photos by Chris La Putt

Eleanor Friedberger / David Johansen

What Kind of Love Is This:
The Music of BOB DYLAN & THE BAND
w/ Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm Band), John Medeski (Medeski, Martin and Wood), Rob Burger (Laurie Anderson, Marianne Faithful, Iron & Wine), Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Sex Mob), Kenny Wollesen (Norah Jones, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Sex Mob), and special guests Jolie Holland, Laura Cantrell, Nicole Atkins, John Wesley Harding, and Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces. And special Guest Vocalists Chocolate Genius, and David Johansen (New York Dolls).

That's how Sunday night's Bob Dylan tribute show at Le Poisson Rouge was listed. The full setlist with performers listed, more pictures from the event, and two videos, below...

Continue reading "Bob Dylan was celebrated @ Le Poisson Rouge (pics, video & setlist) -- David Johansen, Fiery Furnaces & many more"

Bob Dylan by Greil Marcus: Writings 1968-2010 was recently released, just in time for the holidays...

"The book begins in Berkeley in 1968, and ends with a piece on Dylan's show at the University of Minnesota--his very first appearance at his alma mater--on election night 2008. In between are moments of euphoric discovery: From Marcus's liner notes for the 1967 Basement Tapes (pop music's most famous bootlegged archives) to his exploration of Dylan's reimagining of the American experience in the 1997 Time Out of Mind. And rejection; Marcus's Rolling Stone piece on Dylan's album Self Portrait--often called the most famous record review ever written--began with "What is this shit?" and led to his departure from the magazine for five years. Marcus follows not only recordings but performances, books, movies, and all manner of highways and byways in which Bob Dylan has made himself felt in our culture.

Together the dozens of pieces collected here comprise a portrait of how, throughout his career, Bob Dylan has drawn upon and reinvented the landscape of traditional American song, its myths and choruses, heroes and villains. They are the result of a more than forty-year engagement between an unparalleled singer and a uniquely acute listener."

You can buy it at Amazon, or maybe pick up a copy at the Strand tonight, 12/1, where Greil will be speaking in conversation with Stephen Hazan Arnoff, Director of the 14th Street Y, "and special guests Matt and Eleanor Friedberger of the Fiery Furnaces, who will perform a few songs."

Eleanor & Matt Friedberger will also be on hand at the 14th St Y and Le Poisson Rouge on Sunday, December 5th, for a day of Dylan events. The concert at LPR is this:

What Kind of Love Is This:
The Music of BOB DYLAN & THE BAND
w/ Steven Bernstein (Sex Mob, Levon Helm Band), John Medeski (Medeski, Martin and Wood), Rob Burger (Laurie Anderson, Marianne Faithful, Iron & Wine), Tony Scherr (Bill Frisell, Norah Jones, Sex Mob), Kenny Wollesen (Norah Jones, John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Sex Mob), and special guests Jolie Holland, Laura Cantrell, Nicole Atkins, John Wesley Harding, and Eleanor and Matthew Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces. And special Guest Vocalists Chocolate Genius, and David Johansen (New York Dolls).

$35 tickets are still on sale for that part, and $75 tickets which I guess get you into everything at both spaces, are on sale too. If you just want in the symposium happening at the Y, that's $45, described as "a one-of-a-kind exploration of Bob Dylan and the Band's work, featuring scholars, critics, writers, and artists"

Greil Marcus: Author of the definitive book on Bob Dylan and The Band, Invisible Republic: Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes.

Christopher Ricks: Renowned critic and scholar of English literature and poetry, and author of Dylan's Visions of Sin.

John Niven: Novelist whose book Music from Big Pink vividly imagines the world of Bob Dylan and The Band.

Dana Spiotta: Author of mesmerizing portraits of the 60's underground, including Eat the Document.

Matt Friedberger: Co-founder of the visionary rock band The Fiery Furnaces.

D.A. Pennebaker: Pioneering film documentarian, whose credits include Don't Look Back, the first film on Bob Dylan.

Stephen Hazan Arnoff: Executive Director of the 14th Street Y writes and teaches widely on music, art and religion.

Wesley Stace (John Wesley Harding): Singer-songwriter and award winning author of Misfortune.

William G. Scheele: Museum curator and former Equipment/Stage Manager for Bob Dylan and The Band.

Bob Dylan himself, who recently played three nights in a row at NYC's Terminal 5, is not listed anywhere. Maybe he'll come watch. More info on the whole thing at 14th St. Y's site.

John Wesley Harding also has a show coming up at City Winery.

by Andrew Frisicano

"Saw Marc Ribot, MeShell Nedegocello and Chocolate Genius play together last night @ Rose Live Music. It was amazing and in Williamsburg!" -just_some_pix

Silent Movies...

Inventive avant guitarist Marc Ribot will be releasing a new record, Silent Movies, September 28th on Pi Recordings. As its title suggest, the album expands on Ribot's work scoring film (this year he performed several times with Charlie Chaplin's The Kid)

The album reflects Ribot's fascination with movies and contains pieces intended to function as music for films: some are adaptations of music he has actually written for films, others for classic silent movies that he scored for his personal amusement, still others for films of his own imagination. His goal is to explore, as he says "the strange area between language and spatiality that exists partly in between music and visual image, and partly as a common property of both." Whatever the inspiration, Silent Movies is replete with beautiful melodies and quietly wistful playing of a sort seldom heard from Ribot and delivers a program filled with gentle, haunting songs that evoke the feel of a different time. As he says in the CD's liner notes, the recording project "did indeed have the feeling of having walked backwards into the beautiful frame of a silent movie."

Though the album is a solo work, Ribot, a tireless collaborator, is pairing up with new friends for three nights at Rose Live Music on August 18th (yesterday), 19th (tonight) and 22nd. The first two feature bassist/singer Meshell Ndegeocello, guest vocals Chocolate Genius and drummer Deantoni Parks. For the last, Ribot plays with his Ceramic Dog sidemen Shahzad Ismaily and Ches Smith, and writer Ariana Reines. More info on those is at the Rose Live Music site.

Also coming up is a release show for Silent Movies on September 15th at (Le) Poisson Rouge. Tickets are on sale.

All of Marc Ribot's upcoming tour dates (and the lineups for each) plus a video of Ribot with the Lounge Lizards and John Lurie (whose current "disappearance" got a full write-up in a recenty New Yorker) are below...

Continue reading "Marc Ribot releasing 'Silent Movies', playing more shows "