"No Direction Home"

[Chuck Nessa]

actually, my favorite performance, and I would love to see the whole thing, was the Gene Vincent -

←

Interesting to me 'cause Vincent was the first "live" act I ever saw (Val-Air Ballroom, Des Moines sometime in the '50s) and the last "big" pop/rock concert I attended was Dylan and The Band in the Boston Garden circa 1973.

[Peter Johnson]

actually, my favorite performance, and I would love to see the whole thing, was the Gene Vincent -

←

Interesting to me 'cause Vincent was the first "live" act I ever saw (Val-Air Ballroom, Des Moines sometime in the '50s) and the last "big" pop/rock concert I attended was Dylan and The Band in the Boston Garden circa 1973.

←

Sheesh, if only...my first "live" act was Duran Duran/David Bowie in Portland, OR in 1988. Not counting the Oregon Symphony, of course. Oh well, we all have to come to the music somehow!

Sorry for the hijack. Carry on...

[Stereojack]

actually, my favorite performance, and I would love to see the whole thing, was the Gene Vincent -

←

Interesting to me 'cause Vincent was the first "live" act I ever saw (Val-Air Ballroom, Des Moines sometime in the '50s) and the last "big" pop/rock concert I attended was Dylan and The Band in the Boston Garden circa 1973.

←

"Gene Vincent At Town Hall Party" (Bear Family) is a nice DVD of several Vincent shows from 1958-59. Don't know if the clip in the Dylan film is from it.

I saw Dylan just this past April at the Orpheum in Boston - pretty sad (my spouse loves him). Opening act Merle Haggard was really good, however.

[JSngry]

What does "Val-Air" mean?

[Michael Fitzgerald]

Since you asked......

www.valairballroom.com/history.html

==========================

The Val Air Ballroom opened June, 1939 - the builder & operated was Tom Archer who arrived in Des Moines in 1936. Archer (1895-1963) was a pioneer in the ballroom business. Archer was one of the first entrepreneurs to bring the Big Bands from New York to the Midwest. With his ballrooms in Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska & Missouri, Archer became the nation's leading ballroom operator, responsible for helping famous band leaders, such as Lawrence Welk & Jan Garber get their start.

The Val Air was truly an open-air ballroom, a perfect example of the concept. All on one level, with a roof only over the hardwood dance floor, the stage & service areas such as the checkroom, bars & restrooms. All the rest was covered by big 'drop' sides which were lowered to keep out rain, but were raised for summer evenings of dancing & entertainment. At the west end of the maple dance floor was a polished concrete dance floor which enabled everyone to 'dance under the stars.' Everyone could begin dancing on the 8,000 square foot hardwood dance floor & swing right outside on the concrete dance floor.

June 6, 1939 was opening night for the Val Air Ballroom. Admission prices were 85 cents for gentlemen & 25 cents for ladies. Attendance was estimated at 2,500. The opening act was Ted Lewis & his dance band. The remainder of the season was filled with such big names as Doc Lawson, Hal Leonard, Art Kassell, Ted Weems, Duke Ellington, Tiny Hill, Blue Barron, Eddy Duchin, Sammy Kaye, Wayne King, Shep Fields, Phil Harris & many others.

The Val Air Ballroom was named in a public contest held in May of 1939. With more than 2,000 entries, the winning entry combined Val for Valley Junction & Air for open-air ballroom. A cash prize of $25 was awarded to W.D. Graham & Maurice Ward.

In 1961, there was a tragic fire at the Val Air. The damage was estimated at $100,000. Archer rebuilt the Val Air, better than ever. A new maple dance floor was laid & other improvements were made. The ballroom continued to offer Big Band entertainment on most Saturday nights, booking all the big bands that were still touring the nation.

The 50's brought new music to everyone - Rock 'N Roll. As tastes changed, so did the offerings at the Val Air. The Ballroom began to book the present rising stars of Rock 'N Roll on Thursday nights. The concerts were so popular that the Val Air would sell out on many occasions. Bobby Vee, Tommy Roe, Lou Christie, Jan & Dean & many other stars performed at the Val Air in the 50's.

There have been many changes for the Val Air Ballroom over these many years - from Big Band music to Rock 'N Roll to Country to Hip Hop and in addition, the Val Air also specializes in all types of private parties - wedding receptions, proms, fund raising dances, annual meetings, luncheons, fashion shows, Christmas parties, political rallies & much more. With it's special art deco atmosphere & individualized service, The Val Air Ballroom has become on the most popular places in Central Iowa to hold parties for groups of 300 - 3,000 people.

