Exactly Nabs. I think I’ve been reading it ever since it was first published. Just about due for another turn, come to think of it … will we ever get outta this place, as Mr Burden nearly sang.

…cripes… must sleep.

Toodlepip!

Thanks also, Nabs, and Lefty E - will report back on my reading list. Though I’ve got the desire to reread Leonard Cohen’s novels first. Beautiful Losers is a favourite.

“Mystery Train” is brillant. “LIpstick Traces” is either brillant or utterly self indulgent or both. I’ve read it several times and still can’t make up my mind. A bit like listening to a Cheap Trick single.

Across the pond, check out Nik Cohn’s “Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom ” and “Ball The Wall” - which has the best essay ever about dandies - from Beau Brummell to Marc Bolan.

Lester Bang’s “Pyschotic Reactions and Carburettor Dung” is also a good if rather single-minded read. But I hafta to say Lester read better when I was reading him in airmailed copies of Creem as a teenager. His work has not aged well. However his album cover notes for the big “Them” double album compilation is still a real pisser.

But for me, the ultimate printed take on rock and roll during its glory go-for-baroque years from the late fifties to the mid-seventies is “Rock Dreams” - big pictures by painter-collagist Guy Peellaert with short but very sharp guitar pick under the fingernails captions by Nik Cohn.

Most well regarded white boy rock writing since then has been NME pissants like Paul Morley or Nick Hornsby. Simon Wirth has penned some good stuff though and Julie Burchill had a few savage yet thoughtful polemics about the genre in “Damaged Gods” and “Sex And Sensibility”.

Basically I read ths shit for what they say beyond rock music - and to enjoy their own riffs on my terms.

Coming back o/t, if you want an absolutely fantastic book that is also packed with insights into the history of music along the way, I couldn’t recommend Bob’s Chronicles strongly enough. I’m just waiting for a little time to pass before I read it for the third time. It is a wonder and a pleasure from start to finish.

Y’know, while I’ve never been a big Dylan fan, he does now more than ever remind you of all the great things about America. His death will be about mourning more than just the lack of a corporeal Zimmerman.

Maybe he went down to the crossroads with Keef.

Imagine the requiems. This guy’s sure gonna get one hell of a send-off. May he bring up the ton first.

And yeah the “Dead Man” soundrack is great. Apparently Neil just did a couple of live continous takes while watching it unrolling onscreen in a mastering studio.

Sounds like it would have been fun to have been here. Dylan makes the list of the top 5 (western) cultural figures of the twentieth century, forget music, he is in the open catagory. It doesn’t matter if you like him or not and it doesn’t matter that they don’t want to go, or if they too young to have the faintest idea; a parent should take their children to see this man live if he comes here again. Here he is kids; this could be the most culturally important person you ever see in your life. Here he is in the room with you now I’ll just lift you up on my shoulders and ask the lady to take our picture…

Going to sleep after a choof with the soundtrack on is something else. I’m told.

I love how the ‘latest commented on’ function can keep a thread alive.

I’ve decided I agree with y’all anyway. Gloria Jeans have offered me an exclusive blog promotion gig to go with their caramel lattes

Since the heady days of the early 60s I think you could make a case that Dylan has gone out of his way to avoid being a significant political voice, apart from the odd foray such as his support for Farm Aid (and I’m not sure that that falls into any conventional left/right dichotomy). I think he’s gone out of his way to alienate the portion of his fan base that likes to pigeon hole him - it’s quite possible that the Starbucks deal is another manouvre in that long term game.

I honestly have no idea what his current politics are, nor do I really care - there’s just something about his music that resonates with me. Certainly lyrically, but also on a raw emotional level as well. I’m an athesit, like Jason, but the best of his overtly christian music still moves me, though I think the worst of it falls into a bland middle of the road rock category. The best songs such as Every Grain of Sand and Slow Train Comin’ are as good as anything he’s done.