Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/20/movies/da-pennebaker-interview-bob-dylan-documentary-dont-look-back.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Farts&action=click&contentCollection=arts®ion=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=sectionfront

Pennebaker interview in association with an exhibit at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo.

Did you want to have a preliminary conversation with Dylan?

We arranged to meet in a bar down in the Village with Bobby Neuwirth, who was his road manager. We sat and talked, and then he said, “I’ve got this idea for a film where I take a whole lot of sheets of paper and write lyrics for a song, and hold them up as the lyrics come up in the song and then I just toss them away.” And I said, “That’s a fantastic idea.” So we brought along about 50 shirt cardboards, and that’s how we did the whole thing in the alleyway [“Subterranean Homesick Blues”].

i just rewatched Dont Look Back, i think it's my favorite movie

HMMMM, don't think any of this has ever been bootlegged before.
http://www.collectorsmusicreviews.com/dylan-bob/hot-new-dylan-releases-on-rattlesnake/
http://cdn.collectorsmusicreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/dylan-soon4-300x298.jpg
http://cdn.collectorsmusicreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/dylan-soon41-300x251.jpg
‘After The Empire’ is a 16 track studio outtakes CD of ideas that were recorded after the ‘Empire Burlesque’ album but were ultimately unreleased. This is made up of mostly new Dylan originals with the exception of one cover version. The running time of the CD is just over 70 minutes.
that is some real good bootleg cover art.

loving the Seinfeldian smirk

"Why don't they call it Roundtine?"

needs "you know, stadows" word balloon

may as well plug this thing i wrote here: http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/1157-beyond-the-bootlegs-bob-dylans-unreleased-holy-grails/
i've already been contacted by a "super collector" setting me straight on some of this ...

also, a major announcement
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFyP9JjmZ80

Awww, I don't wanna enable Adobe---what is it, huh?

Also, what did the "super collector" say? Quite a fun read, anyway.

you need adobe to watch a youtube clip? anyway, it's kind of a dumb joke about a forthcoming bootleg series being "The Bathroom Tapes."

supercollector was extremely skeptical about the existence of a Jim Dickinson-produced Time Out Of Mind, says the JWH outtakes are amazing, says there are "thousands of hours" of tapes from the Rundown Era (1977-81), says the (mostly) unreleased Bromberg sessions from the early 90s are "beautiful." I asked him if he could send me the JWH alternates and he said: "Unfortunately I cannot."

Aww. Thanks!

Nice piece tyler!

thanks!

Nice piece, Tyler! Have you ever happened across any outtakes from Masked and Anonymous? The 4 songs on the soundtrack were incredible performances... Apparently they recorded 20 or so? and I've never been able to find any evidence of them.

Yeah I've read about that stuff, never come across any unreleased things -- some info here: http://www.bjorner.com/DSN24025%20-%202002%20Summer%20sessions.htm
I do really like the songs on the soundtrack, that was a killer band. Guess that is the only time "dirt road blues" has been performed, which isn't that exciting but it's a little exciting...

In light of Tyler's awesome article, thought I would see if anyone round these parts has had a listen to this newly unearthed 80s material that's popped up in the last few days? Haven't got to the sessions with Tom Petty yet but this other stuff from 1985 is great!

It's a total dark period for me as a Dylan listener, up until now I've pretty much stopped at Infidels then started up again with Oh Mercy, but I'm enjoying this new stuff a lot more than I thought I would going in. Obviously unfinished demos / rehearsals, very stripped back compared to the other mid-80s stuff I've heard and it sounds like he's having fun

nothing amazing/revelatory on either of these new things, but both are fun listens nonetheless. dylan straining for the high notes on "under the boardwalk" is hilarious.
couple of things on after the empire that could've been developed into good tunes, but I get the feeling it's all pretty much off the cuff/on the spot. definitely seems to be enjoying himself...

Got the two volume Cutting Edge v cheap recently, the revelation for me has been that first take of Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window, definitely prefer it to the Band version - Dylan's singing seems much more passionate, for one thing. Lyrics an example of that old Dylan prescience - lines like "With his businesslike anger and his bloodhounds that kneel" and "While his genocide fools and his friends rearrange/ The religion of little tin women/That backs up their views but your face is so bruised/Come on out the dark is beginning" seems to anticipate Trump (I guess it's partly a song about tyrants)

yow

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/premieres/bob-dylan-plots-massive-36-disc-set-of-1966-live-recordings-w442099

haha, pretty crazy ... i do want to hear it all though. at least once. that Paris show should be interesting!

