Take Five: Excavating and layering
Or, figuring out how Bob Dylan, Truth and Janey, Bill Orcutt, Emily Mikesell & Kate Campbell Strauss, and the web comic Poorly Drawn Lines all connect.
“Take Five” is posted each Friday, and offers five things I spent some time with over the course of the previous week. No criticism, no in-depth analysis, just a few things I think you might be interested in checking out. When the spirit moves me, I’ll post other things at other times.
I will admit, this week was a bit of a struggle. Usually, I have a bountiful list of potential items that have been added to throughout the week, but this time my self-imposed deadline was approaching and I wasn’t sure how I was going to fill it. Never fear, dear reader: The world abounds with esoterica and cultural cul de sacs, and it is only a matter of finding the time to explore. My journeys, one hopes, will find you entertained and enlightened, if only for a moment or two.
1. Bob Dylan — ‘Mr. Tambourine Man’ drafts
An early stab at one of Bob Dylan's most beloved songs drew $508,000 at auction last weekend, a staggering sum for a couple of sheets of typewriter paper that had been tossed away by the artist. It's all the more amazing given that Dylan is still alive, still creating. This typically doesn't happen until long after someone passes. This typescript of "Mr. Tambourine Man" seems like something that ought to be at the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, but for now it will reside with some incredibly rich fan. It comes from the collection of the late journalist Al Aronowitz, who said Dylan wrote the song while "sitting with my portable typewriter at my white formica breakfast bar in a swirl of chain-lit cigaret smoke, his bony, long-nailed fingers tapping the words out on my stolen, canary-colored Saturday Evening Post copy paper while the whole time, over and over again, Marvin Gaye sang "Can I Get a Witness?" from the 6-foot speakers of my hi-fi in the room next to where he was, with Bob getting up from the typewriter each time the record finished in order to put the needle back at the start." It is fascinating to see the way the song evolved from one draft to the next, Dylan adding and subtracting, exploring and refining. The draft was part of a lot that included other Dylan ephemera like a guitar, a jacket, a painting, sketches, and notes. It collectively drew well over $1 million.
2. Truth & Janey - ‘Under My Thumb’
It took a circuitous path to get there, but I discovered a great single by Cedar Rapids-based BillyLee Janey's 1970s band Truth and Janey that shows how easy it is to miss what's in your own backyard. After writing last week about the Terrascopædia, I pulled out a couple of a couple other magazines on my stack, including an issue of Galactic Zoo Dossier. This hand drawn magazine about psychedelic music is a horizon broadener. One feature of the issues is a separate sheet (or several) of hand drawn trading cards, in this case, for "Damaged Guitar Gods." At the top of the first page was BillyLee Janey. I wrote about Janey a bit when I was at the Gazette, and knew him as a blues guy. Not my usual cup of tea, so I hadn't really explored beyond that. But Truth and Janey is a powerhouse. The band's first single from 1971 pairs the original "Midnight Horseman" with a blazing cover of the Rolling Stones' "Under My Thumb." No one has a copy for sale on Discogs, but based on past prices, it would set you back a couple hundred bucks to acquire it. The debut album that followed in 1975, No Rest for the Wicked, is even more coveted, with original pressings going for thousands of dollars. Thankfully, we have YouTube.
3. Bill Orcutt — How to Rescue Things
I have written quite a lot about Bill Orcutt and the people who perform with him over the past year, but have no qualms about doing so again because he continues to innovate. There are times when Orcutt's guitar, a trebly, spiky instrument, could use a leavening presence. Here, he finds one, the soothing backing of an old RCA easy listening album serves as a bed for his explorations. A song like "Not Reconciled" begins with a distant choir intoning wordless notes, followed by one of the most melodic guitar lines Ocutt has ever performed. The backing includes a bit of spiritual singing, a vocalist intoning, "Oh, my God" on occasion as Orcutt's guitar stabs at notes that resolve into chords that complement the chorus. His performance is not unlike what has been offered unadorned on past albums, but here it takes on additional resonance. Elsewhere, on "Requiem in Dust' the song begins with lush strings that sound like the opening to a movie musical montage. Twenty seconds in, Orcutt's guitar slices through it, an incongruous burst that grabs your attention. But this isn't about confrontation or dissonance, because it soon settles in, no less abrasive, but somehow floating comfortably atop this soft cloud of sound. It grounds Orcutt's lines, as the backing does elsewhere, making this an oddly satisfying listen.
4. Emily Mikesell & Kate Campbell Strauss — Give Way
An interview with trumpeter Emily Mikesell about her new album with saxophonist Kate Campbell Strauss sheds light on the creative process behind their beautiful new album, Give Way. The album, recorded by the two New Orleans musicians during the pandemic quarantines, found the two creating multilayered tracks with their respective instruments, adding to each other's work in a sort of aural exquisite corpse exercise. "One person would start the track with a solo line or a fully fleshed out section with layered horns. We’d send it off and the next person would add on to that section and/or create the next section. This would go on until the composition was deemed finished, " Mikesell told website Fifteen Questions. "We decided that once an idea is on the recording, it can’t be edited or deleted… The idea was to trust the first idea that comes to you." Their instincts were sound, and the result is an album of songs that aren't exactly jazz or any other genre, but rather more a musical conversation between friends.
5. Poorly Drawn Lines
I have long been a fan of web comics, having kept up with some for going on two decades. Some of the best continue to feature new work, like Wondermark, The Perry Bible Fellowship, and xkcd, while others seem to have hung it up like Red Meat, Boy on a Stick and Slither, and Exploding Dog. I love traditional strips, but the freedom of the near-limitless canvas for web comics has made them a rewarding read. My current favorite is Poorly Drawn Lines by Reza Farazmand. The comic's self-effacing title is also fairly accurate. You are not coming to PDL for the art. Instead, the simple drawings leave plenty of room for the humorous postmodern ennui of the characters. Most are titular animals, with Mouse, Snail, Bird, Turtle and other characters coexisting (peacefully and otherwise) in the 2D world of the strip. Some of the strips, like that above, are a panel or two with a quick gag, while others can span a page with what passed for plot as the characters interact. I think of these as a well-kept secret, but given the fact that the latest PDL comic posted on Instagram six hours ago as I write this already has 21,000 likes, perhaps I’m just not rubbing shoulders with the core demographic. Either way, the moment of whimsy a few times a week usually brings a welcome chuckle.