Bob Dylan | The New York Observer

From The Simon Archives: In The New Yorker, Wire Creator Remembers The Late William Zantzinger

Mon, 19 Jan 2009 11:52:41 -0500

What do you do after co-creating a television series so critically praised, Slate's then-editor Jacob Weisberg called it "the best show on television and which prompted The New York Times editorial page's Nicholas Kulish to write, "If Charles Dickens were alive today, he would watch 'The Wire,' unless, that is, he was already writing for it"?

Well, you can write a Talk of the Town for The New Yorker, which is what David...

Jon Friedman Saves Portfolio in Under a Minute

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 11:46:27 -0500

In his latest 37-second Media Web Minute (are these things getting shorter?), MarketWatch's Jon Friedman turns his attention to Condé Nast's business magazine, Portfolio, which regular readers of Media Mob may know has been having a tough few weeks.

Ever the optimist, Mr. Friedman says, "You know what? It's still a good magazine and it can survive." (This comes via Jim Romenesko.)

How? According to Mr. Friedman (spoiler alert!), "It needs...

Who Will Live On Sirius XM?

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:56:12 -0500

Way back in March, the Department of Justice approved Sirius Satellite Radio’s plan to buyout its rival, XM, for $5 billion. The marriage officially took place in July with the formation of Sirius XM Radio Inc. And now finally the line-up of the new satellite radio provider is beginning to take shape. According to Orbitcast (via rollingstone.com), select stations on both Sirius and XM will switch to their new homes beginning Wednesday, November 12....

Bob Dylan to Release New Album on NPR Site

Mon, 29 Sep 2008 13:19:54 -0400

Another day, another online album release. But this time, from a somewhat surprising artist: Bob Dylan. His two-CD album Tell Tale Signs is the eighth volume in the fascinatingly uneven 17-year-old Bootleg Series; it will be available from midnight tomorrow (Spet. 30) through at least Oct. 7 on NPR Music. The latest compilation will also be streamed fully on National Public Radio.

PaidContent reports that the full-album debut is a first for NPR Music and...

Tix for Dylan's Prospect Park Concert Scratching $565

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:16:27 -0400

Tickets for Oscar and Pulitzer winner Bob Dylan's Prospect Park concert tonight are going for upward of $565 each, according to Gowanus Lounge. Meanwhile, tomorrow's print Observer will have a story about a real estate deal that connects to Mr....

Bob Dylan Tickets On Sale Now

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 09:06:43 -0400

Brooklyn Vegan reports that at 10 a.m. today, presale tickets go onsale for for an Aug. 12 Bob Dylan concert at the Prospect Park bandshell in Park Slope.

Only problem is you'll need one of those pesky pre-sale passwords to buy them, and even the all-knowing Brooklyn Vegan isn't sure what the password is, though he suggests trying "modern."

So far, Mr. Dylan's Park Slope performance is the only U.S. show listed on his summer tour...

Sony to Sell Off Iconic Photo Archive in the Face of Industry Slump

Thu, 29 May 2008 11:12:04 -0400

Sony has come up with a creative way of generating revenue in the face of the industry-wide slump in music sales. The New York Times reports that executives at the company are tapping into the photo archives in the basement of its New York headquarters, and are expected today to announce a partnership with the Morrison Hotel Gallery—which showcases prominent music photographers—to sell off Sony's "gold mine" of classic rock images.

Apparently there are...

Heroes Soundtrack, With Bowie, Wilco, Hits Stores March 18

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:00:21 -0500

The soundtrack for NBC's popular superhero drama, Heroes, will hit stores on March 18, bringing fans 18 songs from the show that mix the old (Bob Dylan and David Bowie -- the Bowie track is "Heroes," obvs!), with the new (Wilco, Panic! at the Disco, and Imogen Heap), according to The Hollywood Reporter. More notably, the disc will also include a track by '80s fuzz-rockers the Jesus and Mary Chain, which is the duo's...

Chan Marshall Grows Up

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 07:51:58 -0500

Everybody needs to stop complaining about Chan Marshall. If I hear another person talk about how she has smoothed over the rough edges that made her so great and eradicated all the warts-and-all charm from her repertoire, I'm going to spit.

Just a year ago, after releasing the strongest album by far of her career, Ms. Marshall, or Cat Power as she's known, cancelled a tour due to a breakdown. Plenty reacted with smug I-coulda-called-it...

