I find it funny that copyright holders are lobbying governments to force ISPs to track down file-traders .\u00c2\u00a0 Because the history of recorded music is available at any surfer’s fingertips.\u00c2\u00a0 You don’t need a P2P program at all.\u00c2\u00a0 A rudimentary knowledge of computerese and you can search for a RapidShare download or even a direct zip file.<\/p>\n
Thank god.<\/p>\n
In the seventies, recording artists played it close to the vest.\u00c2\u00a0 They would issue no licenses and release no live material, except for the de rigueur, sweetened in the studio, double live album.\u00c2\u00a0 You didn’t want to kill the golden goose, your record sales, you lived off your record sales.<\/p>\n
But not the Grateful Dead.\u00c2\u00a0 The Grateful Dead took Philips’ invention to a new extreme.\u00c2\u00a0 The success of that band, far into the eighties, up until Jerry Garcia’s death, was built upon the trading of cassette tapes.\u00c2\u00a0 But they’re not the only ones…\u00c2\u00a0 Metallica’s fan base was built by tape trading too.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s the hardest thing to do, spread the word. But, if you’re good, people can’t help but tell others about you.\u00c2\u00a0 Just like I’m going to tell you about this cover of "Highway 61 Revisited".<\/p>\n
The original "Highway 61" is a horse race.\u00c2\u00a0 It leaves the gate with a whistle and gallops all the way to its three and a half minute finishing line.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an track deep into Dylan’s 1965 album that featured the gargantuan hit "Like A Rolling Stone".\u00c2\u00a0 If you were a nascent rocker, you knew every lick of this album.\u00c2\u00a0 Lyrical incisiveness was no longer limited to folkies, you could plug in and still tell your story.\u00c2\u00a0 Pickers all over the world were liberated. People like Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne.\u00c2\u00a0 Who united twenty five years later at Los Angeles’ Shrine Auditorium to lay down a version of the song that was aged in decades of rock history.\u00c2\u00a0 They took the original and filtered it down to its essence, its pure soul.\u00c2\u00a0 Ironically, in accompaniment with Jackson Browne’s acoustic guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Boss’ harmonica.<\/p>\n
The reason people go to the live show is for the vitality.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a life force absent from the record.\u00c2\u00a0 The record is perfected, it’s sterile.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like going back in time and fixing a date.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas live is one time only.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re in the bedroom of your high school crush, what are you going to do?<\/p>\n
And we have crushes on our rock stars.\u00c2\u00a0 We think if we could only meet them, talk to them, never mind bed them, our lives would suddenly work.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re convinced when they’re looking out from the stage that they’re actually staring at us.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s just how powerful the music, the experience, is.<\/p>\n
I can’t even remember what the Christic Institute is\/was.\u00c2\u00a0 But I do know you couldn’t get a ticket to this benefit concert.\u00c2\u00a0 Today they paper the house, even for best-selling artists.\u00c2\u00a0 As late as 1990, the ticket was still golden, you beamed when it spat out of the ticket machine, as if Willy Wonka himself handed it to you.\u00c2\u00a0 And you went to the gig with a sense of anticipation.<\/p>\n
Bruce performs "Darkness".\u00c2\u00a0 Even "Thunder Road" and "My Hometown".\u00c2\u00a0 But what is truly transcendent is this take on "Highway 61" with his homies.<\/p>\n
Yes, despite our inability to even speak to them, the musicians are friends.\u00c2\u00a0 When they get together and play they’re having such a good time they don’t even think about the audience.<\/p>\n
Jackson picks out a groove.\u00c2\u00a0 Only vaguely reminiscent of the original take.\u00c2\u00a0 Bruce lays down some harmonica chops and Jackson starts to sing:<\/p>\n
