2020 Duluth Dylan Fest Advance Schedule: May 16-24

2020 Duluth Dylan Fest Advance Schedule
May 16-24

SATURDAY, MAY 16
Duluth Dylan Fest Kick Off Concert
Dan Israel + Opener TBD
Wussow’s Concert Cafe
7:00 PM | $5

SUNDAY, MAY 17
Dylan Fest Poetry Event in Superior
Red Mug Coffeehouse
3:00-5:00 PM | Free
Duluth Dylan Fest Party with Cowboy Angel Blue
Cedar Bar and Lounge Superior
5:30-8:30 PM | Free

MONDAY, MAY 18
Dylan Fest Student Art Show
Opening Reception with live music by Born Too Late
Zeitgeist Atrium
5:00-7:00 PM | Free

Dylan Fest Acoustic Jam Session
with host Leslie Black
Bring your instruments or voice
Carmody Irish Pub
7:00-9:30 PM | Free

TUESDAY, MAY 19
Live Dylan music by Greg Tiburzi
Sir Benedict’s Tavern
5:00-8:00 PM | Free

Dylan Film Night: Masked and Anonymous
Zinema 2
Live Music at 6:00 PM  Film at 7:00 PM | TBD

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20
Dylan Night at the Ripple Bar
Dylan Music with Al Diesan from Italy
6:30-7:30 PM
Dylan and the Dead with Loaded Dice
8:00-10:00 PM | Free

THURSDAY, MAY 21
Blood on the Tracks Express
Rolling-train music fest: Duluth up the North Shore
Boarding TBD at The Depot | Watch for Tickets:
Eventbrite.com and the Electric Fetus
Afterparty at the Depot with Live Dylan Music

FRIDAY, MAY 22
Dylan Fest Singer-Songwriter Contest
Sacred Heart Music Center
7:00-10:30 PM | Free

SATURDAY, MAY 23
Tour of Bob Dylan Sites in Duluth
Carpool at Armory Arts & Music Center Annex
9:00-11:00 AM | Free

Armory Arts & Music Center Open House
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM | Free

John Bushey Memorial Lecture by David
Engel, Author of Just Like Bob Zimmerman's
Blues: Dylan in Minnesota
Location TBD
3:00 – 4:30 PM | Free
Bob Dylan Revue Reunion Concert
Sacred Heart Music Center
7:30-10:30 PM | Tickets $10 on Eventbrite or $15 door

SUNDAY, MAY 24
Dylan Fest Brunch
Zeitgeist Café
11:00 AM-1:00 PM | Live Music

Bob Dylan Front Porch Birthday Party
with Live Music
Dylan childhood home
519 N. 3rd Ave. East
1:30 PM | Free

Bob Dylan Birthday Party Continues
Sir Benedict’s Tavern
Live Dylan Music with Al Diesan from Italy
3:00-4:30 PM | Free
Tom O’Keefe and Friends
5:00-8:00 PM | Free

* * * * 

Life Is Good

Been listening to Visions of Johanna and My Back Pages tonight.

Over and over.

How many times can one listen to the same songs 

and never tire?

I guess for fans, the answer must be: Infinite.

* * * *

If you're a fan and have never been to the Northland, 

Dylan Fest in May is a good excuse to make the trek.
Stay current at www.bobdylanway.com

* * * *

Disclaimer: A few minor details may be subject to change. 

13 Pictures and Paintings of Women & a Happy New Year Fireworks Display from Sydney

"Rag Doll" (acrylic on panel, 24"x 36")

"Ae" (NFS), acrylic on illustration board

"Aunt Crow" -- acrylic on illustration board

"The Student" -- acrylic on illustration board

"Visions of Johanna" -- acrylic on panel, 24"x 36"

"Watching, And Waiting" -- Acrylic on illustration board, 18"x 14"

"Lady Day" (acrylic on canvas paper, 16"x 22")

"Aethel Red" -- acrylic on panel left out in the rain, 12"x 24"

"Queen of de Nile"

"Club Silencio" -- acrylic on butcher paper

"Amy" -- Mixed Media (NFS))

"Mulholland Drive" -- acrylic, latex, light -- 36"x 24"

"Miss Honeychurch" -- photoshop

* * * *

Bonus Track: 40 select paintings and drawings of Dylan

Tonight we turn the page on a new year. If you're out and about, drive safe. 

