Bruce Springsteen is extending his acoustic tour and will be in Madison on October 15. Last week, ironically enough - and of course irony remains my middle name - after the Scorsese thing which one could view as a retelling of the Newport frenzy and it’s fallout mixed with a retelling of the faithful Joanie’s adoration for her artist as a young man, after I had seen the two nights of Dylan and folk on the cusp of revolution and been reminded of all the nonsense and angst that the shift from acoustic to electric supposedly wrought I was talking to a friend who mentioned that Springsteen was coming, but lamented that the second set at least would be acoustic and thought there was little value in that seeing as how when he goes to see the Boss he wants to hear the E Street Band.
I found that ironic. I find it less ironic than interesting that as Dylan ages he has adopted a Vincent Price thin moustache, while as Springsteen continues to mature he reminds me of Gary Oldman.
And that seems to be the state of criticism of the poetry and musicianship of Bob Dylan these days. Unless you want to take a look at what Golby has written. More than a fan-boy, more than a critic, Golby as an artist himself with a deep appreciation of Dylan’s work brings a lot of it all back home. For a little clarity, for some fresh water in the midst of a murky swamp, if you’re interested in reading a little Dylan criticism and all that implies, well… go here.
Then again, to argue Dylan’s poor standing among the likes of Beethoven
and great poets is a double-edged sword. Why put him up there? At least
it distances the artist from his art and robs our intrepid journalists
of their cheapest trick, blurring personal and artistic distinctions to
pander to our culture’s innate desire to worship every so-called
personality for 15 minutes before setting him or her aflame.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for those kind words, Frank. I know you to be a hard, irascible man not given to sentimentality for old time’s sake, so they mean a lot to me :).
Yep, as much as these guys might enjoy dressing like old radio shows or matinee idols, I’d still walk a damned side more than a mile to get to one of their concerts. And I’d probably walk further for Springsteen’s accoustic sets. Much of his work lends itself to leaving the band at home for the night.
Being a continent away, I’ll not get to see either (perhaps a good thing–old Bob looks as though he’s already blowin’ in the wind). But, and that’s my point, so what? Their music’s bloody wonderful and it’ll live as long as we wish it to. And that’s what matters.
Amen, Mike Golby. Definitely, amen to that!
Yes, and irascible or not, the ladies tell me that a hard man is good to find.
Joan, Al Kooper, the producer who said God kicked Dylan in the ass, those were some of the highlights, but I too was wondering, why did Marty focus so much on the switch to electric?
Anyhoo, one thing I took away from it and the subsequent 60s documentary on PBS was the cold and calculated assassination of idealism by the likes of the scumbags in power today. “My God, they killed him”
I was sitting here trying to remember the name of a guy who fasted in Lafayette Park in the 70’s and 80’s as a demonstration of his opposition to nuclear arms. He was a big guy, brought plenty of reserves to the fast… I was reminded of him by the current interview with Scott Galindez by Marc Ash…
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100305X.shtml
Darned if I can remember his name and he has since passed away… the name will surface again someday and I’ll blog it with a little story about sitting around in a condo in San Rafael on Kentucky Derby day in 1985 talking about this guy, passing out in the bathroom but not spilling a crumb from the open bindle, not even chipping a tooth on the toilet bowl, but getting the sense that something had gone wrong… maybe it was a motorcycle accident… I don’t rightly remember… but it took me five or six years to resurface, cleaner, healthier… the trouble with the sixties is that we didn’t poke enough fun at Milton Friedman to keep him and his ilk out of power and influence… too busy, distracted by some psy op of hedonismus. repeating the archetypal errors, buit learning from them too…
thanks for dropping in, Bruce. there’s some vinyl called Super Session with Mike Bloomfield and Al Kooper. wish I had it back. you might like it too.