I reached out to Matt here because he will be presenting one of the John Bushey Memorial Lectures at this year's Duluth Dylan Fest. The free lecture, titled Bob Dylan and his Fans: Searching for Love and Inspiration, will be shared at Wussow's Concert Cafe on Saturday May 27 at 1:30-3:00 pm.
Matt Steichen has worked in journalism and communications in the Twin Cities since 2006. He has presented on the topic of Bob Dylan to a variety of audiences, including at the Macalester College Dylan Summit, and written about Dylan for the Minneapolis Star Tribune. He hosts The Bobcats, A Bob Dylan Fan Podcast, and is co-contributor to the new book Bob Dylan in Minnesota: Troubadour Tales from Duluth, Hibbing and Dinkytown, which will be released later this month.
 |
| Steichen family in front of Bob Dylan's Hibbing home 2 blocks from high school |
EN: That's exactly how I feel as well. How did Bob Dylan's music first come to resonate with you on a deeper level?
MS: I listened to his Greatest Hits album from the time I was a really little kid, but I would say my eureka moment came when I was around 13 and my older brother brought home Don’t Look Back. I didn’t like most of the documentary because Bob acted like such a jerk in a lot of it. But then he sang The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll and that totally changed my perspective on what music could be. It told a story about an injustice and had a moral lesson. And the way it was delivered made a whole theater be quiet and listen to every single word. Up to that point I’d thought of music as a background thing you’d play at a party or a barbeque or something, but after that I saw that it could be so much more than that. It could be artistic and socially relevant. Of course that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Bob’s catalog.
 |
| Steichens in front of 5-story mural in Minneapolis |
MS: I’ll talk about this in Duluth as well, but the basic story is this: I was attending the second of three shows in the midwest in the summer of 2004. You could say “suddenly I turned around and she was standing there.” I was first in line for that show so I was at the center of the stage at the rail, and upon arriving at my spot I turned around and she was directly behind me in the general admission crowd. We chatted a bit and it turned out we’d already been to several of the same Bob shows. I thought she was probably a local high schooler attending her first concert, so when she said she’d seen him many times, including the previous fall in Paris I was really impressed. We kept in touch a bit via email, I sent her some recordings, and then the next year we ended up going to five shows together.
 |
| Following Dylan is a family adventure. |
MS: I work in communications for a school district in the Twin Cities, so I’m not an educator but I am in education. The only time I put my teacher hat on is when I visit History of Rock n Roll classes at local high schools. They have a “Bob Dylan Day” and I talk for 45 minutes about who Bob is (a lot of them don’t know), what he’s accomplished, and about his cultural and historical impact. Considering the enormous role Bob has played in popular culture over the last 60 years and that he’s from Minnesota just like them, I think it’s a good thing for them to have a general understanding of who he is.
When I was growing up in the early ‘90s, Bob was just about the least culturally relevant he’s ever been, and I still found my way to his music. My kids are 70 years younger than Bob and they all enjoy his music. And given how much more accessible technology has made his music, I don’t see any reason why future generations won’t keep going back to it.
EN: Some people think Dylan will be the one singer/songwriter from this past 50 years that will still be studied 100 years from now. Do you agree with that assessment and why do you think that is?
MS: I do agree. If you listen to my podcast episode with Sean Latham from the University of Tulsa (The Bobcats, a Bob Dylan Fan Podcast), he provides some really great perspective on this. He says that because Bob incorporates so many real events, real people, cultural references, slang terms, jokes, etc, and uses many of the musical styles of the last hundred years, his music will basically serve as a time capsule for this era.
 |
| With Golden Chords drummer Leroy Hoikkala, a member of one of Dylan's h.s. garage bands. |
EN: You're one of the contributors to the new release Bob Dylan In Minnesota. How did that come about?
MS: I moved to Minnesota in 2006 and since then I’ve always been interested in his youth spent here and in how he’s perceived by his home state. There are still people out there who say that Bob Dylan hates Minnesota and has never said anything nice about Minnesota.
Keith Miles reached out to me a couple years ago on Twitter and said he was going to write another Troubadour Tales book, this time about Bob in Minnesota. I think he was just looking for a photo at the time because I’m a regular visitor to Duluth and Hibbing. He said he wanted to write a chapter about my family of Bob Dylan fans and asked if I wanted to write anything. I decided that it would be a good opportunity to debunk all those claims some people still make about Bob not liking Minnesota. Having read hundreds of his interviews and many biographies, I felt like I could provide a much more complete picture of how growing up in Minnesota helped shape his imagination, how it has affected his music, and how he feels about the place where he grew up, so that’s what my chapter is about.
EN: Do you have a favorite Dylan song or album? What is it and why?
MS: My favorite song since I was 7 or 8 has been Mr. Tambourine Man. I could explain why I appreciate it now in a more nuanced way, but at the heart of it it’s still just about his voice and the way he sings it.
* * *
IT SHOULD BE NOTED HERE that Matt is one of several Minnesota contributors to the soon-to-be released Troubadour Series book Bob Dylan in Minnesota. It is very possible that books will be available for sale after Matt's talk with at least two of the authors contributing signatures that day (if not more).
You can read one of the early reviews here.
Related Links
Duluth Dylan Fest 2023
The Bobcats: A Bob Dylan Fan Podcast
On Spotify
On Apple
No comments:
Post a Comment