Bob Dylan: THE BOOTLEG SERIES VOL. 17: "Fragments - Time Out of Mind Sessions" [1/27/23]*

It seems to me the only way the Bootleg Series *wouldn't* be winding down is if they made a change to focus mostly on live performances. They've now mined pretty much all his landmark periods for remaining studio material—the '60s stuff is basically exhausted completely, while Blood on the Tracks, the Christian period, the early/mid-1980s, and now Time out of Mind have been given big recent archival issues. There's presumably stuff left in the vault from the pre-Christian '70s (excluding BOTT), the late '80s/early '90s, and Love and Theft plus the post-Tell Tale Signs albums...maybe some of those add up to another interesting multi-disc collection, but I wouldn't be surprised if the rag's really starting to get squeezed out. But so much live Dylan remains, and I'm a little surprised with the lack of enthusiasm from the "source" for going more in that direction.

 

I think Brauer does a good job, but I wish he'd back off on the compressor.

 

The source seems completely bored with the whole thing.

 

The part of the Rolling Stone article that jumped out at me was when he said they will see how the 'market' responds to the new set. It stands to reason that Sony will respond to market forces but that seems to make it clear how big a factor that is.

The last 2 sets have been 5cds, whereas previously they had been in a pattern of releasing 6cd sets. Was this decision due to market forces too?

Having said that, I do agree with those people who have talked about how they are getting to the point where they have covered the major bases. There is always more they can release as well as better configurations but as for major Bootleg Series releases which shine a light on certain periods, I can understand why they feel they are getting to the end.

 

people seem to think the illegal bootlegs are better, and if they want them, they would already have them

 

It strikes me that if you were one of the "head bods" who was doing an interview in the name of marketing the Bootleg Series (and why else is he doing an interview?), you'd want to create a bit of tension, too.

And if I were the article writer/editor, I'd certainly want to turn that tension into an attention-grabbing headline.

That's not to say they aren't genuinely measuring how the physical sets do in the age of streaming. (Of course they are.)

But marketing is not a passive process, and the interviews with "the source" are themselves part of the marketing.

And fear is the most powerful marketing motivator of all.

How many times do we buy things, just because we think if we don't buy them, we might miss out?

 

Depressing. Such a load of BS too.

“Bob is out there doing it live,” says the source. “I suggest people should see him. I think he’s playing some of the best shows of his career.”

Oh yeah, of course he is!

“The people who want bootlegs, have them,” says the source.

Following that logic, there would never have been a Bootleg Series.

 

You’re right - there is loads of Bootleg Series.

 

The nation’s on the edge of its seat

 

I know this is a discussion of the set's contents, but right now the 5 CD box is selling for $75 new from Amazon. I think I paid $111. So if anyone is on the fence.

https://www.amazon.com/Fragments-Ti...78-bc3a-5879aeff7ef2&pd_rd_i=B0BKR6V1ZV&psc=1

 

The comments on the Never Ending Tour are a real shame. As the live disc of Fragments proves, Dylan’s body of work and career can’t be understood without the last thee decades of live shows and how he has explored the limits of his songs.

 

In the end he's Dylan's manager and now Dylan gets less money for each record sold (he probably gets some performer's fee, I suppose?), so of course Rosen prefers for people to see Dylan live. So that's probably why he's bowing out of the reissue market.

 

You have a head start on me because I'm too tight to buy Mark's book...


The image on page 61 of the Fragments book seems to indicate that there was another "Not Dark Yet" on 17 September 1996, apart from the demo, as well as a 6 minute "Dirt Road Blues."

Heylin, in "Still On The Road", asserts that "Million Miles" was started as a loop, demoed at Oxnard and that it "...was originally a long song for which the demo was only a draft."

Perhaps the demo at Oxnard was dull, dull, dull. Maybe the "Million Miles" that is on the finished record is an edit from this "long song." ("Doin' Alright" / "Marchin' To The City" Version 2 is known to be an edit of a much longer performance, for example.) It seems unlikely - to me, at least - that there wasn't a useable "Million Miles" alternate take available for Fragments.

I suppose, too, it's anyone's guess whether we now have the "Gymnasium" Take of "Not Dark Yet". (It can't be Version 1, which is too long for the timing.) Given the tape box number, BD-42, it will certainly be from Miami. The tape box BD8 I would imagine is from Oxnard.

 

Looks like the ‘market’ is not so keen on the Bootleg Series now and maybe ‘the source’ is onto something?

 

I apologize if this should go in one of the other Bootleg Series threads, but since we're talking about the new RS article, I figured I'd weigh in.

