Stubbs on Dylan

Woebot

Well-known member
http://www.mr-agreeable.net/stubbs/default.asp?id=32

I thoroughly enjoyed this, not just because I'm an unabashed Bob Dylan fan. The sight of Mr Stubbs balancing so elegantly on the fence was extremely funny. DS manages to be quietly illuminating. His comments on SMiLE nailed that for me very tidily.

Will everyone be polite cos (doffs cap) Mr Stubbs is my employer, and I'm sure he didnt anticipate sprouting a comments box :)
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Very funny bit about the lagers there.

Dylan after his motorcycle crash becomes pretty tedious, don't you think? Admittedly clever lyrics, recited along to unadventurous music. His music became exageratedly slow and gentle- a little too EZ to enjoy for me, but all the better to analyse the lyrics and for "an established and closed school of Dylanologists to dominate discourse on the great man". These trends culminated in Love And Theft, hailed as genius, but which really is just 12 bar bar-blues of the most hackneyed variety. You can almost see the bored punters drinking in the background.

The whole of Dylan's career post 1968 is footnotes to his proper career innit.
 

puretokyo

Mercury Blues
Diggedy Derek said:
Dylan after his motorcycle crash becomes pretty tedious, don't you think? ...
The whole of Dylan's career post 1968 is footnotes to his proper career innit.

Well agreed. I wish, however, I could simply dismiss post-accident Dylan and take the view that we lost an unparalleled talent in that crash. Unfortunaely, I love Desire and quite enjoy Nashville Skyline... And really, Blonde was pointing toward his future direction somewhat...
 

jenks

thread death
blood on the tracks seems an obvious refutation to post 68 dylan is crap argument - also i have a huge amount of time for world gone wrong - his album of early blues/folk etc, finally when the dust ahs settled i think love and theft will be spoken of along with his best - po'boy is in my top ten dylans already.
i recently finished the christopher ricks book on dylan and whilst it concentrated solely on his lyrics he makes a really powerful case for treating dylan words seriously - his tuff on the post desire albums is a relevation
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Actually I love World Gone Wrong as well, a really wonderful album. It's not the same level of creativity as the earlier stuff, but it's damn soulful.
 

Diggedy Derek

Stray Dog
Ha, yeah you could say that. Tell you is comparable to Godard- and I was gonna do a big blog posting about this one time- Steve Albini's music with Shellac. Shellac have got the technical precision that characterises Godard's cinema- they are precise, forceful, and perhaps as physically dynamic as rock can get. Yet his attitude towards women is similar to Godard's- he fetishises them, cares for them, cherishes them to an almost indecent degree, and to the extent where the narrator almost seems to lose his identity. His lyrics are a forensic examination of women's pain that share the strengths and weaknesses of Godard's films about women- they are essays, full of ideas, but with no real identity tying them together. Who is Jean-Luc Godard? Who is Steve Albini? Their work doesn't tell you, it just is a chronicle of obsessions.

The result in each case is a sort of voyeurisism, and sometimes it's kinda unhealthy- picking through the bones of broken lives, of broken (capitalist) societies.

Still, good tunes though.
 

owen

Well-known member
as with godard, isn't it just *more fun* to say 'all shit post-68'? it's basically correct in each case

bollocks is it more fun! Tout Va Bien, Slow Motion, even Eloge de l' bloody Amour are excellent. Its only more fun if we agree to subscribe to the Uncut magazine default position. and sod that.

but yeah, Dylan's crap after 'blonde on blonde'...musically anyhow, some nice lyrics here and there though
 

Grievous Angel

Beast of Burden
> Mr Stubbs is my employer

Huh? Did I miss some gossip? Did you wind up getting a proper job?

You're not... <gasps>... in full time employment now?

<shivers>
 

henrymiller

Well-known member
as with godard, isn't it just *more fun* to say 'all shit post-68'? it's basically correct in each case

bollocks is it more fun! Tout Va Bien, Slow Motion, even Eloge de l' bloody Amour are excellent. Its only more fun if we agree to subscribe to the Uncut magazine default position. and sod that.

i find it more fun anyway, and i don't read uncut -- i've put in the hours with the later stuff, honest. for an excellent critique of godard's recent stuff, see the durgnat piece in the new film comment.
 

owen

Well-known member
henrymiller said:
i've put in the hours with the later stuff, honest..

sorry! i dont doubt it...i just think there are amazing moments in the later stuff, admittedly in amongst some dreck...i might seek out that article, i am a bit fascinated by the contrary old sod

really like the analyses of godard/albini upthread
 
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