Tag Archives: dylan

“Sixth Avenue Heartache” (Wallflowers Covers)

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By Chris Moore:

I first got into the Wallflowers after hearing “One Headlight,” but this song (from the same album) has quickly become one of my favorite tunes to play. We’ve played it in concert often, with Mike taking the first verse and chorus, and I certainly miss the “na na na”‘s on the final verse, but it’s still fun to play. I hope you enjoy it too!

As a side note for any die hard Laptop Sessions fans, this is actually my second time posting “Sixth Avenue Heartache” on the website. The first time, the video was online for a few hours before I realized it was in the wrong key. I’ve been playing it wrong for years! So, I came home tonight and tried it again.


Bob Dylan Live at the MGM Grand Theatre, November 2010 – The Weekend Review

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Click HERE for the Set List!

By Chris Moore:

How many times do you suppose Bob Dylan has performed “Like A Rolling Stone” in his career?

I’d be willing to bet it stretches well into the four digit range.

Fortunately, there’s this great site that — thanks to internet records — has broken down his tour stats for the past decade, 2000-2009.  Thus, I can say with some certainty that he has performed “Like A Rolling Stone” live in concert 781 times in the first decade of the new millennium alone.

This is what it’s all come to: there is an abundance — some would say an over-abundance, and I would agree — of text available on Bob Dylan’s life and music.  These sources include everything from so-called “official” music sources such as Rolling Stone magazine to independent blogs (I am, of course, inclined to argue that the latter does include some excellent sites…).  The writers range from fans who write for the sake of fandom to that ever-broadening cast of self-proclaimed Dylanologists brandishing claims to varying degrees of expertise.

All this shuffle over a man who continues to write, perform, and (recently) record music at an extraordinary pace begs one essential question:

Where do my experiences, thoughts, and opinions fit into the ever-growing, ever-changing mix?

The honest answer will find you nearer to “they don’t” and “leave it to the professionals, kid” than any of us modern-day bloggers, Twitterers, and Facebookers really want to consider, so I trudge forward with my words.

I have been a Dylan fan since 2000, my sophomore year in high school and the first time in my life when I discovered the cathartic power of putting pen to paper.  Through studying Dylan and others, I soon found that there is a distinct separation between those who write purely for therapeutic release and/or self-aggrandizement and those who are willing to explore the roots and work to not only improve their writing but also to imbue it with significant thought and emotion.

Every year that I’ve seen Dylan (and I’ve seen him once a year for ten years), I’ve had this conviction reaffirmed.

Some shows are better than others, and frankly, I enjoyed last year’s July concert at New Britain Stadium more than last night’s (11/27/2010) MGM Grand Theatre performance in Mashantucket, CT.  Last summer, his songs were more rock-tinged than I’d heard them in several years, marked by George Recile’s thunderous drums.

For my money, there’s no better Dylan.

Last night, I rediscovered a Dylan embracing his country and blues roots, fronted once again by Charlie Sexton, a lead guitarist who should be considered by Dylan fans and critics with similar, if not the same, respect as earlier notables like Bloomfield and Robertson, if only for the revival of energy that he helped to foster in the band during his brief tenure (think: “Things Have Changed,” Love & Theft, and the Masked and Anonymous project).

The guitar work was arguably the highlight of the evening, Sexton and Dylan’s body language hinting at revisiting the onstage soloing duels they acted out during their concerts in 2002.  Dylan himself seemed less restrained than usual during the set, moving not only from keyboard to guitar but also confining himself to vocal and harmonica duties on several songs.  When he picked up the guitar, his hands strayed up and down the fretboard as per usual, but he also took on a couple of standout solos.

On the whole, the band produced strong six-string work with the acoustic guitar featured prominently at times, as well as the banjo and, more typically, lap steel.

The pinnacle of their prowess came with the best version of “Love Sick” I’ve heard, dancing with dissonance along the taut wire characteristic of this Time Out of Mind alum.