======================

Mike

[ghost of miles]

I didn't realize that there was film footage of the 1966 "Judas!" exchange. Did most of that '66 material come from Pennebaker (I'd still like to see an unedited Eat the Document some day).

You nailed it re: the reporters, Mike. I think the way Scorsese strung together those press conferences gave a good sense of the weariness Dylan was beginning to feel by late '65/early '66 (whereas in Don't Look Back he still seems more playful as he's skewering his journalistic interrogators).

[Christiern]

The ghosts of New Orleans

By Bob Dylan

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2005

One of the passages in Bob Dylan's "Chronicles, Volume One" is about

time he spent in New Orleans in the late 1980s. It was written before

the city was devastated by the storm Katrina.

The first thing you notice about New Orleans are the burying grounds - the cemeteries - and they're a cold proposition, one of the best things there are here. Going by, you try to be as quiet as possible, better to let them sleep. Greek, Roman, sepulchres- palatial mausoleums made to order, phantomesque, signs and symbols of hidden decay - ghosts of women and men who have sinned and who've died and are now living in tombs. The past doesn't pass away so quickly here. You could be dead for a long time.

The ghosts race towards the light, you can almost hear the heavy breathing spirits, all determined to get somewhere. New Orleans, unlike a lot of those places you go back to and that don't have the magic anymore, still has got it. Night can swallow you up, yet none of it touches you. Around any corner, there's a promise of something daring and ideal and things are just getting going. There's something obscenely joyful behind every door, either that or somebody crying with their head in their hands. A lazy rhythm looms in the dreamy air and the atmosphere pulsates with bygone duels, past-life romance, comrades requesting comrades to aid them in some way. You can't see it, but you know it's here. Somebody is always sinking. Everyone seems to be from some very old Southern families. Either that or a foreigner. I like the way it is.

There are a lot of places I like, but I like New Orleans better. There's a thousand different angles at any moment. At any time you could run into a ritual honoring some vaguely known queen. Bluebloods, titled persons like crazy drunks, lean weakly against the walls and drag themselves through the gutter. Even they seem to have insights you might want to listen to. No action seems inappropriate here. The city is one very long poem. Gardens full of pansies, pink petunias, opiates. Flower-bedecked shrines, white myrtles, bougainvillea and purple oleander stimulate your senses, make you feel cool and clear inside.

Everything in New Orleans is a good idea. Bijou temple-type cottages and lyric cathedrals side by side. Houses and mansions, structures of wild grace. Italianate, Gothic, Romanesque, Greek Revival standing in a long line in the rain. Roman Catholic art. Sweeping front porches, turrets, cast-iron balconies, colonnades- 30-foot columns, gloriously beautiful- double pitched roofs, all the architecture of the whole wide world and it doesn't move. All that and a town square where public executions took place. In New Orleans you could almost see other dimensions. There's only one day at a time here, then it's tonight and then tomorrow will be today again. Chronic melancholia hanging from the trees. You never get tired of it. After a while you start to feel like a ghost from one of the tombs, like you're in a wax museum below crimson clouds. Spirit empire. Wealthy empire. One of Napoleon's generals, Lallemaud, was said to have come here to check it out, looking for a place for his commander to seek refuge after Waterloo. He scouted around and left, said that here the devil is damned, just like everybody else, only worse. The devil comes here and sighs. New Orleans. Exquisite, old-fashioned. A great place to live vicariously. Nothing makes any difference and you never feel hurt, a great place to really hit on things. Somebody puts something in front of you here and you might as well drink it. Great place to be intimate or do nothing. A place to come and hope you'll get smart - to feed pigeons looking for handouts. A great place to record. It has to be - or so I thought.

(Excerpted from ''Chronicles, Volume One'' by Bob Dylan. Copyright © 2004 by Bob Dylan.)

Edited September 28, 2005 by Christiern

[jazzbo]

Well, here's the perspective of one person who was not at all into Dylan and watched the move: my wife Helen.

She rolled her eyes at the thought of my watching this and was prepared to walk away the first night and call a friend in the bedroom or do something else.

She got hooked in the first few minutes though and watched the whole night, and the next. She thought it was "fascinating." She felt that she enjoyed Dylan's performances more than she ever had before.