Director Todd Haynes Dishes on Dylan

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 13:25:01 -0500

Director Todd Haynes’ latest project, I’m Not There, an Indie about the life of Bob Dylan, has exceeded expectations at the box office. During its limited, five-day release, the film grossed over a million bucks, and the Oscar buzz has already begun. (Namely, industry insiders and critics have been alight over a winning performance from Cate Blanchett, who plays Mr. Dylan as “Jude.”) Mr. Haynes, 46, recently sat down with the...

Off-Key

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:24:46 -0500

I'M NOT THERE
Running Time 135 minutes
Directed by Todd Haynes
Written by Todd Haynes and Oren Moverman
Starring Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger

Todd Haynes’ I’m Not There, from a screenplay by Mr. Haynes and Oren Moverman, has convinced me that Mr. Haynes knows infinitely more about Bob Dylan, his life, his times and his music than I have ever wanted to know, even though I am way old enough to remember the...

Haynes' Wacky Dylan Film Gets Rare Distribution Deal

Tue, 07 Aug 2007 07:52:35 -0400

Todd Haynes' new film I'm Not There will have New York audiences seeing double in more ways than one. Not only will the film feature multiple actors playing the role of Bob Dylan—the list inclues Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, and Cate Blanchett—it will now be released at the Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza. The unique distribution pact was brokered by the Weinstein Company, who convinced the Film Forum to share,...

Another Easy Half-Million for Hillary

Tue, 13 Mar 2007 12:00:00 -0400

Hassan Nemazee, the Democratic bundler chairing tonight's Hillary Clinton fund-raiser (featuring Bill) just told me that the event has raised $500,000 for the Senator's presidential campaign. Nemazee, whose co-chairs tonight include the prominent fund-raisers Robert Zimmerman and Steve Robert, said that former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe called asking him to put the event together only two weeks ago. About 100 people are expected to show at the event, each maxing out at $4,600....

Factory Girl Is All About Andy

Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:00:00 -0500

A frosty week in mid-winter when nothing of any major importance is opening may be the perfect in-between time to play catch-up. I wrote about the powerful German film The Lives of Others last week, so my excitement has dimmed momentarily. In the interim, the thin, superficial docudrama Factory Girl, about the five minutes of fame squandered by Andy Warhol superstar Edie Sedgwick in the 1960’s, is making a brief, forgettable appearance. Clumsily directed...

Hillary Wins Zimmerman Primary

Fri, 02 Feb 2007 11:50:00 -0500

Robert Zimmerman, one of the last key uncommitted Democratic fund-raisers in New York, just told me has signed up with Hillary Clinton. "We have an extraordinary field of candidates, but Hillary Clinton, without question, truly is the best candidate to bring us to victory and has the experience and knowledge to be an extraordinary president. It's a commitment from the heart and soul."...

The Afternoon Wrap: Wednesday

Wed, 17 Jan 2007 11:50:03 -0500

So much for the good old days in Greenwich Village. Bob Dylan and his brother have bought a Scottish mansion [above] in the Cairngorms National Park. If they had decided to rent, the place would have cost 3,000 Pounds (roughly $5,900) a night. [BBC News, via Luxist] The AIA Honor Awards have been announced, and four prizes have been handed out to local beauties: Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Center, the Modern, Bloomberg's HQ,...

New York World

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Ode to Soul Brother No. 1 (1933-2006) James Brown was profoun’. He worked as hard as a Welsh town. I loved his cape and golden crown. In a land of verbs, he was a noun. Without his funk, we all might drown. —Sparrow Mauro of Manhattan My Upper East Side girlfriend Marsha wanted me to travel with her for Thanksgiving to see her parents in Florida. “You know Thanksgiving is more important than Christmas and Easter, in America,” she said. “Sorry...

New York World

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500

New York World

Sun, 07 Jan 2007 19:00:00 -0500

Another Side of Bob Dylan: A Chorus of Inventive Covers

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

When the dozy, dreamy singer-songwriter Cat Power walked onstage at last week’s “The Music of Bob Dylan” benefit, she was slated to sing “Moonshiner,” a desperate folksong about desperate alcoholism. But the singer (who says she was drinking a bottle of scotch a day before she dried out earlier this year) played something else instead.

Murmuring silkily over her barely strummed electric guitar, Cat Power sung the antique ballad “House of the Rising...

Another Side of Bob Dylan: A Chorus of Inventive Covers

Sun, 19 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

Don't Think Twice, Twyla- It's Not Remotely All Right

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

The other night, I was in Elaine’s in search of a little solace when an old friend came by and said in wounded disbelief that he’d just been to the worst show he’d ever seen in his life.

“That’s funny,” I replied regretfully, “so have I.” We’d both just seen Twyla Tharp’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway. Though it gives me no pleasure to say so,...

