by no means was i reflecting on your words, i was speaking in generalities. i agree that a listener & a musician both get different senses of pleasure & purpose from a jam; however, that can be said for music as a whole. music is what you make of it, & what holds meaning to you could either hold an entirely different meaning, or even be completely meaningless, to someone else. also, what meaning it holds to the musician can hold an entirely different purpose & profundity to the listener, according to their own experiences & perspective.

i should point out & reiterate though, that i am a musician - i just don't play with the same frequency that i used to. like i said, i find the art of self-ordainment & restraint to be much more effective than jamming, but that's just my perspective - as we all have our own.

Well, I love both restraint and jamming. I hate to keep making an example of Floyd, but there was a time where I had wished they'd jam here and there live. Then came a point where I realized it'd have a complete different impact and disrupt the atmosphere of the music and show. With other bands, I feel that jamming is beautiful, and restraint would destroy them. Take RHCP. I think John Frusciante and Flea have excellent chemistry as the two string/melodic instrumentalists of the groups, and the four-way connection of the band is even more impressive. If they didn't utilize that connection by almost telepathically going into jams and improvisations at their live shows, I think it'd be a waste of a gifted relationship.

Then you have post-rock, as I've mentioned. Post-rock songs, Dependant on band, seem to range from 6-30 minutes, and yet I think they still have a restraint. Jamming would ruin that restraint, and cutting the songs down to four minutes would also ruin that restraint, if you can make sense of that... It's a rather minimalistic genre, I think the restraint comes from not fighting to do too much, but still managing to make an impressive wall of sound with conventional rock instruments like guitar, bass, drums, and occasionally keys, and then still working in complimentary instrumental cells like string quartets, brass bands, electronic sampling and experimentation, and so on.

totally agree with the RHCP example - john frusciante & flea have great chemistry, excellent use of restraint & powerful grooves. sometimes they tend to indulge a bit much for my tastes, but it's never less than interesting & always tasteful.

not much of a fan of post-rock, it's completely & totally boring to me actually. i've always been a lyric man, anyhow.

So uh...how about that there Bob Dylan!

Top 10 Dylan songs:

1. Visions of Johanna
2. Tombstone Blues
3. Masters of War
4. Idiot Wind
5. It's All Over Now, Baby Blue
6. It Aint Me, Babe
7. It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry
8. Gates of Eden
9. Chimes of Freedom
10. It's Alright Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)

a month or so ago, i actually made myself a mixtape compiling my favorite dylan songs. i normally don't make single artist mixes unless i'm making an intro mix for a member of the uninitiated (since i'll invariably choose to listen to the original albums over a self-assembled playlist), but i was talking with a friend of mine about our favorite dylan albums/songs, & it came up that i tend to have a "type" of dylan song that i gravitate towards. with this in mind, i compiled a mixtape of my favorite dylan songs to see if there was indeed a unifying theme or atmosphere permeating throughout. this was the final product (it's in chronological order by date & time recorded):

"with your eyes like smoke & your prayers like rhymes"

1.) "don't think twice, it's all right"
2.) "one too many mornings"
3.) "to ramona"
4.) "mama, you been on my mind"
5.) "i'll keep it with mine"
6.) "love minus zero/no limit"
7.) "it's alright, ma (i'm only bleeding)"
8.) "mr. tambourine man"
9.) "just like tom thumb's blues"
10.) "4th time around"
11.) "visions of johanna"
12.) "sad-eyed lady of the lowlands"
13.) "tonight i'll be staying here with you"
14.) "you're a big girl now"
15.) "if you see her, say hello"
16.) "buckets of rain"

i encourage any of you to attempt such a task; due to the stunningly high quality of dylan's early 60's through mid 70's work, it's incredibly difficult to trim it down to a mere 80-90 minutes. it took me quite a while & cost me alot of frustration. if any of you decide to try it, make sure to post the playlist here, i'd love to see how our tastes differ.

my top 5 favorite dylan songs are as follows:

1.) "mama, you been on my mind"
2.) "don't think twice, it's all right"
3.) "love minus zero/no limit"
4.) "i'll keep it with mine"
5.) "if you see her, say hello"

There are times I tend to dulge in lyrics, and others when I'm just over taken by the force of the music itself... I enjoy classical music a bit, so post-rock is sort of a common ground between rock and symphonic. And I just find Sigur Rós' music to be some of the most beautiful to grace my ears.

