And we all want what's his

Dear friends,

1. The first time I heard Bob Dylan I thought it was a joke. I was 15 and I was sitting on my friend's Greg's bed while he rifled around looking for something or other amongst a stack of albums. His room was cluttered and small, a giant Queen Is Dead poster on one wall, dusty Star Wars action figures on the windowsill. Dylan sounded false. Nasally and small, all cluttered talk, jumbled little asides about the hardness of things. "Is he kidding? Why is he singing like that?" No response from my host. As Dylan kept braying about cold NYC, I inspected the photo on the cover. A baby-faced young man with thin lips rocking a newsboy cap. He looked familiar. "Oh my god. You know who he looks like? Laura Palmer from Twin Peaks!" Greg walks over and says, "A little."

2. A year or so later, it might've been less, my friend Ben S. made me a mix tape with Blood on The Tracks on one side and Desire on another. I listened to it constantly. Play, fast forward through Idiot Wind, flip to the other side, through rain, snowstorms and sunshine. Years later, I saw the White Stripes at Radio City. They started playing Isis, and even though I hadn't heard it in forever, when the time came, I shouted, too loudly, too wildly, "If you want me to...YES!"

3. I lied, the first Dylan I ever heard was New Morning and I was 9. I bought it on cassette for 50 cents (borrowed from moms, natch) at a yard sale in Mamaroneck. I thought the photo was really nice, that the man in it had soft eyes. Listened to it once. I didn't get it. Re-gifted it to my then-stepdad.

4. J bought Chronicles and was reading it at bedtime. He'd tell me things in it and I'd promptly forget. I tried reading Positively 4th Street 'cause Mimi Farina was a stone cold fox. I didn't make it very far. Which is weird. I'm a big fan of biographies, always have been. I like true stories and facts. But Dylan and facts? I don't buy it and neither do my eyes. They refuse to read the words.

5. When I heard about I'm Not There, I worried. Directed by Todd Haynes, you say? Hmmm...tell me more.

6. Dylan is split into six non-Dylans or Dylan facets. Got it. It's an easy conceit to accept. The non-linear structure too; it was as if each person was giving birth to another at crucial points. Giraffes walk into frames. The Beatles explode on a grassy field in a burst of helium giggles. A man in white face sings next to an open coffin. A French waif slips on her stockings and smiles at the camera. Watching it, letting the black and whites become gold then red, I realized that for all the ideas going on, I didn't feel lost. It's an intellectual film that's quite accessible. It brings you closer to the man and his work, which is way more than I can say about all those chronological "I feel guilt over my brother's death/I'm really SAD and that is why I'm a musician" biopics out there.

7. I enjoyed the actorly interpretations, especially Ben Wishaw's steely-eyed/nervous fingers performance as Rimbaud/Dylan. Cate Blanchett is great* though you could argue that she gets singled out for praise not so much because of her performance, but because she's playing everyone's favorite Dylan, the twitchy little black clad punk of Don't Look Back. Everyone else had to wrestle with being actors, poets, preachers, pretenders, and wise old outlaws. She got to play the rock star and that's the one persona that can be all those things at once.

8. A favorite musical moment from the film.

Blind Willie McTell/Bob Dylan (mp3)


9. Speaking of The Bootleg Series, the version of Every Grain of Sand on it = gorgeous.

10. Purchase The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 by Bob Dylan.

Love, D

* Of course, it's great, she's a fucking good actress. Interestingly, I find her best performances to be ones where she plays people who appear to be in control but are dealing with secret, mounting terrors. Their masks must stay in place despite it all.

as I venture in the slipstream

This is not breaking news, but if you haven't already heard the Secret Machines EP of covers I recommend checking it out (well it's actually 2 originals and 4 covers)

The Road Leads Where It's Led EP

I forgot how much I love their version of "Astral Weeks" until I stumbled upon the chords while aimlessly messing around on guitar a few nights ago. I'm not a Van Morrison fan, even though I always hear about "Astral Weeks" being a great album (maybe it's the peanut-butter coated vocals that always turn me off). Anyway, take Van's lyrics, add a Pete Townsend guitar riff and three parts Secret Machines and you've got a great song.

I saw them at Irving Plaza a while back at one of the last shows of that tour. They looked and sounded spent, playing all of these long lethargic but euphoric covers. They played "Money (That's What I Want)" and made it sound completely original. I didn't even recognize it until hearing the familiar lyric about "..the birds and bees."

