T-Bone / Dylan project: Lost On The River

[Jack of All Parades]

Surprisingly little chatter surrounding the new EC/Dylan song!

Perhaps because it's a rather modest track? 2 minutes and probably one I'd put in the same column with "Shallow Grave" (one of the McCartney/MacManus songs I find fun but not earth-shattering.)

This one has some enjoyable touches here and there but I can't help but wonder what the thinking was in this being one of the first 2 tracks released. I'm hoping there will be some songs that have more impact on me than the first two, which are both nice but fairly mild.

Yes, for me these first two have been 'ho-hum' at best and the latest reminds me that there is often a reason why unused lyrics lay around for decades-they just do not merit sustained listening. At least the first has the benefit of Mr. Jame's tenor. I can repeatedly listen to that.

I am looking forward more to the real Basement material-I want to hear the 'rawness' of those songs as those six guys played around in that cellar up in Saugerties over forty years ago. I hope to be able to pretend I was the proverbial fly on the wall when the discs start playing.

[hatman]

'Tenement, back alley ' into Google image search leads me to the photo that is on the cover of the New Basement Tapes.
By Jacob August Riis (May 3, 1849 – May 26, 1914) , it's described as 'Those of Mullins alley (outside the tenements)' in his How the Other Half Lives book, 1890 & as 'A group of boys and a couple of girls congregate in Mullin's Alley, Cherry Hill, New Jersey. '
Another search seems to indicate that Cherry Hill , New Jersey is , of course, no longer a tenement. Maybe someone nearer there could enlighten us!

It's Mullen's Alley at 32 Cherry Street, New York City. This was a slum area (a desperate situation) at the time of the photo (not today). This article has the photo and mentions the work of Jacob August Riis.

http://selvedgeyard.com/2011/02/26/band ... ry-street/

Here is one on Cherry Hill (Lower East Side). Mentions Jacob August Riis and that the Gotham Court Slums were demolished in 1897.

"Cherry Hill is probably most unfortunately known for its most horrific slum -- Gotham Court, "one of the worst tenements along the East River." It would later be made infamous in Jacob Riis' renown 1890 blistering survey of "How The Other Half Lives." (An image from a version of this book is above.) According to Riis:

"It is curious to find that this notorious block, whose name was so long synonymous with all that was desperately bad, was originally built (in 1851) by a benevolent Quaker for the express purpose of rescuing the poor people from the dreadful rookeries they were then living in.

How long it continued a model tenement is not on record. It could not have been very long, for already in 1862, ten years after it was finished, a sanitary official counted 146 cases of sickness in the court, including “all kinds of infectious disease,” from small-pox down."

Gotham Court and the rest of Cherry Hill were not long for this world. In the wake of Riis expose, Gotham Court was demolished in 1897. By that time, efforts were made to construct more amenable tenements, including those built at 340, 342 and 344 Cherry Street in 1888."

http://theboweryboys.blogspot.com/2008/ ... -side.html

The Madonna of Cherry Hill

http://dreamersrise.blogspot.com/2009/0 ... -hill.html

[johnfoyle]

Thanks!

[johnfoyle]

From Expecting Rain - Bob Dylan forum -

perfect self referencing of Elvis with a hilarious bob-nasal flattening out/Highway 61 speed rapping
of Elvis' own now trademarked Bob homage of "pump it up-monkey business-subterranean homesick blues"

best part of the whole operation is how Elvis saves the song/lyrics for its live performance, just like bob does with his own work.

throwing down the sketch in studio is a real basementy and bob thing to do, he refuses to let it live like a museum piece trapped in the Capitol Records basement -- oh look, it is a Bob Elvis soundmontage


Married To My Hack

At 5in the morning she'd fix my lunch
Put it in a paper sack
Where I'm headed, I always appreciate it
But I'd rather stay married to my hack

I move like the breeze and the birds and the bees
I'm never known to look back
I got 15 women and all of 'm swimming
But I'd rather stay married to my hack

I move 15 miles in a minute and I'm all smiles
I shoot by my sister's shack
She's got some friend who waves at the men
(A fine little hen)
But I'd rather stay married to my hack

I got 12 wheel drive and an oversized hive
And air coded brakes in the back
Candy McGratt's always good for a laugh
But I'd rather stay married to my hack

