In 1970, the year I was born, Rolling Stone magazine published a review by learned rock journalist Greil Marcus of what was then Bob Dylan’s latest album, Self-Portrait.  The review’s high impact opening sentence has since earned itself a place in the annals of popular culture for its succinct precision and evocative use of language.  It simply asked the question:  ‘What is this shit?’

It’s 2010 and Bob Dylan and Greil Marcus are both nearly 40 years older and I’m nearly 40 years-old.  Dylan has just performed a storming set on a sizzling Saturday night in front of Clare, the kids and me -- and some tens of thousands of other people, too -- in a field somewhere in Kent.  As the crowds disperse, making their way to their tents, cars or wherever, many can be seen gazing wistfully, smiling blisfully and generally indulging themselves in that warm glow of post-gig euphoria.  Some of them are even singing.

But not everyone is happy.  Just as many people look bewildered, disillusioned and visibly pissed off, like first generation Star Wars fans in 1999 stumbling out of a Phantom Menace preview.  They seem hurt, betrayed and are probably asking themselves a similar question to the one Greil Marcus first articulated four decades earlier:

What was that shit?

Of course, over the years Dylan has developed something of a penchant for polarising his punters.  Back in the summer of 1965 he antagonised his core folkie constituency (and endeared himself to a new audience of rock music fans) when he plugged an electric guitar into an amplifier at the Newport Folk Festival.   Five years later and it was the rockers turn to feel betrayed -- and country music fans who were won over -- when Dylan released Nashville Skyline.  Another schism opened up in the late-1970s when he became a born-again Christian and renounced his secular songs in favour of gospel music.  That move pissed off just about everybody, although it might have played some part in securing him a prestigious gig at the 1997 World Eucharistic Conference, where he -- quite literally -- had an audience with a Pope.

Hop Farm Dylan, by contrast, was far less provocative.  Dressed like a Southern US country gentleman in his white Cordobes hat, if anything he was in an uncharacteristically chirpy and crowd-pleasing mood.  Together with his tight as drum-skin band, he kicked off proceedings with a suitably rambunctious rendition of ‘Rainy Day Women # 12 & 35′, and of the seventeen songs that made up his set list,  six of them were culled from Blonde on Blonde and Highway 61 Revisited, two of his most popular and most enduring albums of the 60s.  He unleashed upon the audience a veritable cavalcade of classics.  ‘Just Like a Woman’, ‘Like a Rolling Stone’, ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again’, ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ and ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ were all present and correct, while newer tracks (which I really like, but casual festival-goers probably wouldn’t be so familiar with) were kept to a minimum.  Gospel songs were kept off the bill, and -- bearing in mind his most recent album release -- there wasn’t a Christmas carol in sight.

It should have been enough to keep everyone happy, but sadly it wasn’t.

Nowadays, there are two things that divide crowds at a Bob Dylan concert.  Firstly, he doesn’t play his songs the way he used to play them, and, secondly, he doesn’t even sound like Bob Dylan anymore.  During his current touring cycle (which, it must be mentioned, is now well into its 22nd fucking year) he has consistently, persistently and relentlessly deconstructed, reconstructed and -- at times -- rendered unrecognisable the entirety of his not inconsiderable back catalogue, much to the annoyance of many of his fans.  If that wasn’t bad enough, his voice, too, has transformed -- mutated, even -- into something that’s even more alien and unfamiliar.  That nasally sneer of yesteryear  has given way to something more akin to a raspy death rattle of a fatally wounded frog.

Both of these charges are absolutely and incontrovertibly true, and -- at the same time -- utterly meaningless.  When Dylan plays his old songs now they do sound different, but this is the man who once memorably declared that The Times They Are a-Changin’ and starred in a documentary film called Don’t Look Back.  You can’t say he didn’t warn us.  His career has always been characterised by change, growth and genre-breaking innovation.  Admittedly, over the years this strategy hasn’t always been successful -- pioneers, after all, are the ones with the arrows in their backs -- but at Hop Farm he kept hitting the mark time after time.  Old songs were immersed in even older musical traditions, which had the paradoxical effect of making them sound both newly-minted and even more timeless.