Happy New Year.

All art on this page by Ed Newman, except the YouTube video.

Visions of Johanna: One of Dylan's Greatest

Saturday's edition of KUMD's Highway 61 Revisited hosted by John Bushey triggered a desire to write about two songs I've not yet attempted to cover, I'm Not There from the Basement Tapes, and Visions of Johanna, released on Blonde On Blonde.

After the show I felt compelled to comment to a friend in an email,  "Just finished listening to John's show tonight. Inspired me to write this week about two of the songs he played ... Visions of Johanna, and I'm Not There. Both songs remind me of how exceptional he is. He really is in a class by himself. People use that expression all the time, but in most cases it's pure hyperbole. Dylan is unquestionably one of a kind."

There are certain Dylan songs that are so incredible that I become near stupefied every time I hear them. Visions of Johanna is one of these.

One of the reasons I've not written about the song previously is that the parts that speak most deeply are so personal I don't feel compelled to lay it all out there the way many social media netizens do these days.

A second reason I've held back is that I'm not sure how much I have to add to what others have already written. Instead, I defer to what Tony Attwood has given us at his Untold Dylan blogspot in a piece titled Visions of Johanna: the meaning of the music and the lyrics. Near the end of this piece he coughs up this pearl:

Andy Gill is quoted in the Wiki article on the song as suggesting it is the enigmatic quality of the song that is responsible for its popularity—’forever teetering on the brink of lucidity, yet remaining impervious to strict decipherment.” And that sounds right to me. In 1999, Sir Andrew Motion, the poet laureate, nominated Visions as the greatest song lyric ever written. And I’ll go with that too.

This "teetering on the brink of lucidity" is precisely what makes so many of the songs from this period so mesmerizing, compelling, entrancing, spellbinding, alluring, seductive, enchanting, suggestive, effective, impressive, sumptuous and thrilling. Ballad of a Thin Man and All Along The Watchtower are similarly examples of this imperviousness to strict decipherment.

I encourage you to read slowly read the lyrics, then check out Tony Attwood's insights.

Visions of Johanna

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

Copyright © 1966 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1994 by Dwarf Music

1965 Dylan Acetate Recording with "Freeze Out" on track 3.

Matthew Horton places it #2 on his Top Ten list of Dylan lyrics. I doubt I could ever number them like Mr. Horton does, but for sure it's on my "short list" of great Dylan songs. Rolling Stone likewise has Visions in its top ten Dylan songs list.

Visions Trivia 
--The working title of this song was Freeze Out.

--It's the only Dylan song that begins with the letter V.

--Dylan has performed the song 215 times in concert, the most recent being 2015 at the Stimmen Festival in Germany.

Here are a couple versions of the song for your listening pleasure. This first is from a live concert in Melbourne, Australis during his 1966 world tour withe The Band, plus an achingly beautiful Jerry Garcia interpretation. What is it about this song that cuts so deep?

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Get into it.

From Freeze Out to Visions of Johanna: An Original Dylan Acetate

1965 Dylan Acetate Recording at Karpeles

Yesterday Duluth's 2016 Homegrown Festival marched into history. Today, in less than two weeks (May 22) we're going to kick off our 2016 Duluth Dylan Fest with the launch of our first of five new events, the 48 Hour Film Fest in which filmmakers have just 2 days to make a music video inspired by a Bob Dylan song. This kick-off event will begin at Carmody's on Sunday at 7 p.m. at which time filmmakers will each select from a pre-selected list one song that they have 48 hours to turn into a music video. The film viewing is slated for May 24th at 7 p.m. at Zinema 2. (Rules and other details can be found Here.) Afterwards, stick around for the annual Dylan Trivia Contest which starts at 9. In the modern vernacular it's not only a good warm-up for the week, it's a form of edutainment.

