bob dylan - self portrait

also another self portrait is def the best bootleg series installment i've heard

yeah, it really makes a strong case for that era

also another self portrait is def the best bootleg series installment i've heard

I was skeptical about that one, but it definitely salvaged this era for me, with enough stuff to improve both New Morning and especially Self Portrait. I think there's a total of 16 studio cuts that are genuine Self Portrait recordings - i.e. the actual master takes without the orchestral overdubs or outtakes that would have been up for consideration - and just programming those together created an album that I mostly enjoyed. Maybe not his best work, but a hell of a lot better than the album he did release.

The Isle of Wight show is fine, not one for the ages but much better than expected. The mixes released on Self Portrait sound incredibly shitty - they finally mixed it properly for the box set and it's a massive improvement. I'm not sure I'd listen to the whole thing again, but "Highway 61 Revisited" is the definite highlight. Greil Marcus's description of it is hilarious: "...[The Band] screamed “OUT ON HIGHWAY 61!” like PCP junkies hustling tourists into the worst whorehouse in Tijuana."

Nice caption on this official DylanCorp Insta post (if you can't beat 'em...).

Haha I thought this revive was gonna be about the guy who returned a 48-years-overdue copy of Self Portrait to the library

https://heightslibrary.org/better-late-than-never-san-francisco-man-returns-bob-dylan-album-48-years-late/

Chum finds Bob Dylan... then THIS happens pic.twitter.com/SXt86nzyfs

— Pawn Stars (@pawnstars) January 16, 2020

Here’s a little more background on that episode… I saw it when it first aired, it was pretty funny

ah 2010. was kinda surprised how spry BD looks. 12 years ago makes a little more sense

I like how this is obviously staged but Dylan does it so half-assed that you can almost believe they really did just randomly run into him on the street

i think all of us vinyl buyers in 2010 can remember how hard it was to buy a used copy for less than $50