Free to Drink Martinis and Watch the Sun Rise

Goal for New Year's Eve: Listen to the three Sound Opinions podcasts about Bob Dylan from April, May and June of 2011.

I had saved them up to listen to with a friend but we never got around to it and now we're not likely to have the time. Every time I look at my iPod they stare out at me to make me feel like a slacker and a loser of opportunities, so I am going to get rid of them.



Bob's hair is exceptionally ... puffy. Looks like maybe he got a blow out.
I love the giant records on the wall.

Words

With my mind full of Bob Dylan already, I woke up this morning and saw this Facebook post made by my friend J., who splits her Wednesdays at work in the morning and doing a volunteer gig at a coffee shop in a community bookstore in the afternoon.

half-office, half-café; half-decaf with half-and-half, half-dollar, half-sandwich, half-price? Ooooh, we're halfway there? I'm half the man I used to be...

It put me in the mood to watch this scene.


Also, songs in my iPod with half in the title:
Half a Person (Smiths)
Half Breed (Cher)
World Half Over (The Glands)
Half a World Away (R.E.M.)
Half Mast Inhibition (Mingus)
Half as Much (Ray Charles)

Why am I up at 11:38?

Because now it is Bob Dylan night and I'm into Planet Waves and Forever Young and Last Waltz.



For the record:
Love the pimp hat
Have I posted yet about the pleather, 70s car coats?
Love the crazy facial hair but glad I don't have to kiss it
The Band order of preference: Rick Danko; Levon Helm; Garth Hudson/Richard Manuel (won't pick); Robbie Robertson.
While we're at it Beatles order of preference: George/John (won't choose); Ringo; Paul.
4:57 or 2:49? 4:57

How to Throw the Blade

This is my absolute favorite Bob Dylan song.
Okay yes, I might pick another song on a different day but this one is always top three. And yes, I also love the White Stripes version and some days like it better than the Bob Dylan one.

I love Emmylou in the song and the Scarlet Rivera fiddle. All-in-all, I think Desire is my favorite Bob Dylan album.

Bob Dylan Day!

My friend J. just told me that her upstairs neighbor was blasting Bob Dylan and she was enjoying it and singing along. Unfortunately, it turned out the upstairs neighbor only wanted to blast Like A Rolling Stone.

Over and over.

I admit I like to do things like that sometimes and likely drive my neighbors crazy. I'm the woman who loves to do the "comparathon" after all and can never listen to Renegade just once. I also have some college memories of smoking pot (well, friends were, pot always made me unpleasantly paranoid), eating Doritos and listening to Charlie's Enormous Mouth a few times in a row too.

But I'm not feeling OCD today so I think I'm going to go for my full catalog of Dylan. According to my iTunes, I have 1.4 days worth of music (if I include The Band) to fit into my Saturday. I'm going to have to be selective.

Algorithms and Hive Brain

I'm convinced my iPod can read my mind.
(Yeah, I'm back on this, maybe I should finish that dumb story over this long holiday weekend.)

I don't know exactly how the shuffle algorithm works, my guess is that it gives weight to artists/songs that are frequently listened to. Maybe songs that I skip get a negative weight to them. Beyond all that though, I think it knows me.

I was just listening to Living for the City by Stevie Wonder and thinking about how my friend B.'s band used to cover that song. And how B. liked to sing that the legs beneath sister's short skirt were pretty rather than sturdy.

Next song up?
A recording of I Dreamed I Saw St. Augustine/Too Far Gone/Tomorrow is a Long, Long Time that my friend B. made in college. It was not his band, just him so the iPod didn't see two artists who did Living in the City and pulled a different song by the second artist.

I need to do a research project on the Shuffle. Luckily, a quick Google search of "ipod shuffle algorithm" reveals a whole slew of sites by math and computer science dorks who know a lot more about this stuff than me. They all seem more interested in randomness and whether all songs will be played before one song will be played twice. I have not seen anything yet about the development over time of human-iPod hive mind communication though. I'm going to send my iPod mental hints to load the Odetta, Nick Drake and Elvis covers of Tomorrow is a Long Time. I love the Rod Stewart and feel a "compare-athon" coming on. According to Wikipedia there are also covers by Harry Belafonte, Nickel Creek, Dion, Chris Hillman, Ian and Sylvia, Joan Baez,The Kingston Trio,Sandy Denny, Danielle Howle, The Silkie, Nationalteatern, Rosalie Sorrels, Judy Collins, Dream City Film Club, and The Black Family.