I got a pedal to hit and an engine that won't quit
A carburator that don't crack
Maureen and Milly they're a little silly
But there's nothing that they do lack

I got loose eye'd ladies who've never seen a man
Just waiting around the back
Just give me a bottle or someone to throttle
But I'd rather stay married to my hack

[And No Coffee Table]

Dylan's handwritten lyrics:



Dylan's unfinished final line ("just gimme a bottle and the") seems to have been completed by Elvis ("just gimme a bottle or someone to throttle"). He also changed "when I always ate it I'd appreciate it" to "where I'm headed I always appreciate it." (He must not have liked the original line.)

[And No Coffee Table]

http://twitter.com/newbsmnttapes/status ... 4915532801

"Rhiannon Giddens and @ElvisCostello writing for #NewBasementTapes "

[bronxapostle]

wouldn't it be swell if THE GROUP opened the November-December BOB DYLAN dates??? or at least the NYC shows!

[Poor Deportee]

Count me among the indifferent.

I rather like the lyrics to 'Married to My Hack' - a bit of fun - but I don't get much out of EC's version. Part of it is the total absence of melody. But more important is that EC's just isn't a nimble enough vocalist to deliver all those syllables in such a way as to convey the sense of freedom these sorts of lyrics require. The song fails to achieve anything resembling lift-off until the very end, with those delightful 'wooooo's.

I tend to compare this project with the Hank Williams Lost Notebook thing a while back. That was a resounding success, but I think a big part of the reason for that is that Hank Williams had a very well-defined sound (including a small number of signature melodies). This, I suspect, made it comparatively easy for artists to plug in to his spirit and give us some pretty damned nifty country songs marked by Williams' distinctive signature, yet inflected by each artist's own sensibility. But Bob Dylan is such a varied and mercurial artist that a bag of his lyrical cast-offs simply are not going to generate a 'Bob Dylan-ish' vibe in the same way. All you're going to get is a bunch of songs by a bunch of artists without that underlying coherence...and none of them are going to be able to animate those 'Basement Tapes'-style lyrics in the inimitable way that Bob would have. In that sense it's a can't-win kind of undertaking.

I'm with Jack, though...the impending issue of the COMPLETE Basement Tapes recordings is quite an exciting development. I'll put the nickels saved by not buying this album toward buying that one.

[John]

Married To My Hack doesn't do much for me. Lack of melody is a problem. Elvis seems to stumble around " A carburator" or is it just my ears?

[cwr]

Can't imagine not buying this, though. I know it's not a full-fledged "Elvis Costello" album, but even if the whole thing was a shrug like "Married To My Hack", I'd feel the gap on my shelf between Wise Up Ghost and whatever comes next...

[Poor Deportee]

Married To My Hack doesn't do much for me. Lack of melody is a problem. Elvis seems to stumble around " A carburator" or is it just my ears?

I actually think Elvis has grown less nimble as a vocalist over the years. It's as though he's traded dexterity for texture and power. And it hurts him on this track.

[cwr]

Listening to it again, I can't help but think that this track would've been twice as good with some self-harmonies or someone doing tight harmonies with EC throughout.

The support vocals by Rhiannon Giddens are fun, as are the "whooooos" at the end, but I personally think a large number of Costello's records have been made infinitely better by hearing his voice either in harmony with itself or with someone else like Jim Lauderdale (whose closer harmonies really made all the difference on SP&SC, I think.)

Maybe the way they recorded it precluded that, but I also think late period EC-- from PFM up to the present-- has seen EC more eager to have his voice featured all by itself, especially compared to the first decade of his career when self-harmonies were standard on almost all of his records. I think they would have added some welcome musical texture to this track...

To be honest-- not that they're copying the style of the original Basement Tapes-- the vocal harmonies are also a key feature of those records, and they provide a lot of the vocal fun, so I'm surprised it wasn't an automatic impulse on a song like this to do the same...

[Poor Deportee]

Listening to it again, I can't help but think that this track would've been twice as good with some self-harmonies or someone doing tight harmonies with EC throughout.

