"Hate Your Next Door Neighbor but Don't Forget to Say Grace"

"Bob Dylan once said of 'Eve of Destruction,' which was originally penned with the Byrds in mind, 'There are no more escapes. If you want to find out anything that's happening now, you have to listen to the music. I don't mean the words. Though, 'Eve Of Destruction' will tell you something about it.'"

Daniel Kreps at Rolling Stone reports the death of songwriter P.F. Sloan.

"A Honky-Tonk That Would Reign for More Than 40 Years as L.A.'s Top Country Spot"

"'You never could tell who was going to be onstage. Literally you did not know. When Willie Nelson first performed there, he looked like he worked for IBM. You saw the biggest names in the world. They were playing, like, the Forum, but they’d also be at the Palomino. For God’s sake, we had half the Beatles show up one night and the Rolling Stones on another. One night I saw Leon Russell playing with Jerry Lee Lewis. They don't play the same kind of music. And then who jumped up there with them but Glen Campbell! You’d think he was pretty conservative, but he had a wild streak and he was a great guitar player. His bass player, Billy Graham, would hop up there, and then you’d have some of the rock musicians jump in, and they piled on the stage. Everybody wanted to jam. Nobody knew what they were going to play. And they would just start, and you'd think, Oh, my God. The next day you’d tell people, and they’d say, "Why didn't you call me?" But it's not like anyone knew it was going to happen.'"


Elisabeth Greenbaum Kasson in Los Angeles magazine presents an oral history of the Palomino.

"We Took It to the Church"

"To wit: 'I'll Be Your Baby Tonight' is less about finding Jesus than it is finding some lovin'. But that doesn't make this rendition any less magnetic. Filled with conga rhythms and call-and-response joy, the recording is a vivid reworking. 'My Back Pages' too is an uplifting rendition of Dylan, recollected with piano, pipe organ and an overflowing spirituality. 'I Shall Be Released' sounds descended from above."


Randall Roberts in the Los Angeles Times revisits the recently re-released 1969 album Dylan's Gospel by the Brothers and Sisters.

"There's a Field of Action There"

"I was listening to Dave Mason's one great solo album [Alone Together, 1970], and there's a track, 'Look at You Look at Me,' which has a very long guitar solo at the end: an unspeakably marvelous and elegant piece of music. Everyone at the time thought it was Eric Clapton playing it... supposedly it's Mason, but if it's really Mason it's the greatest Clapton solo that Clapton never played. Listening to something like that and wondering what must it have felt like, in that moment, to be making that music... I always imagined that the person felt free and fulfilled and utterly taken out of himself. For some people, reacting that way, they would then decide, 'I want to feel like that person so therefore I'm going to learn guitar and ultimately get to that point.' For me, the way of inhabiting that moment was to write. And it wasn't until I read Pauline Kael's I Lost It at the Movies that I had the same feeling about writing: 'I want to feel as free as she must have felt when she wrote that.'"

Simon Reynolds interviews Greil Marcus in the Los Angeles Review of Books.

"Maybe I'd Be a Failed Rock Musician or a Boring Old Guy Who Tells Stories about the Good Old Days"

"The move from seemingly hard-left labor historian to defender of traditional political history—notably in the New Republic essay about Lincoln scholarship—has caused some head-scratching in the academic world. (Wilentz has also written a sweeping work of contemporary history, The Age of Reagan: A History, 1974-2008; and a short biography of Andrew Jackson.)
"But Foner says Wilentz's career simply 'reflects an evolution that is going on in the American historical profession generally.'"

Christopher Shea in The Chronicle Review profiles Sean Wilentz.

"Rock Fans Outraged As Bob Dylan Goes Electronica"

"'We came here to see the authentic Dylan, the one with the Stratocaster guitar and signature wild blues-rock band behind him,' audience member Robert Hochschild said. 'Then he walks out with these puffy headphones, some turntables, and a laptop? The guy's a Judas.'"

From The Onion.