Interesting 2007 essay by Sean Wilentz from the Oxford American Magazine about the recording of one of the greatest albums of the last century, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde
The strangest Nashville recording dates were the second and third. The second began at six in the evening and did not end until five-thirty the next morning, but Dylan played only for the final ninety minutes, and on only one song: “Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands.” He would later call it a piece of religious carnival music, which makes sense given its melodic echoes of Johann Sebastian Bach, especially the chorale “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.” Unlike “Visions of Johanna,” though, this epic needed work, and Dylan toiled over the lyrics for hours. The level of efficiency was military: Hurry up and wait.
Kristofferson described the scene: “I saw Dylan sitting out in the studio at the piano, writing all night long by himself. Dark glasses on,” and Bob Johnston recalled to the journalist Louis Black that Dylan did not even get up to go to the bathroom despite consuming so many Cokes, chocolate bars, and other sweets that Johnston began to think the artist was a junkie: “But he wasn’t; he wasn’t hooked on anything but time and space.” The tired, strung-along musicians shot the breeze and played ping-pong while racking up their pay. (They may even have laid down ten takes of their own instrumental number, which appears on the session tape, though Charlie McCoy doesn’t recollect doing this, and the recording may come from a different date.) Finally, at 4 a.m., Dylan was ready.
“After you’ve tried to stay awake ’til four o’clock in the morning, to play something so slow and long was really, really tough,” McCoy says. Dylan continued polishing the lyrics in front of the microphone. After he finished an abbreviated run-through, he counted off, and the musicians fell in. Kenny Buttrey recalled that they were prepared for a two- or three-minute song, and started out accordingly: “If you notice that record, that thing after like the second chorus starts building and building like crazy, and everybody’s just peaking it up ’cause we thought, ‘Man, this is it….’ After about ten minutes of this thing we’re cracking up at each other, at what we were doing. I mean, we peaked five minutes ago. Where do we go from here?”
The song came to life as swiftly as any of Dylan’s ever had, requiring only two complete takes.
Sad-Eyed Lady of the Lowlands took just two takes? WTF?
is getting serious consideration as my second favorite album (after MGMT’s Congratulations) of the year so far. Sisterworld’s dark musical textures call to mind Radiohead, Philip Glass, Faust and Megadeath simultaneously. It’s one of the most sonically “colorful” albums since Their Satanic Majesties Request, with a palette ranging from house-shaking electronic Krautrock drones to calm, syncopated oboe and bassoon ostinato, often in the same song. It’s an album that must be listened too fucking loud or else you’ll only understand half of its charms. This album wants to brutalize you. It wants to kick you in the head and leave you bleeding and puking in the gutter. But in a good way! Highly recommended.
is a fascinating glimpse into Erickson’s mental state and the progress he’s made this decade, with the care his younger brother, a classical musician living in Pittsburgh, has given him (plus better meds have certainly helped). Erickson, of course, is often compared to Syd Barrett and the comparison remains valid here, too, as this collection has the same vaguely shambolic feel as Barrett and The Madcap Laughs. At times it feels like you are listening to something a bit too private, although therein lies an undeniably important part of the emotional power of the Erickson’s music in 2010.
, a rough-hewn documentation of the No Wave scene, by Ericka Beckman. Featured groups in the film are Theoretical Girls, UT, A Band, Rhys Chatham, Chinese Puzzle, The Static, Morales, Youth in Asia, Morales, Steven Piccolo and Jill Kroesen. (In the mid-80s, I worked with Jill Kroesen, briefly, at a video post production facility in New York called Caesar Video Graphics. She was a really good designer as I recall).
did a coffee table 
for 
about all of the most gorgeous colored vinyl/ picture disc/ odd shaped records produced during vinyl’s multi-decade reign as sound medium of choice ? One for me, please !
