Bob Dylan – Bootleg Series Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks (2 Nov 2018)*

Wow! Very well thought out. I'd go for it.

 

didn't Bob say in the book that those were dark years for him?

 

This is certainly not an unrealistic option. The 1966 set was a game changer. If it happens, I hope they include 1976 also, and preferably DVDs of the Hard Rain TV special, both the aired and the original, cancelled version.

 

You're right, they should, but I suspect the best we could hope for is tantalising glimpses only, and probably used as window dressings behind the CD joey pouches or a couple of pages of photos or reproductions such as you've illustrated with the photos from the archives. The Cutting Edge Collector's Edition could have included facsimilies of all the studio logs, tape boxes and Artist Contract Cards in a wonderful book but it didn't. (I mean, I know you can't have everything and I really treasure that leopard-skin spindle, but....)

I believe Clinton has seen and handled one, more, some or fewer of the BOTT notebooks so at least we might gain more insight, speculative or otherwise, into the contents when his complementary book is published.

It will have been said before in this thread (maybe even by me, for all I remember):- I'd like to see a space allocated for a CD containing "Blood on the Tracks" at the correct speed, as featured on the CBS Mastersound Half-Speed Mastered album; even a dullard like me can tell the difference on several songs. But that's another thing that won't happen.



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Bruce Springsteen presented his The Promise: The Darkness At The Edge of Town Story box set in a the form of a notebook. The pages were more sturdy than the authentic version, but it might still be a nice model for a BOOT set (indeed, I don't want flimsy pages, which I'm sure the actual versions were written upon). I've enjoyed the presentation the Bootleg Series has used for it's Deluxe Editions for the last several years, but the historical artifact of the red notebook (and now we've learned there are more BOTT handwritten lyrical drafts) SHOULD be reproduced in one manner or another. I'm fine if they abandon the current format for a set that explores the Blood on the Tracks sessions.

 

I don't know if the situation is entirely analogous, but according to the ISIS interview with Heylin, Stanford refused to authorize Sony including their 1965 tapes on the 1965 Copyright Extension download, even though it resulted in the recordings falling out of copyright. It seems like some institutions are so devoted to maintaining exclusivity that they ignore the broader picture.

 

Good point. You may very well be correct, although the difference could lie in one author being living and the other not. We should know within a year.

 

I'm not sure that Stanford refused permission specifically; I think it was more the case that Bob Inc. had not obtained official clearance by the time the Copyright Collection needed to be released. At least, that's how I interpret Clinton's comments in that interview. According to him, Stanford had sent CD-R's of those two shows to Bob Inc. so there must have been some degree of co-operation in place or in mind. Mind you, he also implies in that interview that Stanford willingly, wittingly and shamefully put the recordings into the public domain which is untrue and defamatory, so it can be difficult to sort the chaff from the wheat in Clinton's musings on occasions.

Of course, Sony did release the electric half of San Jose on the Copyright Collection, in lower quality than the Stanford tape, albeit misidentified as Berkeley (as it was for so many years by the bootleggers). If Stanford had sent CD-R's of the San Francisco and San Jose shows to Bob Inc, as Clinton claims, no one at Bob Inc. listened very carefully to them or, perhaps more likely, Stanford didn't include the Ginsberg/Dylan conversations and the fan interviews so Bob Inc. couldn't accurately identify the shows that had been sent to them. So Berkeley officially remains Berkeley, even though it is San Jose. And, according to that interview, Clinton thinks that San Jose is Berkeley and San Francisco is Berkeley, despite his concern "...about people making these snap judgements online." regarding the venues at which the recordings were made.

Says Clinton:-

"I'm not saying one way or the other but I wouldn't assume that something is definitely San José thus proving Berkeley is not Berkeley rather than assuming that San José is in fact Berkeley."

"It's quite clear from Dylan's comments about the drummer that the conversation is taking place as the tour is starting and I think that's because it's in Berkeley. I'm just very wary about people making these snap judgements online."


Er, what?

 

Indeed, and I believe Bruce took personal charge of that presentation, didn't he? The music is the most important element of these things but the accompanying historical documentation adds a huge amount to an archival release, I think. The recently launched online Neil Young Archives is most interesting (for someone who has all the music currently available there, apart from the Crazy Horse "Birds" performance) for the contemporaneous paperwork and little videos attached to the relevant songs, "The Sultan" being perhaps the best example, although I shuddered when I watched Neil literally rip open that envelope:-

Neil Young Archives

Having said that, I'm an old fogey who prefers physical media, but I guess it's predictable, if not inevitable, that Bob will go down the online route, especially for the documentation. As you say, "...in one manner or another." I'll be happy with that.

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We're in total agreement on this. His stance on the Ginsberg tapes is baffling. He appears to be trusting a comment Ginsberg made decades after the fact over the actual tapes, which contain multiple clues about the locations.

And talk about snap judgment? Clinton's conclusion that Chicago '65 isn't Chicago '65 is based entirely on hearing Dylan utter a name from the stage, and Clinton concluding who that person is, and what town she must have been in. I'm going to call it Chicago '65 until someone's got something more definitive than that.

