It's all about Bob (Dylan)... or is it?

if you're trying to get a handle on just how much the Music Industry doesn't get people who love music, "About Bob" is a good place to start.

it is a site devoted to the music of Bob Dylan and no,
this doesn't mean you can go there and download all Bob's albums. what you will find there is an encyclopedia of Bob.

it's a place where people who really, and i mean really, care about Bob Dylan and his music. Bob doesn't know this much about his own life.

It is an amazing collection of information, assembled over i don't know how long...
No flash graphics, no fancy designs or annoying splash pages, just the skinny, collected and organized in ways that make sense and are easy to find.

What he did in any given year- the songs he wrote,
where he performed them for the first time, how many official and unofficial versions of each song there are in the world...

...when he recorded what song and who played on it... how many takes were laid down of that song...

it is amazing.

***

are you interested in transcriptions of the interviews Bob did, sorted by decade and available as PDFs? free?

ever wonder about what other artists have covered a song by Bob, or written one that referred to him, or even made fun of him? it's here...
there are listings of 5870 covers of 350 different Dylan songs by 2791 artists!

alphabetized.

now i'm not a Bob freak. i like a lot of his music, and i'm still listening 40 years later. i saw him perform in Toronto with the Band in '74. a minute on this site, and i'm looking at the setlist for that night.

Maple Leaf Gardens,

Toronto, Ontario, Canada,

10th Jan 1974

1. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I‟ll Go Mine)

2. I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)

3. As I Went Out One Morning

4. Lay Lady Lay

5. Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues

6. Ballad Of A Thin Man

7. Stage Fright (The Band)

8. The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (The Band)

9. King Harvest (Has Surely Come) (The Band)

10. This Wheel's On Fire (The Band)

11. I Shall Be Released (The Band)

12. Up On Cripple Creek (The Band)

13. All Along The Watchtower

14. Ballad Of Hollis Brown

15. Knockin' On Heaven's Door

16. The Times They Are A-Changin' – (solo)

17. Don't Think Twice, It‟s All Right – (solo)

18. Gates Of Eden - (solo)

19. Love Minus Zero/No Limit – (solo)

20. It's Alright Ma (I‟m Only Bleeding) – (solo)

21. Rag Mama Rag (The Band)

22. When You Awake (The Band)

23. The Shape I'm In (The Band)

24. The Weight (The Band)

25. Forever Young

26. Something There Is About You

27. Like A Rolling Stone

28. Most Likely You Go Your Way (And I‟ll Go Mine)

Tapes: There is an Ex stereo tape of the show.

CD: Phantoms of my Youth (3, 19)

of course, like any good website, it has links to all sorts of variations on the theme of Bob. Dylan Stubs, for instance

here's what the tickets to the Gardens to see Bob and the Band that night looked like....

there's more information there, like posters
from over the years, set lists from his 2010 shows and of course more links.

if i wanted to know more about my night with Bob,
it would probably be in  Bob Dylan Live in Canada A Concert History, 1962-2000 by Brady J. Leyser and Olof Bjšrner

but I probably won't. Like I say, I'm not hardcore.

if you want to really get your Bob on, there's also a bibliography of Bob, listing the titles of books about him, in 27 languages right here.

http://michel.pomarede.pagesperso-orange.fr/CW&C/pages/books.htm

or how about an interactive database of Bob Dylan albums, official and bootlegs?
that's right over here...


if you want to stay current with Bob, and with what people are thinking and writing about Bob, the site you want is Expecting Rain.

every day, there are upwards of 20 posts with links covering Bob and where he fits in to history and the bigger world. there are hundreds of thumbnails
and links to art about Bob.

there is an atlas of places mentioned in Bob's songs,
a message board where you can discuss himself with other interested parties, and it's all carefully archived back to 1995, when the site started, i presume.

all of which is free. all you have to do is be interested...

***

Bob, of course, is a singular artist, with a music career spanning 50 years of activity...but there are all kinds of sites like this out there, for all kinds of artists and musicians.

there are people who could do PhDs in Lou Reed, or Trent Reznor or Britney Spears or Lee Scratch Perry. the list, like the beat, goes on, but what it speaks to is a profound level of interest in and engagement with the lives and work of musicians that is pretty special and unique.

***

these sites are worthy of mention and praise simply for what they are - incredible community-based scholarship. they are passionate testaments to how much music and musicians can mean to people around the world.

these are the kinds of gifts only true love inspires the giving thereof. only an idiot or a complete cynic could spend any time at all on sites like these and think that anyone involved would do harm to the subject of their fascination.

the people who pour so much time into creating sites like About Bob do so because they are profoundly moved by his music. they are not thieves, or pirates or anything as simple or as childish as 'fans'.