This film reinforced my impression from reading "Positively Fourth Street" of how ingenious Dylan was of creating himself anew. He totally ejected his former Bob Zimmerman identity when he went to NYC the first time and especially when he returned, and created the Dylan persona and stuck to it. I really believe that he didn't have that much interaction with his family since. I moved 1400 miles away from my family at a later age and if you did a boring chronicle of my life since you would see little interaction with my family. I felt that this documentary was great living history. I relished in the interviews with the musicians. I relished Dylan's responses to questioning. I relished the footage of performances and interviews. Sure I'd like to see a similar documentary of further eras of his career, but I felt that the choice of this time frame was functional and enlightening.

[Stereojack]

Where was it said, or been written, that Dylan broke off contact with his family? His personal life has always been well guarded, and that includes his wife and his children. All of this speculation just feeds the man of mystery myth that he and the press cultivated so well.

[AllenLowe]

1) I have, in the past, read numerous references to this mother, whom I know he was in touch with over the years; don't recall about his father, but will have to consult the Howard Sounes bio, which is very good.

2)National Lampoon did a Zimmerman comics years ago, a hilarious send off of Dylan's life; don't know if anybody remembers it -

3)As for Dylan's persona in those films: yes, maybe the interviewers were clueless idiots, but I've always found the Dylan persona of that era to be quite narcissistic/repulsive; he was a complete a-hole, arrogant in a way which detracts from more than a little bit of the music - I was struck during the documentary with how sloppy and lazy a lot of his writing is on songs like Desolation Row - forced rhymes, pseuo-symbolist references, things clearly dashed off by someone who was writing too much, too fast in those days; in my forthocming rock and roll history (self plug) I make the point that I think it's somewhat ironic that, for all our consideration of Dylan the poet, his greatest contribution seems to be musical, in his formulation of the group folk/rock sound, his very smart melodicism and, surprise surprise, in his vocal time and phrasing, whic are absolutely masterful in the 1960s - the arrogance of his lyrics really hurts longs like "Like a Rolling Stone" POsitively Fourth Street" Don't Think Twice", reducing them to personal revenge and re-dress instead of musical poetry. Just my opinion -

[Stereojack]

3)As for Dylan's persona in those films: yes, maybe the interviewers were clueless idiots, but I've always found the Dylan persona of that era to be quite narcissistic/repulsive; he was a complete a-hole, arrogant in a way which detracts from more than a little bit of the music

←

As somebody who was a big Dylan fan back then, I was at the time repulsed by his arrogance, but also fascinated. I'm not so sure, and we may never know, what Dylan was like off-camera. "Don't Look Back" and some of the candid footage from the electric tour show a man that's under a lot of stress, and as the film demonstrates, needing to take some time off. And let's face it, most of the interviewers were completely clueless, and Bob didn't cut them any slack. I assume that the excerpts that ended up in "Don't Look Back" and elsewhere were the parts that the filmmakers thought were the most amusing. Bob does appear flippant, but how would any intelligent high profile person respond to such idiocy?

[jazzbo]

I can see where you formulate that opinion. . . I don't know. I think that he was trying for a Kerouacian sort of stream of conciousness and seeming lack of editing, and I think that muse didn't fail him, I think he succeded. And I think that the Swiftian nature of his mean-spirited lyrics lifts them somehow, they're poignant rather than being arrogant. Just me I guess.

Also, from what I have heard and seen of other interviews and these in the documentary. . . .Seemed more liking tilting at windmills and being very clever and quickwitted than narcissistic and repulsive to me. And I love how he refuses to buy into the methodology and intent of the press and jousts with them instead. High entertainment!

[AllenLowe]

I guess I see it differently - I find his responses kind of intellectually leaden, unclever and not particulary pithy - just insider references meant to assure the hip that he is one of them and vice-versa -

Edited September 28, 2005 by AllenLowe

[jazzbo]

I guess we see it differently.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

In terms of major musicians of the time who were subjected to press conferences, I have to compare Dylan and The Beatles - and while totally irreverant, The Beatles ended up being seen more as "lovable" rather than being seen as "narcissistic" etc. Obviously there are differences - they had the benefit of four of them who could joke and juggle between themselves, etc. But The Beatles didn't turn the spotlight back on the interviewer the way Dylan did.

"What do *you* think?" - I heard Dylan ask last night. When the interviewer said, "Well, actually I've never listened to your music. This is just my job." - I mean, Jesus Christ!!!!!

