She's Your Lover Now

Today is Bob Dylan Day in the Strings of Nashville household, as it often is.

I've been listening to some Blonde on Blonde outtakes I found at An Aquarium Drunkard, a blog that generally offers up a lot of tracks worth listening to and where I have discovered quite a lot of stuff.

Probably the best track is She's Your Lover Now, which I haven't knowingly heard before and is on a par with, if not better than, some of the tracks that actually made the LP. There were two versions posted on An Aquarium Drunkard, one Dylan solo, one with band/Band and there are both magnificent, prime-era Dylan, just impossible, compelling music. It is fascinating to see the rambling solo version being kicked into some far more driven with a full band. There is just this defiance throughout, lyrically and musically.

The other tracks are amazing too, but She's Your Lover Now is the one for me at this point in time, and it's going to take a while to unravel it.

PS I'd have liked to have put up a natty picture of Dylan to pretty up the post, but Blogger won't let me upload pictures at the moment. :-(

Back from the dead!

Hello!

I thought I'd start this up again, what with being bored on a Sunday afternoon/evening.

For the time being I'm not going to upload tracks, but I may do so in the future. As it stands I may just post up now and again with my current favourites.

So...I'll start with the man in the fetching knitwear here, M. Ward. His new album Post-War is highly recommended. It is really laid-back stuff on the whole, generally acoustic and folksy, but with a dusty, ragged feel like some old blues field recording or something. If that makes any sense. It has some genuine beauty in places too. I'm certainly going to have to pick up some of his earlier records soon.

I've heard a few tracks from the new James Yorkston effort, The Year of the Leopard, due out any day now. His LP Moving Up Country is one of my absolute favourites, and while the next album Just Beyond The River didn't do as much for me, from listening to the new songs I'm hopeful for another corker.

Also, very excited about the Cold War Kids debut, Robbers and Cowards, out in October in the States, and will hopefully get a release here in the UK too. I saw them live earlier this year and they blew the other bands on the bill off the stage. Their stuff is all over the internet, and they do seem to be one of the many internet darlings now, but they do live up to the hype. They seem really tuned in on the visual side too, their site has some amazing photos and check out their video here.

That's enough for me, now. Any feedback appreciated. I have a warm and fuzzy glow about embracing the blog-geekdom again.

M. Ward
James Yorkston and The Athletes
Cold War Kids