Dylan’s voice, however, must have come as quite a shock to more casual fans unfamiliar with his more recent material, let alone those innocent bystanders who probably expected him to sound like The Byrds.   It wasn’t always easy listening to some of popular music’s most perfect lyrics barked out in a voice so cracked and weather-beaten it made Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong sound like the Bee Gees.  However, its worth remembering that Dylan’s early vocal style -- which David Bowie once memorably described in song as ‘a voice of sand and glue’ -- was considered abrasive and far-from radio-friendly back in the 1960s, and it’s been steadily sliding down the octave scale ever since.  Dylan’s voice on a 70s classic like ‘Hurricane’ doesn’t sound like the same man who sang ‘Mr Tambourine Man’ a decade earlier, while the voice of his 80′s Travelling Wilbury persona sounds like someone else again.  I knew what to expect , managed my expectations accordingly and got along fine, although being a fan of Tom Waits, Johnny Cash and Louis Armstrong probably helped.

There were so many highlights of the night that its hard to single any out.  Memories of ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again’ still make me smile as it prompted my girlfriend Clare & 6 year-old stepdaughter Lily to bolt towards the stage as it’s currently Lily’s favourite song (it’s one of my favourite songs, too, but someone had to look after Lily’s 14 month-old sister, Edie).  ‘Simple Twist of Fate’ managed to be even more heartbreaking than the original, Dylan’s age and broken voice adding a new layer of poignancy to the lyrics.  The incandescent performances of ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ and ‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ also deserve mention, especially the latter which -- unless I’m mistaken -- featured Dylan surreptitiously doing a jig.

I was carrying baby Edie in my arms as he started singing his final song for the night.  Appropriately enough, it was ‘Forever Young’:

May you grow up to be righteous

May you grow up to be true

May you always know the truth

And see the lights surrounding you

May you always be courageous

Stand upright and be strong

May you stay forever young

To those in the crowd who were still asking themselves ‘What was that shit?’ let me offer a suggestion.

That, my friends, was good shit.

_______________________________________

Some footage courtesy of public-spirited YouTube donors:

Ballad of a Thin Man:

Simple Twist of Fate:

Highway 61 Revisted:

Gil Scott-Heron’s new album I’m New Here has been on heavy rotation since I bought it earlier in the week.  It’s an absolute blinder, real return-to-form stuff that I heartily and unequivocally recommend.

If you fancy listening to it yourself, an official streamed version from Scott-Heron’s new label, XL Recordings, is available online.  Here it is:

(If the above widget doesn’t appear on your browser, then you can also try here)

If you like it, then please do the decent thing and go out and buy it.  Streamed albums – official or otherwise – are all well and good, but you can’t pick them up or listen to them while you’re driving.  At least, I don’t think you can.

While we’re on the subject, I also recommend The Observer’s recent insightful article on Gil Scott-Heron, which you can find here.

20. Sufjan Stevens -- Illinois (2005)

Sufjan’s Prairie State

I wish he did all fifty

(Yes, I fell for it)

19. Jeffrey Lewis -- It’s the Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through (2003)

Anti-folk hero

Serves comic stripped down delight

Raw, honest and fun

18. PJ Harvey -- Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea (2000)

Poptastic Polly

Her most commercial album

That never sells out

17. Pulp -- We Love Life (2001)

Leafy perfection

From kitchen sink troubadours

Sad, Sheffield swansong

16. TV on the Radio -- Dear Science (2008)

Arse-shaking anger

As Sitek and crew unleash

Brooklyn funky stuff

15. Bruce Springsteen -- Working on a Dream (2009)

My favourite Boss

Is reconciled with E Street

Glory Days again!

14. Midlake -- The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

Lush, pastoral grooves

Et in arcadia they go

I think I’ll head home!

13. The Strokes -- Is This It (2001)

New York storybook

A soundtrack of the decade

This, it seems, is it

12. Johnny Cash -- American III: Solitary Man (2000)

Departed legend

Au revoir, L’homme en noir

No one sounds like you

11. Brian Wilson -- Smile (2004)

Infamous Beached Boy

Went back to sea triumphant

And served up Surf’s Up

10. Grinderman -- Grinderman (2007)

Black Crow Kingdom reigns

As Bad Seeds bear twisted fruit

(See what I did there?)

9. The White Stripes -- White Blood Cells (2001)

Third from Jack and Meg

With incandescent gee-tars

And Awesome Welles riff

7. Lift to Experience -- The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001)

A Lone Star Statement

They burnt fast but -- by God! -- burnt bright

“Don’t mess with Texas”

8. Wilco -- Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2002)

Tupelo’s Tweedy

Overcame Warner Bother

To create this gem

6. The National -- Alligator (2005)

Late night, low-rent wit

Don’t compare to Tindersticks

They’re better than that

5. Arcade Fire -- Funeral (2005)

Mournful joie de vivre

Joyous momento mori

(Inadequate praise)

4. Tom Waits -- Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards (2006)

Gravel voiced Bardfly

Serves up three courses of treats

We hunger for more!

