Adam2

here's a few clips... this version of Slippin' & Slidin' is one of the wildest things I've ever heard. and an absolutely amazing Rockin' Chair. I'd say this is the best ever performance of one of the best songs ever written. Proof that The Band were the best group to ever exist, bar none.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjrL8jfE5GM

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqbTPVvZ5pA

I really don't see how you guys think Rock of Ages is tame. like the someone else mentioned, Don't Do It is just an electrifying performance. W.S. Walcott is a red hot performance, way better than the studio version. This Wheel's On Fire is also better than the studio verison, as is Stage Fright. and not to mention the absolutely WILD versions of Rag Mama Rag, Chest Fever, and Rock n Roll Shoes. Before The Flood is the beginning of the end... Richard not doing so hot, Robbie now playing a Strat and overplaying like crazy, and the drugs really starting to take away from the music. Watkins Glen is also not a good performance for the same reasons. Besides, if you wanted to hear a "balls to the wall" show, listen to some overblown crap by third-rate bands like Led Zeppelin. The Band was all about restraint, subtlety, and space.

Well clearly Robbie didn't write Chest Fever...

 

Before the Flood is getting bashed here unfairly. I saw night two of this tour and the Band was fantastic. While the album cuts are not as good as I remember them being, they really aren't that bad and show alot more fire than the very sedate Rock of Ages.

 

LouieB

 

I would use many words to describe Rock of Ages, and "sedate" is not one of them. How could you describe such an exciting, electric live album as sedate? Before The Flood is not very good at all. Robbie's playing, for the first time, started to show the annoying over-playing that would peak at the Last Waltz. In addition, Richard's voice is rough on BTF. Rock of Ages is 10 times better. One of the best live albums of all time, and one of The Band's best.

you tell me how Bruce, or Dylan, or The Stones can make music like they did in the past, not possible.

take the good with the bad, why be bitter about it.

 

the last time I checked, Mississippi was one of the best songs Dylan ever wrote.

i thought the footage of Isaac Hayes was completely ridiculous. "Black Moses"... give me a break. quite frankly I don't think he's that great. They should have spent much more time on the label's early/best years instead of so much time on the later years.

all of the songs on Easy Tiger are actually quiet short by Ryan's standards... :unsurebut anywho, it's prolly my 4th fave of his solo records honestly...

i was referring to the live shows. his band are great, but the whole 20 minute jams that go on forever thing has gotten quite old.

so it's not possible for someone to actually like the album? thanks for clearing that up.

no problem

also, i don't buy that BS about him writing the album to appease the label, cuz he's spoken at LENGTH numerous times about this being the MOST collaborative album he's ever worked on with a group in the studio, even including Whiskeytown...

just because it was a collaboration doesn't mean he wasn't appeasing the record company.i just can't find much of value in it. the lyrics are very self conscious, like, "ok, this will be the rocker with the goofy lyrics, this will be the sensitive slow song with my quiet voice," etc.

come on, you can't be serious. the album is so glossy, over produced. i would call it many things, and amazing is far from one of them. i'm not some ryan adams hater either. i really love the cardinals. "two" is a total re-write of harder now that its over, as someone else has stated, and that is 10x better. and in the uncut interview, he says how it wasn't at all the album he wanted to make, and that the label give him an idea of what they wanted and that he didn't have any more fight in him, so he did it. this album is just so bland and... well, i can't describe it any better than middle of the road, slick, over produced adult contemporary. tears of gold, pearls on a string, and (oddly) halloween head are the only songs that i really enjoyed... the rest is crap. just because you're a fan doesnt mean you can't acknowledge when they make a shit record. he needs to write good, concise songs with the cardinals and not have them go on for 20 minutes.

that song is crap. i don't get why people are listening to this new album... he basically said himself that he catered to the label by releasing it, and most of it is middle of the road, adult contemporary crap.

is West Fest free, or what?

i'm cheating a bit, but who cares, they needed to be on here.

 

The Basement Tapes (1967)

Music From Big Pink (1968)

The Band (1969)

Stage Fright (1970)

Rock Of Ages (1972)

the funny thing is, its not only his frog that is squashed...

oh, now I see it. it's right after the photo of you fucking yourself.

where's the photo of you being an asshole? i thought i saw it in there somewhere.

yes, can somebody please tape this for us?

what is the point of writing "in my opinion". you wouldn't be talking about someone else's opinion.

i'm new to this band, and was wondering if they have 2 singers... on the new album it sounds like it. the one singer has a very wayne coyne-esque voice.

the keyboard in Shake It Off is an obvious nod to The Band's "The Shape I'm In".

how in the WORLD could this list go on without the mention of:

 

My Aim Is True

This Year's Model

Armed Forces

Get Happy!!!

Trust

 

ELVIS COSTELLO

Also, didn't RS vote The Band the most important American Band or somesuch in a previous list. Stupid.

 

Yeah, real stupid. Giving a group like The Band their well-deserved recognition. The nerve of them! They should have gotten in touch with you so you could rattle off a country-blues list for them.

I'm pretty sure there are a few articles where it comes up and JB mentions the collaboration as being their/one of their last (and that Tweedy played drums on a demo or something). As far as I know, the verses are Tweedy and chorus is Bennett, and they combined them. Also in the interview Bennett mentions that the song was titled Jesus, Don't Cry but he was lazy and labeled a cd of it "Jesus, etc."

