The Saturday Morning Car-Tune News Report 07.25.09: Trying To Get Closer, But Still a Million Miles From Bob Dylan

Posted by Lucas Wesley on 07.25.2009

A Beastie Boy has cancer, Trent Reznor is a little girl, the Feelies are back (kind of, in a literal sense), what Thom Yorke has to do with Twilight and Beck is still busy, along with a brief concert review for the Bob Dylan, John Mellencamp, Willie Nelson show! Read all about it in the Saturday Morning Car-Tune News!

Welcome to week five of the Saturday Morning Car-Tune News Report!

As I mentioned last week, on Sunday I saw Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson and Johnny Cougar. It was pretty awesome. It was SRO, at least if you wanted to be near the stage, so I ended up standing for a good five hours. But I was about twenty feet from the stage, so I guess that makes limping for the next few days worth it.


This did not happen at the show I saw. Alas.

Dylan sounded clearer than he has since like 1997. And he talked! He talked! He talked! About stuff! Mostly how he was dedicating "Million Miles" to "the most newsworthy newsman, Walter Cronkite," because the first two lines sum up his thoughts on Cronkite's death. I was kind of bummed because he played "Blind Willie McTell" recently and I didn't get any such super cool song, but I did get a rockin' "Gotta Serve Somebody," so win some, lose some. Only one encore, though, which also was kinda lame, but he went about an hour and a half, so I can't really complain.

Johnny Cougar was okay, but the weakest of the three. In the middle of his set, played a three song acoustic medley of sorts, featuring "I Need A Lover," a new song called "Save Some Time to Dream," then "Small Town." He did a few other acoustic songs, but those were the important ones. Credit where credit's due, violinist is better than most full string sections. Not to mention the fact that opener "Pink Houses," "Authority Song" and closer "Jack & Diane" are still massive crowd pleasers.

Willie was awesome. He had the most crowd interaction, pointing at people at random times if they held their hands up or did stuff. I double peace signed him, I got pointed at. That's right. he played "Still Is Still Moving To Me," one of my favorites, so that made me happy. His voice isn't very strong, as shown by his refusal to even try high notes (though he did try to growl a few times, especially in "Me And Bobby McGee") and Bobbi's piano playing has gotten a little sloppy, but there's no real complaints because it was still great. Willie's also probably the biggest name in music to allow his percussion man (son of Paul from Me and Paul) play a pineapple maraca.

The opening band was called The Wyios, and they rocked it, too. Very charismatic leader. And he played a washboard. Name a cooler instrument.



And now the super negative I almost, impossibly, forgot about. In the middle of "If You Ever Go To Houston," some dude not three people in front of me decides to try a little public urination. On some dudes leg, or foot, or something. There was very near a fight. We all felt relieved when he was arrested during the next song, or so we thought, because I saw him in the bathroom before I left, presumably not in (a) holding (cell). Also all the merchandise sucked and I bought a $3 Sprite, but it was needed.

But let's not let something so unrelated to the music mar the concert.

In fact, I'll end with an equally irrelevant, but positive thing, which we will count to the concert experience. There was a big beach ball type thing being thrown around and it got thrown on stage during High Water. It rolled directly next to Bob's keyboard and stopped. He looked at it with the silliest "wtf?" face, not missing a beat in the song. The first chance he gets he starts laughing.

All in all, not a person there didn't rock that bitch. More on concerts in Star Power, but for now, the news!



- Things were looking up for the Beastie Boys. They had an album on the way, some well reviewed reissues, and they were rockin' the tour circuit. Then, Adam Yauch, also known as MCA, was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in a salivary gland. This has caused the Boys to cancel all of their future tour dates and postpone the release of the upcoming Hot Sauce Committee Part 1. The tumor is "very treatable" and MCA seems positive and in good humor, but it's of course still very unfortunate, frightening news. Hope he gets well soon.

- Finalizing the break up plans set in motion a few months ago, Harvey Danger have announced a final six show tour. While most of the world knows them as "those Flagpole Sitta guys," fans of TV's Californication may recognize their song "Little Round Mirrors." To be honest, they are a middling band, but they had a few great tracks and deserve a nice send off, so check out the shows if you get a chance.

- Nikki Sixx of Motley Crue is jumping on the famous but irrelevant musicians against the Internet bandwagon. According to him, fans taking pictures of Cruefest on their iPhones ruins Christmas. That's some weird kind of hyperbole that I can't begin to understand. Then he went on about how he doesn't like people using the Internet to rate movies. Oh, Nikki Sixx. You're so silly and outdated. Just like Motley Crue!



- Trent Reznor has deleted his twitter account! If he were a sixteen-year-old girl, the high schools would be all concerned! Unfortunately, he only has the mind of a sixteen-year-old girl, so instead only fans of diminishing returns are concerned.

