Bob Dylan versus...

I. Dan Bern

Dan Bern's been compared to Bob Dylan ad nauseum, and it's obvious why. I've been a huge fan of Bern's from the first time I heard him though (once I realized it wasn't Dylan), and once you get to know Bern's songs, the similarity quickly fades into the background.

The similarity is certainly nowhere more in your face, though, than in "Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues," which is clearly an homage/pastiche/rip-off of Dylan's "Talkin' World War III Blues" from the classic album The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan. Bern's take on Dylan's satire of Cold War paranoia (make what you will of Bern's choice of modern parallel for the '60s fear of nuclear annihilation) appears on Bern's first release, the 1996 Dog Boy Van EP. I like to think Bern saw the endless Dylan comparisons coming, and simply decided to get this one out of the way right off the bat. These are fun to listen to back to back.

Dan Bern - Talkin' Alien Abduction Blues
Bob Dylan - Talkin' World War III Blues (youtube)


II. PJ Harvey

I was re-listening to PJ Harvey's great early album Rid Of Me and re-discovered her cover of "Highway 61 Revisited," which frankly I'd never really paid attention to before. I think I've become more obsessed with covers in recent years.

Anyway, not much to say about this cover except that it's a lot of fun, and certainly strays far enough from the sound of the original to escape the common cover pitfall of just being a bad copy.

PJ Harvey - Highway 61 Revisited
Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited (youtube)

N.B.: This post is in no way inspired by or in reference to James Taylor's new album of cover songs, cleverly entitled Covers, which is just lame. James Taylor is lame.

A or B: 80s tech

Which one is (was) more ridiculous?

A.

B.











I mean, it was the 80s after all and just look at the way that guy's looking at his watch. He's clearly very important and time is money and Gordon Gecko and so on.

On the other hand, was it so necessary to get your Golden Girls and your Perfect Strangers that you had to take up a significant part of your lawn with that Goldeneye-style dish?

Beck: Modern Guilt (and thoughts on going mp3-legit)

I finally broke down and made my first legal digital music purchase yesterday. Don't worry, I'm still a cheapskate: Amazon had Beck's new album, Modern Guilt, on sale for $5, so I just went for it. I could have easily found it elsewhere for, uh, around $0, but I still tend to buy stuff I like on cd, usually by seeking it out used or online, which is still as cheap or cheaper than a digital album from iTunes or Amazon. And it's Beck, so I very much expect to like it, and there's no way I was going to find the new Beck cd for $5, even used. Oddly, though, I think there was another factor that contributed to this spur-of-the-moment decision: the album's boring cover. Cover art and album packaging are still something I like a lot about physical music formats. In this case, however, the cover is really not compelling at all (I sort of agree with this guy). (The third factor was the DRM-free mp3 format, which meant zero hassle buying at work and transferring to home for the ipod, or anywhere else.)

So, the album? I'm giving it a first listen as I write this, and my initial impression is that it's most similar to the Beck of Sea Change and Mutations, but with more production, as you would expect from a collaboration with Danger Mouse. More Guero-style beats, bleeps and boops, but mixed together with that introspective mood and the acoustic guitar hearkening back to the very early One Foot in the Grave. Beck is amazing. He has a set of styles that he likes to use, and is very good with, and almost every album mixes them together in slightly different proportions. The result is often a sound that seems totally new and unique, and like something that only he could pull off. And it's always held together by his unmistakable lyrics and voice. Modern Guilt, I suspect, will grow on me much as Guero did, sneaking up on me until I find myself in the car some day, singing along every word to a song that I didn't realize I knew so well.


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Now playing: Beck - Gamma Ray
via FoxyTunes

Hi + a great read

I'm pretty sure no one but Matt and I read this, but just in case: I'm Letitia/Tish and I will now be contributing book rec's/rants and other miscellany to this blog. Hi!

The great read promised above is "The Outlander" by Gil Adamson. When forced to choose between plot/character development and prose I usually go for the former, but with "The Outlander" you don't have to choose. It's a dazzling read, and easily inhaled it in a few short days. Set in the West - although it's never clear if it's Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, or Canada (Alberta or Saskatchewan?? I just had to look those up - somewhere above Montana..) - it's about a woman who murdered her husband and is fleeing from her scary, red-headed, eerily twin-like brothers-in-law. There's a whole cast of memorable, eccentric characters reminiscent of the recent HBO series Carnivale. The pace is thumping, and Adamson creates a haunting picture of the widow's - as well as other character's - emotional state. And perhaps best of all, her visual descriptions are gorgeous and lingering. Overall , totally great. Probably the best book I've read in a year.

mp3 news

Hello!

Sadly, all the old mp3 links are dead (file storage service mediamax went bye bye).

Here's a random 7" I ripped using Garageband, to hold you over.

Maybe I'll scan the cover for you some time. If you leave a comment.