That song is the prime example I use whenever I hear of someone trying to find the "definitive" meaning of a song's lyrics. Even if you manage to discover somehow exactly what was in the writer's head when it was written, it doesn't mean much, because the meaning will absolutely change later.

 

Whatever the phrase "tall buildings shake" meant when Jeff wrote it, it means something utterly different now.

 

 

Jay Bennett wrote the chorus to the song.

i didn't follow the rules exactly... this is just a mix cd i recently made, but no modern artists are included (so no Califone, My Morning Jacket, Jim O'Rourke, Tim Easton, Wilco, Jayhawks, Tupelo.) I'm 18, by the way...

 

'Til The Money Runs Out - Tom Waits

Big Tears - Elvis Costello

Long Face - Bobby Charles

Barstool Blues - Neil Young

I've Got A Feeling - The Beatles

So It Goes - Nick Lowe

Rockin' Chair (live) - The Band

All Things Must Pass - George Harrison

Washington Bullets - The Clash

Dark End of the Street - The Flying Burrito Brothers

Let Nothing Come Between You - Warren Zevon

Isolation - John Lennon

Diamond Joe ("Masked and Anonymous") - Bob Dylan

At the Crossroads - The Sir Douglas Quintet

Almost Cut My Hair - CSNY

could SOMEBODY tape this?

Rock and Roll is simple, which is one of the great things about it because anyone can do it. Seriously, Heroin (one of the greatest rock songs ever) is two chords. Misunderstood is two chords throughout the entire song.

 

Basically, if band such as Wire went into the studio (they did not even know how to tune their guitars), and create a fantastic debut album "Pink Flag." I believe anyone can play rock and roll.

 

I guess I just don't like it when rock stars brag about how much of a genius they are when anyone can do it.

 

 

We should get this guy some unused Woodie Guthrie lyrics, and see if he comes up with a melody and chord progression that is anywhere near as good as California Stars.

I hope this wasn't addressed to me (although I do seem to be the guy who slagged on Dylan's recent work the hardest in this thread). Because I assure you, I'm in no desperate need for a refresher course on how great Patton, Johnson, Boggs, Thornton, Hurt, Hopkins, Jefferson, Muddy or any of the blues giants were, and continue to be.

 

My major beefs with Dylan's work began at the outset of the current decade, more or less. I'm one of the few Dylanphiles who rank Time Out of Mind among my top three Dylan records of all time, so I certainly have no quarrel with anything pre-dating Love & Theft. L&T is a mixed bag for me, however. A song like "Mississippi" stands up well next to anything Dylan's ever written, but hey, it's a holdover from the '90s, so that shouldn't be surprising. I suspect a few other numbers appearing on that record also date to the '90s, but obviously there's no way of knowing for sure when they were composed. Unfortunately, no fewer than three songs on that record are note-for-note lifts of other artists' tunes. Although the lyrics are Dylan's, the music for "Tweedle Dee" is a shameless plundering of the old Johnny and Jack song "Uncle John's Bongos," right down to the bridge. Gene Austin's "Rebecca" was transposed from piano to guitar for "Summer Days," while Austin's "Lonesome Road" was lifted part and parcel for "Sugar Baby." A few of Austin's lines even survived the transition, like "Look up, look up / And seek your maker / 'fore Gabriel blows his horn."

 

Modern Times, on the other hand, is just minor Dylan, not to be taken seriously. It has less in common with TOOM and L&T than it does albums like Under the Red Sky and Dylan's Traveling Wilburys contributions. Half the record is bar band blooze-rock filler, uninspired and anything but compelling; funnily enough, you can pretty much go down the track listing and cross off all of the odd-numbered songs with a red pen, for all they're worth. There are plenty of breezy workouts here, but there are no Dylan songs anywhere. There's "Rollin' and Tumblin'," another note-for-note swipe of a superior old song, although this one isn't nearly as obscure as "Uncle John's Bongos." "Someday Baby" is a snoozer of a Muddy Waters remake, originally known as "Trouble No More," which, hilariously, Dylan himself covered in the early '90s. And although it's credited as a Dylan original, I'm sure every pre-war blues fan in the world has heard "The Levee's Gonna Break" countless times before. "Ain't Talkin'" works well enough on paper, but in practice it sounds like later-period Dylan on autopilot, or maybe even a kind of self-parody. "Workingman's Blues #2" at least sports a fine melody, but the lyrics are yet more pastiche, a superficially interesting skeleton without any marrow. What's the song about? Anything? I'm not convinced it is.

 

And his voice is just shot. Opinions will vary, of course, but ever since Sexton left the touring band, Dylan has sounded laryngitic and snarled. The vocals from the last few live shows I've downloaded have been devoid of both melody and panache, regrettably, and Dylan has never sounded more consumptive and breathless on record than he does on Modern Times. He's really struggling, and buddy - that ain't a stylistic conceit. A lot of people love to believe Dylan's still got it, and that's fine by me. Everybody needs something to believe in. For what it's worth, I still consider Bob Dylan the greatest American artist ever to have lived. Nobody's perfect, though.

 

is this an excerpt from your new book?