No, too obvious a grab for the waterworks though fortunately nowhere near as overly melodramatic as the Johnny Cash take on "Hurt". That said, this newer recording is quite good and I appreciate your hip'n me to this version of which I was unaware. It does indeed lend great promise to what the revisiting of Bobby's other great songs can be. The goofy new format thing aside, I can't think of a better choice of producer than T-Bone - given his history with Dylan and his skill with more rootsy production.
Yeah, I realize it could be a while. I know that a commercial CD is not gonna happen too soon if they're serious about pushing the new disc format. It was nice when someone almost immediately made a needle-drop boot available of the Record Store Day only version of that alternate "Blood on the Tracks" acetate - but I don't count on such availabilities as many others haven't materialized so quickly.
I'd posit the owner of the Ionic Original is highly unlikely to rip and share it or allow it to be recorded because its true value lies in the otherwise unavailable performance. If the performance becomes available to all and sundry, the Ionic Original is likely to lose much of the value attributed to it; it is effectively no longer a one-off except in physicality. This is the dilemma, I suppose, or the difference between a piece of music as fine art and a painting as fine art. It doesn't seem to matter how many high quality prints of, say, Hockney's "Bigger Splash" are made available, the original will still be valued in the tens of millions. Dylan's performance of "Blowin' In The Wind" will be worth diddly squat if a copy is made. A commercial CD will only become available if the three parties (owner, copyright owner, publishing owner) agree to release it. The owner will only agree to do that if they see an opportunity to make a return on the initial investment and there is zero chance of that happening. A few owners of one-off standard acetates have been generous enough to share rips of their discs with friends and other strangers, but plenty won't because there is a fear that their investment loses value as soon as the performance is out there.
It’s a very real factor, unfortunately, as I know from personal experience. Most folk who self-identify as collectors are nothing of the sort; or at least they’re not serious in their hobby. Such people don’t value original artefacts for their historical importance. All they want is a copy of the musical content, preferably for free. Having shared generously in the past, and seen the value of original artefacts held by me drop as a result, I’m reluctant to share further one-off items from my collection. I don’t care if folk think that’s selfish. When you’ve paid four figures to own something unique, there’s no incentive to give away the musical content to a bunch of faceless cheapskates and see the value of your investment (for want of a better word) drop as a result. As you’ve pointed out above, the visual art market works in a very different way. Not necessarily a better way, just different.
It's an 'analogue' format containing a digital recoding of a 2020s Dylan performance of a song which, though historically important, is not exactly at the top of the average Dylan fan's list of songs they'd like to see him do again. I can't really see the interest. I loved Shadow Kingdom and got myself a recording of it, but haven't played it much: it's great for what it is, but it isn't a patch on what once was.
Exactly - to all the above! And I speak as someone kind of planted in the middle of the axis which has the notations "collector" at the top and "faceless cheapskate" at the bottom. And that's where T Bone Burnett's (and, it seems, Dylan's) thinking may be mostly anchored, perhaps more so than the apparent "vastly" better sound quality of the format, a claim which I'm very dubious about. I mean, we both know that (traditional) acetates do sound very good but I think this may be the key bit in the interview:- “We started talking about this in earnest seven or eight years ago,” said Burnett of his conversations with Dylan about recording something exclusively for a new format and a very, very, very limited audience. “When music became commoditized to zero, I think we both said it would be easier to sell one of these for a million dollars than a million of them for $1.” Perhaps the elephant in the room is, well, who was responsible for music being "commoditized to zero"? Record companies? Punters? Musicians? It could become a lively debate, and probably is somewhere hereabouts. Speaking of elephants... That is not to say T Bone isn't passionate about sound quality. Perhaps, more interestingly - or worryingly, depending how you look at it - if this auction is a success it is not impossible to imagine that Dylan goes ahead and sells more of these one-offs of new performances of his old songs for mega-riches, as T Bone implied. Presumably he, Dylan, splits the proceeds with T Bone and makes a bucket load of dosh by transferring ownership of the recording to a single person, and the holders of the copyright and the publishing to whom he sold the rights (?) last year receive diddly squat because they are not released as such. Maybe that's not how the business works exactly, but it's difficult to see what Sony and Universal would get out of it. Much later on, if the Ionic acetate becomes the new format, obviously they can release every record all over again and I'll have thirty-one editions of Blonde On Blonde (even though I know that it'll sound the same as all the editions that have been released since 1999, bar a bit of remastering).
if a million are made, few would care. if one was made it would be hyped beyond reason. scarity increases the perection of value. then after the hype machine goes to work, says its better than it is, they can release an album and sell a million copies. it does feel like they are taking themselves a bit too seriously. for supposed iconclasts, they sure know how to be the 'elite'
I’m trying to distinguish between the harebrained audacity of T-Bone’s “scarcity” and a random quote from Gordon Gekko.
