Another Beatle Fantasy

Have you ever heard "A Toot and a Snore in '74," the bootleg of the only post-Beatles recording of John and Paul playing together? God it's awful. They were probably stoned (hence the title).

The fantasy--which will never happen, but still could--is for Paul and George Martin to break into the vault where John's solo masters are stored, and re-produce them, adding Beatlesque harmonies and more tasteful instrumentation. That would be some good music.

Beggar's Banquet

The reissue of Exile on Main Street has me revisiting the Stones and their great four album run from 1968-1972. Beggar's Banquet, the first of the quartet, might just be the best, and is certainly the most important. Is it too much to say that, coming fast on the heels of the Beatles White Album, it reinvented rock and roll? Nothing before ever sounded remotely like "Sympathy for the Devil," which succeeded in transporting Robert Johnson's spirit to the rock idiom. "No Expectations," which came next, is stylistically different, but texturally identical. That texture, a vocal and instrumental rawness, cut like the real world. The Stones could never match Dylan for blind genius or the Beatles for shear beauty and variety--no one could--but with this album and the three that followed, Mick, Keith, and Co. paved the road for all the lesser immortals who followed. RIP Brian Jones.

Adams Raps Dylan

Back in 2007, Ryan Adams was acting a little weirder than usual, and one day he put out something like 24 albums worth of material on his website, under names like Sad Dracula, Warren Peace, The Shit, and DJ Reggie. It was mostly original songs, in all sorts of styles, tossed off with no polish and little effort. I didn't pay any attention to it, because even though I think Adams (above, with Mrs. Adams) is as close to the Second Coming as we've gotten since Springsteen--well, I mean, the Beatles "You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)" wasn't worth listening to either, right?

Cut to 2010--today, actually--I was reading about a rap from one of the DJ Reggie records, titled "Isis," and how freaky great it was, so I thought I'd give it a listen. Took me five minutes to find and download, and about three seconds of listening to realize it was a rap version of Dylan's song from the 1976 album Desire. It wasn't exactly my kind of thing, but it was interesting, so I scanned the rest of the song titles and found "You're a Big Girl Now," which my rocket scientist brain told me was another Dylan cover. And now I share them with you, because that's the kind of guy I am.

As for the covers... Freaky: yes. Great: you decide.

Isis

You're a Big Girl Now