Don’t Think Twice, Twyla— It’s Not Remotely All Right

Sun, 05 Nov 2006 19:00:00 -0500

The other night, I was in Elaine’s in search of a little solace when an old friend came by and said in wounded disbelief that he’d just been to the worst show he’d ever seen in his life. “That’s funny,” I replied regretfully, “so have I.” We’d both just seen Twyla Tharp’s The Times They Are A-Changin’ at the Brooks Atkinson Theater on Broadway. Though it gives me no pleasure to say so, I’ve...

Letters

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Times They Are a-Booin’

To the Editor: Thanks for the thoughtful review of Bob Dylan’s new album and current incarnation [“Fix Is In on Dylan: Modern Times Worst Since Self-Portrait,” Ron Rosenbaum, Edgy Enthusiast, Sept. 11]. I don’t agree wholeheartedly, but I appreciate Mr. Rosenbaum’s well-pleaded case that allowed me to think deeper about my attitude toward Mr. Dylan’s latest work. That said, I treasure Mr. Dylan’s last three albums (I,...

Letters

Sun, 17 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Times They Are a-Booin’ To the Editor: Thanks for the thoughtful review of Bob Dylan’s new album and current incarnation [“Fix Is In on Dylan: Modern Times Worst Since Self-Portrait,” Ron Rosenbaum, Edgy Enthusiast, Sept. 11]. I don’t agree wholeheartedly, but I appreciate Mr. Rosenbaum’s well-pleaded case that allowed me to think deeper about my attitude toward Mr. Dylan’s latest work. That said, I treasure Mr. Dylan’s last three albums (I, too, dislike the...

Is the Cult of Rootsiness Ruining Dylan's Songs?

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

O.K., here’s my idea: Maybe it’s time for Bob Dylan to shift from writing more songs to writing more books. Chronicles, the first volume of his memoirs, was brilliant; Modern Times, the new album, a wildly overhyped disappointment. I don’t want him to stop singing and playing, just spend more time writing Chronicles-level prose rather than giving us more of the doggerel verse of Modern Times—songs that only hard-core Bobolators could praise.

“Bobolators,” you...

Fall In, Scamps!

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Welcome back, gang!

Now put away the flip-flops and seersucker—it’s time to stop the screwin’ around and get down to the business. After all, it’s New York in September, and we may be on the verge of the second Subway Series of the 21st century. But first the leggy locusts of Fashion Week have to swarm through the city, shunning the pigs in blankets, but dining off the backs of hogs in suits....

Is the Cult of Rootsiness Ruining Dylan’s Songs?

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

O.K., here’s my idea: Maybe it’s time for Bob Dylan to shift from writing more songs to writing more books. Chronicles, the first volume of his memoirs, was brilliant; Modern Times, the new album, a wildly overhyped disappointment. I don’t want him to stop singing and playing, just spend more time writing Chronicles-level prose rather than giving us more of the doggerel verse of Modern Times—songs that only hard-core Bobolators could praise. “Bobolators,” you...

Fall In, Scamps!

Sun, 10 Sep 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Welcome back, gang! Now put away the flip-flops and seersucker—it’s time to stop the screwin’ around and get down to the business. After all, it’s New York in September, and we may be on the verge of the second Subway Series of the 21st century. But first the leggy locusts of Fashion Week have to swarm through the city, shunning the pigs in blankets, but dining off the backs of hogs in suits....

The Many Masks of Dylan- But Mostly the Wily Jester

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, by Michael Gray. Continuum, 736 pages, $40.

Bob Dylan is a senior citizen. That’s right: The voice of a generation, the voice that implored millions to “stay forever young,” hit 65 last month. Robert Zimmerman with the Zimmer Frame blues? Not quite. As anyone who’s caught a recent Dylan gig can vouch, this soi-disant song-and-dance man may not be Fred Astaire, but he’s steady enough on his feet. True,...

The Many Masks of Dylan— But Mostly the Wily Jester

Sun, 02 Jul 2006 20:00:00 -0400

The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia, by Michael Gray. Continuum, 736 pages, $40. Bob Dylan is a senior citizen. That’s right: The voice of a generation, the voice that implored millions to “stay forever young,” hit 65 last month. Robert Zimmerman with the Zimmer Frame blues? Not quite. As anyone who’s caught a recent Dylan gig can vouch, this soi-disant song-and-dance man may not be Fred Astaire, but he’s steady enough on his feet. True,...

Letters

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Cashing In

To the Editor: I really liked Ron Rosenbaum’s Rosanne Cash piece [“I Got Rosanne Cash’s Black Cadillac Album and Barely Survived,” The Edgy Enthusiast, April 10]. It is quite wonderful that father and daughter could be so far from each other’s stance theologically and still have so much love between them—a lesson for all of us these days. The pantheistic apocalyptic stuff is also present in mystical Judaism, as...

