posted by pinemikey
Link at: http://www.nme.com/news/111454.htm


THE TIMES THEY ARE A-BORING!



BOB DYLAN has launched a withering attack on contemporary rock bands in the programme notes for his latest American tour.

"I know there are groups at the top of the charts that are hailed as the saviours of rock'n'roll and all that, but they are amateurs. They don't know where the music comes from," he wrote, adding, “I wouldn't even think about playing music if I was born in these times... I'd probably turn to something like mathematics. That would interest me. Architecture would interest me. Something like that."

As previously reported Dylan’s latest leg of his so-called 'Never Ending Tour' opens in Seattle on March 7 and winds up with a five night stint at New York's Beacon Theater, April 25 -30.

Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese's two-part Bob Dylan documentary, ’No Direction Home’, is now likely to air on BBC2 in late September.

Concentrating on Dylan’s career from his arrival in Greenwich Village until his 1966 motorcycle crash, the film will draw on previously unseen archive footage from the singer’s own personal collection, plus new interview material.

[Appropriate commentary on the trend towards less substance and more splash in the RIAA stables.]

The people that DO know where the music comes from are also pissed because it was all stolen from them, unpaid.

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In 1964 the Beatles took America by storm on the basis of some catchy original songs and a scattering of '50's rock'n roll retreads like "Matchbox." In quick succession they were followed by bands like the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Animals, Them, the Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd. What would become known as the "British Invasion" changed the face of American-and world--pop music forever.

What got lost between the lines was that the white British Invasion was fueled by black American blues.

"Matchbox" is a good case in point because the Fab Four said they learned it off the 1957 Dance Album by rockabilly pioneer, Carl Perkins. Carl didn't say where he picked it up, but he readily admitted that "I just speeded up some of the slow blues licks" for his seminal rock guitar style. He is also given writer's credit for "Matchbox."

"Matchbox" was written and recorded by blues legend Blind Lemon Jefferson in 1927.

The Beatles were not alone in their usurpation of African American blues. The Rolling Stones took their name from a song by blues icon Muddy Waters and patterned their band after the Waters' band. Many of their "original" hits were direct lifts from older blues recordings. "Whole Lotta Love," Led Zeppelin's only Top10 single, was a close copy of an earlier song by bluesman Willie Dixon. Dixon heard the song 15 years later, sued and won a rare settlement.

The blues can rightfully be called the fountainhead of 20th Century pop music, out of which flowed jazz, swing, bop, rock, and-yes-county and western. It was born in Africa, nourished in the wretchedness of slavery and raised in the cauldron of segregation. It is a unique music of an oppressed and unbeaten people, unique because of its honesty, dignity and defiance, and its ultimate 12 bar truth.

The blues is also unique because none of its creators reaped any of the incredible financial payoffs it generated. From the beginning, wads of money flowed not to the community from which the blues emerged, but to the looters who ran away with it.

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Complete story at
http://www.counterpunch.com/santina02192005.html

I can't remember the last time I heard a new Dylan song. And I damn sure wouldn't buy his newest album without hearing it--even if I would buy an RIAA album. The only time I've seen him at all in the last few years was in that stupid commercial for Victoria's Secret (I think). And does he include his son's group in that "amateur" category?

Dylan, like most of these ancient curmugenous rockers, has lost touch with today's youth. Granted, there is an unlimited assortment of ignorant pions that infect the mainstream record stores for the latest candy-coated drivel and MTV certainly is a testament to a great divide between the consumer zombies and a large unspoken for mass of indie, underground and "outside of the mainstream" music fans. Not to mention that most of the fodder pumped out from record labels caters to the unimaginable, the unabsorbing fat and the unthinking that can't get enough of the likes of "greats" like Spears or 50 Cent. But don't assume ALL Bob. Some of us seek out (painstakingly) good music both old and new. It is still accessible and available and some (dare I say) even dwarf the talents of some of the pioneers of long ago in the rock world.