- Indie musician Chris Knox has been recovering from a recent stroke lately, and now his rocker friends are going to help out. A collection of cover songs featuring Jeff Mangum, Jay Reatard, Yo La Tengo, Lou Barlow, Guided By Voices, The Magnetic Fields and several others, titled Stroke, will be released, proceeds going to Knox while he continues to recover. Here's to hoping that Knox manages to get well soon with all his friendly support. He certainly has some very talented friends, and I'm sure the compilation will in the very least have some great standouts.

- We're almost six stories in and no Beck news? What? Just kidding. A future album has been named for his ongoing Record Club series (now up to All Tomorrow's Parties). Performing with Wilco, Beck has covered Skip Spence's cult favorite Oar. Keeping it cool obscure, that's the way to be. Check out all this and more, as always, at Beck.com.

- Feelies are finally reissuing their debut Crazy Rhythms. The album is noted for influencing R.E.M. and all jangle pop beyond that, and for featuring a cover of The Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something to Hide (Except Me and My Monkey)." Their second album, The Good Earth will also be reissued. Both are due for September 8.

- The judges for the Independent Music Awards have been announced. They include Tom Waits, Pete Wentz, She & Him, Aimee Mann, The Black Keys, the Apples in Stereo and Korn's Brian Welch, amongst several others. I'd be interested to find out what Tom Waits and Pete Wentz will agree on. That'd certainly be something.

- With songs from Thom Yorke and Bon Iver confirmed by the director, Twilight sequel New Moon is looking to be the next Juno. Which is both kind of funny and really weird.



- Another track from The Blueprint 3, featuring Jay-Z alongside Kanye West and Rihanna has materialized. It's pretty spectacular. All my doubts about this album are slowly fading away, although I never could explain why I had them in the first place. Jay-Z just instills some odd fear in me. But it never comes true.

- While I sit here and wait for the next Sean Lennon album (hopefully coming soon on his new label, Chimera Records), I get excited to learn that his writing buddy Jordan Galland has done a few songs of his own. Covers of "Hungry Like The Wolf" and "Bad Cover Version" are available to those that search, and they both lead me to believe that while Sean's still a genius, he has one hell of a partner in crime. Jordan's not just an occasional lyricist as I once assumed.

- Phish phood, anyone? The band has announced the release date of their latest opus, Joy, as September 8. But wait! There's more for you phans! The band is also going to be playing Festival 8 in Indio, California. The festival will feature eight performances by the band, including one of their famous Halloween sets. I hope it's a new, interesting album, but I probably wouldn't listen to it anyway. I don't like Phish, I just wanted to make the phood joke.

Star Power

As hinted at earlier, this weeks Star Power is going to be a look at the history of live music along with various elements about live music that interest me and compel me to write. We're going to focus on the more modern era of music, or as some call it the rock era. Therefore, there will be no discussion of classical performances or vaudeville. My apologies to curious fans of either art, I simply don't know much about it.

At the start of the rock era, live music was a relatively simple affair. Essentially music only existed in small clubs and bars. Even the biggest names of the time, like Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis, couldn't, or I guess never had the opportunity to, fill a large arena or stadium. Sure, there were the outdoor festivals, particularly the Newport Folk Festival, but one or two acts alone couldn't draw those crowds. I can't show you the bills to prove this, but that seems to be the common understanding. That all changed with a little group that also changed everything else in music. The Beatles rocked Shea Stadium in 1964, opening the world of stadium concerts. Within three years, The Rolling Stones were curating a rock 'n' roll circus, and Woodstock was born. The Who, Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin were soon to follow the massive stadium route, and crowds were coming out in droves. A little bit before that, Bob Dylan was learning how to piss off and alienate his old fans while concurrently increasing his audience tenfold during his massive concerts, showing another element of his innovation. The massive rock and roll concert had become commonplace.



In addition to this, we had the birth of jam bands. Bands that, no, seriously, my friend swears, are better live than they ever are on record. Leading this crowd was The Grateful Dead, of whom the album Live/Dead was considered amongst the first masterpiece of the new live album medium. The Allman Brothers Band, with At Fillmore East, were soon to follow. And of course, in his short life span, Jimi Hendrix became well known for creating off-the-cuff guitar solos that far surpassed anything he planned out for his albums. Shows such as this were the apex of live music at the time, and with certain acts like the String Cheese Incident and the Disco Biscuits, some would argue they still are. Then there are others (like me) who argue such music is amongst the most boring around. I've seen relationships end over the argument between the two sides, so I won't get into it beyond the earlier mention of my stance on the issue, but I will say that there are different kinds of fans. The fans that enjoy this certainly helped live music become what it is today.