3. Warren Zevon -- Life’ll Kill Ya (2000)

Sardonic singer

Enjoyed every sandwich

Then left us a feast

2. Lambchop -- Nixon (2000)

Funky slide guitars

Where country and Curtis meet

Mayfield, not Stigers!

1. The Flaming Lips -- Yoshima Battles The Pink Robots (2002)

Fearless freaks, rejoice!

Perfect bubblepop classic

Don’t you realize??

I meant to write this on Friday night, but I was sick so I didn’t.

Friday would have been the 75th birthday of Mr Elvis Aaron Presley, a name you probably won’t need to look up in Wikipedia.  Like most anniversaries (or, for that matter, most things in life), the news coverage was a fairly predictable affair. Stock footage covering both ends of his career followed by smug observations about Elvis impersonators and obligatory soundbites from eccentric fans, which invariably consisted of a random great granny from The King’s original target demographic (who, ideally, doesn’t much care for modern music) juxtaposed with some young arsehole with a quiff. I assume the latter was “going through a phase” and his or her parents were probably into Britpop or hip hop.

Personally speaking, I’ve always been rather fond of Elvis. My parents’ were part of his original target demographic, you see, and some of the first songs I ever heard were by The King. In psychological circles that’s known as imprint vulnerability. I’m also old enough to remember what I was doing when I first heard that he’d died. I was putting on a snake belt and getting ready to go to infant school.

In any case, in memory of Elvis I planned to spend Friday night watching Bubba Ho-Tep and listening to Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon. Unfortunately I was sick, so I didn’t. To the best of my knowledge, Bubba Ho-Tep, Gravelands by The King and Porcelain Monkey by Warren Zevon did not feature prominently in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Elvis anniversary. I suppose that’s the reason why God created the Blogosphere and idiots like me.

Bubba Ho-Tep, in case you don’t know, was a blackly comic but strangely touching independent film directed by Don Cascarelli that was released in 2004 or thereabouts. It featured the mighty Bruce Campbell playing an aging Elvis who cheated death in 1977 and now finds himself living in a Texan rest home.  Together with an elderly black guy -- who may or may not be JFK -- he has to face down a deranged mummy who’s preying on the souls of pensioners.

It’s one of my favourite movies of the last decade, and I cringe a little as I type that. Blog logic -- or blogic, if you will -- states that I’m now have to follow through on that comment by churning out a list of my favourite films of the decade. More bad haiku, then.

Gravelands, on the other hand, is a 1997 album which features cover versions of songs by dead rock stars performed by an Elvis impersonator from Belfast whose real name is James Brown. Yes, I know that sounds like the ingredients for some God-awful novelty record, but it really is quite wonderful. ‘The King’ really does sound like The King, the musicians really do sound like the Takin’ Care of Business Band and the choice of songs is priceless. They make it sound as though Nirvana’s Come as You Are, Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart and AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie are new additions to the Presley back catalogue. To put it another way, it gives us a weird glimpse into a parallel world where Elvis got to live for another couple of decades and Rick Rubin helped him rehabilitate his legacy.

Finally, there’s Porcelain Monkey by the late Warren Zevon, which featured a blistering riff and some brilliant lyrics:

From a shotgun shack singing Pentecostal hymns
Through the wrought iron gates to the TV room
He had a little world, it was smaller than your hand
It’s a rockabilly ride from the glitter to the gloom

Left behind by the latest trends
Eating fried chicken with his regicidal friends
That’s how the story ends
With a porcelain monkey

Zevon, however, was not what you might call a fan of Elvis. In an interview in 2000 he said:

“He furthered the cause of ripping off a culture we’ve already oppressed for 400 years in my country. But I don’t know how much is individual brilliance, genius, and how much is just the currents of culture. Being at a cultural crossroads can be luck, you know? Don’t be absolutely sure that Soundgarden wasn’t as good as the Rolling Stones. They just came 30 years too late to be innovative.”