Two events are already underway here in the Northland Daniel Botkin's Dylan-themed art exhibit was hung last week at the Red Mug Coffeehouse in Superior. There will be music and an artist talk on Monday the 23rd, but why wait till then to see it. The Red Mug makes great soups and sandwiches among other things, so bring someone to lunch this week or next and enjoy the show.

The second event already underway, and creating an ongoing buzz, is the Einstein Disguised as Robin Hood exhibit at Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum. The exhibit is purportedly one-thousandth of one percent of the William Pagel collection of Dylan memorabilia, photos, rare manuscripts and more, but it's spine-tingly cool. And it's surprisingly at home here at Karpeles.

One of the items on display (see photo above) is a 1965 Dylan Acetate Recording with three songs that later became known by other names: "Phantom Engineer" (which we all know as "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"), "Over the Cliff" (which wasn't released till 1991 on the Bootleg Series, Vol. 1-3; Rare and Unreleased), and "Freeze Out" (the early title for "Visions of Johanna.")

For the record, even though it looks like a mass-produced vinyl album you'd buy from the store, an acetate disc is created using a special machine that cuts the groove into the surface of a special lacquer-coated blank disc. It's a real-time operation requiring both skill and expensive equipment. They're made for special purposes and almost never for sale to the general public. They may have been used as demos of new recordings or possibly for the artist to bring home to listen to how the song they recorded sounds.

A few notes about "Freeze Out," or rather "Visions of Johanna." On Dylan's 70th birthday Rolling Stone called it one of the 10 greatest Dylan songs of all time. Though I do not always find myself in agreement with other peoples' lists, I agree here. Visions is a truly great song that stands up to innumerable listenings. Like "Hard Rain, "the song is densely packed with memorable images.

Three or four years ago the Dylan Trivia Contest included this question (which will not be on this year's contest): "How many Dylan songs begin with the letter V." If you guessed one, you are correct.

Dylan has performed the song 215 times in concert, the most recent being July 16, 2015.

A co-worker of mine tipped his hand to me that he was a Dylan fan by sending me an email that simply stated, "Jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule." (Interpreted here by Daniel Botkin in three variations.)

You can tell it is a favorite of Dylanofiles, inasmuch as variations of the song have been released in nearly a dozen different forms on albums, bootlegs etc. It's a matter of supply and demand. They have a supply, and fans have demanded it.

Here's a YouTube vid of one of the many early versions of Freeze Out...

Catch the anguished moan at the end of it.

* * * *

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

The Wikipedia article on this song cites Andy Gill as suggesting that it's the enigmatic quality of the song that is responsible for its popularity—"forever teetering on the brink of lucidity, yet remaining impervious to strict decipherment." The statement could easily apply to other Dylan songs, including "All Along the Watchtower" and "Ballad of a Thin Man." The images are vivid, yet the meaning of the surreal pictures his words paint are often elusive. What's not elusive is the manner in which he sings them and it's the overall effect that is mesmerizing and masterful. 

Dylan began recording and re-recording in New York, but having failed to get that sound he was striving for he split the Big Apple and reconvened in Nashville where after many more takes the version that appeared on Blonde On Blonde was finally achieved. Over the years collectors relished the variations they heard on tapes that were shared.

The Wikipedia account includes Robert Shelton's take on the song:

Robert Shelton called "Visions of Johanna" one of Dylan's major works. He writes that Dylan's technique of throwing out "skittering images" evokes "a mind floating downstream"; these "non-sequential visions" are the record of a fractured consciousness. Shelton argues that the song explores a hopeless quest to reach an ideal, the visions of Johanna, and yet without this quest life becomes meaningless. He suggests that the same paradox is explored by Keats in his "Ode on a Grecian Urn".

As Dylan followers are aware, Robert Shelton was the New York Times critic who wrote a favorable review about the new voice that was being heard in the Village. This review, which helped catapult Dylan to early fame, is also among the items on display at Karpeles. (How cool is that?)
 