If we select one definition of iconoclast, "a person who attacks or criticizes cherished beliefs", isn't that what T Bone and Dylan are doing? I suppose "attack" is too strong a word - perhaps even "criticizes" also - but the aim seems to be to shake things up in the industry, or at least set off the first tremor, so in that sense they have made a non-conformist move. Another interesting snippet from the interview is that there was a strong hint Gillian Welch will be next in line for this treatment.
depends on definition. given how they supposedly rail against 'the man', to create an exclusive item which can only be held by the elite (economically) seems hardly able to shake things up. you might argue the last great iconclast in music was napster from folk music of the people, to the people, for we the people, this is the polar opposite
Well, Napster, I think, was a depository and/or distributer of mp3s which was sued by Metallica and dozens of others for copyright infringement and/or pirating. If I viewed criminal activity as iconoclastic then I could make that argument, but I don't. A person who breaks into my house and steals my work - the intellectual property from which I make my living - isn't an iconoclast. They are a low-life thief. One of the reasons that the Ionic Original is being flogged like this is because music is being stolen. One of the reasons why their music is being stolen so readily is because the musicians (or their record companies) issued, and re-issued endlessly their catalogues in a format which is dead easy to copy and distribute. One could argue they killed the golden crocodile which was laying their vinyl and cassette tape eggs. Speaking of crocodiles:- If Ionic Originals take off at all after this sale - T Bone is confident they will and I have my doubts - it'll be because they will offer exclusive, limited and cost-effective (for the artist) material. It'll be expensive for the punters but in part, the musicians are railing against the people who think it is okay to take their work from them for free. That's iconoclastic.
I was lucky enough to be invited by Christie's to attend a one-on-one listening session with Mike Piersante there last Friday afternoon. I made notes before, during and after the session and quite a few photos were taken. Still writing notes, still processing the experience.
Technology. When CDs first appeared the size of the digital file encoded on the disk was massive compared to easily available consumer storage and copying wasn't an issue. That soon changed and we got writeable CDs, storage capacities increased and cost declined, and it soon became trivial to rip and copy a CD without the generational loss inherent in tape copies. That does not mean there was a right to copy and distribute, but my hunch is that most people regarded it as a victimless crime. The two possible solutions, both tried by the industry, were copy protection, which never really worked as well as being unpopular as it blocked legitimate reasons for ripping and copying like backup or home streaming; or rigorous legal enforcement which was also unpopular and didn't work. All you can eat subscription services are the industry's best answer but artists in general have got a poor deal and there is not much logic to it. All this free stuff on YouTube is great, unless it is your work out there and prevents you from monetizing it very well. Technology isn't a bad thing but does have cultural implications. Musicians have been pushed towards other ways of monetizing their work like live performance, signed albums, clothing, dog collars, and vinyl albums which put more focus on packaging and can't be copied in the same way. And ionic originals Tim
I've suddenly realised this sentence might be taken the wrong way by some folks. I didn't record anything, I don't have the equipment to do so, and I wouldn't have tried even if I did.
i meant more widely making the concept of digital music popular, thus ending the concept of only being able to have physical music and having stand alone album tracks thus ending the concept of the single and the album being the only way to access the music- more power and control to the consumer- of the people, for the people, not just those with special invites to hear music
And alone, through headphones, in a small room in Christie's basement! As I've noted elsewhere: One set of glasses for my foresight, one set for my hindsight.
Percy, please describe the performance, music, sound quality and experience generally to us as soon as you can. Much thanks in advance.
I realized I wrote my initial thoughts on a different board but not here. Here’s what my first impressions were after the LA listening session: “BITW 2022 has a rootsy feel - Greg Leisz (mandolin), electric guitar (T Bone), Dennis Crouch (bass), Don Was (original bass, likely wiped in overdub session), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Bob (vocals). Bob sticks pretty closely to the original melody but the arrangement is really wonderful. I wish it weren’t one-of-a-kind as more deserve to hear it. Bob chose BITW to record for this project, and T Bone implied there were more songs cut and that they’ll come out eventually. He has other artists interested in the same format and is also interested in the archival implications of the coating technology. Lots of work went into making the coating. (Though there was still surface noise…) T Bone said something like (paraphrasing) “I know there’s a music part of the fine art world and I hope to break into it.” He also said early on that he and Bob had commiserated about the commodification of music post-Napster and remarked “it would be easier to release one for a ($)million than a million for ($)one” and I think that says it all about this project. A shame more won’t hear the track as it is really interesting. But would I pay a million to hear it? Never in a million years. The additional songs would be more recordings from the same session as BITW. This session was not the same as Shadow Kingdom. I don’t know anything else about other songs from this session. The auction guy hushed him up when he started talking about the future too much The strange thing… they played it on a 1979 technics turntable into a cheap preamp into $40,000 speakers. There were pops and clicks in what he’d called a flawless medium: “it’s not a record it’s something new that sounds better. It actually gets quieter the more you play it because it’s self-cleaning”… well, they played it again later in the night after the q&a and it was noisier than before. Someone asked what the noise was and T Bone said it was “to remind you it’s a record” and then said it was just static from the turntable. It was all a little too fishy / Hollywood for me. Very strange experience… I think the lines I mentioned earlier really indicate where his mind is — break into the fine art world: “this isn’t for mass consumption. It’s not for everyone. It’s just for people like you” (I’m not people like them, to be clear) “it would be easier to sell one copy for a million bucks than to sell a million copies for a dollar” it’s all very elitist. And I felt he was talking in circles and contradicting himself a lot. It felt like he doesn’t know what he wants to get from this venture yet and just needs the funding first. If they had focused on the actual archival ramifications of this coating technology that would have been a better angle than saying “artists want their songs to sound like acetates” then playing a noisy record. I should emphasize that this is really cool tech, he’s just explaining it in a very circuitous way. It’s like he can’t tell what the messaging is — fine art? archival? analog is best? musicians want to hear it this way? us/them elitism? — it’s all over the place. But now that the precedent has been set, I wonder how it will go. He mentioned maybe doing limited runs of 100 of future records once the thing gets off the ground but take that with a grain of sand given all the above.”