But... uh... Yeah... Dylan. I think I mostly prefer the abstract period, as Mick put it. Highway 61, Blonde on Blonde... There's just too much to list or get into.

If CDs weren't limited to 80 minutes, and if it weren't so damn fucking long, "Highlands" would definitely be on any Dylan compilation I made.

I was actually planning a thread over on FCM which would ask members to consider one 80-minute-long CD, and choose their ultimate favourite Dylan songs to fill it.

Visions of Johanna pwnz my soul right now.

"highlands" would definitely be on volume two or three if i decided to go that far. the part where the waitress asks him to draw a portrait of her is an absolute riot.

i suggest you attempt a dylan mix yourself; it's even harder than it sounds. come on, don't be a wuss.

Sorry, I meant to return to this.

Well, versatility alone doesn't amount to greatness, of course, and I'm not sure whose opinion you're going by on "success", your own, or "The Majority". "Vast amounts of critical favour" again doesn't bring inherent greatness. (But it might.) Shakespeare's still studied today, but he's not necessarily good. (I think he is, but that's because I like his work.)

Everybody loves Gone With the Wind, but I gave it a prompt "no stars" when I saw it last; also, I recognise and acknowledge influence, but consider it separately to measuring greatness. But we've been down this path before.

How, by the way, would you define the following phrases:
"unmatched influence"
"peerless enduring popularity"
"dazzling array of success"

They sound like fashionable (and dismissable) buzz-phrases, to me.

Anyway, to answer your question, here's a few names that come to mind, for versatility, artistic innovation, enduring appeal and ultimately, influence.
DJ Shadow, Aphex Twin, Radiohead, Tom Waits, Lee "Scratch" Perry, Damon Albarn.

Oh wait, and Dylan.

(Should Dylan be dismissed because The Beatles sold more records than him?)

And, for what it's worth, since we're all sounding very snobbish already, I'll say that Eminem's Marshal Mathers LP is worth ten Sgt. Peppers as far as lyricism goes.

My favorite Dylan song :

JOEY

Born in Red Hook, Brooklyn, in the year of who knows when
Opened up his eyes to the tune of an accordion
Always on the outside of whatever side there was
When they asked him why it had to be that way, "Well," he answered, "just
because."

Larry was the oldest, Joey was next to last.
They called Joe "Crazy," the baby they called "Kid Blast."
Some say they lived off gambling and runnin' numbers too.
It always seemed they got caught between the mob and the men in blue.

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

There was talk they killed their rivals, but the truth was far from that
No one ever knew for sure where they were really at.
When they tried to strangle Larry, Joey almost-a-hit the roof.
He went out that night to seek revenge, thinkin' he was bulletproof.

The war broke out at the break of dawn, it emptied out the streets
Joey and his brothers suffered terrible defeats
'Til they ventured out behind the lines and took five prisoners.
They stashed them away in a basement, called them amateurs.

The hostages were tremblin' when they heard a man exclaim,
"Let's blow this place to kingdom come, let Con Edison take the blame."
But Joey stepped up, an' he raised his hand, said, "We are not those kind of men.
It's peace and quiet that we need to go back to work again."

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

The police department hounded him, they called him Mr. Smith
They got him on conspiracy, they were never sure who with.
"What time is it?" said the judge to Joey when they met
"Five to ten," said Joey. Judge says, "That's exactly what you get."

He did ten years in Attica, reading Nietzsche and Wilhelm Reich
They threw him in the hole one time for tryin' to stop a strike.
His closest friends were black men 'cause they seemed to understand
What it's like to be in society with a shackle on your hand.

They let him out in '71 he'd lost a little weight
But he dressed like Jimmy Cagney and I swear he did look great.
He tried to find the way back in , to the life he left behind
To the boss he said, "I have returned and now I want what's mine."

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

It was true that in his later years he would not carry a gun
"I'm around too many children," he'd say, "they should never know of one."
Yet he walked right into the clubhouse of his lifelong deadly foe,
Emptied out the register, said, "Tell 'em it was Crazy Joe."

One day they blew him down in a clam bar in New York
He could see it comin' through the door as he lifted up his fork.
He pushed the table over to protect his family
Then he staggered out into the streets of Little Italy.

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

Sister Jacqueline and Carmela and mother Mary all did weep.
I heard his best friend Frankie say, "He ain't dead, he's just asleep."
Then I saw the old man's limousine head back towards the grave
I guess he had to say one last goodbye to the son that he could not save.