 

Exactly.

Anyone attempting to make a snap judgment on this thread - and many like it - will have had their opinion questioned every which way by other members.

As a result, this thread is effectively a peer-reviewed music journal.

Hrrumph.

 

I should have included this hilarious quote from the same interview:-

"Obviously, I'd heard at least one of those tapes in it's entirety when I was doing "Judas!" and I allude to it. I haven't followed the argument online, but I'm sure that someone has done a comparison and they think they have come up with an answer but we should be very wary of it because they are making an assumption."




No matter, I still experience a certain enjoyment when I read his books, and I really want to hear some of those "Shot of Love" sessions that he's talking about in the latest one. It's just maddening for me, trying to remember what's right and what's wrong going all the way back to "Behind Closed Doors" and beyond.

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Well said. I enjoy his books and I do think he is a top shelf music historian. But in the last couple of years he seems less concerned about getting things RIGHT. Not like Bob Spitz type unconcerned, but not Mark Lewisohn type concerned like he used to be. Or so it seems.

 

I like Heylin but I read somewhere about his severe opinion of internet online opinions, specifically niche Dylan chatter. So it's funny to read about his errors ONLINE from mere mortal SHF posters.

Also, Hi Clinton!

 

Agreed, although perhaps a little longer than the last couple of years. In The Telegraph #54 (Spring 1996) there was a 12-page scathing attack on his diversion from the facts in "Behind Closed Doors - The Recording Sessions", ending, "Thus The Recording Sessions, where misinformation masquerades as fact, reveals its author as a charlatan posing as a pundit."

Didn't stop him reading it, though!




At least we can hope that by the time the BOTT Bootleg Series is released Clinton has "new" information that supersedes his long-held assertion that Bob deliberately sped-up the tapes. Fingers crossed.

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If net neutrality goes away, all of this streaming content which one supposedly "owns" will start buffering like crazy until one shells out extra $$$ to their internet provider for "extra high speed" internet. A brand-new reason for me to be glad I've stuck with all these shiny discs over the years.

 

I know I'm flogging a dead donkey here, even, er, preaching to the converted, but it is quite possible, likely even, that Ginsberg did at least attempt to make a recording of one or both Berkeley shows with his old machine, and that this is the tape that he mentioned to Clinton as being lost. It is known that Ginsberg met up with Bob at Berkeley and it seems likely that it was here that Bob subbed him the $600 to buy the new Uher 4000 which Ginsberg was so keen to demonstrate to Bob before the San Francisco show a week later. Clinton is assuming that Ginsberg only taped Berkeley; the San Francisco and San Jose tapes prove that Ginsberg did tape San Francisco and San Jose. (It would be nice to pin that drummer down...)

Cast-iron guarantee: The Ginsberg Tapes will not feature on Bootleg Series 14. Or 15, or any other Bootleg Series. Ever. Probably.

 

well, he could stop being self-important and come online and make corrections to the alleged errata.

 

SPECIAL UNRELATED ANNOUNCEMENT:-

After many months without a home "Electric Dylan" is back!

The format is much the same but Roger has made revisions to all the sections and, perhaps best of all for those who do not subscribe to ISIS magazine, he has included his six part forensic examination of "The Cutting Edge Collector's Edition" in the original PDF format! Even better, he has added "sticky note" revisions to those articles. (It is best to download the articles, because the digital "sticky notes" don't work too well on screen; the latest two, dealing with the BS7 sampler snippets, are a bit wonky on the downloads as well, but I expect Roger will get them sorted out before long.)

The whole thing remains a work-in-progress, but the site itself has been smoke-tested over the last month or so. All the links work on PC and on mobile devices. As always, Roger welcomes comments and corrections. He's not immune to praise, either!

Time to crack open Big Blue again!

Electric Dylan

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Wow! Exactly what Al Gore invented the internet for. That's my weekend sorted.

 

Only the weekend?

 

SearchingForAGem has reposted a Facebook rumor saying that BS14 will be Oh Mercy sessions. I hope that is not true, and that the BOTT/Desire/RTR box is what they're going with.

 

Maybe they go with a big box (like the Live 1966) for RTR/Desire in 2018. And then BS14 will come next year in 2019...

 

I would be fine with something like that, although that's not what the rumor says. From SearchingForAGem:
2 Jan 2018: A rumour on Facebook says that Bob Dylan's Bootleg Series Vol. 14 will be a "Completely Raw" deluxe box set from the 1989 Oh Mercy sessions, to be released on 5 Oct 2018. This may be a hoax, but more information will be added if available. Out-takes from Oh Mercy were of course released in 2008 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 - Tell Tale Signs.

Personally, I think if they're going to split up BS and immersive tour boxes into two different series, I'd love them to focus on BOTT and Desire for BS14 and do a complete 1975-1976 tour box as a separate release. And both would tie in with the rumored doc coming out. They could save the Oh Mercy box for next year (or later than that, even. Methinks the Infidels sessions are more interesting).

 

Hard to say if there is any substance to this, but Oh Mercy is pretty far down my wish list....73-78 and 83-87 in any/various incarnations is def more interesting at this point.