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

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Dave Gilmour's Cat, Nov 2, 2016.

  1. I'd still advise some caution here; he equally spent as much time pouring over the various Self Portrait mixes, prior to that album getting the green light!
     
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  2. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Exactly. I'm saying he does care what he presents to the audience. The audience may not like it or, for example in the case of "Infidels", his producer may not like it. But he takes care to present what he wants to present.
     
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  3. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Yep, makes sense to me. Curated, not a sequential dump like Big Blue, but still telling the story of the sessions in a pretty big presentation.
     
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  4. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    The producer didn't like it? I need to catch up on all the Dylan books I've been shelving. I remember Infidels being praised by fans and press when it came out. Dylan said he had a particular statement to make with these songs. Personally, I loved it. His best songwriting and music in a long time. My circle of friends and acquaintances loved it. With hindsight, it was his best album of the 1980s on every level and today it's unjustly overlooked.
     
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  5. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client


    Mark Knopfler: "Infidels would have been a better record if I had mixed the thing, but I had to go on tour in Germany, and then Bob had a weird thing with CBS, where he had to deliver records to them at a certain time and I was away in Europe … Some of [Infidels] is like listening to roughs. Maybe Bob thought I'd rushed things because I was in a hurry to leave, but I offered to finish it after our tour. Instead, he got the engineer to do the final mix."

    It is said that Bob also discarded "Foot of Pride" and "Blind Willie McTell" during the Knopfler-less mixing sessions, replacing them with "Union Sundown".

    He knows what he wants.... :) :agree:
     
  6. Mbd77

    Mbd77 Collect ‘Em All!

    Location:
    London
    Infidels was described to me by Neil Dorfsman in a private conversation several years back as, quote: “organised chaos”.
     
  7. Mbd77

    Mbd77 Collect ‘Em All!

    Location:
    London
    I’m also not convinced that the ‘rough’ version of ‘Infidels’ that’s out there is actually 100% the version that was planned for release before Dylan got his hands on it.
    I had the opportunity in 1992 to briefly sit in a room with a load of tapes belonging to Mark Knopfler through someone who worked with him. Should’ve looked for an Infidels tape...:sigh:
     
  8. asdf35

    asdf35 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin TX
    Great news, if we finally get to hear the other musicians on the box set. If not, this info will drive some of us mad! I mostly want to know (and hear) if there was a drummer on that track. That would be something.
     
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  9. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    It sounds as if Knopfler, by his own admission, rushed through the job and left it unfinished. And Dylan, being the professional that he is, delivered on time.

    But it's still a great album, full of important songs, including Union Sundown.
     
  10. subtr

    subtr Forum Resident

    It could be a situation where the bleed from the piano/organ (I can hear it too, by the way) is from Dylan's headphones. If this was going full pelt in the studio I think the bleed would be much more obvious. I've nothing to base this on, but presume that the band and Dylan play the track, then he overdubs guitar and vocals, keeping pace on the headphones as his initial guitar/vocal take gets mixed out, because the bleed into his two/three mics would be impossible to control if it was a live take of the whole band.

    In that sense, I think the alt. take is 'true' in that it's just Dylan playing on that take, but he's playing along to his earlier version to get a more focussed guitar and vocal out of it.
     
  11. subtr

    subtr Forum Resident

    Just like Chronicles Vol. 2!
     
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  12. h.egbert

    h.egbert Forum Resident

    Maybe a silly question: Would this theory make it necessary or likely that Dylan counts in the song? If it's Dylan who counts in, in the first place.
     
    asdf35 likes this.
  13. subtr

    subtr Forum Resident

    Good point, though I'm fairly certain it's not Dylan's voice that's heard counting it in. No idea who - an engineer listening to playback, or a band member from the original take that's been tacked on to this version, either would support the idea of headphone leakage still.
     
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  14. asdf35

    asdf35 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin TX
    That makes a lot of sense. Bob was obviously doing other vocal overdubs at sessions, such as "Call-Letter Blues."
     
    subtr likes this.
  15. redsock

    redsock Writer, reader, grouch.

