Fenderesq - your message seems self explanatory but can I just ask for the sake of completeness (and without in any way compromising your source of course), when you say "at the present time", can we take it that includes as recently as over the last few weeks? In other words is your information that recent?
I would love a new album, one that didn't involve Frank Sinatra in any capacity. It's not that I didn't enjoy the Sinatra stuff to a degree. I think that well is pretty much empty and played out. I wouldn't be shocked if Bob is done with doing new music. He's given enough. I hope, like many others, that he has one more album of original songs in him. However, as far as archival material is concerned, there probably is enough stuff to outlast my lifetime.
He's not in the studio "at the present time." That could still be true even if there's an album of new material coming out. Maybe it was recorded last year--or over the past few years, and is now finished. So no need for Bob to be in he studio "at the present time."
Yes; as recently as the end of last week and ongoing as I’m in a position to regularly discuss the question which I do as like so many of us; I too would love an album of new or cover material.
Thanks for the post. As someone who has several rock solid but secondhand connections to the Dylan camp (i.e. if they know it, it’s firsthand and true), I’ve always agonized over passing along to friends, let alone posting online, any bits of info that come my way - not wanting to jeopardize the standing of that person in any way. I did hear two years ago that there were new songs but no indication of any plans to record. I have wondered if bringing Matt Chamberlain and Bob Britt in for the last tour - both super-experienced studio guys - was in some way connected to prepping for a recording but haven’t heard anything. Bob typically works very fast in the studio. A song a day. So if he had the band dialed in, it wouldn’t take long. It would be great to hear at least one more album of new songs but Bob has given me more already than any other artist. If a new album doesn’t come to be, I’d be happy with a great big boxset of highlights of the NET.
I'd be happy if they just went in for a day and laid a NET set live in the studio. He should do that once a year to document the sound he's achieving live in a studio setting. Doesn't have to be released now but even purely for historical purposes, important to get this stuff down - particularly now while he's in the middle of a sizzling hot patch.
That's not as much of a pipe dream as it might seem; and I'm not being coy about this... although I know nothing of any specific plans; many rehearsal and sound check tapes; maybe many many many do exist. Thank you for your understanding of my position.
U Unknown. Back when Bob posted unreleased live recordings on his website, they were often sourced from ROIOs. There’s a version of Dignity on Tell Tale Signs that’s a fan recording from a Niagara Falls outdoor concert. (The entire concert is great btw - primo Freddie Koella). Given how many Dylan ROIOs are on sites like DADozen, I would think that his people are keenly aware of them and probably download for their archives. As someone else posted, Bob and the band have been on fire for the past few tours and his vocal work has improved dramatically. It would be a shame if there wasn’t an official documentation in some way - either live or the band in the studio.
That's High Water on TTS from Niagara Falls 03. If it's an audience recording then it's a pretty good one. They definitely used audience captures of Lonesome Day Blues and Trying' to get to Heaven - both of which stick out like a sore thumb and are significantly inferior to the recording cream of recent years. Think Rolling Stone said many of the official tapes from late 90's/early 00's are lost/destroyed which if true is tragic as that was a golden period. We're in the middle of another one now so hopefully lessons have been learned. This is a genuine historical figure we are talking about here and it's important a proper sample of his late live work is captured in pro sound for posterity.
Just to clarify, the Rolling Stone source commented on the difficulty and limitations of the medium used to record the soundboards in the 1990s and early aughts...DAT tape. The soundboard also was pre-mixed for the House, which is the mix that was recorded. This was confirmed by a conversation I had with Michael Chaiken, head archivist of the Dylan Archive in Tulsa, when I was there for the Dylan Conference this past May/June. The Archive has all of the soundboard recordings of Dylan's tours until 3-5 years ago. Those are then sent to the Archive when Dylan is ready to do so. The impression I got from the Rolling Stone article was that the soundboard recordings lacked some of the dynamism of the audience recordings. I have not heard anything to suggest the recordings are or were lost. The only tour I have heard that about was the 1978 tour.
Correct. "The source", speaking about the 1978 tapes told rollingstone.com (2014-01-23) "Unfortunately, somebody erased most of the tapes. (…) We had soundboards of all of them. We do have a couple now, though.“
So is it that they have tonnes of soundboards from the late 90's/early 00's but they just don't sound very good because of the way they were taped? They can't be mixed after the fact or spruced up a bit? Forgive my ignorance on such matters but I am curious. And assuming they are no longer using DAT tapes, I'm hoping that since that time all shows are recorded digitally and in much better quality? In other words, is there a tonne of stuff that could be released in the future from recent years that is in pristine sound quality and (if mastered properly) even better than the best of the audience captures we have been relying on? Crazy that there hasn't been an official live album release of anything post 94 (Unplugged) 26 years ago...
Here's what "the source" (thought to be the producer of the Bootleg Series, Jeff Rosen) told rollingstone.com on September 25, 2017: The latter [the Never Ending Tour] is a particularly challenging project since it involves over 2,800 concerts between 1988 and the present day. Dylan's road crew has been recording shows dating back to the beginning of the Never Ending Tour, but the quality of them up until the mid-2000's is less than stellar. "Some of them are recorded on DAT or other formats of the moment," says the source. "Who knew they wouldn't last? For a lot of years during the 1990s, there were these two fans and they would go and each would wear recording equipment in their hats and they'd sit in different sections so that the stuff would be stereo. Those tapes sound better than our board tapes." In recent years, many artists have started offering their fans recordings of every single concert. Nugs.net – which facilitates this service for Bruce Springsteen, Pearl Jam, Phish, Metallica and many others – have approached Dylan's team without any luck. "We're not big believers in the live download the ways those guys are doing it," says the source. "People like it and we've thought about it for a lot of years, but we just don't know." One problem the source points to is the lack of manpower on the road to oversee the taping. "In regards to front-of-house sound, we don't have the kind of organization that Bruce Springsteen has," says the source. "They have someone doing a separate mix and they're looking at it as a profit center. We focus our energy on what the live sound sounds like. If you get a board tape that someone hasn't done a remix of, you're always disappointed in what they sound like. They're not as electric as the shows themselves. That's one reason we choose the Rolling Thunder period. Someone was doing a separate board mix. All the way back to Richard Alderson, who did the 1966 tour, some engineers take it upon themselves to do both, but that is very hard." But couldn't the Dylan organization simply hire a separate sound engineer to go on tour and create a mix for downloads? "That's not where we're at," says the source. "Again, our focus is to try and present a show in the moment to the people. And also, I don't know how many downloads we want to have out there. We're more excited about curating new stuff for people. If people really want to find that stuff, it's all over the Internet."
Thank you for posting that Echo. I was searching around for that article for JudasPriest, but I couldn't find it with a cursory search.
Yes, thanks Echo (and Hatmatter for trying) - remember the article from the time but not the precise detail. Fingers crossed some day we get a box set (or series of box sets) that the NET truly deserves. And as for new studio activity, can only hope somethings happened (even if not a new album) or will in the not too distant future.
This certainly suggests there's something going on..... Gina Gershon: I Hit Bob Dylan in the Face During Our First Meeting
And Gershon, 57, was given a little preview of some new material Dylan had been working on: "He read me some lyrics he was writing and he was all excited...," she recalled. "I was thinking, 'Oh my God, this is so cool.' You could see why he still loves doing what he does and he's excited..."
Fenderesq - don't mean this in any way badly as took your intel in good faith and as valuable insight - what do you make of the latest revelations?
Of all the pains of being BOB DYLAN....and I am sure those travails are many, and serious....I think I'd take 'em all on if one reward was being pals with Gina Gershon.