I’m a big fan of Zevon’s, but that’s a pretty harsh and iconoclastic position to take, even by his standards.  The 6th Century sage Chilon of Sparta once said “Let only good be spoken of the dead”,  but if that’s the case then how have Channel 5 documentary makers managed to stay in business?  And does this lofty ideal still apply when the person wagging a finger at a dead rock star is another dead rock star?

I can’t say for certain, but I do know that  Zevon’s Life’ll Kill Ya is one of my favourite albums of the decade.  I cringe a little as I type that, too.

I guess that means I’ll be churning out even more bad haiku.

Taken from hip-hop duo NASA’s Spirit of Apollo CD -- which features a multitude of mouth-wateringly eclectic musical collaborations -- here’s the video for Tom Waits and Kool Keith’s “Spacious Thoughts”.

It is, of course, quite brilliant.

As a delicate, dreamy soundscape filled both tiers of a new and extremely packed Birmingham Academy last Tuesday night, a silhouetted dancing girl drenched in phosphorescent hues performed a saucy routine on a massive crescent video screen behind the stage.  It looked like she had no clothes on, but silhouettes often give people that impression.

For several minutes she continued to shimmer psychedelically and sashay suggestively before erupting in a dazzling explosion of light.  As the audience blinked frantically, trying to disperse an unwelcome chorus line of phosphorescent dots and after-images, this coruscating brilliance seemed to contract and coagulate, transforming itself into a misshapen orb of pulsating energy.  This was some otherworldly object that emitted an omnidirectional halo of beatific light, and it seemed to be located in the general vicinity of the dancing silhouette’s unmentionables.

As the audience realised this it let out a cheer, which only seemed to encourage the tie-dyed temptress to up her game and gyrate in even more provocative ways.  As she relaxed into a particularly risqué pose, the camera slowly -- and, it must be said, shamelessly -- zoomed into the pulsating orb of light.  As it brought us closer and closer, the music became more harsh and discordant.  Eventually, the light filled the entire screen…

What was this supposed to mean? Was the dancing silhouette some lurid reimagining of the Myth of Ishtar?  Did the ball of white light represent the svadhisthana chakra and the awakening of the kundalini spirit?  Did it have something to do with the Mayan rebirthing ritual?  Was it a tribute to Russ Meyer?

Before these questions could be answered, a door opened in the middle of the screen and a bunch of guys from Oklahoma City stepped out.  One of them climbed into a giant plastic bubble and proceeded to roll on top of the audience.

There’s nothing quite like a Flaming Lips gig.

Saturday night’s Technical Difficulties show on Rhubarb Radio was fun.  Thanks again to Danny, Phil, Rich and Jane for inviting me along.  It’s available to listen again, and you can do so by clicking this:

The theme of the show was Japan, so there was plenty of cool and groovy J-Pop music on the playlist.  In case you don’t know, J-Pop -- or ジェイポップ, as they say in Japan -- is a term used to describe popular music of Japanese origin.  The ‘J’ stands for Japanese, you see.  Of course, I only managed to work this out for myself whilst the show was being broadcast and was too embarrassed to admit my ignorance on air, off-mike or even under my breath.   However, I did promise myself to shamelessly shoe-horn it into conversation at the first available opportunity.   That’s what I’m doing now.

I considered suggesting a song for the show, but decided against it because a. the song wasn’t Japanese, b. it’s connection to Japan was several strands shy of tenuous and c. in Japanese culture it is considered rude and dishonorable to turn up at a friend’s radio show and start suggesting songs.

The song I had in mind was Guns ‘n’ Roses cover of The Skyliners’ doo-wop classic, Since I Don’t Have You.   Now -- just to make myself clear -  I’ve never much cared for Guns ‘n’ Roses, but I do like this song and it does have a tenuous connection to the Land of the Rising Sun.  A version of the song was used in the cult docudrama, The  Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across The 8th Dimension.  It was sung by Peter Weller who portrayed the eponymous Dr Banzai in the film.  As the character’s name sort of strongly implies, he’s supposed to be half-Japanese.

I cribbed this from his Wikipedia entry:

Born in London in 1950, the son of two scientists: Masado Banzai, a brilliant Japanese research physicist whose work in theoretical quantum mechanics is reported to have “rattled” Albert Einstein, and Sandra Willoughby, the daughter of the eccentric Scottish-born Texas mathematician Edward McKay Willoughby. Sandra Willoughby fell in love with Masado Banzai when she was sixteen and married him twelve years later, after becoming an expert in her own right in the field of negative mass propulsion. The couple fled Japan at the outbreak of World War II and eventually settled in Texas. Their son grew up in Colorado and Arizona and was named “Buckaroo” because of his father’s love for the American West.