In the interim we saw the birth of arena rock, but the only real "arena" band that meant anything was Queen, and if you're reading some random guy blab about live music, I'm sure you've youtube'd their Live Aid set hundreds of times by now, so I'm going to jump ahead to my next talking point: huge, established bands, taking smaller, relatively unknown bands on the road with them. The first time I saw Bob Dylan, the opener was Amos Lee. He's not completely unknown, having had a song appear on House, but not a soul in the audience could have named one of his albums. The young songwriter, who greatly impressed us with his music, wowed us. The same thing happened last week when The Wyios opened, shocking the audience with showmanship and musicianship that we were completely not expecting. I heard quite a few around me mention with enthusiasm they would be buying their records before long. But it isn't just Dylan and it isn't just personal experience that I base this on. Nine Inch Nails have taken Boris on tour, Radiohead has toured with Grizzly Bear, R.E.M. has toured with Modest Mouse and The National, Ben Folds has toured with a pre-fame Tegan and Sara (then in a reversal of situations, John Mayer), and the list goes on. Such pairings can be huge boons for the smaller act, often giving them a fair share of the larger acts audience. At the very least, it bolsters a great deal of interest.

Of course, there can be the opposite. The famed double bill or triple bill. In this case, we don't see a big name helping out a small name, we see two big names jacking up the prices. Elton John's coming to town Monday, but he's brining Billy Joel with him, making the cheap tickets $100. If it was just Elton, math would imply the tickets would be about $50 (although we know they probably wouldn't be a different price, just play along). That's a price I would happily pay, and I'm sure I would love the show. But throw Billy in the mix and it just isn't worth it. However, it's all fan interest, I guess, because I was completely willing to pay the $100 for Elvis Costello and The Police. There's a certain belief (which I certainly heard when listening to people defend John Mellencamp outranking Willie Nelson) that if you become a Hall of Famer or reach a certain level of legend, you have to be good, and therefore any show you put on has to be great. My refusal to see Billy Joel obviously means I disagree. I understand when musicians are friends (as in John and Joel's case) it makes sense to tour together, but the idea of doing it just to raise ticket prices is greedy and wrong.

Sometimes I just don't get the prices to these things. Are the Smashing Pumpkins really worth the 2-300 dollar range? Or are they just greedy? And if it's the latter, what does that say about the Wu-Tang Clan, who I saw just last year for $35? This is the time-honored question asked by music fans, and I can't really answer it. I suppose it comes down to the fact that if people will pay it, you might as well charge it. That's the dream, right? To get paid for doing what you love?



Which brings me to my next thought. Old rockers jumping on the road despite their advanced age. With talk of Aerosmith's recent plague of injuries and The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney et al nearing 70, is it really necessary they continue touring? Sure, some people like Willie Nelson or Leonard Cohen essentially need to continue touring for monetary reasons, but the others are millionaires already. This is a hard one to crack, since I've never had any discussions with these gentlemen, and obviously am not in their place. But the assumption is just that they truly love it. And there's really no age at which it becomes impossible to sing or play guitar. Some people may be suffering diminishing returns, but others still have it. And even if they don't they aren't about to stop. Of course, there's also the greed theory, which I wouldn't exactly rule out for your Mick Jagger's, but I think both are viable for the rest.

This Star Power wasn't exactly a hot button issue, or even a current one. Rather, it was just a look into something that has existed as long as music, and various aspects and thoughts on it. As such, there's not much I can do to end it except for end it. So go out and enjoy live music, for I have no more to write about it.

Farewell Song

What year are we on again? Oh, right, 1962. Well, what a wacky coincidence that is. This is a song by a legendary performer I saw this week. It was one of his first super hits, although it wasn't really his hit, so to speak. Patsy Cline held the hit. Legend goes our performer of the week was hanging out with Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller at a bar, and they noticed Patsy's husband. He pitched her the song, and although she didn't love it, her producer did and he had her record it. It was a huge hit, despite it's...crazy themes. I'm so silly. That song is of course "Crazy," and the writer in question, who's version we're giving the credit to this week, is Willie Nelson. I can't say for certain if he recorded it this year, but the song deserves credit at one point or another, so why not here? And in case you're curious, yes, he did play it when I saw him, in the form of the 1976 Funny How Time Slips Away/Crazy/Night Life medley. It was beautiful.

Just for giggles because I can do it at this point, I'm also going to name the album of the year. In what I assure you is a coincidence, this year we get Bob Dylan's self-titled debut. It's interesting, though, that the two people I just saw got their famous starts at roughly the same time. Not so shocking though that they would appear here, because, well, wait until we see how often Dylan shows up through the 60's.

That's all for this week, folks. Thanks for joining me again, and I hope you join me again next week, for a less specific but still thrilling edition of The Saturday Morning Car-Tune News!