It's hard for any of us to calculate how much money, man-hours and other resources go into creating one of these sets. It's possible that even if the deluxe boxes sell out, they're skating by on razor-thin margins, and it's not economically viable for them to keep churning out sets. But at this point, I feel like the archival work -- of the studio sessions, at least -- is mostly done, so the research needed isn't really a factor anymore (now it'd be more about the mix process).

And I'll also say that I don't think we should be entitled to anything at all from Bob Inc. They've been incredibly generous with archival material. It's a lifetime of riches, really, and nothing changes that.

But that being said, it really upsets me that they're talking about winding down the series, when I could easily name another 10 sets that would be marquee volumes. If anything, the series itself has been sabotaged by poor decisions, puzzling omissions, bad pacing, and other mismanagement on their part, so if they feel like momentum is waning, they are partially or mostly to blame!

For instance, there's a ton of early 60s material that either has only been released on the semi-official copyright collections or hasn't been released at all. We all know about the coffee-house-era set that they've talked about, which would presumably include uncirculating material that they have in their archive. But also all the studio tapes from the first four albums -- some of which they only BARELY released on the copyright collections (and none at all in the case of the first record). They went through the trouble of copyrighting that stuff for posterity, but what are the actual plans for it? This stuff should have been on a Bootleg Series ages ago, with proper mix/master and liner notes, etc. Now they're thinking, "well, people have it on bootlegs, so our job is done." Except, in many cases, we don't! There's also all the amazing radio show material from 62-63 that they didn't include on the copyright collections, presumably 'cause it's already considered public domain? No clear consistent strategy with any of that stuff. Then there are the three "Bob Dylan Live"-era concerts from 62-64, plus the earlier Carnegie Chapter Hall show, which yes, we mostly have, but why not as part of the Bootleg Series? And why wasn't The Other Side of the Mirror a Bootleg Series set including his Complete Newport shows as they exist in audio? Just baffling. And then the Live 65 material was bundled as an insulting MP3 collection, and there's more circulating that they didn't include either. Early 60s Dylan is FAR from dried out. There's enough there for 3-4 deluxe sets, frankly. We probably won't get them, but that's a damn shame.

It seems like the Leon Russell/GHv2 sessions won't get any extra attention, and the '74 tour will probably be a year-end copyright clearing-house (and might not even include uncirculating material, as they've been inconsistent about whether stuff that's locked up in their collection need EU copyright protection or not). Pat Garrett, Planet Waves, Desire sessions? Who knows. Other material from the '75 tour not on the existing box? A "Hard Rain" '76 box? None of these are unreasonable requests from Dylan fans, and they'd all have a certain mainstream appeal without getting into niche "uber-fans only" territory.

'78 box including both Street Legal sessions and tour tapes has been mentioned, and hopefully they'd include rehearsal tapes too. But if Rosen & co. have lost interest in this whole project, it either won't happen, or it will be half-arsed, and methinks he should hand off the reins to someone who cares more. They've mentioned Rundown Rehearsal tapes before -- some of those are '78 and some are from later. Why whet our appetites with talk of a gorgeous "Rainbow Connection" and then not deliver?

Mid/late '80s desperately needs a box too. Heartbreakers and Grateful Dead rehearsals and tours, plus any good demos/outtakes from DITG and KOL with a new mix (and a new mix for those records, if possible).

Do the Oh Mercy set, just like the TOOM one.

Do an early '90s set focusing on the Bromberg album, the two acoustic records, and good live stuff from the era. (Where is "Song to Woody" from the 30th anniv show?)

Do a Love & Theft box (we haven't gotten ANY outtakes from those sessions, ever, right? And you just KNOW they tried out those songs in different styles). Throw Things Have Changed in there too if that helps.

Do a latter-day sessions box.

And for the love of holiness, do a competent NET collection with multi-tracked, matrixed audio in a great mix.

That's all just off the top of my head, and I don't even have access to the archives. This isn't, and shouldn't be, rocket science. The fans want to hear this stuff. Diminishing returns? Yes, at a certain point, but that's why they should have a calendar in place with a clear itinerary over the next decade at least. Stagger the marquee releases with the more niche ones, and interest will maintain. Please don't let the Bootleg Series die. It's probably my favorite archival music thing, ever, and it shouldn't peter out for unclear reasons.

 

It’s interesting that they don’t know what they will release next. I would have thought they would have the next 5 years in advance already sorted.

I don’t want to sound morbid but I reckon we’ll see a lot more after Bob goes. He probably still has some control over what is released. Once Sony has full control they will probably see value in some material that he didn’t (or maybe just didn’t like) and start opening the flood gates.

 

The Bootleg Series needn't just be about focusing on a particular period. For example, I've long desired a collection of rarities, including one-off TV appearances, spanning the years.

 

That’s true. All the shows I saw last year sold out in minutes though so it still seems a bit odd.