In 1946 Masado Banzai and Sandra Willoughby joined forces with Masado’s old friend and colleague, Professor Toichi Hikita, who shared their belief that one day man would be able to pass unharmed through solid matter. Their researches culminated in 1955 in the Texas desert, when Dr. Banzai took the controls of a jet car equipped with an early version of the Oscillation Overthruster. But the experiment ended tragically: Buckaroo Banzai’s parents were killed in an explosion (caused by sabotage planned by criminal mastermind Hanoi Xan) as the five-year-old child looked on. Hikita raised young Buckaroo, using the entire world as his classroom, and the boy grew up to be, among other things, an extraordinarily skilled neurosurgeon.

Dissatisfied with a life devoted exclusively to medicine, Buckaroo Banzai perfected a wide range of skills. He designed and drove high-powered automobiles. He studied bujutsu and particle physics. His skill with a sixgun was reputed to eclipse that of Wyatt Earp. He spoke a dozen languages and wrote songs in all of them. His band, the Hong Kong Cavaliers, was one of the most popular, hard-rocking bar bands in east New Jersey (Buckaroo plays electric guitar and pocket trumpet), though its members (bearing names like Rawhide, Reno, the Swede, Perfect Tommy, Big Norse, and Pecos Bill) were not professional musicians at all, but rather cartographers and botanists, linguists and propellant engineers, an entomologist and an epidemiologist. All of them experts in their fields of endeavor, they were drawn to Buckaroo.

Anyhow, here’s the Since I Don’t Have You scene from The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai:

And, because this is my blog and I can do this sort of thing on occasion, here’s the film’s closing credit sequence.  In my opinion, it’s a thing of beauty that always brings a smile to my face.  At the very least, it’s probably the greatest closing credit sequence in the history of film.

As an added bonus, here’s the Buckaroo Banzai-inspred closing march from Wes Anderson’s wonderful The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.  This always brings a smile to my face, too.

I guess the intangible poetry and emotional charge of people walking together doesn’t work so well on radio.

Saturday night’s Technical Difficulties show on Rhubarb Radio is now available as a podcast. The theme of the show was ‘cats’, so Danny played some cat-themed tunes, Jane discussed quantum physics favourite Schrodinger’s Cat and Phil ate some cat food (live on air).

I was in the studio, too, and said some things.

Don’t let that put you off.

My pal Pete Ashton’s DJ set from last night’s 8Bit Lounge is now available as a single 82MB mp3 download from here.

Highlights for me included Triumphant by by the Modified Toy Orchestra and some beep-heavy cover versions of Kraftwerk’s The Model, Weezer’s Buddy Holly and (cough, cough) Europe’s The Final Countdown (by Nullsleep, Nordloef and Moondabor, respectively).  And, before you ask, I hadn’t heard of Nullsleep, Nordloef and Moondabor before last night (although I have mentioned the rather excellent Modified Toy Orchestra both here and here).

An acquired taste, perhaps, but one worth acquiring.  That’s assuming that you share a similar weakness for beepy-burpy tunes that evoke memories of  old computer games.

Maybe next time we’ll get In The Hall of the Mountain King from Manic Miner…

(Thanks to Widgetbox for that)

My good pal Pete Ashton will be doing a DJ set at tomorrow evening’s 8Bit Lounge at the Hare & Hounds:

A delightful evening of all things computer game and arcade oriented.  From an array of consoles to play on including:

• a SNES with 5 player Bomberman and all original controllers
• an N64 with 4 player greatness like Starfox 64
• a Gamecube with some great 4 player games like Timesplitters 2

Chromatouch will be using old school consoles to control visuals on the night, including a Nintendo DS that can be used to control visuals wirelessly through cellsds.

We are also looking to hold a Wii tournament in the courtyard, weather allowing.

Nanoloops: the famous Nintendo GameBoy music writing software will be fully in place. Anyone that writes music in this format then please contact us. We are holding a competition to find the best Nanoloops artist in Birmingham. Bring it on!!

Music on the eve will be from Subcitizen and Chromatouch, so expect some classic pure electro, bboy style, computer game anthems, arcade classics, 8bit pop and electronica lo fi scribblings.

I’ll be there to lend some moral support.   It should be fun.