Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes - where we're at currently (Part 2)...

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by hodgo, Aug 29, 2014.

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  1. Moth

    Moth fluttering by

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    UCI
    Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You're probably right about the rest of the song snippets, then - which is a bummer.
     
  2. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

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    In The Felony Room
    Hopefully not! I'd be unbelievably glad to be wrong in my prediction. At this point, we are all mostly just reading tea leaves. I think it's the announcement of the track timings that will really start to clear up these things.
     
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  3. Moth

    Moth fluttering by

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    It seems sorta weird that the track times haven't been released yet. Are they usually held back on releases? I've never really noticed it before.
     
  4. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

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    Chicago
    It was like this with Bootleg Series Vol. 10, Another Self Portrait -- they taunted us with images of tape boxes that had track times on them for several weeks, and then shortly before the release date they put out all the track times.
     
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  5. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
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    I forget if it's been posted before, but here is a wider shot from the basement, by Arie de Reus.
    [​IMG]
     
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  6. DeeThomaz

    DeeThomaz Senior Member

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    Cool! I had seen the cropped version on the cover of the new edition of Old Weird America, but it's great to see the full picture.

    Personal (name-dropping) anecdote: the first time I saw (the cropped version of) this photo was a year or two ago when Greil Marcus brought it to my attention personally. No we're not friends or anything, I just went to go a lecture /Q&A with him, and afterwards we chatted a bit. When the subject moved to the Basement Tapes, he showed me the cover and BLEW MY MIND. At that point, I was of the belief there were no Basement pix.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
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  7. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

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    It will make an excellent CD-R slipcase for individual playlists. I'm sure they'll include this and a lot of other unreleased photos in the box book. (They better!) These were on a website a couple years back but they were yanked down pretty quickly.

    Here's another (Arie de Reus):

    [​IMG]

    Very cool that you had a meet 'n greet with Mr. Marcus. You should have asked him to sign up here!
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
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  8. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

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    Speaking of Greil Marcus, here are his liner notes for the original 1975 LP version, on the Isis site:
    http://www.bobdylanisis.com/contents/en-uk/p533.html
     
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  9. As I posted earlier, many have suspected that the studio-recorded Band/Hawks tracks on the '75 LP (which I suspect is all of them) may have been a bit "purposely degraded" to make them fit better with the legitimate "basements"; something borne out I think by their subsequent appearances on various Band archival releases.

    However, regarding the true basements, I think it was very much the opposite. With those, I think they did everything in their power to try and "professionalize" them and make them more commercially palatable. So according to the conventions of the time, liberal amounts of compression, EQ and noise reduction were applied, in addition of course to the overdubs and channel narrowing. And in fact, when you hear how something like Take 2 of "Million Dollar Bash" (the take selected for the LP) sounds on currently circulating boots - very hissy and really in need of work - you can see why they felt those efforts were necessary.

    Let's hope that tracks like that are far better represented on the actual original reels than they appear as currently circulating...
     
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  10. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

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    If they're going to start leaking tracks before the main release, I hope one of the first songs they let us hear will be a remix of I'm Not There, already released on the film soundtrack. I would love to hear a "narrow" stereo version of that from the original reel (instead of from the Safety), and it might be an indication of what they did with the rest of the tracks on the set. As you say, let's hope they get closer to the original reels than the copies we've been listening to for the last 20+ years.
     
  11. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    The photos posted above (and elsewhere online) are credited to Arie de Reus. Can anyone confirm that he actually took them, or did he purchase them from someone else who was there, in "The Basement," in 1967? (Perhaps a member of The Band?)
     
  12. cc--

    cc-- Forum Resident

    Location:
    brooklyn
    yes, I like to think of the Basement Tapes this way, too. Actually, one thing that turns me off in discussions of this material is the conservative (in artistic, not political terms, though I suppose they can be related) thesis that here is where the errors of psychedelia were corrected, that Dylan and friends were committed to playing "real" music while Carnaby Street and the Haight were indulging in fashionable excess. I know this interpretation begins with Dylan himself, but that doesn't make it any less narrow-minded, imo... the supposed rootsy authenticity of the music on the Basement Tapes is far from their most interesting aspect, I would say.
     
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  13. cc--

    cc-- Forum Resident

    Location:
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    a perhaps obvious question at this point, but -- why was Garth in possession of the tapes in the first place? The engineer doesn't usually keep tapes; the artist does. Is it just that Dylan didn't care?
     
