SPITTING OUT TEETH DOWNLOAD - DYLAN: RARITIES


A couple months ago, Columbia starting a huge marketing campaign to promote the upcoming release of (yet another) Bob Dylan boxset. With the definitive name "DYLAN", it seemed to promise to be the ultimate collector collection, a rosetta stone of unearthed new jems and re-imaginings of classic works.

Unfortunately, all of the hype was just that--hype. A completely unoriginal collection of the usual Dylan "greatest hits" fare (every track had been on at least one previous Dylan compilation), it was obvious from a quick look at the tracklisting that this collection was a complete waste of time. Not a single new track, or even an imaginative re-evaluation to choose some new, completely deserved tracks to define the man's cannon.

Bob Dylan has written thousands of songs in the 40+ years he has been a recording artist, many of which may never see the light of day or can only be found in expensive, obscure bootlegs. However, he has also written and recorded dozens (if not hundreds) of masterpieces that never seem to make the greatest hits collections and are unknown to only to Dylan completists.

I have compiled 33 such songs, all of which I consider to be among Dylan's best works. Some were overshadowed by more popular masterpieces on classic albums, some were diamonds in the rough (good songs on bad albums), and some were recently uncovered outtakes that somehow didn't make it to record (Dylan is notorious for leaving some of his best songs on the cutting room floor). However--not a single track included is from a bootleg. They are all from official releases, so if you like them, I highly encourage you to buy the albums.

Here's the tracklisting:

1) "House Carpenter" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1"): One of Dylan's many interpretations of traditional folk songs, "House Carpenter" features passionate vocals and some great "It's Alright Ma" style acoustic guitar playing.

2) "Isis (Live)" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 5": Dylan is famous for his ability to reinvent his own songs, and the electric reworking of "Isis" (originally on "Desire") is one his most successful transformations. This is a really rocking song from the incredibly energetic Rolling Thunder Revue tour.

3) "Percy's Song" (from "Biograph"): This is supposedly an autobiographical song about a friend of Dylan's who was convicted of manslaughter after causing a car accident. A mournful wail of a song, an elegy for a friend not dead but lost. A deceptively simple song, but try singing it--not easy.

4) "Tears of Rage" (from "The Basement Tapes"): One of the greatest successes of the drunken rehab session know as The Basement Tapes, this never-meant-to-be-released track is a cryptic song about a father wronged by his daughter (or a citizen wronged by his/her country? A musician wronged by his fans? Who knows). Absolutely gorgeous song.

5) "Moonshiner" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1"): Whenever someone tells me they think Bob Dylan has a terrible voice, the play this song for them and they usually change their mind. A radical re-working of an Irish drinking song, Dylan turns it into an elegy of the drunkard that would make even Charles Bukowski weep.

6) "Black Crow Blues" (from "Another Side of Bob Dylan"): This song was one of Dylan's early attempts to throw off the confining label of "protest singer" and start exploring a more obscure type of poetry in his lyrics, one which took a symbolist approach of valuing the sound of a word as much as (or more than) its meaning. It's also an experimental departure from the traditional folk/blues guitar styles he was used.

7) "Tell Me Momma" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 4"): The only song performed during the infamous 1966 tour that never appeared on an official studio release. Used to start off the electric portion of most shows, this rocking methedrine-blues tune is one of my favorites.

8) "Mama, You Been On My Mind" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2)": One of Joan Baez' favorites (she often performed it duet with Dylan), this is a simple but elegant love song.

9) "Dear Landlord" (from "New Morning"): Supposedly written about Dylan's breakup with long-time manager Albert Grossman, the song takes on a greater meaning as an anthem about the little man demanding respect from the person who has control over his life. The final line is pure redemption.

10) "Abandoned Love" (from "Biograph"): Originally written for the "Desire" album, this cryptic breakup song is contains some of Dylan's finest lyrics. The bootleg of his solitary live performance of this song is even more powerful and can be found easily on P2P sites.

11) "She's Your Lover Now" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2"): An outtake from the "Blonde on Blonde" sessions, this is one of many versions of the song that start of strong and fall apart at the end (possibly explaining why a version never found its way onto Dylan's greatest album). My guess is that this song is probably about Edie Sedgwick.