Mike

[AllenLowe]

yeah, well, when it comes to journalists, some things never change - from Howard Reich to Dan Rather -

[Stereojack]

"What do *you* think?" - I heard Dylan ask last night. When the interviewer said, "Well, actually I've never listened to your music. This is just my job." - I mean, Jesus Christ!!!!!

←

My reaction exactly - WTF?????

[skeith]

Not sure why Scorsese should get so much credit for merely assembling a lot of great footage shot by Lerner and Pennebaker.

I had no idea that this film was stopping in 1966 and as the program was grinding into its 3 hour last night I found myself thinking isn't Marty going to get to Blonde on Blonde and more electric Dylan - he only has a half hour left? In the interview afterwards he says the documentary was intended to stop in 66, I guess because there is little or no footage after that, but the viewer watching up until that moment has no idea.

I had a couple of other major beefs:

1) I think that Dylan's move to more, for a lack of a better word, "stream of consciousness" type lyrics as opposed to "topical" or protest songs was as radical as going electric and he did it before going electric. The reason for this change was not really explored. I guess cause Dylan still hates interviewers, even if they are Marty, and hates discussing his music.

2)There is discussion of how Dylan influenced rock and roll- he says the rock groups started doing his songs- but little discussion of how rock and roll influenced him. I think he has said before that the Beatles caused him to go electric. To leave this out of the documentary seems a major flaw.

As a film I much prefer Don't Look Back to No Direction Home.

[Michael Fitzgerald]

I agree - I was surprised to learn that the very revealing interview wasn't done specifically by Scorsese. It didn't seem like he had involvement in that aspect and he was just some guy who came in after the fact. I mean, he's certainly well-qualified and I think he did a good job.

I really didn't pay attention to the preliminary hype, so I also didn't know it was going to be such a small scope. I was all set to make accusations about glossing over 35 years or whatever, but I'm glad for the limitation. I'd rather have this than something that tries to do the entire life and career and fails.

Mike

[Christiern]

Scorcese's blues series was also a great disappointment, IMO.

[Stereojack]

Much of the pre-air promo made it clear that this was to focus on the career up to 1966. I guess for those who didn't see any of that, they might have expected more. The fact that it focussed entirely on the years during which his greatest work was done (my opinion, but I'm not alone) is what drew me to watch it.

Scorsese's involvement seems to have been to gather together all of the footage, and also to lend his name to the project, which certainly raised its profile.

[AllenLowe]

I agree with these preceding criticisms, but will add that there is so much good coverage here, so much good footage and interview material that this is an invaluable historical document (and also a lot of fun) - also, having Scorcese as director probably opened up a lot of doors in terms of permissions for use of footage -

Edited September 28, 2005 by AllenLowe

[patricia]

I watched the film, the last part last night, and was facinated.

The scene that I thought was very disturbing was the one in which Dylan was in the car and the young English woman was demanding that he sign a piece of paper for her. Everybody wanted a piece of him. It must have been very exasperating for him. He has never described himself as anything but an entertainer who was lucky to be working. His iconic status was thrust upon him by those who wanted to see a serious message in everything he did.

He was a kid. I was reminded of how young he was. Iconic status is a heavy burden to put on the shoulders of a kid. Even today it puzzles him and rightly so.

Having said that, I think that the lylics to "Masters Of War" spoke to me then and continue to speak to me now. Anyone who reads my political posts can, I think, see that I am anti-war and that was partially due to Dylan's lyrics to that song, as well as other contributing factors.

Edited September 28, 2005 by patricia

[skeith]

Much of the pre-air promo made it clear that this was to focus on the career up to 1966. I guess for those who didn't see any of that, they might have expected more. The fact that it focussed entirely on the years during which his greatest work was done (my opinion, but I'm not alone) is what drew me to watch it.

←

I tend to agree that those were Dylan's greatest years, but even so the Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 material got comparatively little attention. And to not even discuss Blonde on Blonde is borderline criminal. That album came out in 1966 if I remember correctly.

[jazzbo]

Good point Patricia, it really was interesting to me to see how Dylan kept putting questions back as to "who says I'm this or that? why does my stuff have this or that message?" I saw him fighting to qualify his work and standing, unsuccessfully for the most part.

The lyrics to "Masters of War" and so many others are just outstanding. I think there really is something to Ginsburg's statement of him focusing the breath and the column of air etc. Extraordinary stuff! I mean those words to say "It's Alright Ma" . . . wow. . . the beat, the flow, the sound, the words themselves. . . who else did that? I think I remember Dylan saying that he certainly can't do that now and for some time and marvels at it.