- tbc -

About Bob

Dylan Stubs



http://www.dylansongs.org/


Expecting Rain

.

No Song Is Illegal

at some point in this copy right
or wrong situation, a lot of musical questions start coming up, including:



what kind of mind makes it illegal to enjoy a song?




what kind of people bust campfire girls, grannies and students for possession of music?



why are their spin doctors not laughed out of the building whenever they show up with their absurd statistics?




is the music industry any different from the police industry and the drug industry?

and if i was a legislator, i would like to put a few questions to the Industry itself, like...

how many of the alleged downloads
are theoretically "your music"?


how many of the alleged downloads are from completely legitimate sources?





how many of the files being downloaded
can be purchased from you today?







what are the demographics of "the pirates"?
who are these uploaders & who is downloading them?





why do you have such a bee up your butt about music you haven't cared about for decades, if ever?

but i'm not a legislator,
so here's a question from me:



how long is it going to take you to figure out
that all those music blogs out there
could be the best friends you ever had?

more where they came from, 
but that'll do for now.

questions like these trouble me, and i'm troubled about the discussions we're not having about some pretty important issues, with a very long tail we will have drag into the future with us.

the Music Industry has positioned itself in a fashion similar to the Holy Roman Church in medieval Europe. Big surprise. they are the font of reason, with a double-shot of moral authority back.

RESPECT

when it comes to loving the Artists,
the Industry might not walk the walk,
but they have certainly bought the talk.


if all the money the Industry has invested in this process has done one thing well, it has put a long term lease on the vocabulary of the conversation and straight-out bought the box we're going to have it in...

it has "defined the issues" so effectively that there are only their issues. there is no room left at the table for any other arguably less self-interested voices.

they have created  an urgency where none existed. Canada represents a whopping 2% of the international music market. passing this legislation will not change that fact. this one's not about the money. this one signs up for the digi-Coalition of the Willing.

the war on sharing is an American-driven war. another big surprise. more accurately the War on Sharing is a project of the music and film divisions of several trans-national corporations.

it's a remix that drops DC in for New York, New York, to the effect that if you can get something like this passed there, you can get it passed anywhere. it's up to you, DC, DC...

make no mistake about it -

we will get the legislation they want...

and there will be inspiring sound bites about how Canada, our Canada is no safe place for "pirates".

and how we were once laissez-faire, but now march in the first rank in the war on sharing, doing our bit to constipate the internet..


this legislation will pass in Parliament because
good and evil are all laid out. it makes everybody look good, it sends a message that Canada is open for business and there's no bad guys here except 'the pirates'.

you can even mention how you care so much about Canadian artists, you've given them their own level playing field. it's almost like giving them money, except it's free.

***

but between then and now, can we call a cease-fire on all those earnest sermons about how this is for the Artists, and pointing out other crumbs that may or may not fall from the tables of our betters? 

it's too depressing.

- 30 -



the illustrations for this rant have come from a variety of pirate places that used to exist on the net.

if you like looking at album covers,

you really want to go to:


LP Cover Lover

Incredibly Strange Albums

the Worst Album Covers of All Time!

.

I, Downloader 3 - me, Mick and music

music saved my life.

ever since the summer of '64 when i first heard George Harrison hit that Rickenbacker chord that kicks off A Hard Day's Night, music has been an essential part of my life... and the lives of most of the people around me.

i've spent decades bring musicians and audiences together around  stages in parks, clubs, community halls and sidewalks, and getting those musicians paid. along the way, a lot of indies move mad product, working like a dog and loving every minute of it.

i've spent more money on music recordings than other people have putting their kids through school, and so did most of my friends.

then and now, we put a high value on our music... sometimes, more than the people making it and never any less than anyone at any major labels.

***

one of the bands i have listened to a lot is the Rolling Stones. i started listening when Satisfaction came out, and i kept listening til about Black and Blue.

i hung this poster on my wall for years, because i thought it was so damn good. i've worn 4 Stones tour shirts into threadbare oblivion.



i've seen them live 3 times - '72 and '75 in Maple Leaf Gardens and once in Oshawa at the benefit Keith Richards had to do for the blind after his smack bust in Toronto.

i have probably bought 20 Stones albums in my time, six of which were Exile on Main Street.

i bought my first copy the day i got out of high school- went home and proceeded to blast it out
of mom and dad's stereo while hustling my younger brother to cough for half the sticker price, so it could be 'ours'.

when that copy got swiped at a party one night,
i bought another copy, which worked until that got scratched up too bad at a house party in second year, which led me spend nearly 50 bucks for a half-speed Japanese virgin vinyl copy.

i probably listened to that a thousand times
before making the tragic mistake of loaning it
to the coke-head younger brother of another friend for a weekend. when it finally came back a month later, there was a scratch on side one.

a few years later, some friends got me a CD player when such things were all gee whiz and shiny new.