"Girl From The North Country" is the Dylan cover they've been playing for a while. I immediately became obsessed with this band after seeing them play this at Sin-E.
"(De Luxe) Immer Wieder" also frequented their live sets for a while. I assumed it was a new song of their's. The harmonies are great, but I could never make out the lyrics. Then I finally realized why.... they're singing in German!

The Secret Machines - "Astral Weeks"(mp3)

Buy it here: TSM Store

A crowd of people stood and stared

Dear friends,

I wish I could hang up a "Gone Fishing" sign 'cause in a sense, that's what I'm doing right now. Please bear with me and enjoy these covers.

1. The elegant Captain commands from the dunes.

Mojo magazine decided to get a bunch of bands to cover Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in its entirety and Captain had the nerve to do A Day in the Life. We heard it in the car on the way to New Paltz. J drove the long way just so I could look out the window at the Hudson. As the song came on over a stretch of barren turnpike, I wondered just how it would work on a shoestring. It's lovely really. Like the original in matchbox form. No strings but still shimmering somehow. When the last chord rang out, cutting off sooner than the original, The Monkey said "Lame." I don't agree. Not everyone has simultaneous access to multiple pianos. One does what one can.

Song to seek:

A Day in the Life/Captain (mp3)

Befriend Captain on My Space.

Buy This Is Hazelville by Captain

2. Bryan Ferry has been playing the soulful lounge lizard for years now. I like this crackadoodle cover because I can almost picture the prancing, bored with the Beguine-ing, winking Ferry of Roxy singing it. He gives you a tiny, menacing smile and goes back to his martini without a hair out of place.

Song to seek:

It's All Over Now, Baby Blue/Bryan Ferry (mp3)

Buy Frantic by Bryan Ferry

3. I'll never forget reading an article on Serge Gainsbourg's passing in The Voice and asking my moms what "provocateur" meant. Because of that word, I HAD to find out about this guy and his music. Mick Harvey knows provocation, just give a listen to the sleazy neon cabaret of Crime and the City Solution and of course, his work as a Bad Seed. Harvey recorded a couple of Gainsbourg cover albums sung in English. In theory, they should have been lousy* but weren't. I loved the original paean to Brigitte Bardot that much more once I understood the voyeuristic urgency of the lyric. The way the strings correspond with the movement; the fluttering hair on a beautiful woman as she runs through the street. Both cover albums are fantastic, though I'm partial to the first for this song and also for the seasick carnival swirl of Harvey's Intoxicated Man cover.

Song to seek:

Initials B.B./Mick Harvey (mp3)

Buy Intoxicated Man by Mick Harvey

Love, D

* I'm not opposed, generally, to French to English song translation, but Gainsbourg in English seemed like an especially bad idea.

I play the radio baby

dear friends,

remember how I said there'd be a review? I lied. too busy continuing my adventures as a coughing, sneezing mess. monday maybe?

no matter, the monkey & I are taking off for the wilds of woodstock for the week-end. we plan to look at leaves, take photos of said leaves & avoid the snooze seeking bears.

songs for a rainy drive playlist? we shall see...j usually prefers more uptempo stuff. perhaps I'll be blasting ring the alarm the entire way up! on repeat! WHOO!

(alphabetical or cantcha tell?)

come as you are/caetano veloso (yousendit download)

veloso can make anything sound like luxury. even ambivalence & self-loathing. what I love about this nirvana cover is as smooth as it sounds, the guitar still stabs during the choruses. sharp little jabs, like someone fucking with a drunk.

in my time of dying/bob dylan (yousendit download)

a good car singalong.

carnival (acoustic)/the cardigans (yousendit download)

I loved this video the first time I saw it. I thought nina persson was the cutest doll woman I'd ever seen & I wanted ten of her in miniature, to line my shelves with. lest you think I'm a serial killer, I actually settled for the cardigans' album life instead.

miss persson does not sing lead on this version, one of her boone from lost*-looking bandmates does.

birdmad girl/the cure (yousendit download)

my cousin pamela was an all black wearing, mohawk sportin' punk rawker with a dash of goth thrown in. naturally, she gave all of that up to become a celine dion fan. yes, that didn't make any sense to me either, but at least I inherited all her vinyl, including the one that this selection comes from, the top.

