A couple excerpts from Dylan's Philosophy Of Modern Song are up at the NY Times (here, or if that doesn't work, hereReading the introduction by Ben Sisario I was thinking, "He [Dylan] is reimagining 'Strangers In The Night' as the sudden eyeball connection between Miss Lonely and The Mystery Tramp/Napoleon In Rags." But when I read the actual ( Read more... )

There're all sorts of ways he weakens the challenge by making Stan crazy. But making him crazy enables Stan to do what Eminem and Marshall Mathers and Slim Shady would never have allowed themselves to do on record, to let loose with unmitigated, angry self-righteousness.

You see, I know these cadences, "Well, you walk into the room like a CAMEL and ( Read more... )

Tom Ewing has created a new tournament, on Twitter:

The World Cup Of UK Number 1s

https://twitter.com/tomewing/status/1238521947547406344

(Gave me the opportunity to quote Bob Dylan in the comments saying that Roy Orbison sang like a professional criminal ( Read more... )

Was just reading Kat Stevens's One Week One Band on The Fall and playing for Clare "Container Drivers" from the 1980 Peel Sessions. Clare said, "This is a lot more fun than Malcolm McLaren."

Of course it is fun. ALL Fall is fun, among many other things. There's always something bouncy or at least rollicking in the sound - rollicking sarcasm, often ( Read more... )

Stubs of ideas, some of which may turn into future posts:

(1a) A punk votes for a punk (Johnny Rotten says nice things about Trump). Okay, he's not necessarily saying that he did vote for Trump, though from what he said it's a good assumption he did; but anyway, my armchair psychosocial analysis of the Trump win already had been "Punks voted for a ( Read more... )

Several potential posts I'm working on, which you may see or may never see.

1. A point-counterpoint of the extremes in my attitude towards politics. 10 items in all, plus further musings and slip-slidings. For a taste, here are numbers 1 and 2.

Odd number. (1) Politics is a social space that allows for people to say things that are more stupid ( Read more... )

So many days, so few posts ( Read more... )

In an egregious breach of self-discipline, I posted on an Ann Powers facebook thread* whose subject was "rockism." Given that the thread was mainly stupidity and floundering, and it didn't jostle anything loose in my own thinking, I fear that there was little useful I achieved. My justification, if there is one, is that the stupidity I refer to is ( Read more... )

In 1987 I tossed an insult at a loose aggregation of people that included me, calling us "PBS for the youth." Basically, I was fingering the punk/postpunk indie-alternative "underground," but also worlds and hairstyles and rampages that surrounded it: rock critics, letters-to-the-editor, on-edge heroin poetry zines, the appreciation and ( Read more... )

I like how the rhythm in "Tiny Montgomery" makes itself strong by just digging in and digging further, no moving forward. -The rhythm I'm referring to is mostly Dylan's voice, and the strum strum strum. Bass and the rest are a shuffling swing, I guess. So you can sway back and forth while the song steadily drives you down. A-Plus ( Read more... )