It takes a rare talent to make a hit out of a song that tells the listener “everyone you know / will die,” but “Do You Realize” changed the Flaming Lips’ profile in 2002. Really though, it and the album it came from, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, were the natural follow-ups to 1999’s The [...]
Tag Archives: Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan, Together Through Life (Columbia)
July 1, 2009 – 12:01 am
The Adventures of Bob continue, and this time he gives himself over completely to the role of the roadhouse blues singer. On Together Through Life, he explores his ups and downs with women, a solid blues trope if there ever was one. When he sings “Jolene,” “Shake Shake Mama” and that Hell is “My Wife’s [...]
New Dylan
April 28, 2009 – 11:12 am
I’ve read Ann Powers, Ben Ratliff and Tom Moon‘s reviews of Bob Dylan’s new Together Through Life and I’d like to hear it like Powers does – but so far, I find it hard to find an interesting handle on it. Much of it I hear as the product of a music fan trying [...]
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, Alligator Purse (Yep Roc)
February 1, 2009 – 12:01 am
BeauSoleil has long been a band that can be taken for granted. To win Grammys, to become representative of a genre, and to become keepers of a cultural flame can be a blessing and a curse. Because, at the end of the day, it’s all about how the music moves you Truth be told, I’ve [...]
BeauSoleil: Beau Brothers
February 1, 2009 – 12:01 am
Back in 1986, when BeauSoleil was first starting to tour a lot outside Louisiana, back when the Doucet brothers still had a bit of hair atop their heads, the band played at the Kennedy Center, Washington’s red-carpeted bastion of high culture. BeauSoleil was just a quartet in those days—Michael Doucet on fiddle, David Doucet on [...]
Writing about Writing
October 29, 2008 – 6:42 am
When Hurricane Katrina leveled Peter Holsapple’s house, he left town and hasn’t been back nearly often enough. He has, however, been blogging on songwriting for The New York Times. In today’s posting, “Thank You, Bob,” he talks about aging, making peace with collaboration and Bob Dylan’s Tell Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8: Dylan’s [...]
I’m Not There continued
June 23, 2008 – 7:09 am
More Dylan incarnations: “Down in the Basement” by Sloan on Parallel Play, which turns one musical line from “Subterranean Homesick Blues” and literalizes the phrase to make it about domesticity and rock ‘n’ roll. Here’s another set of Dylans in another Riddle, Missouri, courtesy of The New York Times.
Read Bob, not Miley
June 19, 2008 – 7:46 am
At “Clap, Clap,” Mike Barthel has an interesting essay on Miley Cyrus that dovetails nicely on my thoughts on I’m Not There. He wrote: If the construction of character through multiple streams that duplicate and build on existing information just seems like the way the media works–then Hannah Montana fits right in. Substitute “Dylan” for “Hannah Montana” [...]
I’m Not There
June 18, 2008 – 10:58 am
I saw I’m Not There at a press screening with a handful of people. Not surprisingly, Dylan fans loved it, but those who were just there to see a movie were crabby and perplexed on their way out. I wondered then if you had to know Dylan’s story to make any sense of the movie, and [...]
Bobby Charles: Better Days
May 1, 2007 – 12:01 am
The plan is to meet Bobby Charles in his hometown of Abbeville, Louisiana at a local restaurant. He usually sits at the third table. Unfortunately, it doesn’t open until 5 p.m., so we meet in a Lafayette Copeland’s—not as picturesque, but there’s something poetically odd in the juxtaposition of Austin Powers’ Goldmenber on the television [...]