    I did a similar estimation.
    Bob Dylan: Bootleg Series Vol. 14

    In looking at the number of takes for each song, I used the official tracks times and estimated 25% of the time for interrupted takes.
    I came up with 329 minutes, which would fit on 5 CDs if each CD contains 66 minutes of music.
     
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  16. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    Here's a nice little ditty about corporate greed, but somehow it fits our current discussion well. :)

     
  17. fallbreaks

    fallbreaks Forum Resident

    I wonder if the *particular sequence* might be the album running order, with each of the six discs presenting 'the album' in various states of completion. For example, 'the album' in demo form, 'the album' in first takes, 'the album' as the acetate, and finally 'the album' finished product, speed corrected. Then after the presentation of the album on each disc, they'll round it out with related bonus tracks, like additional demos, additional first takes, additional 'best so far' takes, and (fingers crossed) alternate Minneapolis takes.
     
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  18. Percy Song

    Percy Song A Hoity-Toity, High-End Client

    Over the weekend a sub-committee of the International Congress of Expert Sleuths (ICES) partook of cream teas and chocolate chip muffins on the manicured lawns of the recently renamed Percy Towers, north of the Equator, east of the Rock of Gibraltar. The badminton court had been put away for the afternoon and the gambling wheel shut down; ashtrays were moved to positions just out of reach of the participants. A shadowy figure in a hooded sweater, who never gave his name, had been due to give a talk after lunch entitled "Management By Telepathy - Who Knew?" In the final end he didn't show. When I telephoned him to ask for an explanation he replied, "Oh, I thought you'd know I wouldn't be able to make it."

    So the ICES tried to de-tangle the New York sessions versions of "Tangled Up In Blue" instead. Here is a brief report extracted from the minutes jotted down by Lucky Ice, who takes all responsibility for errors (of fact, fiction, grammar, spelling or anything else you care to mention) :-

    Until "More Blood, More Tracks" is released, there are known to be three New York "versions" of "Tangled Up In Blue". One has been officially released on BS 1-3, specifically track 18 on Disc 2. The second features on the much-pirated/booted "Test Pressing" which some people call "The New York Acetate". The best sounding example of this one is probably on "The New York Sessions" CD boot. The third version features on what the ICES call "The First Acetate", with labels dated 9/25/1974. ICES looked at these in some (more or less) detail as a family of green woodpeckers spiked the lawn in search of ants and the magpies and jays fought it out for the fat balls hanging from the apple tree.

    • BS 1-3 Version
    The BS 1-3 liner notes identify the performance as being recorded on 9/16/74 (meaning 16 September, the first session.). Michael Krogsgaard listed this take, the last of the session, as being both interrupted and on BS 1-3. Other well-known list makers followed suit. One, all or fewer of the ICES members were uncomfortable with this apparently contradictory concept but let it lie for some years without grumbling too much. (The studio/tape log, shown below, does suggest that the take on the 16th was complete.)

    Recently, Sony re-tagged BS 1-3 on streaming services. Lo and behold, it is now labelled "Take 3, Remake 2" which, if correct, means it was most likely recorded on 19 September. According to MK there were two complete takes and four incomplete takes recorded on that day. He attributes one of those complete takes to the Test Pressing. Worryingly, it is possible to make a case for "Take 3, Remake 2" being the performance that MK indicates is on the Test Pressing!

    Either way, whichever take it is, on this BS 1-3 version Bob sings "She was working in a topless place, I stopped in for a beer"


    [​IMG]
    16 September - probably not featured on BS 1-3



    • Test Pressing (New York Acetate) Version
    It is assumed that this was likely to be the "Blood on the Tracks" LP until David had a quiet word in his brother's ear and invited him over to Sound 80 Studio in December. This version of "Tangled Up in Blue" is similar in style to the BS 1-3 version, and even without evidence, apart from Krogsgaard's document indicating that it was recorded on 19 September, it might be logical to assume that the two versions were recorded on the same day. Scholarly Ice made the comment, "I'll add that there are obvious phrasing differences between BS1-3 and the acetate take. He tends to "sing-talk" through some lines on BS1-3 that he out and out sings on the acetate version." Given that there were (according to MK) two complete takes on 19 September, one of which was the last take of the night (not slated) and effectively the last recorded take at the New York sessions, is it too far-fetched to suggest that this take is the Test Pressing take? Maybe someone can make a case for the last take of the night being "Take 3, Remake 2".