And at the Age of Eighteen the Grass Grew over Him

I have a million things to do tonight; dishes to wash, a roast to roast, a letter to my friend K. to write, a thank you not to my friend E. to send, and a Secret Santa gift to assemble. I'm even suppose to be thinking about what it is I am looking for in a man so that I can talk about it tomorrow afternoon with the nice therapist lady who is helping me unpack what is (if this blog is any indication) my overstuffed baggage.

So I put the stereo on shuffle and was moving through my chores with Sunny Day Real Estate, Ben Harper, Said Mrad, Humble Pie, The Beach Boys, The Time, The The, and Lucinda Williams without pause when, all of a sudden, I was sucked over to the stereo, listened for a minute, and found myself getting teary.

I *love* this song.

I can't give my heart to Bob Dylan the way I do to Neil Young, I have reservations. Too much of my connection with Bob happens in my head instead of in my heart, ears and gut .... Most of the Time. And then something like this comes on.



I've heard many of versions of this but this one is the only one I like. Although I have not heard the Donovan version so I can't be too hasty. The Martin Carthy version is too impersonal sounding for me and most versions sound too new-age bookstore, Celtic, buy-it-for-your-SCA friends crappy. I can't even stand listening through the Joan Baez version--though that is my reaction to most Joan Baez.

Fascinating history with the song too: The Trees They Do Grow So High.

Halloween Music Mash

I'm going to one of my favorite Chicago theaters tonight to see Monsters of Folk. I wanted to do something music this weekend but I have to work tomorrow and have a 15k run early Sunday morning.



(photo from http://www.explorechicago.org)

Bob Dylan and his Band are at the Aragon Ballroom and that would be fun, but I have decided I will not go see Bob Dylan. I never have and made that decision about 15 years ago. If I get a time machine and can go back to the early 70s okay, but other than that I think it would just make me sad. (Who am I kidding, if a bunch of people were going I would go too, I just won't go out of my way and seek it as a musical thing rather than a social one.)

Tomorrow night Roky Erickson is playing at the Bottom Lounge but I think a late night show before a long run would be a bad idea. I saw Roky Erickson last year at the Double Door and it was actually kind of sad. He seemed uncomfortable on stage and spent a lot of the show with his back to the audience. I left hoping he really wanted to be doing the shows and was enjoying the experience rather than being manipulated or taken advantage of by guardian. The documentary about his You're Gonna Miss Me is very interesting and it is worth watching the bonus material section about his mother. Worth watching in a "Grey Gardens" kind of crazy way.

Roky Erickson would be good Halloween music though, and I've been thinking about Halloween music lately. I made cards to send out to friends this year that had a "record player" motif. I made a little LP and wanted to write the name of a Halloween song. I decided they pretty much all stink. When I looked at various playlists people have for Halloween they tend to put a lot of goth and Alice Cooper and songs that mention the devil. I suppose that works but it doesn't seem really Halloween to me. Same with the Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack.

Top Halloween songs on many posted playlists are the dreaded Monster Mash, Werewolves of London and Thriller. I'm good with Michael Jackson but Thriller is not my favorite. Love the album, love the dancing, will bow down to the ground breaking video and pop culture milestone of it all. I even love the zipper jacket but I don't love that song. I especially hate that Vincent Price spoken word part.

Bela Lugosi's Dead, Nemesis, and Voodoo Lady would make it onto my Halloween playlist. I'm surprised how many online lists have left off Ministry's (Everyday is) Halloween, I guess the kids today are not into early Ministry. I loved With Sympathy when I was in high school. During graduate school, I supervised a freshman guy who really liked Ministry. But he liked Ministry in 1992, not Ministry in 1983. He was absolutely crushed when I lent him With Sympathy and Twitch to discover that his metal band started out making poncy dance music.

For my Halloween card, I decided that only about 2% of the recipients would remember (if they ever knew) early Ministry (you know who you are!)I made up my own song name. I really, really wanted to include a band name (The Raisinettes) but the space was too small and my writing too sloppy to fit it in. But thinking about it was fun. When I get home from work tomorrow night, I'm going to make a big bowl of pasta carbonara (carb loading!)and listen to my own Halloween playlist. Maybe I'll even get myself a big candy bar -- no little fun sized treat for me.