg Series."

Of course, there was already an official release of this tour — a 1976 TV show and live album called Hard Rain. However, most of those that would know have always said that those releases focused on the second — and weaker — 1976, leg of the tour, which wasn't nearly as great as what went down during 1975. Whew! Sometimes specialists don't have more fun. Even so, while there is some great stuff on Live 1975, this certainly doesn't contain Dylan's best music, so don't be fooled by anybody telling you that.

Dylan's always fucked with his arrangements. Songs from "I Don't Believe You" to "Cold Irons Bound" take on whole new lives when played in concert, and many of the settings for his songs here are radically different from their original (or other live) versions. Sometimes this works great, but not always. So while I approve of the rocking up of "Hard Rain," maybe the arrangement could have been more inventive than a straight uptempo blues shuffle. Especially when it's the same ho-hum blues shuffle with which he saddles "It Takes a Lot to Laugh." Same thing with the too-smooth version of "It Ain't Me, Babe" when compared to the rough-hewn original. On the other hand, this version of "Isis" is all lightning violin, rapid-fire vocals and swirling guitar, though not quite as crazy as the one on Biograph. (Or the truncated one on the free DVD sampler/tease that came with the early versions of this set.) And while "Oh Sister" and "Hurricane" are close to the then still-unreleased Desire versions, Dylan was already exploring new ways of playing and singing these songs.

About that singing: It might be his best. If you think that Bob Dylan is a great rock 'n' roll singer — and I do — then you know that it's equal parts his phrasing and his ability to be living what he's singing. I don't think that he's ever sounded so free — like he's having so much fun — as he did on this tour. From the opening of "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You," his singing is emotive and right there. When he gets to the "Rolling Thunder" part, it almost sounds like he's having too much fun. The only times I've ever heard him have this much fun is on the wasted parts of the "Basement Tapes." The only times that his singing doesn't work is when it's dragged down into the land of the formally beautiful by the pristine presence of Joan Baez.

But then again, maybe Baez hanging around is the reason that the triptych of great love-ish songs that open the second disc are worth the price of admission. "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" sounds full of regret, not venom, "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" might be his greatest pure love song, and it sounds like his love is right there, gazing into his eyes, hanging on every word. And "Tangled Up in Blue" — well, has there ever been a bad version of this song? (That was a rhetorical question, you, yeah you, who were going to point me to some bad version he did on the 1991 tour or something.)

In "Annie Hall," just after Woody Allen is rolling his eyes as Shelly Duval's addled rock critic is quoting the lyrics of "Just Like a Woman" (Shelly: "Did you catch Dylan? Woody: Me? No ... my raccoon had hepatitis."), she describes an event with the Maharishi as "transplendent." At its best — "Isis," "Hurricane," those already-mentioned acoustic songs (and the Hard Rain version of "Shelter From the Storm") — that's what the Rolling Thunder tour sounds like. Transplendent. But as a whole, the album isn't quite transplendent enough.

Still, you folks over at Sony, howz about releasing "Renaldo & Clara" and "Hard Rain" on DVD?


by Jim Connelly




-
-snippetcontactsnippetcontributorssnippetvisionsnippethelpsnippetcopyrightsnippetlegalsnippetterms of usesnippetThis site is Copyright © 2003 Insider One LLC
-