The set list itself was predictable to a degree if you’ve been paying any attention to recent sets — “Thunder on the Mountain” and “Jolene” being two of the sure bets — and yet Dylan continues to infuse an air of improvisation, choosing two Nashville Skyline tracks, the ever-enigmatic and enticing “Visions of Johanna,” and taking down the tempo for a heartrending take on “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”  The visual aspect of this show was the most ambitious of any I’ve seen, combining a fantastic array of background images, video projected on the screen, and all around a shifting shadow motif; it was understated and not likely to win any awards for stage design, but added excellent visual accompaniment to the music.

While the fan in me desires purely to express the unadulterated joy of the evening, an emotion I truly and predominantly felt, it should be noted that several performances suffered from the same staccato near-drone that has characterized periods of Dylan’s live career since the seventies (see: “Shelter from the Storm” from 1979’s Live at Budokan).  Vocally, he shifted in and out of his comfort zone, crooning at one moment and crackling apart at the next.

And yet, for me, these aspects were overshadowed by the strength of the instrumental work, as much as by the indescribable respect and joy I found in the realization that this energetic, multi-layered concert comes at the tail end of Dylan’s fifth decade of live performances.

Phenomenal.

There’s no other word for a man who can strut onstage and sing “Like A Rolling Stone” for the 102nd time this year with as much passion and grit as he did forty-something years ago when he sang to unsettled audiences.

It’s a different sort of passion and grit, some of which can be heard quite literally in the gravel of his voice, but it’s the same rush of adrenaline that noticeably passes over the crowd when the lights come up on the “How does it feeeeel?” of the chorus.

Bob Dylan’s “Another Side of Bob Dylan” (1964) – The Weekend Review

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By Chris Moore:

RATING:  4.5 / 5 stars

Nowhere else in the Bob Dylan catalog will you find a title that is simultaneously so blunt and yet so aptly written.

To be certain, Another Side of Bob Dylan may have been released in the same year as the preceding The Times They Are A-Changin’, an album that earns the distinction of being the most topical, protest-driven record in his resume.  The arrangement here on the fourth is the same as his first three albums: vocals, acoustic guitar, and harmonica.  There is a lyrical poem, “Some Other Kinds of Songs…,” included in this packaging, much like the previous record’s “11 Outlined Epitaphs.”

And yet, in many ways, this album’s material and approach could not be more divergent from what Dylan fans had come to expect.

For one thing, the in-your-face lyricism of his previous protest-genre songs is gone here, replaced by the more abstract, vivid, and provocative lines that begin to demonstrate a different aspect of Dylan’s worldview.  And, although I do love The Times They Are A-Changin’, it feels like he regressed in some ways after Freewheelin’, stating the “truth” on songs like the title track.  Here, on Another Side, he is back to asking questions a la “Blowin’ in the Wind,” perhaps most notably in “Ballad in Plain D” when he sings, “‘Are birds free from the chains of the skyway?'”

Even the arrangements — or perhaps the delivery more than the sounds — have progressed here, noticeable from the first “doooooo” of “All I Really Wanna Do.”  Dylan is clearly relaxing on this record a bit, allowing his most honest voice to shine through at times in ways that would have seemed out of place on the more serious tracks of his previous album.  Songs like “Black Crow Blues” and particularly “Motorpsycho Nightmare” simply wouldn’t have fit on previous records in all their humorous glory, oftentimes verging on the absurd (i.e. in “Motorpsycho Nightmare”: “I had to say something /to strike him very weird, /so I yelled out, /’I like Fidel Castro and his beard.’ /Rita looked offended / But she got out of the way /As he came charging down the stairs /Sayin’, ‘What’s that I heard you say?'”)

Bob Dylan's "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (1964)

Bob Dylan's "Another Side of Bob Dylan" (1964)

If you think that Dylan was an impressive lyricist prior to this album, then Another Side redefines one’s sense of what it means for words to be “impressive.”  Across the eleven tracks, it’s understandable if the listener might feel swept away into a world entirely separate from our own, into an environment where it is possible for the most raw of emotions and convictions to be translated into words.

In “My Back Pages,” Dylan sings that “Lies that life is black and white spoke from my skull.”  This is an admission of the shortsightedness of his youth, perhaps equally as much as it is a commentary on his own mortality, as he refers to his “skull” rather than his mind, soul, or something else more spiritual.