Letters

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 20:00:00 -0400

Cashing In To the Editor: I really liked Ron Rosenbaum’s Rosanne Cash piece [“I Got Rosanne Cash’s Black Cadillac Album and Barely Survived,” The Edgy Enthusiast, April 10]. It is quite wonderful that father and daughter could be so far from each other’s stance theologically and still have so much love between them—a lesson for all of us these days. The pantheistic apocalyptic stuff is also present in mystical Judaism, as I’m sure you...

Boys' Night Out: A Beatnik Walking Tour With Dear Old Dad

Sun, 19 Jun 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Feeling a bit goofy from my cousin's wedding, my son and I emerged around midnight from the D.J. din of the banquet hall on Fifth and 10th. Vodka and sodas had me pretty well lit, and he-well, so far, just soda for him. It was the 16-year-old's first time in New York City, which used to be my town, the town I was born and raised hell in, until I moved to L.A. a...

40 Years Ago-and Today-Dylan Asks, 'How Does it Feel?'

Sun, 24 Apr 2005 20:00:00 -0400

Like a Rolling Stone: Bob Dylan at the Crossroads, by Greil Marcus, Public Affairs, 283 pages, $25.

Greil Marcus, writing about Sam Cooke's posthumously released single "A Change Is Gonna Come," rightly called it "the greatest soul record ever made … a tender, terrifying prophecy of what the racial changes already at work in the land would cost; a prophecy, finally, of what they would be worth." In his new book, Mr. Marcus says of...

Cultural Substance Abuse And Other Perils of Youth

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

The Disappointment Artist, by Jonathan Lethem. Doubleday, 149 pages, $22.95. In the summer of 1977, Jonathan Lethem saw the movie Star Wars 21 times. Not that many times, really-if anything, in the annals of Star Wars geekdom, it qualifies as merely a good start-but Mr. Lethem was proud of his record, if only because of the passing humanoid shape which the number 21 bestowed on him: "stopping at 20 seemed too mechanically...

Literary Heavyweights Take Swing: McEwan, Foer, Ishiguro, Gray

Sun, 06 Mar 2005 19:00:00 -0500

'Tis the season for budding talent-just ask Jonathan Safran Foer, whose second novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Houghton Mifflin), can't be far off and won't be quietly received: The adoring profile in the Feb. 27 New York Times Magazine raised the curtain on a month of raves for the 28-year-old author of Everything Is Illuminated (2002). If there's anyone out there bold enough to doubt that Mr. Foer deserves every penny of the...

Gimlet-Eyed Girl Grows Up; Preppies Poked and Prodded

Sun, 16 Jan 2005 19:00:00 -0500

Prep , by Curtis Sittenfeld. Random House, 406 pages, $21.95.

Yo, prep-school papa! You with the gray hair and rueful smile, dropping your little bundle of neuroses off at her boarding school after the long Christmas break. You think no one was watching? You think no one saw how you jumped on the cell to your mistress before you were even down the cobblestone drive? Think again. Could be that a gimlet-eyed...

New York Is Reborn

Sun, 19 Dec 2004 19:00:00 -0500

Is New York over?

Well, that New York is. The 1920's crushed into the 1930's, and the 1990's crumbled into … this. The New York that was drunk on its own identity--the New York of Friends, Seinfeld and Sex and the City--was marketed to a nation that became so besotted with it that it trampled here and ate us alive. Right up to the Republican National Convention, with the astonishing picture of Barbara and Jenna...

It's 30 Years Later! Bob Dylan's Tracks Gloriously Bloody

Sun, 11 Jul 2004 20:00:00 -0400

What could be better? A major Dylan moment in the culture. And a new Dylan mystery to obsess over.

The moment: Christopher Ricks' book ( Dylan's Visions of Sin ), hailed by Jonathan Lethem in a dazzling Sunday Times Book Review cover story, gives Dylan's literary stature the imprimatur of the Oxford Professor of Poetry, for those who still had their doubts. (And helps put last year's profound embarrassment-that Seinfeld alum's dimwit Dylan film, Masked...

Mr. Dylan and Mr. Ricks

Sun, 20 Jun 2004 20:00:00 -0400

A couple years ago, Bob Dylan was playing a concert at Boston University. Backstage, the one man who could truly claim, if he so chose, to be Bob Dylan's biggest fan was waiting: the British literary critic and Boston University professor Christopher Ricks. Mr. Ricks, the acclaimed author of a shelfful of books on Milton, Tennyson, Keats, Eliot, was infamous for lectures in which he asserted that Dylan's songs could stand up to the...