Much more could be said, but I'd rather share the most memorable version of the song.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Engage it.

Weighing In On Dylan Bootleg #12: The Cutting Edge

If I've learned anything after listening to new Dylan albums for half a century it's that I don't want to adopt an opinion until I've listened to it about ten times. Granted, some albums pierce the heart the very first listen, but some have taken a deeper listen to really grasp, or fall in love with. Bootleg #12, The Cutting Edge was one of these.

I have to explain why on this one. Yes, there were some songs that were immediate gems on the first listen. The first song on Disc 1 happened to be the song I walked my daughter down the aisle to at her wedding this past summer. Still get moist eyes thinking about it. A number of other songs, like "Farewell Angelina", are so warm and beautiful that they also stand out first time around.

But others jarred me. Most prominently was my first reaction to a faster-paced "Visions of Johanna." Why was this? Well, it's easy to explain. Fifty years of hearing "Visions of Johanna" have become embedded in a section of my brain as the near epitome of perfection. How respond to an entirely different interpretation of the song that has buried itself so deeply within my neuro-anatomy?

Over the course of time I have been asked on several occasions to name Dylan's greatest album. That, to me, is an impossible question. But on a couple occasions the inquirer was trying to impress on me that there is a "correct" answer. Or at least an answer that satisfies many who propose such a question. That answer is Blonde On Blonde. I myself would assent to the album being a candidate, but doesn't claiming that one album is "best" diminish the significance of that trilogy of albums that began with Bringing It All Back Home and Highway 61 Revisited? No doubt this was remarkable period.

Well, that's the period of history that Bootleg #12 covers. If you get the 6-CD Deluxe Edition or full, comprehensive limited edition set, you are getting into it deep.

So why purchase The Cutting Edge? I got mine because I have all the other bootlegs, and they've all given a measure of satisfaction. For some reason this time I was hesitant, but I've not been disappointed.

Let's turn to "Visions Of Johanna."

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

"Don't Look Back"

The laconic, melancholic version that you find on the original album cuts so near to the nerve that you can't imagine any other interpretation. And then when you hear the purposely fast-paced recording on Disc 2 of The Cutting Edge, one's first reaction might be to be totally dismissive, that it doesn't work.

Then, after you've heard it again, and again, you become almost dazed by how it vibrates, resonates, captures the lyrics in and spins them into a newly corkscrewed opening in your brain, heart, soul. It's unbelievable good. It dazzles.

That's how it is with so many of the songs on Dylan's bootlegs. Compare the original "It Ain't Me, Babe" with the visceral version on Bootleg Series #5, 1975. 

This has been one secret to Dylan's popularity amongst his loyal fans, the shape-shifting performances and re-interpretations that have marked his career. When you listen to the outtakes from his early albums, like many here, it's apparent that all this shape-shifting was happening at a very early stage in his career.

Not every song achieves this effect, and it's clear that the final decisions regarding what to leave in and what to leave out were usually good ones. But there are certainly some gems here.

And not every Dylan album requires ten listens to hit home. Modern Times and Together Through Life struck a chord with me on the first listen, as did Tempest, Oh Mercy and Time Out Of Mind. Some of the best material is subtle and requires a little chewing to get the best flavors out.

* * * *
To find various versions of this special release, visit BobDylan.com.

For what it's worth: word on the street is that things are coming together for Duluth Dylan Fest 2016. As many of you know, Bob will be 75 this spring, and some very special events are being planned. You can follow along at the Duluth Dylan Festival Facebook page. 

Dylan paintings and illustrations on this blog were created by ed newman unless otherwise noted.

Revisiting Infinity

"To infinity, and beyond!" ~Buzz Lightyear

Every now and then the notion of infinity is an interesting concept to ponder. It's easy to see why mathematicians have had such a troubling time with it. Take, for example, this common conundrum.