The sun turned cold over President Street and the town of Brooklyn mourned
They said a mass in the old church near the house where he was born.
And someday if God's in heaven overlookin' His preserve
I know the men that shot him down will get what they deserve.

Joey, Joey,
King of the streets, child of clay.
Joey, Joey,
What made them want to come and blow you away?

DC, that whole album is seeped in melancholic injustice. Desire is my favourite Dylan album. His voice is most appealing on it, too (he's accompanied by Joan Baez, of course).

It should be noted that he co-wrote the album with Jacques Levy, but that takes nothing away from its achievement.

"Isis" would be on any favourites compilation, for me, and "Sara" is one of the few songs during which I have to walk out of the room if others are present, since I feel an inner, jealous rage that I should share it with anyone else.

I'm a big fan of "Romance In Durango".

I fell down to my bended knees saying "I dig farmers, don't shoot me please!"

^coolest line ever.

I'll be seeing Bob Dylan in about two weeks. In a month I'll also be seeing Roger Waters. A good summer it's looking to be.

Lucky sons of bitches. The next time Bob is remotely close to bordering Florida at all I'm going. No matter what. I gotta see him.

Add Moby to my short list above. I dunno how I forgot him.

Lucky you!!

plawrence had tix for Dylan last year (about this time of year) and was trying to give them away (realizing he was too sick to attend) and he couldn't get any takers!

Yeah, but you gotta admit that Captain Beefheart....man he could cook.....lyrics, I think - what was his biggest hit again, I forget.

I'll be seeing Dylan too, like a few others here. I hope his mumbling is audible. Ah, who cares. I've never seen the man. I have a bunch of his recordings. His work has influence throughout the whole music industry.

Positively 4th Street

....do you know what a drag it is to see you.

Hurricane

....he no idea what kind of shit was about to go down.

Day of the Locust

.....the man standing next to me, his head was exploding.
I was praying the pieces wouldn't fall on me.

Serve Somebody

...it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're gonna have to serve somebody.


Last November I saw the Broadway production of "The Times They Are a Changin'" My wife and I loved it. It closed after a few weeks. The audience was raucous. Only true Dylan fans would appreciate it.

Bob Dylan has had a profound influence on my musical life. He influence is in my guitar and harmonica; no doubt. Can't wait to see him on the 22nd.

It's something he learned over in England!

This past Friday, June 22, I saw Bob Dylan at the Borgata in Atlantic City. Quite a show. At 66 years old, the man can play and sing. His body of work speaks for itself. His band was tight and they could rock and they could play mellow.

Dylan has a way of making his old songs fresh. His phrasing and delivery can through you off, but soon you realize you are listening to a revitalized version of "Blowin' in the Wind". His set is a mix of old and new. The show was about an hour and 45 minutes. He ended with a driving rendition of "All Along the Watchtower."

Just got back from the Bob Dylan concert, which was excellent. Sure, his voice is on it's way out, making it impossible to hear 90% of his lyrics, but the emotion is still there.

My favorite part was the more bluesy version of "Just Like a Woman," Dylan singing "She makes love" and all the other lines to pause for the audience to finish "just like a woman."

It was amazing enough seeing a legend.

Damn, I can't wait now.

This was last night's set list.

http://my.execpc.com/~billp61/062707s.html

Like A Rolling Stone missing, interesting.

Anyway, I've been meaning to ask this, what'd you guys think of Modern Times?

I thought it sounded like drunken Christmas blues.

Modern Times is great.

My favorite songs are the slower ones, mainly

Ain't Talkin'
Working Man Blues #2
Nettie Moore

Well, the whole world is filled with speculation
The whole wide world which people say is round
They will tear your mind away from contemplation
They will jump on your misfortune when you're down

Ain't talkin', just walkin'
Eatin' hog eyed grease in a hog eyed town.
Heart burnin', still yearnin'
Some day you'll be glad to have me around.
-- "Ain't Talkin'

Well, I'm sailin' on back, ready for the long haul
Tossed by the winds and the seas
I'll drag 'em all down to hell and I'll stand 'em at the wall
I'll sell 'em to their enemies
I'm tryin' to feed my soul with thought
Gonna sleep off the rest of the day
Sometimes no one wants what we got
Sometimes you can't give it away

Now the place is ringed with countless foes
Some of them may be deaf and dumb
No man, no woman knows
The hour that sorrow will come
In the dark I hear the night birds call
I can feel a lover's breath
I sleep in the kitchen with my feet in the hall
Sleep is like a temporary death
-- "Working Man Blues #2"