  14. Moth

    Moth fluttering by

    Location:
    UCI
    I don't think anyone's been saying that - well, here at least. It's certainly part of what makes it interesting for me, though. While the world was on some big, psychedelic trip, Bob and his buddies we're recording songs of rural life, completely predicting where music was going to be heading for the next few years. It's almost like the songs were from a completely different time/world. It's timeless stuff. Probably all been said before...

    You got me thinking about what a psychedelic album from Dylan would sound like... I can't even imagine.
     
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  15. TeddyB

    TeddyB Senior Member

    Location:
    Hollywoodland
    Terrific points. The songs and playing both feature some deep corners and though they obviously were influenced by old-time music, they don't sound or read like old time music. I also recall Robbie back in the day ragging on glitter rock when I see his look(s) as much a costume as anyone's. Certainly Bob has always been is a costume and a mask.
     
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  16. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

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    A "psychedelic album" from Dylan probably would have sounded totally awkward, like when Bob tried to do a "modern sounding" album in the mid-'80s with Arthur Baker and his computer drum squad.

    The Basement Tapes are snapshots of some casual musical moments that have now been carved in stone. I'll say it again -- thank goodness Garth was there with a tape recorder.
     
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  17. Sordel

    Sordel Forum Resident

    Location:
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    Depends on what you mean by psychedelic. If you include Acid Folk I could imagine a psychedelic album from Dylan fitting well into his catalogue. It's far less jarring in principle than a Christian album.
     
  18. The Reasoner

    The Reasoner Forum Resident

    Location:
    Connecticut, USA
    Lyrically, Blonde on Blonde was psychedelic enough. And I imagine it had at least a small influence on some of the more "trippy" music to come out of the late 60s.

    Back to the BT, I'm very curious about I Shall Be Released - take 1. I'm expecting it to be only slightly different from take 2, like most of the other songs with multiple takes. But I'm kinda hoping it ends up being something more... weird.
     
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  19. Moth

    Moth fluttering by

    Location:
    UCI
    I've been doing a little snooping around on the Rare Cool Stuff Facebook page, where they happened to post the un-cropped version from the Rolling Stone magazine I scanned a couple days ago:
    [​IMG]
    Down in the comments below, Rare Cool Stuff thank Reus for allowing them to use the photo and mention that these photos are an "amazing discovery!" Reus also shows up in the comments, saying "Most likely this was in the Red Room." So, it seems he just happened to discover these photos (we'll probably end up hearing that story in the box itself or on their Facebook page), and wasn't present when they were taken. If he's to be believed, that's apparently not the Big Pink they're sitting in.
     
  20. voles

    voles Forum Lurker

    Location:
    UK
    Anyone know if Mr Dylan laid down any more 'Basement' songs with Happy Traum? I think the released ones are very good renditions. Incidentally I thought Happy Traum was a made up pseudonym at the time they were released :) Seemed to be good to be true!
     
  21. slane

    slane Forum Resident

    Location:
    Merrie England
    No. Just the three on GH2, plus Only A Hobo on ASP.
     
  22. voles

    voles Forum Lurker

    Location:
    UK
    Shame
     
  23. Bennyboy

    Bennyboy Forum Resident

    Part of me wishes none of the basement songs ever came out - how cool would it be to have them permanently buried like a lost civilisation, forever consigned to musical myth, mystery, legend? Everything seems to get excavated and polished up for the consuming masses these days.

    But then another part of me wants to be stuffing them all greedily into my ears NOW.

    I guess I'm doomed.
     
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  24. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    When compared to uppers, downers and booze, marijuana and hashish are considered psychedelic. BoB is a stoney, trippy affair.
    Good bet Jerry Garcia and Co. thought so.
    As to Dylan and the Band "completely" upturning the music scene, well that's over estimated.
    Led Zeppelin, Yes and the prog rock that began in 68 have little to do with the Basement Tapes.
    Prog led to Glam which led to Punk which led to New Wave. Hardly "Americana" that lot.

    And pity Eric Clapton the great British ambassador and biggest proponent for the Big Pink He threw away his roaring Cream guitar for decades of country shuffles and laid backlessness, which left many of his original fans pining forevermore. (At least according to many polls on SHtv and elsewhere)
     
  25. Olompali

    Olompali Forum Resident

    Nothing was revealed? Nah...lost history sucks.
     
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