another entry in the lyrics of huh? school. apparently this one has got something to do with yeats. oh that wacky bob.

silver strings/helium (yousendit download)

miss mary timony is playing the hiro ballroom on friday, november 3 for cmj & I am insanely excited.

this lady is still one of my favorite guitar players, whether she's doing dissonant string pulls or locking down on math grooves that easily outclass those of her peers. check out the interesting foray into cock rock at the fade of this fantasy number. it made me go "wha...?" in a good way.

this is where I belong/the kinks (yousendit download)

in an excellent segue (cough,) if you're in town this weekend, be sure to catch mistakes TONIGHT for a very special halloween show. the mistakes crew (krew?) are going to be the kinks for the night & run through a selection of their fine O.G. britpop classics. will they wear leather suits & carry whips? I have no idea. but I hear they're tackling autumn almanac & I'm very sad to miss THAT. for details, go to their my space page.

love, d

ps can someone please write about beauty pill? everytime it pops up on random, I'm a happy camper.

* I LOVED the last episode. it was like buttah on a biscuit. I also love that buggety-eyes ben, such a great character!

infinity goes up on trial

I resisted Bob Dylan for a long time. For one thing, that was my mom's music, and moms, you know, they just don't understand. During my junior high years old Dylan and Joan Baez and Buffy Sainte-Marie LPs spun on the turntable downstairs, while I lurked in my room blasting Bikini Kill and Jane's Addiction cassettes and trying to make skirts out of old men's dress shirts (thanks a lot, Sassy). I scoffed at the "folkies," as I called them, those Sensitive Earnest People with acoustic guitars, and soon thereafter a friend of mine gave me one of those seminal mixtapes that had everything I needed on it - the Velvets, the Pixies, and, well, Ned's Atomic Dustbin. I fell hard for Lou Reed and began reading everything that had ever been written about him, even when it was written by Victor Bockris, and anyone who's read Transformer knows that Bob and Lou weren't too friendly. Lou believed that Bob was ripping him off, and blamed him for getting Edie Sedgwick hooked on drugs, and that was really all it took for me to dismiss Dylan completely and forever.

But I have to back up now and tell you that the girl who gave me that tape was named Johanna, and she lived with her family in a huge creaky wooden house in the middle of the farmland outside town, and inside the house it was warm and yellow and smelled like soup, and she wore long skirts and sandals and Greenpeace t-shirts with no bra underneath. She played the viola and didn't care when the cheerleaders gossiped about her ("ohmigod! she totally doesn't shave her legs!") and I was a little bit awed by her and very impressed by the things she talked about and the way she dodged the edges of high school lunacy. One day I asked Johanna where her name came from, because I'd known Joannas but never JoHannas, and she often had to correct substitute teachers. "It's from a song," she said, and I perked up, hoping she'd drop something as good as "Wave of Mutilation" on me. "It's from a Bob Dylan song," she said, and then she laughed. "Guess which one."

I had no idea. I couldn't name a single Bob Dylan song. She could tell I didn't know what she was talking about. "Are you kidding?" she squawked. "Wow. Okay. I'm making you another mixtape."

And so she did, and that was how I heard "Visions of Johanna," and I listened to it a few times and then put it away and forgot about it, but every now and then I'd remember and play it again, and the more I listened the more I had to admit it was a good song. For that matter, "Subterranean Homesick Blues" was a good song, and so was "Just Like a Woman," and "Lay Lady Lay," and... goddamn. One day my mom found me sitting on the living room floor, cross-legged on the ratty brown shag rug, listening to Highway 61 Revisited. She had the good grace not to say "I told you so."

Flash forward to the present tense, please, and your humble narrator finds herself far from farmlands and drafty wooden houses and people who wear loose skirts and sandals, and last week I realized that the only sound that would shorten the distance from city to home was that song. Unfortunately, the tapes Johanna made me died long ago from overuse, but thanks to the magic of the internet I was able to get "Visions of Johanna" on the mpspod within seconds. It's a song that holds up to any environment, be it lonely Maine fields or dark Park Slope streets; I know long ago certain lines seemed Very Important to me, and now I find myself thinking about some of the 26-year-old memoirists I'm in class with ("Little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously/He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously"). The song adapts well, the words are flexible, and yet it is ultimately a constant, reassuring presence in my ears.

So that's my pick of the week: "Visions of Johanna," and thanks for a little lesson learned.