    Anyway, on the Test Pressing version, whichever take it is, Bob sings, "She was working in a topless place, and I stopped in for a beer"


    [​IMG]
    The cheap version of the Test Pressing. Apparently 6 or 7 original test pressings are in circulation.



    • The First Acetate
    This acetate is dated 9/25/74 and appears to be the first acetate produced from the New York sessions (hence the name adopted by the ICES). Presumably Bob spent some time mulling over his initial choice of takes and the sequence of the planned LP. As discussed previously, it contains an organ-free "Idiot Wind" and a "Simple Twist Of Fate" with the harmonica interlude in an unfamiliar position. The track sequence on Side Two is not the same as on the released BOTT or the Test Pressing, above. There could be other interesting variations on this First Acetate which may yet come to light.

    The "Tangled Up In Blue" on this acetate is, essentially, the (quite familiar) Test Pressing performance from (most likely) 19 September but with what appears to be the original line, "She was working in a roadside place, and I stopped in for a beer."


    [​IMG]
    The First Acetate labels




    The cool people at ICES (Lucky Ice, Scholarly Ice, Blonde Ice, Splice Ice and Magnesium Ice) are working on the theory that Bob liked the First Acetate/ Test Pressing take the best but wanted to exchange the roadside place for the topless place, which carried through to the final version of the song recorded at Sound 80, of course. Maybe he intended to sing "topless place" but was distracted by the "roadside" image in "Idiot Wind." To achieve this edit it is quite possible that he removed the half-line, "She was working in a roadside place", from the First Acetate version and replaced it with the half-line, "She was working in a topless place", from the BS 1-3 version. If you close your eyes and wish for it, it is possible to detect a little anomaly at the "and" on the Test Pressing. This theory may not hold water for long..... :)

    In any case, we are aware of two versions plus one substituted line of the New York model of "Tangled Up In Blue", and all of them seem to have been recorded on 19 September, the last day of the sessions proper. This means there should be at least three other complete takes of the song to hear on "More Blood, More Tracks", including the first take on 16 September which we were led to believe all those years (decades!) ago was on The Bootleg Series 1-3. Can't wait!


    As the ICES meeting wound down, just about the time the last of the chocolate chip muffins had been devoured incidentally, there was mumbling about Chekhov's short story, "The Steppe: The Story of a Journey".

    "You know the first line of the novella is, "Early one morning...."",
    said Lucky Ice, "and later Panteley says, "They found him by the track of blood"" ......

    "Yes, we know that," all the others said in unison, "tell us something we don't know...."


    The meeting broke up with a vague promise to discuss "Simple Twist Of Fate" at a later date.

    #
     
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  19. asdf35

    asdf35 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin TX
    Not that this wouldn't be amazing, but I am strongly in favor of the full Sessions scenario. Strongly. In fact, this possible twist of fate has kind of bummed me out.
     
    fallbreaks likes this.
  20. NumberEight

    NumberEight Came too late and stayed too long

    Next time you all get together, could I stop in for a beer?
     
  21. savemenow

    savemenow Forum Resident

    Location:
    SE Pa
    The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind...
     
  22. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    You're expected to bring your own helium. Percy only supplies the balloon.
     
    NumberEight likes this.
  23. Whiskeytown86

    Whiskeytown86 Well-Known Member

    This is the greatest thing I've ever read
     
  24. Richard--W

    Richard--W Forum Resident

    It is no more than typical of his many wonderful posts. Go back thread and read some more.
     
    Last edited: Aug 21, 2018
  25. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Would a kind and patient 'soul' be willing to please share the latest or what the news currently is on this BOTT BS Release?
     

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