Exiles was the only album exempted from my resolution not to buy the CD of an album
i already owned.

hey, it was Exiles, and my devotion was rewarded
a few months later when one night listening to it on headphones, i heard a glass bottle get knocked over during one of the tracks.

i've went to hear Andrew Loog Oldham speak in Belfast, at the screening of old documentary of young Stones touring Ireland, made after the Beatles did "A Hard Day's Night".

i will never forget his answer to a sincere young man embarking on a career in music...

"Darling, if you're not prepared to get fucked,
find another business"

***

as i write this, there is a hard cover copy of Keef's new autobiography on my coffee table, that i'm saving for the next time i get on a train somewhere.

***


the point? i've spent a lot of money
on the Rolling Stones over the years,
and i'm still spending money on them.

why?
because the things i've found
online have kept my interest alive.

it is my fondness for the Rolling Stones
and a certain era of their musical evolution
that has led me deeper and deeper
into the Land of the Pirates.

***

i have sought, and i have found amazing
stuff out there...

i have found more rough takes, out-takes,
re-takes, unused takes and alt-mixed versions from their rankest early days to more recently than i care to hear.


my main focus is from '67 to '79 or so, and even with those parameters, what's out there dwarfs
even my curiousity.

***

i have my own copy of the "Cocksucker Blues",
the film Robert Frank made about the '72 tour...

the film so frickin' true the Stones organization
did everything in it's legal power to keep people from seeing.

next: I Downloader 4 - People's Exhibit A



 

.

I, Downloader 2 - Cocksucker Blues

if the Music Industry and their more vocal sub-contractors* have one ace up their sleeve,
it's their ability to stay on message.

ten years into a new Millenium, they are still chanting the mantra they entered it with - the Industry is in decline because people are 'stealing' their 'intellectual property' on the internet.

they can prove it, with their own statistics. the statistics are then  translated into financial losses, at an exchange rate of 1:1, where each alleged download equals one lost retail sale.

these fantasy figures make it clear that their former customers are now active participants in a global crime wave bigger than the Medellin cartel.

as though this were not enough, the news of this sonic apocalypse is wrapped in an Industrial pink fuzzy blanket of love for the Artists... big ones, little ones, old ones and especially the young ones, as given their fiscal projections one or more of the big three or four won't be able to be there to help crazy kids everywhere live the Dream of trans-national, rock-pop-alt-crossover success.

***

...all of which adds up to a sense of entitlement verging on the sociopathic. it boils down to...


We rock. Totally.

it's those Fans who suck.

***

 it's an interesting gambit. as long as you stay
in their script, it all seems to make some
kind of sense. i guess.

the only problem is that they are wrong... as wrong as wrong can be. it would actually be hard for them to be more wrong.

these Industrial pain cries are the same ones heard near what we now call the Miracle Mile in Los Angeles, as mammoths, ground sloths and sabre tooth cats sank into the tar pits.

do you smell methane?

***

looking at it all from a decidedly Old School bench,
i think the people who upload music files, and the people who download music files are the people who really love music.

...as much as any major dude. 

the Industry and their acolytes no longer seem to know what it's like to love music beyond reason.

they lack clue one about the difference between a music lover, and 'a fan'... maybe they're not music lovers. maybe, they're not even be fans.

they're not listening - which is odd, on one level and yet on another might explain why they release so much unessential  music by so many second-rate, one-hit-maybe fame sluts.

and their child-like wonder when we the people don't pony up like it's 1999...
like we used to...


they're asking "where's all that easy money gone?", while we're asking "what is this shit?"

***

                   They would not listen
                   they're not
                   list'ning still
                   perhaps they never will.

from Vincent - Don McLean

***

music saved my life.

ever since the summer of '64 when i first heard George Harrison hit that Rickenbacker chord that kicks off A Hard Day's Night, music has been an essential part of my life... and the lives of most of the people around me.

i've spent decades bring musicians and audiences together around  stages in parks, clubs, community halls and sidewalks, and getting those musicians paid. along the way, a lot of indies move mad product, working like a dog and loving every minute of it.

i've spent more money on music recordings than other people have putting their kids through school, and so did most of my friends.

then and now, we put a high value on our music... sometimes, more than the people making it and never any less than anyone at any major labels.