Dylanology (or Idiot Wind): A Discipline Out of Tune

Sun, 07 Mar 2004 19:00:00 -0500

A Simple Twist of Fate: Bob Dylan and the Making of Blood on the Tracks, by Andy Gill and Kevin Odegard. Da Capo, 246 pages, $25.

'Do You, Mr. Jones?' Bob Dylan with the Poets and Professors, edited by Neil Corcoran. Pimlico, 378 pages, $14.95. Bob Dylan studies are in a bad way. Thirty years after he emerged from a Manhattan recording studio with the rough draft of his best album, Blood on...

Through the Past, Starkly: The Best of 2003 Pop

Sun, 21 Dec 2003 19:00:00 -0500

When Bob Dylan joined Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band on the stage at Shea Stadium for an encore late on Oct. 4, the cheers and stomps shook the stands like an X-Box game controller. There in the same venue where the Beatles had made rock 'n' roll history, two of the most charismatic and influential artists of the last 40 years were about to play together and maybe go down in the...

The Inner Ear

Sun, 07 Sep 2003 20:00:00 -0400

HEAR

The Raveonettes, Chain Gang of Love (Columbia), the big-label debut from Sune Rose Wagner and Sharin Foo, the Danish duo whose last album, Whip It On , was a cathartic retro blast of fuzzy guitars, driving drumbeats and machine noise. This time around, the Raveonettes sweeten their sonic assault: Chain Gang is more melodic, the guitars chime more and drone less, and Mr. Wagner and Ms. Foo's duets sound like a delinquent Paul and...

Eight Day Week

Sun, 17 Aug 2003 20:00:00 -0400

Wednesday 13th

So what if Dylan's new movie, Masked and Anonymous , is unwatchable? Frankly, if he had made a greatmovie, we would have been suspicious ….Anyway, just when you thought summer 2003 was going to be a total wash , with failed attempts at a) reconciling with your toxicex (so what if he's married,you asked yourself); b) wearing butt cleavage to your nephew's bar mitzvah; c) looking good in...

Bob Dylan Undone

Sun, 27 Jul 2003 20:00:00 -0400

"Be kind, be really kind," a prominent literary figure (and Dylan fan) admonished me, just before a screening of Masked and Anonymous , Dylan's new film. I think he knew what was coming.

And I tried, I've really tried to be kind. After all, the stakes are considerable: the return to film of one of the great American visionary artists. But sometimes, as the Nick Lowe song goes, "You got to be cruel to be...

Nobody Feels Any Pain

Sun, 20 Jul 2003 20:00:00 -0400

According to July 8's Wall Street Journal , Bob Dylan seems to have filched-to use a word from his native Minnesota-"about a dozen passages" from Confessions of a Yakuza: A Life in the Japanese Underworld , a book by Dr. Junichi Saga about gangster life in Japan, for his most recent studio recording, "Love and Theft." Dr. Saga told The Journal 's Jonathan Eig and Sebastian Moffett that he was "flattered and very happy"...

Tangled Up in Bob: Live 1975 Is Dylan Concert Masterpiece

Sun, 24 Nov 2002 19:00:00 -0500

The more you know about Bob Dylan, the less you know. A truly enigmatic artist, Mr. Dylan's work and life offer vaporous handholds, explanations and instructions. Attempt to grasp them, and they will only dissipate and re-form into another contexture or idea. When a door opens into his past-a glimpse of the Delvic Hotel in Hibbing, Minn., an old photograph of the songwriter reading the newspaper and drinking tea in a dingy backstage room...

Bruce Dances in the Dark

Sun, 28 Jul 2002 20:00:00 -0400

As a fiction writer, I'm always looking for what Faulkner called "the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself." But recently, the world poured on too much material. I'm not sure what to do with 9/11. Two boys down the street play whiffleball in their front yard without a father. He got up and went to work and didn't come back. I can hear the tap of the bat on the ball...

Trying to Seduce A Miner

Sun, 05 May 2002 20:00:00 -0400

I've interviewed all kinds of people: French artists, astronomers, I.C.M. agents, video-store guys, flier distributors, barmaids, tennis instructors, just about every celebrity I've ever wanted to meet except Lou Reed, the mentally ill, Pat Boone, rabbis-but, except for Pia Zadora, I've always had trouble with famous actresses. Glenn Close snapped at me. Sharon Stone leveled a death-ray gaze my way. Charlotte Rampling ate me alive. Parker Posey ignored me. I gave Meryl Streep my...