Haha... never change those EU copyright laws

seems that they're putting the "real" royal albert hall gig out as a 2CD set too ...
i do miss the curatorial aspect of the bootleg series, but i also am not going to complain about getting the whole damn thing.

Ha — I just posted that to the "shit that looks like an Onion article" thread.

http://img.wennermedia.com/760-width/rs-dylan-24fd506f-c65d-45bc-a9c4-4342fe35725d.jpg

form the rolling stone article -- this is wrong:
The title of this release corrects a previously released official bootleg from 1998 that identified a Manchester show – the infamous "Judas" performance – as having taken place at Royal Albert Hall
obviously confusing since they called it "the royal albert hall show" in quotes, but they knew the show took place in manchester.

Not optimistic about the pricing on this. If the 18-disc thing went for $600 (granted, with 45s, a piece of film, and a bag of gravel from the road he crashed his motorcycle on), this'll probably be...$1000? Ugh.

I thank in advance whoever is gonna boil this down to 4 CDs of the most killer shit

they're saying it'll retail for around $150 -- think the packaging is going to be more bare bones, less bells n whistles (which is fine by me)

Yeah, that sounds fairly reasonable. I would've thought this was the opportunity to release Eat the Document, but apparently not.

yeah, would be great if they stitched together the performance footage into a cohesive concert film! probably will happen sometime?

Remember thinking Eat the Document was kind of bad when I saw it decades ago on PBS, but still would be interesting to see again.

"While doing the archival research for The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series Vol. 12, last year's box set of Dylan's mid-Sixties studio sessions, we were continually struck by how great his 1966 live recordings really are," Adam Block, president of Legacy Recordings, said in a statement.

He pretend continued. "I mean, you'd think if this stuff was really so good, someone would have told me. Who did you say his backing band was again?"

http://www.ultimatemovierankings.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Claude-Rains-Casablanca.png

I thank in advance whoever is gonna boil this down to 4 CDs of the most killer shit

― I wish you could see my home. It's... it's so... exciting (Jon not Jon)

This ^^^
Although I don't even know if I'd even buy a 4-disc distilled version of this. Feel I've got enough mid-60s Dylan.

I'm still waiting on hearing the last box set, I don't have the money to pay for that shit :(

Likewise I still need to hear the last box set. I am really in an old-man phase of waiting to buy this stuff (because if I stream or whatever I'll listen once and never really grapple with it), but knowing at the same time I'll probably never buy it cos my money needs to go on more boring things.

hold on now! After tylerw's article linked upthread, he got some static: supercollector was extremely skeptical about the existence of a Jim Dickinson-produced Time Out Of Mind, b-but in that previously linked Stone piece from early March: Chaiken has only begun to dip into the hundreds of hours of raw Dylan recording sessions, but he's already come across a completely different version of 1997's Time Out of Mind produced by pianist Jim Dickinson, so there!

woah....that would be intriguing, time out of mind has such a lanois sound to it, it would seem like a completely different album

At least they agree on worthiness (also existence) of John Wesley Harding outtakes.

it's circular dow -- I got my info from that RS article, after which the supercollector got in touch with me, said it doesn't exist. chaiken then told me that RS got things mixed up -- there are different mixes, unreleased songs and jam sessions that Jim was a part of, but the production duties were all handled by Daniel Lanois.

Close enough!

That's what I usually look to prev. unreleased Dylan legit & boots for: more songs, not more versions.

But I'll take different mixes, esp. by J.D., and jams too.

"Likewise I still need to hear the last box set. I am really in an old-man phase of waiting to buy this stuff (because if I stream or whatever I'll listen once and never really grapple with it)"

i don't feel like copyright-extension archival mega-sets are something i need to "grapple with". like, i listened to that complete basement tapes or whatever once, and they don't contain a lot of hidden depths not previously manifested in his released work.

that's true, but if you feel like listening to basement tapes for 6+ hours straight it comes in handy

I got a 'copy' of that complete cutting edge thing, the final disc was the only one that was a drag, the 'live bits and bobs' one, apart from the first chunk of Joan Baez tracks..

for those that need the full 36, Bull Moose has it for $108.97 shipped in the US. for me, the calculus has to be cost per disc I'll actually ever get around to listening to (though at that price...).

nice.

Haha... never change those EU copyright laws

Wait, this is unrelated, isn't it? I thought the EU copyright thing only affected unreleased music from 1963 or earlier, and that everything after benefits from the change in law that extended copyright from 50 to 70 years. That's why we haven't gotten any more Beatles or Beach Boys archive stuff from 1964 or beyond, isn't it?