***

ME - A CASE STUDY

one of the bands i have listened to a lot is the Rolling Stones. i started listening when Satisfaction came out, and i kept listening til about Black and Blue.

i hung this poster on my wall for years, because i thought it was so damn good. i've worn 4 Stones tour shirts into threadbare oblivion.



i've seen them live 3 times - '72 and '75 in Maple Leaf Gardens and once in Oshawa at the benefit Keith Richards had to do for the blind after his smack bust in Toronto.

i have probably bought 20 Stones albums in my time, six of which were Exile on Main Street.

i bought my first copy the day i got out of high school- went home and proceeded to blast it out
of mom and dad's stereo while hustling my younger brother to cough for half the sticker price, so it could be 'ours'.

when that copy got swiped at a party one night, i bought another copy, which worked until that got scratched up too bad at a house party in second year, which led me spend nearly 50 bucks for a half-speed Japanese virgin vinyl copy.

i probably listened to that a thousand times
before making the tragic mistake of loaning it to the coke-head younger brother of another friend for a weekend. when it finally came back a month later, there was a scratch on side one.

a few years later, some friends got me a CD player when such things were all gee whiz and shiny new.

Exiles was the only album exempted from my resolution not to buy the CD of an album
i already owned.

hey, it was Exiles, and my devotion was rewarded
a few months later when one night listening to it on headphones, i heard a glass bottle get knocked over during one of the tracks.

i've went to hear Andrew Loog Oldham speak in Belfast, at the screening of old documentary of young Stones touring Ireland, made after the Beatles did "A Hard Day's Night".

i will never forget his answer to a sincere young man embarking on a career in music...

"Darling, if you're not prepared to get fucked, find another business"

***

as i write this, there is a hard cover copy of Keef's new autobiography on my coffee table, that i'm saving for the next time i get on a train somewhere.

***

it is my fondness for the Rolling Stones
and a certain era of their musical evolution
that has led me deeper and deeper
into the Land of the Pirates.

***

i have sought, and i have found amazing stuff out there...

i have found more rough takes, out-takes, re-takes, unused takes and alt-mixed versions from their rankest early days to more recently than i care to hear.


my main focus is from '67 to '79 or so, and even with those parameters, what's out there dwarfs my curiousity.

***

i have my own copy of the "Cocksucker Blues",
the film Robert Frank made about the '72 tour...

the film so frickin' true the Stones organization did everything in it's legal power to keep people from seeing.

***

have you ever heard "Cocksucker Blues"?

***

Cocksucker Blues is a song the Stones did in 1970. according to their contract with the Decca label, the Stones owed them one more single before their relationship could be terminated.

Mick and Keith recorded a song, and handed duly handed it in. the song was "Cocksucker Blues".

not to put too fine a point on it, that song is a motherfucker.

***

i'd never say it's the best song they ever did- partly because it's not true and partly because that whole 'best' thing - when it comes to music - is stupid.

but i will say it's a really amazing song.

it concerns the adventures of an English schoolboy who leaves the small town of his birth to go to Swinging London, where he becomes a rent boy and is ultimately sodmized with a truncheon by a London bobby.

***

it's dead simple, Keef on that Gibson acoustic, and Jagger singing  drenched in dirty reverb. it's dark and chilling as your worst secret nightmare. it's a song not soon forgotten.

Mick slurs few words here, and when he gets to the chorus there is no doubt whatsoever what he's singing...

"where can i get my cock sucked?
where can i get my ass fucked?".

***

he sings his ass off. this Blues is a rare moment, no manners, no arch posing, no talking sly with that tongue deep in cheek. it's just him singing his guts out.

***

it's a country blues- a country blues like nothing you've ever heard on an Official Release. next to this, "Sweet Virginia" is a Christmas
carol.

it's as close as i've ever heard them or any other post-war white boys
get to Robert Johnson and the crossroads. it is a killer track, and part of the reason why is because it was never really meant to be released.

it was the boys having a little joke - one last little 'fuck you' to the label they were leaving behind.

it was never really intended to be heard by the rest of us, but there was an Official release on a German compilation of Stones songs in 1983. the album was recalled 4 weeks after that release, and when the album appeared in shops again sometime later, it no longer included Cocksucker Blues.

of course, when it comes to music and the internet, once is enough.

***

if you like the Stones, you should check it out. i could tell you where to find it, but that would be Wrong, and not in the way you think...


it would be wrong because hunting is how you earn it. it's not on Boing Boing, Pitchfork or Salon, and i doubt it's on a FaceBook or a MySpace page.

it's out there. and if you care, you can find it.

if you really love the Stones.


man.

- take me to I, Downloader 3 -

* ie- musicians, singers, producers et al

.

I, Downloader

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