You have hotel with an infinite number of rooms. An infinite number of people show up one night because of your Vacancy sign. (Maybe it is Grandma's Marathon weekend.) So, you give them all of your infinite number of even numbered rooms, 2,4,6, ad infinitum. They check in all happy and your clerks are impressed because you still have an infinite number of vacancies, in case you get more business.

Well, obviously, infinity throws a wrinkle in things if you treat it like an absolute number.

Here's one I've toyed with occasionally. Between any two points there are an infinite number of points. If you have a line segment three inches long, and one that is six inches long, why can't you simply say 3 = 6 since both contain the same number of points?

For the Romans, infinity simply meant a very large number. Galileo later suggested that the infinite does not correspond to mathematical rules in the same way as a common integer. Correctamento, Galileo!

When I was young I used to toy with the idea of time being a "duration" like miles of road, and that between two points in time, let's say four o'clock and eight o'clock, there is an infinite amount of time just as in the number of points in a line segment. (I know that waiting can feel that way sometimes, especially when waiting to open Christmas presents.)

And so... if there is an infinity between a few hours, what about a few minutes? Or between two moments? And how long is Now? Is it infinitely small or infinitely something else? Or is Now only an illusion that occurs between the infinite past and infinite future?

This leads naturally into questions about the nature of time itself. Why do some days go fast and others slow when they all have the same number of hours?

What about space? Is outer space infinite? Or does our universe have an "outer wall" or some kind of endpoint? What would the end of the universe look like? How would you know when you got there?

And then, what about inner space? Maybe this is what Blaise Pascal was talking about when he wrote, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.”

Now for two bonus questions about infinity.

1. What did Dylan mean in his "Visions of Johanna" when he sang, "Inside the museums infinity goes up on trial"?

2. How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? This latter is answered here.

Meantime life goes on all around you. Seize it.

Visions of Johanna

This week the Fitger's Brewhouse has brewed a special batch of beer for Duluth Dylan Fest called Blonde On Blonde, the name extracted from the title of what some critics say is Bob Dylan's greatest album. Now at Valentini's the other evening I was asked which one Dylan album was my favorite, a question that is impossible to answer. By what criteria?

Well, when it comes to favorites, whether books, films, music, restaurants, mountains or shorelines, you'd probably have to say your favorite is the one you return to most often. By that criteria I then made a list of my favorite Dylan songs from his catalog, and then a short list of albums, selecting one from each decade, still a daunting task.

Over the years I have listened to hours and hours of Desolation Row, Changing of the Guard and Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall, three of the songs on that impossible list. As for albums, going backward from present to past, here's some of what I have most listened to... Together Through Life, Tell Tale Signs, Love and Theft, Oh Mercy, Shot of Love, Slow Train Coming, Street Legal, New Morning, Blood on the Tracks, Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited, Blonde On Blonde, and The Times They Are A-Changin'.

I think one person at that table wanted me to give the nod to Blonde On Blonde (1966) as Dylan's greatest singular achievement, and there are critics who support that claim. Hard to say... though there was a lot of great material on that album which continued to cement Dylan's reputation as a major influence in the Sixties music scene.

Here are the lyrics to Visions of Johanna, the third cut on this album. Dylan has played this song 147 times in concert, most recently in 2010 at Mashantucket CT. The first time was in White Plains, NY, Feb 5, 1966.But it's not just the lyrics, it's the way Dylan recorded them that amplified their impact. Nevertheless, you can start here, then find a performance on YouTube.

Visions Of Johanna

Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we’re all doin’ our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin’ you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there’s nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind

In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman’s bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the “D” train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it’s him or them that’s really insane
Louise, she’s all right, she’s just near
She’s delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna’s not here
The ghost of ’lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He’s sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I’m in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it’s so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, “Jeeze
I can’t find my knees”
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who’s pretending to care for him
Sayin’, “Name me someone that’s not a parasite and I’ll go out and say a prayer for him”
But like Louise always says
“Ya can’t look at much, can ya man?”
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev’rything’s been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

Copyright © 1966 by Dwarf Music; renewed 1994 by Dwarf Music