UPDATE ON NEW ALBUMS WE'LL BE BUYING ALL OVER AGAIN
Not content with re-selling all those albums, now the Sony / Bob Dylan people have devised another was of pulling in yet more of our money - by offering something previously unreleased as a bonus CD with the Witmark demos - if you buy the "special collectors' edition".
As reported more fully in ISIS here, someone has unearthed a partial recording from a 1963 gig never previously circulated. Here's most of the ISIS report:
An article earlier this year, in ISIS # 149, about Bob Dylan’s non-appearance on the 12 May 1963 Ed Sullivan show, included reference to Dylan’s performance, two days earlier, at the “1st Annual Folk Festival” at Brandeis University. Around the time ISIS went to press, there was a rumour that a recording of this performance had been found in the Ralph Gleason archive. Meanwhile, there has been contradictory information as to whether there would be a “collectors’ edition” of the forthcoming "Volume 9" in "The Bootleg Series". Now it seems that this will happen and the aforementioned Brandeis performance will make up the bonus disc. Here is the track listing as provided earlier this year:
1. Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance
2. Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues
3. Ballad of Hollis Brown
4. Masters of War
5. Talkin’ World War III Blues
6. Bob Dylan’s Dream
7. Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues
Apparently, the opening song is cut or in some way incomplete, so it will be interesting to hear if this how it appears on the bonus disc. 'Bear Mountain' is the one song that was mentioned in a contemporary review of the concert and it always seemed an odd choice for a 1963 performance. It is now understood that this was in response to a request from the audience and we must assume that this audience member recalled the song from one of Dylan’s previous visits to the Boston area. The whole recording lasts about 40-45 minutes and, before you ask, we have neither got nor heard this recording either.
The current position seems to be that this bonus disc will not be released as an individual item, nor will be available on a widespread basis. Instead, it will be sold as part of a “Bootleg Series Volume 9” package and through just one selected retailer in any one country. Details are not yet known.
Meanwhile I note that one of the albums we'll be buying all over again, the magnificent Highway 61 Revisited, was released 45 years ago today.
As reported more fully in ISIS here, someone has unearthed a partial recording from a 1963 gig never previously circulated. Here's most of the ISIS report:
An article earlier this year, in ISIS # 149, about Bob Dylan’s non-appearance on the 12 May 1963 Ed Sullivan show, included reference to Dylan’s performance, two days earlier, at the “1st Annual Folk Festival” at Brandeis University. Around the time ISIS went to press, there was a rumour that a recording of this performance had been found in the Ralph Gleason archive. Meanwhile, there has been contradictory information as to whether there would be a “collectors’ edition” of the forthcoming "Volume 9" in "The Bootleg Series". Now it seems that this will happen and the aforementioned Brandeis performance will make up the bonus disc. Here is the track listing as provided earlier this year:
1. Honey Just Allow Me One More Chance
2. Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues
3. Ballad of Hollis Brown
4. Masters of War
5. Talkin’ World War III Blues
6. Bob Dylan’s Dream
7. Talkin’ Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues
Apparently, the opening song is cut or in some way incomplete, so it will be interesting to hear if this how it appears on the bonus disc. 'Bear Mountain' is the one song that was mentioned in a contemporary review of the concert and it always seemed an odd choice for a 1963 performance. It is now understood that this was in response to a request from the audience and we must assume that this audience member recalled the song from one of Dylan’s previous visits to the Boston area. The whole recording lasts about 40-45 minutes and, before you ask, we have neither got nor heard this recording either.
The current position seems to be that this bonus disc will not be released as an individual item, nor will be available on a widespread basis. Instead, it will be sold as part of a “Bootleg Series Volume 9” package and through just one selected retailer in any one country. Details are not yet known.
Meanwhile I note that one of the albums we'll be buying all over again, the magnificent Highway 61 Revisited, was released 45 years ago today.
posted by Michael Gray | 2:48 pm
4 Comments:
As long as the special 3xCD edition isn't insultingly expensive (hello, Tell Tale Signs) then that's good isn't it?
It's all unrealeased to me, I don't have any bootlegs just the official releases.
Oh good, a mystery - I've always presumed the Bev that writes here is a Bev I know; but then again I've always presumed that that Bev had as many bootlegs as I do myself.
Now, how can I work this out without asking someone to give away personal details?
Homer (Andy Muir) (who thinks he met Bev in Hammersmith one year Bob was there - 93?- but whose memory is soooo not to be trusted.)
I've been wondering whether these re-releases are an example of the underlying sentimentality that's part of rock music, or are they just another corporate scam. Let's agree, the corporate part isn't unusual, and this is their job, so they shouldn't be blamed.
But isn't there an imbuilt nostalgia that dogs rock music? I remember an episode of the Sopranos where one of Tony's lieutenants is sitting with other hoods and their whole conversation is "remember when...?"
They try include Tony and he replies: "Remember when is the lowest form of conversation."
Rock music seems to have this as a default hidden charge. Greatest hits packages, remaster series, cigaretter lighters in the air. I don't know if it's because of its proletariat roots, or simply because it's a very limited, but very pleasing, form of music, and once it's done, well, we try re-live it and it all gets to be done again, just so's we "remember when."
I know Bob doesn't like nostalgia. He says so in his book, and of course his music isn't nostalgic at all, so maybe his motives are corporate. Can't blame him for that, but as I said before, I shan't be getting any of these deadweight releases.
Remember when Bobbie blazed a trail, eh?
here is some more heartening news...new rolling thunder documentary, supper club and hard rain dvd's too
http://www.examiner.com/bob-dylan-in-national/how-to-get-dylan-s-brandeis-university-bonus-disc-whitmark-demo-picked-over-supper-club-cd-dvd
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