Thursday, March 24, 2016

Concert for Bob- May 24th SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

As we approach the merry month of May, many great living artists will be celebrated
on their birthdays. 
Should news of their birthdays start to 
"trend,"
many fans of said artists and writers and
Musicians will pay a simple tribute to 
their favorites by 
POSTING a picture or news report or a song for their
FOLLOWERS to enjoy. Yippie. 
Let's cut to the chase...that don't mean shit. 
Ya call that 'celebrating?'

And if I may be bold in saying, there is NO bigger artist on Earth
poised to experience one of life's special
milestones. 

"The greatest poet 
since Shakespeare to use the English language," as one of my friends likes to say,
will be turning 75 on May 24th. 

Imagine if Shakespeare's friends and colleagues 
took the time to celebrate his 50th turn
around the sun...what a blast they may have had!!

But that was 4 centuries ago. This is now.

We here in New York City have decided
that we won't let Bob Dylan's 75th birthday pass without
having a good bash. 

So for those who have been living under a stone, I will alert you to
the list of performers celebrating this 
May 24
in 
NYC:

Our fearless bandleader for the night
is 
Rob Stoner. 
With
Happy Traum
The Kennedys
George Gerdes
Terre Roche
Marc Jonson
Rod MacDonald
Mark Dann
Mike+Ruthy
And
Drummer
Luther Rix

There are about 65 seats left. Standing room/walk up sales
is pooh-poohed for this show. 

This is an invite to those who want to be at
The Village Underground 
at 
130 West 3rd Street
(the former site of Folk City)
to celebrate in style. 

As if
the list of performers celebrating 
the words and music of Bob Dylan
weren't enough,
what will make you wish you were there 
should be the news that 
SPECIAL GUESTS
scheduled to appear are
members of seminal Folk quartet
The New World Singers. 
That's right. 

Happy Traum will be camping out on stage
for the evening
and at some point,
Bob Cohen and 
Delores Dixon
shall join in and team up once again
54 YEARS since they recorded
"Blowin in the wind" for the 
VERY FIRST TIME. 
(that's right, not Bob)
Bob wrote it and handed it to Gil Turner who then
worked on it with his bandmates
with Bob's blessing. 

ADDITIONALLY
A very special guest is bound to appear
and will play on songs
that he helped arrange, record and perform with Dylan during 
The '60s. 

SSSHHHHH! It's a double-secret visit to Greenwich Village 
for this musician. Not fair to tell or guess!

You can't prepare for what's coming. 
You'll just have to be there to witness it. 
It's over the top COOL. 

PLEASE SECURE A SEAT. 
Go:

A PORTION OF ALL TICKET SALES
WILL GO TOWARD LESSONS FOR A LOCAL
SCHOOL AGE MUSICIAN.

Help the cause.

A little place called Gerde's
(Fred McDarrah)

Mike Porco

not Mike Porco

Bob Dylan at Gerde's Folk City

Bob Dylan was in the audience for all of
Big Joe's sets this engagement

History unfolded at Folk City

Find your name, ask Bob Porco to come to the show. That easy.

Rob Stoner, Joan Baez, Dylan, Eric Andersen
at the Rolling Thunder kickoff at Folk City, 1975
(Photo Fred McDarrah)




Bob Cohen, Delores Dixon, Happy Traum of
The New World Singers


The Village Underground is under the site of this picture

Somewhere in time, at 130 W3rd Street

Sunday, March 6, 2016

IT GETS WEIRDER




The 'Dylanologists" are in a frothing tizzie this week due to the release of 6000 items from Bob Dylan's personal possession into the hands of George Kaiser and the University of Tulsa.

It has been described as 'an endless ocean' of goodies for fans to ponder and scholars to study. We could be here for quite a while going through it all….


http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/06/arts/music/bob-dylans-secret-archive.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/inside-bob-dylans-historic-new-tulsa-archive-its-an-endless-ocean-20160303

From the New York Times:
So he (Glenn Horowitz) pitched the collection to the Kaiser foundation and the University of Tulsa as a magnet for both scholarly study and international tourism. Most of the material will be housed at the Helmerich Center for American Research, a facility at the Gilcrease Museum, which is affiliated with the university. The Gilcrease has a vast collection of western art and early colonial archives, a fittingly historical setting for a songwriter whose words are regularly cited by Supreme Court justices. Although plans are still being made, the Kaiser foundation is also considering a spot next to the Guthrie museum for a new Dylan gallery that will be open to the public.

~~~~~~~~~~
There's really not much 'weird' about America's greatest living artist and poet deciding to share his personal keepsakes. It wasn't completed without a price tag and I, for one, think that Mr. Dylan has every right to sell his items for profit.

But Bob is busy. He's busy touring, recording, welding iron gates, being a grandfather….many things, I reckon. Mostly, he's busy being Bob Fucking Dylan.

So his OFFICE and his people have been very busy working on this deal for up to two years.

As the NYT article explains, Dylan's office retained an archivist and a broker.

WEIRD FACT:
That broker just happens to be my friend and personal training client, Glenn Horowitz.

I've known Glenn for several years and I've always known him to be a consummate professional and THE big dog in his specialized field. He was the best man for this job and I'm proud to have a chance to pat him on the back for his good deed.

WHAT A SMALL WORLD!

Glenn Horowitz, Bookseller


He was an out of shape blob when I started training him and now he's in much better shape and a smaller blob but he's MY blob. (KIDDING!)

He's quite a unique personality in a city full of them. He's legit, folks. He has learned quickly that millions of people are VERY interested in Bob's archives. Thankfully, Bob also cares for his keepsakes and they've been cared for up to this point. Now, they will be cared for and poured over for decades to come.

The 'holy grail' or 'Maltese falcon' of the collection is something known as the ''little red notebook.''

WEIRD FACT 2: I've had a chance to peer into the 'LRNB.'

Let me tell you, it's fucking cool. Poems and songs unknown to the public…until now.
(if they were meant to be recorded, they would have been)
Some of these poems were written during the "Blood on The Tracks'' period. Notes and lyrics seem to be transcribed from previous drafts and placed into one spiral pocket book. MB, hypnotist collector, feels that it appears to be part editing process, part memorization exercise. I agree.




''Don't want to be followed around by a man wearing shoes half my size''

My personal opinion is that Bob wrote very small for a couple of reasons. One is that it was a tiny book forcing him to squeeze 16-verse songs on to just a few pages. Another reason MAY be that these were personal and private writings about his dissolving marriage to Sara and the tales of his life at the time. He probably wanted them to be kept private. And that he did….until now.

So this week, with all the international fanfare and Sunday's (today, March 6) New York Times spread, Dylan fans may start counting the days until the wing is built on the Guthrie Museum site and we can drag ass to Tulsa to gawk and wow and take smartphone pictures and pretend that we can understand it all.

I, for one, am eager to see the next dose of 6000 items.

Bob Dylan and Mike Porco were friends. As Bob gets older, his attic becomes less cluttered and we get closer to volume two of 'Chronicles.' His autobiography still has much to tell us, part of which may be his feelings toward his surrogate father…I hope. I can only guess that Mr. Dylan still has many more items, stories and tangible pieces of paper that he prefers to keep closer to his heart.


~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well done, GLENN!
Thank you Jeff and BOB.