Bob Dylan - Tempest, Sept. 11, 2012

maybe i'm the only one impressed with it, but seems impressive that he's barely leaning on the 60s-70s these days. anyhow, here's a recording of a show from last week:
http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=1651

nah that's totally impressive, might download that set! Bob's 21st century is better than his 80s and 90s & I might take it over his 70s too

to the delight of millions, he's finally playing that song from the ya-ya sisterhood soundtrack

Ha ha. I assume he is still mumbling/vocalizing in a cigarette-stained voice. Is he changing the arrangements of these more recent songs too?

The Tempest songs seem to be sticking to the original arrangements for the most part, and Bob actually sounds pretty good vocally -- check out "soon after midnight" - http://www.bigozine2.com/TRK/BDglasgow/BDglasgow207.mp3
i mean, he's not smooth or anything, but...

I love gravelly Bob. Gonna have to check out that show.

I love Roll On John, strongest song on the record for me initially

Really into this tonight as well.

Interesting read:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/170289/bob-dylans-tempest-qa-greil-marcus#

still so disappointed it's not

EACH OF 'EM BIGGER
THAN ALL OF 'EM PUT TOGETHER

all the evil cartoon plutocrat stuff in "early roman kings", and for how well it works Primary Dylan Gimmick of collapsing image systems, maybe a polite phrase for cliches, into each other, so that american-progressive-era robber-baron caricatures and modern conspicuous consumption and the tarquins and the caesars and rock stars and finally bob dylan are smeared across each other into a single big hallucination

been thinkin on today's listen that my 80s-pizzeria joke abt the album artwork upthread is actually onto something - the band is working similar territory to their past few albums together, sure, but somehow i get a faint 80s vibe from it, like that stretch of 80s rock syncretism that wasn't into looking forward and had come into some kind of double-triple-quadruple vision nostalgia from being made by old rockers who used to be young rockers who remembered the blues, but now streamlined and modernized for kind of functional purposes (fits in with the bob's-backing-band vibe). but now the incorporation includes all these older and more recent preoccupations of dylan's, so the banjo stuff, americana twinges, riverboat music, whatever, isn't being assayed for genuine performances of the original musics so much as it's just being fused into a vision/auditory hallucination of all these pasts. thus the weirdness of the songwriting/lyrics, too - a lennon assassination song at THIS point, the titanic ballad, the plutocrat/gangster/rome fusions.

It's got at least one other thing in common with his '80s albums - it's uneven as hell. I still like "Tempest" (the song) and "Pay in Blood" quite a bit.

Some misses, yes, but I like it way more than any of his other third act albums.

Long too

I also like Duquesne whistle and Roll on John

doesn't it seem like the fade on the titanic song is wrong

it should be him starting up more verses and it fades anyway like a cane-reaching-onto-the-stage kind of thing

haha

it's such a weird song, seams like Dylan saw Titanic and liked it enough to paraphrase it in a 14 minute long song?

funny stuff, referring to DiCaprio's character as "Leo" and all:

Leo took his sketchbook
He was often so inclined
He closed his eyes and painted
The scenery in his mind

His story in Chronicles of writing "Dignity" was about watching the news about Len Bias's death, so maybe he has a four-track near his TV chair.

Ronnie James Dio had stories about writing his big songs while watching NFL games.

Also, love this album's last track, "Roll On John."

I forgot that anecdote, need to reread Chronicles soon

Roll On, John is great

listening to "tempest" (the song) this really is a kooky thing

"Petals fell from flowers
'Til all of them were gone
In the long and dreadful hours
The wizard's curse played on"

it's somewhat similar to lily rosemary and the jack of hearts in its failed attempt at telling an epic tale on an epic scale