God said to Abraham, ‘Kill me a son’<\/span> Then Bruce picks up and makes the lyrics his own:<\/p>\n Well Mack the Finger said to Louie the King<\/span> Mack the Finger and Louie the King are relatives of the Magic Rat, they’re characters straight out of the second side of "Born To Run", scrambling around in Jungleland.<\/p>\n And Bonnie steps up to the mic and sings:<\/p>\n Well the fifth daughter on the twelfth night<\/span> She’s like a cross between a dame on Grand Theft Auto, the coolest chick in your high school and a diva channeling the history of the blues.\u00c2\u00a0 You just want to get closer to the flame.<\/p>\n And when Jackson comes back in, the Boss and Bonnie are helping out, singing backgrounds.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re together, locked on.\u00c2\u00a0 Not auto-tuned, but pulsing together in live performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Recorded for all posterity but unavailable widely until the Internet.\u00c2\u00a0 Now you can find the track easily.<\/p>\n This is not a rote cover.\u00c2\u00a0 The musicians make the song their own.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the little hiccup in Jackson’s guitar work that truly makes the track, hooks you.\u00c2\u00a0 Like your buddies sitting in your parents’ basement playing Beatle songs. Strumming hard for EMPHASIS!<\/p>\n This is a cover song.\u00c2\u00a0 A show capper.\u00c2\u00a0 Rearranged in your own style.\u00c2\u00a0 Picked to make a statement.<\/p>\n Well the frozen gambler he was very bored<\/span> We’re bored with the official music scene.\u00c2\u00a0 With its filters and blanded out product.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re looking for something different, something with more soul.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why we go online.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, we download the new stuff, but so often delete it when it doesn’t live up to the hype.\u00c2\u00a0 But then we come across gems and play them ad infinitum.\u00c2\u00a0 Because they contain the essence.<\/p>\n The essence is life.\u00c2\u00a0 Absent from the Mariah melismas.\u00c2\u00a0 The beat-driven escapades.\u00c2\u00a0 If you use a drum machine, won’t the final product SOUND like a machine?<\/p>\n I’m gonna link you to a lame YouTube clip.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you do just a bit of Googling, you can download a pristine take of "Highway 61 Revisited".\u00c2\u00a0 And you should.\u00c2\u00a0 Because you’ll be hooked by Jackson Lee Hooker’s guitar work. And the man who gives him that appellation’s wailing harmonica playing.\u00c2\u00a0 And the glue of Bonnie’s voice.<\/p>\n Don’t put this on a CD.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t clean it up.\u00c2\u00a0 Just post it where everybody can hear it, even the tech unsavvy.\u00c2\u00a0 And pray that two decades on, these three go on tour.\u00c2\u00a0 Together.<\/p>\n
Abe said, ‘Man, you must be puttin’ me on’<\/span>
God said, ‘No.’ Abe said, ‘What?’<\/span>
God said, ‘Abe you can do what you want, but<\/span>
The next time you see me comin’ you better run’<\/span>
Abe said, ‘Where do you want this killin’ done?’<\/span>
God said, ‘Out on Highway 61.’<\/span><\/p>\n
I got forty red white and blue shoe strings<\/span>
And a thousand telephones man don’t ring<\/span>
You know where I can get rid of these things<\/span>
Louie the King said let me think, for a minute son<\/span>
Yes I think it can be easily done<\/span>
Take everything out on Highway 61.<\/span><\/p>\n
Told the first father that she just didn’t feel right<\/span>
My complexion she said is much too light<\/span>
He said come over here, step into the light, he says hmm, yes<\/span>
Let me tell the second mother what has been done<\/span>
But the second mother was with the seventh son<\/span>
And they were both out on Highway 61.<\/span><\/p>\n
Tryin’ to create a next world war<\/span>
He found a promoter who nearly fell off the floor<\/span>
He said I never engaged in this kind of thing before<\/span>
But yes I think it could be very easily done<\/span>
We’ll just put some bleachers out in the sun<\/span>
And have it on Highway 61.<\/span><\/p>\n\n