The Ever-Popular Authenticity (T)Rap

The Awl brought my attention to this Joni Mitchell quote:

"Bob [Dylan] is not authentic at all. He's a plagiarist, and his name and voice are fake. Everything about Bob is a deception. We are like night and day, he and I."

from this recent interview.

It's not clear to me whether she means this as a criticism, a compliment (doesn't seem like it), or just a neutral statement of fact, but to me, Dylan's "un-authenticity" is a key feature of his art and the main thing that makes him an inspiring figure - the kid from Nowhere, Minnesota who transformed himself into this (and this).

Two other things that caught my eye in the interview:

Joni Mitchell has 40 different tunings?!?

How did I never realize that the dude on the cover of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter is Joni?!?  So obvious in retrospect. 

And speaking of Don Juan's Reckless Daughter:
If I was Robert Christgau (who didn't like it very much), I would say that the "Choice Cuts" are "Dreamland" and "The Silky Veils of Ardor".  Just so you know.
 

Quote of the Day - Burden of Dreams

"I was sick all day, and then the fever began to subside.  I had received another telex, monosyllabic, saying it was the twilight of the gods, and I knew who had sent it and what the code meant." 

- Werner Herzog, Conquest of the Useless

Alex Chilton - Part Two

1
The Alex Chilton line I'm thinking about today?

"But you know you don't have to / you can just say no"

People like to talk about the "power of Yes", but that line from "The Ballad of El Goodo" expresses an incredibly empowering (that word has been abused, but I think it's the right one here) sentiment when you think about it.  And I think it's a sentiment that Chilton lived by, at least in terms of his post-Big Star career.  He did the Big Star reunion, even a Box Tops reunion (that I'm sure no one expected), but after Radio City, he never really played the fame/music biz game, except by his own rules.  

2
In reading all the tributes that have popped up today, I came across the word "sprezzatura" in one of Ben Greenman's pieces.  After I looked up the definition, I had to say, "yeah, Alex Chilton definitely had sprezzatura".  In spades.  And as someone who could rock the house en Italiano, I think he would've liked that description.

3
I'm with The Gurgling Cod on this one:
"...'Jesus Christ''s failure to get traction as a Christmas staple continues to baffle me."

4
I wrote a bit about Chilton's shambolic some-kind-of-a-masterpiece Like Flies On Sherbert here.

Funky Quote of the Day

From an underrated entry in Rufus Thomas's "Funky _____" series, "Funky Mississippi":


"We don't have hippies, down in Mississippi
but we funky funky just the same"


At some point, I'd like to track down all the Funky Somethin's and do a list.  Watch this space.

Quote of the Day - Mystery vs. Pie

"It was always nuts for Tom Sawyer — a mystery was. If you'd lay out a mystery and a pie before me and him, you wouldn't have to say take your choice; it was a thing that would regulate itself. Because in my nature I have always run to pie, while in his nature he has always run to mystery. People are made different. And it is the best way."

- Huck Finn in Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain

Quote of the Day - "an encyclopedia, just from one tune"

I hadn't read this wonderful multi-part interview and listening session with drummer Paul Motian when I wrote a post about his trio with Jason Moran and Chris Potter, or I would've linked to it at the time. Motian comes across as open, honest, funny, and full of some pretty profound insights. I think I understand some things about music, and especially about Motian's approach to music, that I didn't before I read this interview.

This is just one of many highlights, but one that really grabbed me:

"If you had to sit down, you'd probably have to be a computer if you tried to put down on paper or in words what is actually going on during a piece of music. You'd probably fill twenty f***in' volumes, it'd be an encyclopedia, just from one tune, if you start actually putting down exactly what thoughts are happening… you know what I mean? It's not so simple. Sometimes the simpler it sounds the more complicated the sh*t is."

Epigram of the Day

"Every pop song describes a delusion. I am deluded, and this musical delusion is the world to me."

- Paul Kotheimer, from "Everypopsong"


I got the new EP in the mail today, but I've already been listening to the MP3s for a couple of days. Review coming soon.