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the pioneer of Dylan Studies; writer, public speaker, critic; became a Doctor of Letters in 2015 (awarded by the University of York, UK)

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Thursday, November 25, 2010

MICHAEL GRAY SPRING TOUR 2011

The list of tour dates is growing all the time, so this is the up-to-date but unfinished list of events already clinched:

FEB 17
Liverpool University School of the Arts
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

MAR 24
University of Alabama New College, Tuscaloosa AL
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

MAR 30 University of Georgia, Athens GA
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

MAR 31 University of Georgia, Athens GA
Searching For Blind Willie McTell

APR 6 The New School, New York City NY
Searching For Blind Willie McTell

APR 9 Riverbank Arts Centre, Newbridge, Ireland
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

APR 12 Passionfruit Theatre, Athlone, Ireland
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

APR 13 The Dock Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

APR 14 Linenhall Arts Centre, Castlebar, Ireland
topic not yet decided

APR 15 The Loft, The Locke Bar, Limerick, Ireland
Love Me Slender: the Genius of Early Elvis

APR 16
Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Galway, Ireland
Searching For Blind Willie McTell

APR 20 Cork World Book Fair, Cork, Ireland
Love Me Slender: the Genius of Early Elvis

APR 21
Droichead Arts Centre, Drogheda, Ireland
Bob Dylan & The Poetry of the Blues

MAY 19/21 University of Vienna Bob Dylan Conference, Austria
How did Bob Dylan’s version of Americanness impact British culture?

13 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hi Michael,

Any idea how you go about buying tickets for the show at University of Liverpool

Cheers
Andy

2:40 pm  
Blogger Michael Gray said...

Hi Andy
Thanks for asking. My hunch is that this one will be open to all and free but that there might be a reservations process. I expect to be told these details soon and will post it as an Update.

3:52 pm  
Anonymous Harold Lepidus said...

Hello - did you see this ?
http://ocioenlinea.com/contenido/dylan-fondo

BD encyclopedia review linked on BD.com

1:10 am  
Blogger Michael Gray said...

Thanks Harold. No, I hadn't seen it but I'm delighted to learn that The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia is on sale in Guadalajara, Mexico.

For those with an interest in what's happening in Mexico, there was a terrific though highly depressing essay (ostensibly a review of The Last Narco: Hunting El Chapo, the World’s Most Wanted Drug Lord by Malcolm Beith) in the London Review of Books of October 21 by Ben Ehrenreich, which includes this:

"...Ricardo Ravelo said that the point of the drug war appeared not to be to end the drug trade but ‘to finish off the so-called unorganised narco-trafficking, to leave the elites free to manage the trade in drugs on a grand scale’.

Meanwhile the flow of contraband to the United States has increased. Despite more than 28,000 deaths and the showcase arrests and killings of major cartel figures, the traffic continues unimpeded. Last year, the Mexican government confiscated less than half the amount of cocaine that it had seized in 1991. At the same time cocaine interdiction dropped sharply in the US, which the DEA mysteriously takes as a sign of success."

The piece ends like this:

"Whatever shape it takes, the war on drugs continues to be even more profitable than the drug trade itself. All the killing keeps prices per gram high, so the cartels do fine, as do the legions of sicarios and the funeral directors they help to feed. The bankers who launder the money also win, as do the businessmen into whose enterprises the newly laundered funds are funnelled. The American weapons manufacturers stand to do nicely, as do the US security consultants and military contractors who will deposit almost all of the Merida funds into their own accounts, and who can expect to make billions more from the militarisation of the border on the American side: someone has to make the helicopters, the cameras, the night-vision goggles, the motion sensors, the unmanned drones, as well as build the private prisons that hold the migrants. Finally politicians too stand to gain, not only Calderón and the PRIistas who are likely to profit from his failure in 2012, but the Americans who have sponsored him: the agile ones who can leverage campaign contributions from the contractors, the populists who win votes by shouting about the barbarian hordes advancing through the Arizona desert, the moderates who get re-elected term after term by expounding in even tones about the need for something called ‘comprehensive border security’. The killing is therefore unlikely to stop."

12:31 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have a look at Roberto Bolano's '2666'.

7:45 pm  
Anonymous one-eyedundertaker said...

No chance of you coming North of the Irish Border to Belfast this spring/summer?

5:21 pm  
Blogger Michael Gray said...

I'd love to come back to Belfast, but can't find a venue! The MAC doesn't re-open till 2012, and I don't know where else to try.

A bit further afield but still up North, I've given up trying to prise an answer out of the Arts Officer at Ards, Newtownards, and likewise with the Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown. Ulster University can't do anything in that period.

I appreciate your asking, though, and any suggestions would be welcome.

5:36 pm  
Anonymous Jack Evans said...

Hello Michael~ Do you have time to schedule some
Midwest date? Let me know if I can help out in
anyway. We could put together an event in Madison
for sure. I've got some books I need signed!

8:25 pm  
Blogger kiss my shades said...

Hello Michael,
no London date planned?
Laura

11:42 pm  
Blogger Michael Gray said...

Hi Jack
I'm sorry to say I'm not going to be able to make it to the midwest this season. It's a shame, but there it is. Another time.

Hello Laura
Thank you for asking. Actually I have been looking at London dates, but haven't found a venue yet. The ICA says no, on the grounds that Bob Dylan isn't contemporary... The Rosemary Branch in Islington is booked up till June. I'm looking at a couple of other options but if you've anywhere to suggest, please do!

10:41 am  
Anonymous Jack Evans said...

OK Michael~ we'll have to make sure there is a next time and it gives us something to look forward to.
You got the gig at the High Noon Saloon in Madison
and you could do a blues thing in Chicago, and maybe Duluth, Minneapolis, Hibbing(maybe at Zimmy's). We should take another trip up to the range together, but this time we'll talk. I
got a brand new silver Subaru Outback and could help with transportation and lodging and don't forget the Nepalese restaurant, Dobhan.
In the meantime maybe I can make it to NYC or Athens this go 'round. I highly recommend catching Michael if you can. Get to Town Early! Don't You Dare Miss It!
Happy Holidays!(is to early to dust off the Mitch Miller and Bob Dylan Xmas vinyl?)
~Jack

4:23 pm  
Blogger Michael Gray said...

Jack
Thanks for your very warm and supportive message. It's much appreciated.

And yes, for me it's still a little early to be playing those Elvis, Phil Spector and Bob Christmas records - though yesterday I was at a Christmas Fair in a local village, assisting Sarah, who was selling home-made mince pies, Christmas puddings, prune pies, meringues, stained-glass biscuits and wondrous soup.

11:37 pm  
Anonymous Jack Evans said...

I agree about it being too early for the Xmas tunes,
but we did get a Bing Crosby snow fall, so I put on New Morning and listened to Winterlude. I just wish I had
some of that soup and pie right now. Oh me oh my...

7:05 pm  

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