12) "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window" (from "Biograph"): Probably better known from Jimi Hendrix's interpretation, this is yet another great "Blonde on Blonde" outtake. And another song that I suspect is about Edie/Andy Warhol.

13) "Santa-Fe" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 2"): An outtake from "The Basement Tapes", this song gives a good insight into Dylan's songwriting style--come up with a melody and lyrical sound, then develop the actual lyrics after.

14) "Nobody 'Cept You" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol.2"): An outtake from the "Planet Waves" sessions, this has always been one of those songs that, to quote Ron Burgundy, "cuts to the core of me". A simple song about being in a place you hate just to be with the one you love.

15) "This Wheel's On Fire" (from "The Basement Tapes"): Another masterpiece from "The Basement Tapes", this song borrows a classic line from Rimbaud to create a damning song about being scorned.

16) "I Forgot More Than You'll Ever Know" (from "Self Portrait"): The album "Self Portrait" is often looked at as blemish of Dylan's early recording career, but I absolutely love this album (at least it started to get a bit of a re-evaluation after Wes Anderson used "Wigwam" in "The Royal Tennenbaums"). This beauty cover of a country tune by The Davis Sisters is one of the album's highlights, with Dylan's crooning voice in top form.

17) "Up To Me" (from "Biograph"): An outtake from "Blood on the Tracks", written during the breakdown of his marriage, this song was the true jem of the "Biograph" set for me. Just listen to Dylan's voice starting to crack as he sings the line "If we never meet again/baby remember me". Great, great song.

18) "I Wanna Be Your Lover" (from "Biograph"): Yet another "Blonde on Blonde" outtake (it should have been a triple album), this rocking amphetamine-fueled jam always makes me want to get up and shake my money maker.

19) "Senor (Tales of Yankee Power)" (from "Street Legal"): One of the few songs worth listening to from this mediocre album, "Senor" is nonetheless a great work, a cryptic and atmospheric song about confusion, fear and love lost.

20) "Blind Willie McTell" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 3"): Remember how I mentioned that Dylan often leaves his best works off of albums? This song is the definitive example. An outtake from "Infidels", this nostalgic elegy for times past is better than the all of the songs on that album put together. One of the best Dylan has ever written.

21) "One More Cup of Coffee" (from "Desire"): This beautiful gypsy love song is one of Dylan's most unique works. One of Jack White's favorite songs; check out the great live version by The White Stripes.

22) "John Brown" (from "Unplugged"): Originally written by Dylan in 1963, this song didn't really get its due until this performance 30 years later, during the Persian Gulf war. Easily Dylan's best anti-war song, and probably the best one ever written. Brutal and heartbreaking.

23) "Man In The Long Black Coat" (from "Oh Mercy"): Foreshadowing Dylan's career renaissance with "Time Out of Mind", this creepy dirge from the Daniel Lanois produced "Oh Mercy" is a gem. Key lyric: "There are no mistakes in life, some people say/It is true sometimes, you can see it that way/That people don't live or die, people just float/She gave her heart to the man in the long black coat"

24) "Gates of Eden (Live)" (from "The Bootleg Series, Vol. 6): One of Dylan's first great symbolist successes, this song from "Bringing It All Back Home" tends to get overlooked in the midst of the other great songs on the album, which is a shame because it can really stand its own.

25) "Workingman's Blues" (from "Modern Times"): How can you not love a song that includes the lyric "the buying power of the proletariat is down"? This tune sounds like it was dug out of a time capsule, and does Springsteen-esque middle-America blue-collar nostalgia better than the Boss could ever dream of doing it.

26) "Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts" (from "Blood on the Tracks"): This song should have been made into a movie; the lyrics read like a script synopsis for greatest western never made. Dylan's ability as a storyteller are often overlooked in favor of his more esoteric lyrics, but this song (along with pretty much everything on "Desire") proves his talents as a narrative songwriter.

27) "Dirge" (from "Planet Waves"): The deepest, darkest anti-love song ever written and possibly the greatest song to listen to after a bad breakup. Check out this for an opening lyric: "I hate myself for loving you/And the weakness that it showed/You were just a painted face/On a trip down Suicide Row" Jeez...and it even sounds like a funeral dirge too.

