Before the tunes, one great piece of trivia about the Great Lake State. Did you know that Michigan is home to the self-proclaimed "magic capital of the world"? That's Colon, Michigan, the world's largest manufacturer of magic supplies. Me neither.
It would have been silly to have a Michigan post without a track from Sufjan's album about his home state. I'm still disappointed that his own musical trip round America foundered after just two states. Buy Greetings from Michigan at Amazon
I've grown a bit tired of Josh Rouse in recent years; he just hasn't released anything particularly exciting. This is from a disc simply called Rarities that comes with the DVD The Smooth Sounds of Josh Rouse. Buy The Smooth Sounds of Josh Rouse at Amazon
A Grammy-winning bona fide country classic, the lyrics of which suggest the Motor City just wasn't the place for poor Bobby. Buy The Essential Bobby Bare at Amazon
As always, tell me what you think of the selections and let me know what I've left off the list. Hopefully the next instalment won't take 12 months to arrive!
I've been to great city of Chicago quite a few times but apart from the interstate that's unfortunately all I've seen of Illinois. My first trip to the Windy City was on a low-budget Gap Year tour of the States. My friend James and I had so little money that we flipped a coin to see who'd take the cameras up to the Sears Tower observation deck. I lost.
For some reason a lot of my favourite artists have written songs about Illinois. Enjoy the selections and let me know any you think I should have included.
Snow. Death. Strange goings-on. To me this conjures up Mid-Western Gothic in much the same way as Wisconsin Death Trip and Fargo do. The Handsome Family, Brett and Rennie Sparks, are always excellent live so do try and catch them on tour at the moment. More Handsome Family:MySpace | Amazon | 7digital
Tom Waits has claimed that his wife Kathleen Brennan can drive a bulldozer and that he married her because she can stick a knitting needle through her lip and still drink coffee. Something about her that's certainly true is that she's from Johnsburg, Illionis. This version is from the Big Time live album. More Tom Waits:BBC | MySpace | Amazon | 7digital
The dubious subject of this epic Zappa workout was a real criminal called Michael Kenyon and such couplets as "From farm to farm/Got a rubberized bag/And a hose on his arm/Lookin' for some rustic co-ed rump" are disturbingly accurate. More Frank Zappa:BBC | official siteAmazon
Our modest Christmas tree is illuminated, a few presents have been bought and so far I've eaten two mince pies this month. If you're not feeling festive yet these seven songs should help.
The Blind Boys' Christmas album contains more hits than misses and starts brilliantly with this track. This is usually the first festive song I play each year and for much of December Jo has to out up me constantly asking, "When was Jesus born?".
The Blind Boys have covered a few Tom Waits songs so it makes sense that he guests on this. Plus, his growl is perfect for preaching. (For those who care about these things, Danny Thompson plays double bass on this track).
What can I say? Certainly one of the strangest Christmas songs ever recorded. You can find it on the Captain's Spotlight Kid album.
Happy Christmas! As usual please leave a comment with your thoughts on yte tracks. For an even more interesting collection of Christmas songs I recommend a visit to Big Rock Candy Mountain - twang, truckers and tinsel abound.
"It's partly like a dream, partly like a drug and partly like a Dylan song."
That's how Todd Haynes described his audacious and amusing vision of the "many lives of Bob Dylan" at the screening I was at last night. It's a pretty accurate summation.
The first Dylan track in I'm Not There is Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again, a song that conjures up images as odd as Shakespeare "speaking to some French girl" and a preacher with "twenty pounds of headlines stapled to his chest". Starting with a song that makes little literal sense sets just the right tone for what follows.
I'm Not There is unlike any music biopic you've ever seen. Instead of recreating a linear narrative à la Walk The Line or Ray, Haynes essentially riffs on various aspects of Dylan's biography and art, so instead of one actor playing 'Bob Dylan' we have six embodying seven distinct persona, none of which are called Bob Dylan.
I'm Not There - Trailer
Cate Blanchett is probably the most unusual bit of casting. She plays Jude, the drug addled rocker who alienates his folk fans by 'going electric'. It was fun to see Haynes' depiction of the Dylan's notorious 1965 Newport performance (complete with axe-wielding Pete Seeger) just a few weeks after seeing The Other Side Of The Mirror. However I found the less obviously fact-based segments more entertaining.
Marcus Carl Franklin, a young black actor, plays 'Woody Guthrie' an 11-year-old hobo with a penchant for metaphysical songwriting. More bizarre is Richard Gere's 'Billy'. This imagines the reclusive Dylan recast as Billy The Kid, who having survived Pat Garret's bullets hides out in the town of Riddle, a Wild West backwater that brings to life some of the weird Americana that Dylan channeled on The Basement Tapes.
Other aspects of Dylan's life weaved into the film are his marriage breakdown (Heath Ledger and Charlotte Gainsbourg) and his reluctance to become the Voice of a Generation protest singer (Christian Bale). Bale also reappears as a 1980s born-again Christian. The Dylan who ate half a library, as memorably recalled in Chronicles, becomes 'Arthur Rimbaud' - Ben Whishaw essentially getting all metaphorical in straight-to-camera monologues.
This unusual approach to biography works brilliantly. In the post-screening Q&A Todd Haynes remarked that Dylan's life has always been markedly delineated - once the protest singer phase ended that was it, he moved straight into psychedelic rocker. Don't look back indeed. I've read and watched a more than healthy amount about Bob Dylan over the years and still find him elusive. That's part of his appeal. Every new thing you learn about him seems to add a further layer of mystery and intrigue. And I'm Not There is nothing if not intriguing. While the film might not elucidate on specifics about Bob Dylan's life it certainly makes you think about him a lot more.
The soundtrack, of course, is terrific - a mix of Dylan originals and covers by the likes of Calexico and Mason Jennings. The film's a visual treat too, taking blatant cues from sources as varied as the French New Wave for the Ledger/Gainsbourg segments and McCabe & Mrs Miller in the Richard Gere western scenes.
Hardcore Dylan fans will obviously have a field day spotting every reference in the film but I'll be more interested by what friends who aren't as familiar with Dylan's biography and songs make of it. I hope it might convert them. I suspect they'll leave the cinema entertained but baffled.
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