Tiny Montgomery

[koganbot]

I like how the rhythm in "Tiny Montgomery" makes itself strong by just digging in and digging further, no moving forward. —The rhythm I'm referring to is mostly Dylan's voice, and the strum strum strum. Bass and the rest are a shuffling swing, I guess. So you can sway back and forth while the song steadily drives you down. A-Plus.

Other than that, I've never "gotten" the Basement Tapes, in either sense of the word. Couldn't stand the Great White Wonder boot when it broke onto FM rock in 1969, and never owned the official album, though I once had it in a stash of a friend's records for a summer, listening to it once, and taping "Tiny Montgomery." In any event, a way into it, if I ever do dig in, might be via Don Allred's Pazz & Jop comments, e.g.,

much enjoy that "Folsom Prison Blues" here sounds like the Band is playing "dum dum dum dum doo wah diddy, talk about the boy from New York City," which totally fits the loose flair of D.'s singing (the convict, still regretful, is also getting cranked up on cellblock cocktails). This performance of "The Bells of Rhymney" starts reminding me of "All Tomorrow's Parties," to the further credit of both songs and their performers, incl. writers.

My description of "Tiny Montgomery" is my attempt to explain to myself why it reminds me of the Velvet Underground without reminding me of frequent Velvets source the Yardbirds.

Was inspired to post by Sabina citing the Velvets and then trying to do different, regarding EMA.

I wouldn't assume Dylan had heard the Velvets yet. Was his own drawl he was using for a hammer.

"" (Watch on YouTube)

Comments

Masters of War

[koganbot]

The Velvet Underground "Prominent Men"

Luc Sante adds:

But the Velvets were deep-fried in Dylan. Coincidentally [our friend] Richard Campo dropped by the shack last night, and we played the first disk (acoustic demos) of Peel Slowly and See all the way through — which I'd never done because each track is like eighteen takes of the same song strung together end to end — and everything sounds like "Masters of War"! "Venus in Furs," "All Tomorrow's Parties," and especially "Prominent Men." "Black Angel's Death Song" isn't included, but it doesn't take a lot to hear that as "Masters of War," too.

And Don Allred reminds us that Dylan borrowed the tune of "Masters Of War" from old English folk song "Nottamun Town."

Dylan's guitar part was incredibly pertinent to me (and to my incipient Velvets infatuation). I would spend hours trying to master it, the fast hard twenty-fourth notes*, BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BOO-OOM, BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM BAM-BAM-BAM-BAM-BOO-OOM.

Bob Dylan "Masters Of War"

*"Twenty-fourth notes" isn't in the lexicon, but that's what they are.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Further adventures in self-editing: I've realized what was wrong about that sentence wasn't that I cited the Velvets, I think the citation is valid in that her songs really do remind me of the Velvets even after quite a bit of dedicated listening, it's that I didn't unpack why -- I got ahead of myself. I'm not sure EMA would instinctively situate herself in a lineage from the Velvets, but in the track by track she did for Under the Radar she cites grunge a lot: it's Cobain, K Records, riot grrls etc. And there are folk elements in her songwriting, even though I think she doesn't set out to write these folksong-ish compositions. I'm not so sure about the production. It doesn't sound "current," even "Bandcamp-current." I think it also sounds 90s, but in a rather abstract way. Perhaps it's just limited.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Anyway there's a cute thinkpiece in comparing "Satellite of Love" and "Satellites": Reed's conflicted utopianism filling space up with human banality and emotion, and EMA looking back on the collective efforts of the 60s that filled space up with something - 2,3,4,5 thousand of them that aren't parking cars on Mars because cars would contain humans, or at least brought humans somewhere, and we haven't gone at all, we're still looking up at the satellites that have left us behind.

Also the use of repetition in the lyrics etc. tbh a lot of what I'm responding to is just coincidental stylistic similarity.

Trotting off-topic

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

Here's the debut performance of Lizzy's solo debut "Not an easy girl" from today's M!Countdown:

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Did I mention it's trot?

Re: Trotting off-topic

[koganbot]

And quite good. Question: in this song, would you identify her as Lizzy of Orange Caramel or Lizzy of After School? I'd say the former, though the mp3 blogs have been identifying her as the latter.

Re: Trotting off-topic

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

I'd say Lizzy of Orange Caramel, because what she's doing here is much closer to Orange Caramel (cute and fun) than After School (serious about being sexy). But in this interview Lizzy helpfully demonstrates the differences between her After School mode, her Orange Caramel mode and her trot mode.

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Lizzy also outs herself, so to speak, as a serious trot singer. She sang trot songs in talent competitions when she was growing up, and even sang trot for her After School audition. At long last she's happy to have a trot album because "it's what I enjoy and what I'm pretty good at".

Which brings me to...

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Lizzy singing "Not an easy girl" with a live band and three backing singers, just as real trot singers do when they appear on television.

Re: Trotting off-topic

[davidfrazer.livejournal.com]

P.S. Here's Orange Caramel getting their trot on with a cover of Hong Jin-young's Love Battery (as previously posted by askbaek):

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Re: Trotting off-topic

[koganbot]

Here are a couple of the links for the above:

"Not An Easy Girl"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zln_RWcXZ60

"Love Battery"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y9mKnmehO0