28) "Sign On the Window" (from "New Morning"): I was tempted to put the entire "New Morning" album on this list, seeing as it is dreadfully overlooked. "Sign On The Window" plays out like Dylan sitting at a piano, coming to terms with his chaotic past & accepting the beauty of a quiet life in the country as a family man. Unfortunately for Bob, this idyllic pastoral life didn't last too long.

29) "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" (from "The Times They Are A'Changing"): This heartbreaking true story of a maid beaten to death by a drunken socialite is one of Dylan's most successful "protest songs". Sad and poignant.

30) "Dark Eyes" (from "Empire Burlesque"): Quite honestly the only song listening to on this trainwreck of an album, it is neverless a Dylan masterpiece. Bizarre song structure and how can you deny a lyric like "I live in another world/Where life death are memorized/Where the Earth is strung with lover's pearls/And all I see are dark eyes"

31) "Tonight I'll Be Staying Here With You" (from "Nashville Skyline"): Dylan's country-western album is often overlooked (besides the overplayed "Lay Lady Lay"), and it's really a shame because there are some great songs on it. Dylan's voice on this track is absolute perfection.

32) "Corrina, Corrina" (from "The Freewheelin'"): A nice, soft track to close out the playlist. Simple, pretty and timeless, just like Dylan's best work.

Here's the download link (just a warning: it's 200MB+ so be prepared for a long download if you're on a slow connection):

DOWNLOAD SPITTING OUT TEETH'S DYLAN RARITIES COLLECTION

Enjoy!

BUKOWSKI THE...NAZI?


Apparently that's what his former landlord is calling him, in an attempt to prevent Buk's former LA home from being declared a city landmark. Uncouth drunkard? Certainly. Wife beater? Quite probably. Great writer of prose and poetry? Definitely. National Socialist? I highly fucking doubt it.

While I have read a few Bukowski quotes that came close to anti-Semitic, they always seemed to be presented as nothing more than just tasteless jokes a la Don Rickles or simply attempts to provoke some negative attention based on his German heritage. If he had to be classified politically, I'd say Bukowski was a hell of a lot closer to a nihilist than a Nazi.

Read the article at CNN.com here

GREAT SHOW @ KRIYA STUDIO - NEXT SATURDAY 12/8!!!

Greg Davis, Toby Aronson (Oak) and TickTick have scheduled yet another wonderful
experimental music show in Burlington, and this one is definitely a not-to-miss
event.  There's even a possibility that your's truly may be joining in on the
performance...

Here's the press release:

we are pleased to have duane pitre coming to burlington to present his chamber
ensemble piece 'The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump Organ Base".
we will also be performing pieces by christian
wolff and james tenney. it should be a great night of music.

An Evening of Experimental Music:

Duane Pitre "The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump
Organ Base"
Christian Wolff "Stones" (1969)
James Tenney "Swell Piece No. 2 (for Pauline Oliveros)" (1971)

kriya studio
333 n. winooski
burlington, vt
saturday, december 8th, 2007
7:30 p.m.
$7


Duane Pitre (with Ensemble)

The ensemble will consist Duane Pitre, Craig Colorusso, Greg Davis,
and UVM students, playing violin, cello, contra bass, oboe, alto
saxaphone, bowed guitars, electric tone generator, and organ.

"The Ensemble Chord in Eb with a Minor 7th and a Pump Organ Base" This
composition varies from the traditional sort as it is rule-based with
the score consisting of a set tonic, set pitch classes, playing
methods, technique restrictions, and spontaneous conduction. The score
is a structure for the performing ensemble to improvise onóorder
spawning chaos producing order that is different on each occasion of a
performance or recording. Ensemble Drones is discipline and freedom,
both within each other, the first major focus of the work. Variance is
the second major focus of the composition; with instrumentation,
ensemble performers, tonic, pitch classes, and the physical space
varying from performance to performance, the results can never be the
same. One way to view Ensemble Drones is like a compositional "body,"
as in the composition taking human form. The score is the skeletal
structure that gives the "body" its general shape and feel. The pump
organ, for instance, could serve as the circulatory system, the bass
clarinet as the muscles, cello and saxophones as the internal organs,
the electrically generated tones as the nervous system, guitars as the
flesh, viola as the skin, violin as strands of hair, and the
the listener acts as the eyes. Not in the sense of vision,
though each listener will "view" the same compositional body differently, and, in
return, the body will view itself differently with each new set of
eyes. This helps to analogize the last major focus of the Ensemble
Drones score/composition, which is perception.