 

I think they probably have a pretty good idea, but perhaps it depends on whether it has been agreed by both parties that the contract signed in 2012 has been fulfilled or not. Starting with Volume 10, DylanInc committed to 10 Bootleg Series volumes over 10 years. We've had 8 volumes in 10 years, so in theory 2 volumes are still required under that deal....

...unless it was agreed that the 1966 and 1975 boxes qualified, in which case a new agreement would need to be signed, presumably. I'm assuming, here, that DylanInc still has some say on what Sony can release despite the sale of his past, present and future catalogues to SME.

 

Excellent sleuthing there! It makes total sense that Million Miles would have a Teatro version, because the album version is actually built on one of the Tony Mangurian loops (the one with the reverberant toms that you can hear on the intro). Mangurian even features it on his website in the TOOM page. As for the rest of the unissued Teatro sessions, the compilers probably thought they were low quality (but we have to remember these were the same people who did not include The water is wide on TTS).

 

Glad I held off on this. Ordering now. The price is right.

"Time Out Of Mind" is my favorite Dylan album so this should be a no-brainer on my part. Heh.

 

I have a theory on the nature of the "new mix" that hasn't really been touched on. I think it might have been less about "de-Lanoisfying" the material, and more about creating a coherent listening experience with the outtakes. Here's what I mean: much of what's been said about the vocals (good and bad) talks about the "distortion" on the record as if it's a monolith, but I don't think that's the case, and I think there's some confusion there.

Did they "commit" to distortion on the front end as had previously been accepted as common wisdom? Yes and no. I believe any "distortion" in question on the vocals comes from three places: 1. the microphones and pre-amps used (vintage tube gear, which provides a natural saturation -- this was the step that was fully committed to during the tracking process); 2. a real-time split signal (which went off into a secondary effects loop and could be messed around with or disregarded as needed, even now); and 3. effects dialed-in after tracking during the pre-mix and mix process (which would only exist on the album selects, most likely). Furthermore, there are also lots of other effects on the vocals on the '97 album proper, including chorus, delay, rotary, etc. -- not distortion at all, and probably partially step 2 but mostly step 3.

So here's what I mean: surely the third type of distortion and the other effects wouldn't be on ANY of the outtakes at all, as those elements would have only been applied by Lanois & crew to the takes selected & edited for the album. And likely the "signal split" effects were something that got dialed in as the sessions went on. So the only bit of "distortion" that would have existed across all the session files/tapes would be the analog saturation coming from the signal chain itself. And when layered in with guitars and drums, it doesn't come across as distortion at all, really -- just a rich analog sound with a vintage character. So the confusion about when the "distortion" was applied during the process is understandable, as those involved with the sessions are actually recalling different steps of the process and different points of the signal chain when they're recalling anything.

So if Dylan Inc. were to freshly mix the newly released outtakes but add post-production effects to make it sound like the record? That would be weird and non-historical. But including any of the outtakes with the "clean" (more or less) sound creates a different listening experience than the album, really. So the compromise was to re-interpret the mix process of the album proper, so that the sessions make sense as a cohesive box. (Still, the thing that makes NO sense to me is that they didn't re-mix disc 5 to be more in line with discs 1-3.)

And as usual with Dylan stuff, the "story"/conventional wisdom starts to get thrown around and takes on a life of its own, and suddenly Lanois looks like the bad guy or at least bad as his job. A convenient bit of marketing, perhaps, or just a lazy, shorthand way for people to summarize this project. Sadly, now in many people's eyes, Lanois looks foolish, and that's not fair. Was there a need to re-mix the original album and strip it of its original character? Hell no. (It was AOTY, for chrissakes). Does it make this set better? Probably yes, because of the reasons listed above. It is really unfortunate how Lanois has to be the heel of these tales, and accepted wisdom will now forever remember him as the figure who kept Dylan from his true vision and sullied an otherwise-perfect album, or worse yet as a headstrong, violent lunatic. Do I believe that Dylan & Lanois clashed during the making of the record? Yes -- they are two very stubborn individuals with strong opinions and a lot to lose on this project, and tempers flared. But the results of the original record speak for themselves (although opinions vary fan by fan). Furthermore, everything on this set still has Lanois's fingertips all over it, after-effects or not, and this album would not have existed without his guiding hand. It's really unfortunate that history has been re-written so that Lanois gets criticized over a timeless album that he willed into existence with his own blood, sweat and tears.

So, a bit of practical problem-solving results in a compromise for this new set and a novel mix of the original album. And then the Dylan mythmaking process takes on a life of its own, as per usual.

 

you know what else was required under a contract? 3 volumes of Chronicles!

 

it doesnt matter who owns what, there is only a limited amount of material left.

 

If they did nothing else besides these two projects, especially a massive NET collection, I'd still be thrilled.