Guest Post Today from Jon Singer


I watched a DVR’d episode of Elvis Costello’s Spectacle the other night and it did not disappoint. Say what you will about Elvis as an interviewer with his need to grandstand over his guests, or his penchant for relating every question asked to one of his own personal experiences, but I think the show and its format are terrific with carefully chosen guests who seem to really enjoy themselves almost as much as Elvis does singing over them.

This episode featured the offspring of famous musicians. Guests included M. Ward & Zooey Deschanel (She and Him) Jenny Lewis (Rilo Kiley) and the subject of this post Jakob Dylan. There was a deep sadness is Dylan’s semi-off interview and performance that has bothered me all week. I have been struck by the actual weight placed on that man’s shoulders considering the sperm that brought him into this world.

Let’s get one thing straight. The Wallflower’s grammy award winning single “One Headlight” is a fist pumping jam. The perfect summer radio hit of 1997 was one part Bob Dylan, one part Tom Petty and perhaps one part Counting Crows (!?) with an anthemic chorus so plaintive and enthusiastic it’s virtually impossible not to sing along with it. The Wallflowers then went four years without recording anything only to follow up with a handful of post-millennium material that was largely ignored. So what happened? Where did he/they go and why did Jakob Dylan stop putting out music after such a promising start?

Dylan’s new LP “Seeing Things” features stripped down guitar/vocals production and lays his songwriting chops and sandpaper voice on the table. During the Costello interview he speaks candidly about "no longer being able to keep up" with the comparisons and resisting the urge to distance himself from his father which he has done for so long. Perhaps this is the only thing you can do when you’re Bob Dylan’s son and you want to be a musician? Resistance is futile.

The song he plays with Elvis “On up the mountain” is the perfect track to sum up the interview and the emotional state and direction he’s headed in as he not so much comes out of his father’s shadow but allows himself to be comforted by life inside it. In the live performance his voice was a little off and his guitar was slightly out of tune, but there’s a Landslide-esque beauty to this track that makes it hard to deny the DNA double helixing inside this guy’s body.

In other news the rendition of the Clash’s “Straight to Hell” they do together is one of the worst covers of all time.

ON UP THE ROAD