“The pistols are poppin’ and the power is down, I’d like to try somethin’ but I’m so far from town…” Ok, I’ll admit it — I reupped for more time, to catch up on political news. And, while doing so, I discovered that Slate, of all places, is not only premiering Bob Dylan’s new video for Thunder on the Mountain, which is chock-full of vintage Dylan footage, but offering a chance to win a guitar signed by the man himself. Cool…but is it strung lefty?
Tag: Modern Times
Ragged & Dirty.
“I hate to break it to Justin Timberlake, but a wheezy old man has recorded the best make-out songs of 2006. Put Modern Times in the CD player, pull your sweetheart close, and — as a young man advised a lifetime or so ago — shut the light, shut the shade.” Also in Slate, Jody Rosen swoons over Bob Dylan’s new album, which I’m listening to for the first time right this minute. So far, it sounds like a more accessible version of Love and Theft…I think I kinda dig it.
Pre-Modern Balladeer.
“What we do understand, if we’re listening, is that we’re three albums into a Dylan renaissance that’s sounding more and more like a period to put beside any in his work. If, beginning with Bringing It All Back Home, Dylan garbed his amphetamine visions in the gloriously grungy clothes of the electric blues and early rock & roll, the musical glories of these three records are grounded in a knowledge of the blues built from the inside out…Dylan offers us nourishment from the root cellar of American cultural life. For an amnesiac society, that’s arguably as mind-expanding an offering as anything in his Sixties work. And with each succeeding record, Dylan’s convergence with his muses grows more effortlessly natural.” In the new Rolling Stone and on the eve of Modern Times (due out this Tuesday), author Jonathan Lethem interviews Bob Dylan. (Via Ed Rants.)
Visions of Alicia.
“I’m wondering where in the world Alicia Keys could be, I been looking for her even clean through Tennessee.” Dylanologists, get your pencils ready: Word is Bob namedrops Alicia Keys on the first track of his new album, Modern Times, due out August 29.
The Times They Are A-Changin’.
I’m a bit late in hearing this excellent news: Bob Dylan’s 44th album, Modern Times (and his first album of original material since Love & Theft, released on 9/11) comes out next month: August 29, to be exact. Tracks include “Thunder on the Mountain,” “Spirit on the Water,” “When the Deal goes Down,” and “Beyond the Horizon.”
This Modern Life.
AICN points the way to the trailer for Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times, soon to be re-released at a theater (possibly) near you. Hmm…I wonder if free-market conservatives will try to protect Frederick Winslow Taylor the way they recently did Ronnie Reagan?