Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Bob Dylan's Birthday Bash


All Dylan All Night!

One of my very favorite Ashland music events is happening on Monday, May 23rd, 2011 at The Wild Goose (2365 Ashland Street, Ashland, OR). It's the 10th annual Bob Dylan's Birthday Bash Open Mike.

That's right we celebrate Bob's birthday, in this case his 70th, by singing nothing but his songs all night long. Starts around 8pm and goes until late. All manner of fans, freaks and devotees come out of the woodwork for this one! The funny thing is that after singing nothing but Bob's songs for 4 hours or more, you have the sense that you've only scratched the surface of his material!

It's also really nice to spend a night celebrating someone else. Most of us musicians are self-involved enough! This year I'm planning to sing all 12 verses of "Up To Me", a song that was dropped from "Blood On The Tracks" and one of my very favorite Dylan songs. Stop by if you're in the area.

We usually do this on the Monday closest to his birthday (May 24th) each year. Hosted by my good friend George Clark, who actually wears a Dylan wig and costume. We also have a house band well versed in Dylan-ology if anyone wants backup.

9 comments:

  1. Nice article, thanks for the information.

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  2. That would be fun to attend .
    I was rifling through your web page saw the "People reduce reliance on the motorcar" article in the mail tribune . You don't have a car dude ? doe's your wife have a car ? How do you get around with your equipment to sing and stuff ? what about when you buy something and you need a vehicle to get it home ? I was a bit surprised when I read this .

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  3. I play almost all of my gigs in Ashland where we live and they are all within biking range. I don't have sound gear but I do have a milk crate on my bike. Guitar goes on my back, gig bag and CD's in the crate.

    I haven't driven a car since 1976, but my wife drives and has a license. Sometimes she will give someone who's going out of town a ride to the airport and they will let her use their car while they're gone. She also has some friends who lend her a car from time to time. Like if we need to buy something big, or I need a ride to a gig I can't bike to. I also do a trade with one of my T'ai-Chi students where she gets free lessons and we get use of her car when she's in town and we happen to need one.

    My wife doesn't really like driving any more than I do. It also aggravates a shoulder injury of hers. So we're mostly car-less. When we do borrow one or use the trade we tend to do as much of the car related stuff that day as we can.

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  4. Wow man ,Thats interesting . I don't mean to pry ,but do you folks own your own house and stuff ? You are definatly interesting folks . I was watching your "were all gona die" vid on you tube and I was wondering if you believe in all that conspiracy theory stuff from like Bill cooper ,Alex jones and stuff . I just watched a vid and they claim the "powers " are hiding the truth about radiation levels here in the USA .They say we are getting high levels of radiation from japan . Do you believe any of that stuff ?

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  5. We are confirmed renters. We live pretty simply and inexpensively as we can. We are artists and don't make much money, but enough to get by if we keep things simple and don't get sick... ;~).

    I generally do not believe in conspiracy theories. And the bigger and crazier they sound, the less I tend to believe in them.

    Do businesses and corporations hide the truth about their products and their effects? Some do and some don't. Does government tell us the whole truth about what's going on and about what they do? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. Do aliens control the weather? Did the government demolish the World Trade Center? Is the government poisoning us with Chem-trails? I don't think do.

    To be human, I think, is to be uncertain and afraid. Some people exploit that fear, usually by first increasing it, and then by selling some kind of security blanket or certainty. They might be right but I trust my gut and bullshit detectors and they rarely steer me wrong. The internet is loaded with false information. I take the whole thing with a grain of salt.

    I don't believe the company in charge of that reactor in Japan is telling us the whole truth, but as of now, I do not believe that significant radiation is reaching us. Over the long haul, I do believe that all of us must accept some increase in cancer incidence in exchange for the power we get from nuclear power. I would stay clear of pacific fish in the future, at least until this thing is sorted out.

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  6. Thanks for that dude . I respect your opinion . Like your song says "wher all gona die " were all gona die someday . So I guess im like all other people , Im just trying to understand all this and be ready . i hope i havent F-up to much in my life to not be accepted on the other side . peace brother !

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  7. Great time at Dylan Night tonight. So many great songs. The band was awesome too: David Hampton, Dal Carver, Craig Martin, Russ Rodriguez, Jack Fischer, Steven Lindley, Robbie Lindauer, George Clark, Mark on harp. Thanks also to Blake Zolton, Leo, Late Night Larry, T-Poe, Bob Dinkel, Lisa, and anyone I'm forgetting...

    I played "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" right into "Up To Me" with all 12 verses. Somehow I caught a wave of quiet listening energy when I first went up and I think I held the room for the whole 10 minutes or so that it took to sing the songs...They're two of my very favorite Dylan songs so I kind of trance out when I play them. But people did seem to be following the whole thing and the applause sounded genuine, so I was happy with my choice. I was a little nervous about doing two talky Blood On The Tracks, more or less 3 chord songs, in the same key, back to back, but I think it worked...Later on I did "Things Have Changed" with the full band. That was fun too. A pretty cynical song from The Wonder Boys soundtrack...but Man is it fun to sing.

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  8. And the place was packed as usual, in spite of a pretty rainy early part of the evening...

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