bob dylan and the band - the basement tapes / the complete basement tapes

i should rephrase that: someone who can sing better than jeff tweedy and billy bragg

But its not as if Guthrie was a baptist gospel singer

yeah i guess to me bragg fit p well

^^^ this

actually bragg was OK, tweedy's affected nasality irritates me. i don't really see the point of jeff tweedy in general.

Every time I think of Elvis Costello now doing things like this, just brings back the painful memory of watching the Harry Smith Project DVD and him trying to do some southern bluegrass ballad and it just sounding miserable and just making me incredibly embarrassed for him.

yeah as he gets older he has a bigger and bigger problem with knowing this limits, vocally and otherwise.

knowing HIS limits

The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams is really good; unusually good in terms of reflecting Williams' range as an entertainer, the way he mixed the happy, sad, devout, and joeky stuff into his live radio variey shows. I really like all three volumes of Mermaid Avenue (Vol. 3 is available as a sep. download on Amazon, if you don't want the box, which only adds a making-of DVD). I had no use use for the Vol.1-era Wilco, even or esp. performing these songs live, minus Billy Bragg (and Natalie Merchant)(and Corey Harris). But the Nels Cline-etc line-up can be very fine, and he even shows up on Vol.3. Burnett might do okay, but agree re EC's vocal limitations. Still the songs might come through.

That's the deal with even Tweedy singing (in the studio, anyway): the songs do come through, as Wilco etc add some right nice & appropriate toons.

at the height of their critical and popular approval the love for wilco bemused me. it wasn't offensive; it just sounded like sort of humble, none-too-exciting dadrock/roots rock gussied up (or stripped down) with some vaguely post-rocky production. and i lived in the epicenter of wilco fandom. to this day i cannot hum or recall a single bit from any wilco song. again, i have nothing against them, no hostility or whatever (they even come across as reasonably OK people in that documentary that friends dragged me to), i just don't get it. i mean, were people making arty documentaries about mark-almond in the 1970s?

sorry i sound more than a bit challopsy but it's true.

I'm with you. This kind of sounds like an attempt to make the most boring music possible.

I see the marketing material now: "don't ever say that these geezers aren't up to a challenge" --ILXOR

I still like Wilco's Summerteeth album and the first Mermaid Avenue (both Bragg and Wilco).

I agree that Costello and T-bone Burnett and company will likely not impress us. I do like the Carolina Chocolate Drops vocalist Giddens, although I have not kept up with her group (and the membership changes).

totally w/you on this one amateurist

i liked the carolina chocolate drops but they took a kind of crowd-pleasing route that I can hardly blame them for and I sort of lost interest. there were always warning signs, as when the crowd got real excited when they'd do string-band covers of "hit 'em up style."

they are amazing musicians though.

and i'm just a jerk, basically.

http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/bob_bootleg.jpg
Someone mentioned this in another thread, but worth repeating here. Is this real? Can't find many articles on it so far. Coming in November, apparently. Hope it sounds at least as good as the Mixin' Up the Medicine/A Tree with Roots bootlegs.
http://www.superdeluxeedition.com/news/bob-dylan-the-bootleg-series-vol-11-the-basement-tapes-complete/

It's real and available for pre-order on Amazon. Trimmed-down, 2-CD version will also be available.

!?!! I had no idea. So basically, when this comes out, the circle will be closed and no label will ever release recorded music again, right?

whoa, really?

dang, even looks like there is some un-bootlegged material in there.

daaaaaamn

as I said on the other thread, I will buy this

one question i have is: i wonder if there are full length versions of stuff that gets cut off early on a tree w/roots like "lock your door" etc

That might just be where the original tape cuts off. But who knows? They obviously have access to some other sources for these things.

i'm probably just wishful thinking but that would be amazing some of those snippets are kind of heartbreaking when they cut off

Haha, this is scheduled for release exactly one week before T-Bone Burnett's Look What I Found In The Basement or whatever it's called.

holy fucking shit, it's happening.

http://theseconddisc.com/2014/08/26/they-shall-be-released-bob-dylan-and-the-bands-the-basement-tapes-complete-arrives-in-november/

is aug. 26 the new april fool's day or something?

one question i have is: i wonder if there are full length versions of stuff that gets cut off early on a tree w/roots like "lock your door" etc

― ruffalo soldier (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, August 26, 2014 9:46 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i hope so! some of the best songs on the boots are cut off midway.

Six discs would expand on my "Tree with Roots" version; getting the best available source material is nice; the 120 page booklet may be cool....

But $150 seems a bit steep, no?

it sure does. kind of think it'll come down, but who knows...
the smile deluxe box set was 6 CDs + double LP + a couple seven inches + a pretty lavish book and I think it was $125 or thereabouts?

Unless the book is really REALLY cool, this set appears to be priced about double what is reasonable. I can see a complete vinyl set for $150; i might even pay more.

Well, the deluxy versions do come down thanks to fopp etc.

"Tell tale signs" was silly, another cd plus a book of ep covers, got it for £25 in the end.

I don't recall how much "Another selfie" was, but it wasn't full price. That was mail order though.

either i'm going to get this used or i'm just going to dl it illegally b/c bob dylan does not need my $150 for 45 yr old stuff

btw i'm sure this will sound 10x better than existing boots (except for mixin up the medicine)

Agreed on the sound; i'll absolutely dl some flacs just to hear how they sound before i make any purchase decision.

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/news/basement-tapes-track-track

iTunes was offering it for $58, but I couldn't get the listing again; Amazon's got the CDs (and book, I guess) for $120, last time I looked. Marcus on the mostly unbootlegged tracks/alts (says 33 in all; 2 are unlisted, in Disc 6): http://rol.st/1z01jPC

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/the-basement-tapes-complete-gives-you-all-the-bob-dylan-1654918549/+robharvilla

Good to spotlight the humor, but not to leave the serious tracks offstage: they're mostly just as good, which is saying a lot.

That Matos thing is good!

Matos piece is awesome! But why does it say "+harvilla" in the url?

There's some sublime stuff on the complete Basement Tapes, but it's also several hours of Rick Danko trying to find the root of the chord and succeeding about half the time, which makes it a stressful listen for me. I wanted it to be the great lost grail it's sometimes purported to be, but on a basic level it's really just demos. I'm really loving The Auld Triangle today though

I think of a demo as a formalist run-through, usually bare-bones, although Prince was known for resplendent demos, which were apparently like the finished product of almost anyone else, and Dylan's solo demos could be very intense---these are largely one-offs, first time heard and played by The Band, it seems (though one day we may get The Completest, with every take, every false start, every fart etc., as with Charlie Parker): fresh and speculative call and response, kicking it back and forth---maybe tennis without a net, but that can be a discipline. (Good discussions can also be found on threads for The Bootleg Series and The Band.) Yeah, up this thread, I should have referred to the '75 version as "overdubbed," rather than "re-recorded," in terms of basic tracks being replaced, apparently (anyway, that's good too, and some prefer it: incl. most of his originals from these sessions, and you get all those Band tracks, maybe the only place for that entire grouping?)

I love the Basement Tapes, and I actually do enjoy throwing them all on and letting them play, but like any informal sessions, it's often very casual and I think downplaying really oversells the box set to new listeners. The two-CD set was a great idea, it's probably the best way for most people to hear this music, but they messed that up a bit - for starters, it made no good sense to choose inferior alternates for some of those songs.

*downplaying that