In my career as a teacher, I have always tried to avoid the pitfalls of the so-called “mongrel dogs who teach”…

Where he is not experimenting with word play (as in “All I Really Wanna Do,” “I ain’t lookin’ to compete with you /Beat or cheat or mistreat you /Simplify you, classify you /Deny, defy or crucify you”), he is surpassing the best songs of his catalog (think: “I Don’t Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)” as an updated departure song since “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” sung with all the bitterness that the lyrics require.

Even within this broad range of topics and interests, Dylan has come a long way towards blending his thoughts across multiple songs, avoiding any particular tags.  For instance, “It Ain’t Me, Babe” could be viewed as a sad love song, and it could also be read as a statement about his opinions on the folk movement: “You say you’re lookin’ for someone /Who will promise never to part /Someone to close his eyes for you /Someone to close his heart /Someone who will die for you an’ more /But it ain’t me, babe.”  This new side of Bob Dylan is adamant that he must follow his heart and do what he feels is right, rather than acquiesce to the demands and expectations of others.  Closing his eyes or his heart are simply not options.

This sense of increased confidence amidst confessions of his perceived over-confidence is carefully worked out across the record, aided by his unflinching assessments of others (recall “Ballad in Plain D,” when he sings, “I stole her away /From her mother and sister, though close did they stay /Each one of them suffering from the failures of their day.”  Increasingly, Dylan does not rely on grand, poetic statements or metaphors to capture his meaning; rather, he can deconstruct a character’s psychology through deceptively simple lines, like pointing out the “suffering from the failures of their day.”

Additionally, Dylan’s artistry is all the more complete for the inclusion of a track like “To Ramona,” on which he sings, “Everything passes /Everything changes /Just do what you think you should do /And someday maybe /Who knows, baby /I’ll come and be cryin’ to you.”  Pioneering some cross between sagely wisdom and open vulnerability, this track reads in many ways like the logical progression of Freewheelin’ alum “Girl of the North Country,” if it is even possible to improve upon such a beautifully bittersweet track.

Finally, he has not even abandoned politics entirely as one might imagine.  Instead, he approaches this topic — and this shouldn’t come as a surprise — with more subtlety and humor, as when he sings in “I Shall Be Free No. 10,” “Now, I’m liberal, but to a degree /I want ev’rybody to be free /But if you think that I’ll let Barry Goldwater /Move in next door and marry my daughter /You must think I’m crazy! /I wouldn’t let him do it for all the farms in Cuba.”  That last line is particularly funny, and again signals the spark of an entirely fresh and exciting step in Dylan’s evolution as a songwriter.

What is most impressive is that, as young as he was, Dylan was such a gifted and careful wordsmith.  I’m always struck by his choice of words here; he does not label these songs as “the other side” of Bob Dylan.  Rather, this is “another side,” suggesting that there are more than two sides to him.

As the numerous outstanding albums of his career — Blonde on Blonde, Blood on the Tracks, Slow Train Coming, and Time Out of Mind, just to name a few — would go on to suggest, there are myriad sides to this singer/songwriter.  And, if last year’s release of Christmas in the Heart is any indication, there may yet be many more sides to explore.

Bob Dylan FREE mp3! – “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” from his forthcoming album, Together Through Life!

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For the lyrics, chords, and cover song music video, CLICK HERE!

By Chris Moore:

Hurry!  Don’t wait!  There’s only three more hours to surf over to bobdylan.com and download the free mp3 of the new Dylan song “Beyond Here Lies Nothin.'”  It’s track one off of the upcoming release of Together Through Life, an album that will hit the shelves on Tuesday, April 28th, 2009.

When I woke up this morning to an email from Bob Dylan’s official website, I was pretty excited.  After all, this is a sneak peak at the album a full month before I thought I would hear any of the new songs.  Of course, there are other ways to find previews, such as searching YouTube for live versions of the new songs.

But I’d rather wait and be surprised.

The best part of this track is that, as the first song on the album, “Beyond Here Lies Nothin'” will be the first song you hear on the new album when you put the CD in (or download the album), then the rest of the songs will be brand new.  If it were track five, for instance, you would listen to several new songs and then come across a song you know before getting back to more new ones.

Anyway, get yourself over to bobdylan.com and check this song out before it’s too late.  This is a deal that only comes around for 24 hours…  Well, until April 28th, of course!