http://importantrecords.com/sounds/154_pilotram_1.mp3
http://importantrecords.com/sounds/154_pilotram_2.mp3
http://www.myspace.com/duanepitre
http://www.duanepitre.com

Christian Wolff

Wolff was born in Nice in France of German parentage. His family moved
to the United States in 1941, and he became an American citizen in
1946. He studied classics at Harvard University (he is a specialist in
the work of Euripides) and upon graduating took up a teaching post
there which he kept until 1970 when he began to teach classics,
comparative literature, and music at Dartmouth College until his
retirement in 1999. His early work includes a lot of silence and was
based initially on complicated rhythmic schema, and later on a system
of aural cues. Wolff innovated unique notational methods in his early
scores and found creative ways of dealing with improvisation within
his written music. Later pieces also often give a degree of freedom to
the performers such as the sequence of pieces entitled Exercises
(1973-). Some works, such as Changing the System (1973), Braverman
Music (1978, after Harry Braverman), and the series of pieces entitled
Peace March (1983-2005) have an explicit political dimension
responding to contemporary world events and broader political ideals.
At the age of sixteen Wolff was sent by his piano teacher Grete Sultan
for lessons in composition with the composer John Cage and quickly
became a close associate of Cage and his artistic circle which
included composers Earle Brown and Morton Feldman, pianist David
Tudor, and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham. During the 1960s
he developed associations with the composers Frederic Rzewski and
Cornelius Cardew who spurred each other on in their respective
explorations of experimental composition techniques and musical
improvisation, and then from the early 1970s in their respective
attempts to engage with political matters in their music. For Wolff
this often involved the use of music and texts associated with protest
and political movements such as the Wobblies. Wolff recently said of
his work that it is motivated by his desire, "To turn the making of
music into a collaborative and transforming activity (performer into
composer into listener into composer into performer, etc.), the
cooperative character of the activity to the exact source of the
music. To stir up, through the production of the music, a sense of
social conditions in which we live and of how these might be changed."

James Tenney

Tenney was born in Silver City, New Mexico, and grew up in Arizona and
Colorado. He attended the University of Denver, the Juilliard School
of Music, Bennington College (B.A., 1958) and the University of
Illinois (M.A., 1961). He studied piano with Eduard Steuermann and
composition with Chou Wen-chung, Lionel Nowak, Paul Boepple, Henry
Brant, Carl Ruggles, Kenneth Gaburo, Lejaren Hiller, John Cage, Harry
Partch, and Edgard VarËse. He also studied information theory under
Lejaren Hiller, and composed stochastic early computer music before
turning almost completely to writing for instruments with the
occasional tape delay, often using just intonation and alternative
tunings. Tenney's notable students include John Luther Adams, Larry
Polansky, and Peter Garland. He performed with John Cage, as well as
with the ensembles of Harry Partch, Steve Reich, and Philip Glass.
Tenney's work deals simply and artfully with perception (For Ann
(rising), see Shepard tone), just intonation (Clang, see gestalt),
stochastic elements (Music for Player Piano), information theory
(Ergodos, see Ergodic theory), and with what he calls 'swell' (Koan:
Having Never Written A Note For Percussion for John Bergamo), which is
basically arch form. His pieces are most often tributes and subtitled
as such. Tenney wrote the seminal Meta (+) Hodos (one of, if not the,
earliest applications of gestalt theory and cognitive science to
music), the later Hierarchical temporal gestalt perception in music :
a metric space model with Larry Polansky, and other works. Nearly a
quarter of a 657-page volume of the academic journal Perspectives of
New Music was devoted to Tenney's music (Polansky and Rosenboom 1987).

Tenney also wrote the in-depth liner notes to Wergo's edition of
Conlon Nancarrow's Studies for Player Piano. (Nancarrow, as a favor,
punched the roll for Tenney's Spectral Canon for Conlon Nancarrow). He
taught at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, the California
Institute of the Arts, the University of California, and York
University in Toronto. He died on 24 August 2006 of lung cancer in
Valencia, California.

BE THERE!!!!!