The support vocals by Rhiannon Giddens are fun, as are the "whooooos" at the end, but I personally think a large number of Costello's records have been made infinitely better by hearing his voice either in harmony with itself or with someone else like Jim Lauderdale (whose closer harmonies really made all the difference on SP&SC, I think.)

Maybe the way they recorded it precluded that, but I also think late period EC-- from PFM up to the present-- has seen EC more eager to have his voice featured all by itself, especially compared to the first decade of his career when self-harmonies were standard on almost all of his records. I think they would have added some welcome musical texture to this track...

To be honest-- not that they're copying the style of the original Basement Tapes-- the vocal harmonies are also a key feature of those records, and they provide a lot of the vocal fun, so I'm surprised it wasn't an automatic impulse on a song like this to do the same...

Interesting. I agree that harmonies in general are valuable in softening EC's frequently rather harsh voice. And I'd go further and say that he hasn't just preferred solo vocals since the mid-90s, but he has tended to push his voice higher up in the mix, so it is more absolutely in the foreground than it used to be. I don't like that, myself, preferring that he sound a little more 'embedded' in the music as it were. He is also much less likely than he used to be to treat the vocals to any studio special effects (e.g., added echoes, tape delay, that sort of thing) which have a very honourable place in the history of pop music and whose semi-disappearance from EC's repertoire I rather regret.

[And No Coffee Table]

The next preview track, "When I Get My Hands On You," will be released Tuesday. The (still unconfirmed) Wikipedia credits identify it as a Marcus Mumford/Taylor Goldsmith co-write.

http://twitter.com/newbsmnttapes/status ... 6150466562

[The Gentleman]

There is an article on this in today's Sunday Times. Based on a description I read, I believe it has a new interview with T-Bone and EC. However it's behind a paywall:

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/cul ... 459934.ece

[johnfoyle]

The Sunday Times feature should be up on the wiki site soon - it's the usual spiel about the listening session in London in July , though a particular comment from Elvis seems new -

[And No Coffee Table]

I'm going to stop calling Wikipedia's writing credits unconfirmed, because the Sunday Times article includes matching credits for "When I Get My Hands On You" (Goldsmith/Mumford) and the second "Lost On The River" (Giddens/Mumford).

[johnfoyle]

As ANCT notes the ST article is up -

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... r_21,_2014

[The Gentleman]

Thanks for posting that. Great article, and it unexpectedly confirms (courtesy of EC) something that I believe was previously only rumored, namely that Dylan's new album is all covers and that it's "insanely good" (at least according to T-Bone).

[The Gentleman]

It's interesting that so many songs (three as of tomorrow, and the album is about a month and a half away) are being previewed so early. Is this the new world of music retail, where Amazon pre-orders are EVERYTHING?

Not that I'm complaining. Absolutely loving what I've heard so far.

[And No Coffee Table]

There are supposed to be five preview tracks in all (mentioned here). I wonder if that means one per singer.

[The Gentleman]

There are supposed to be five preview tracks in all (mentioned here). I wonder if that means one per singer.

Terrific catch! And yeah, it seems reasonable, based on what we know, that each singer will get their turn in the spotlight.

[And No Coffee Table]

"When I Get My Hands On You", sung by Marcus Mumford:

[bronxapostle]

everytime i see a new post from you here ANCT, i anxiously look for NYC release date concert for this LP!

[charliestumpy]

IN UK, this REALLY is LOST ON THE RIVER ...

No-one in UK yet allows pre-orders for Deluxe CD(s) (inferior downloads from e.g. my iTunes or amazon available in advance of course...).

Having been blown away by the rip-off Dylan Bootleg 11 6-CD set a week earlier probably, I wonder if to 'touche' Costello might release an album of covers ...

I am fortunate to have already 116 of the Dylan 138 tracks, and will buy the others to add to the 2-CD Dylan Bootleg 11 set (with only 1 track not otherwise available on plastic commercial disc).

In fact, I want to buy only the 'Lost On The River - The New Basement Tapes' deluxe CD(s) tracks on which Costello performs.


I often in UK buy stuff from USA, but delivery in UK for LOTR seems to be listed as December ...

So far, I have been able in UK to order from UK 6 other audio-video discs due out November 3rd-10th ...

The 3 tracks so far are 'variable' - I prefer any with Costello maybe contributing ...