Years 2009-2012 Breningstall.com

Folk singer Todd Snider takes on the "hydrogen bomb made out of dumb"

"Conservative Christian, Right Wing, Republican, Straight, White, American Males" by Todd Snider

Salon published an interview today with the underrated Todd Snider, one of my favorite singers. Snider had a brief pop culture moment back in the early 90's with the release of "Alright Guy," then has largely been forgotten by the mainstream even as he has continued to pour our a steady output of great albums and invigorating storytelling performances for a cult fan base.

In the interview, Snider discusses politics and songs from his new album, Agnostic Hymns and Stoner Fables. A comment to remember:

"I feel like I’ve always sung anti-suburban Christian songs. I grew up conservative Christian and all that, and now when someone tells me they’re conservative politically and also a Christian, I think, Why didn’t you just tell me that you’re a hydrogen bomb made out of dumb. Because those two ideas don’t gel. There’s one group that’s saying, Take everything you have and give it to the poor. And there’s another group that’s saying, Don’t tell me what to give to the poor. How can you join both groups? That’s like you’re joining Puppy Kickers Animal Rights of America. It just doesn’t gel, and that’s what I ran away from."

Salon writes: "Snider may be angry, but he’s also genuinely curious, perhaps even slightly bemused by the exaggerations and mutations of human greed and self-justification. 'At least it helps folk music, if nothing else,' he laughs at one point during our conversation."

Read the full interview here. More music videos after the jump.

Todd Snider "Statistician's Blues" (live in concert)

Todd Snider "Statistician's Blues"

(Feb. 18, 2007 Great American Music Hall)

In Memoriam: Barney Rosset, Grove Press Publisher

Barney Rosset, one of the most important publishers in American history, passed away Tuesday. Rosset bought Grove Press in 1951 for $3,000 and managed it for 35 years, steering the publishing house through some of the nation's key literary publications and legal trials, including Lady Chatterley's Lover, Tropic of Cancer and Naked Lunch.

 

A short list of only some of the authors who had key works published by Grove Press: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Jean Genet, Eugène Ionesco, Jack Kerouac, William Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Allen Ginsberg, D. H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Malcolm X, Pablo Neruda, Octavio Paz and  Kenzaburo Oe.

The Los Angeles Times writes, "In 1959, [Rosset] published Lady Chatterley's Lover, which had been banned by the postmaster general for promoting 'indecent and lascivious thoughts,' but in 1960 a federal appeals court found that its frank descriptions of sexual intercourse did not violate anti-pornography laws. In 1961, Rosset published Tropic of Cancer, which was blocked by more than 60 court cases in 21 states. In a landmark 1964 ruling, however, the U.S. Supreme Court held that it had 'redeeming social value' and was thus not obscene."

Rosset had first read Tropic of Cancer (which was initially published in Paris, but not in the U.S.) 21 years earlier as a freshman in college. He is quoted in Wall Street Journal: 'The district attorney said, 'Do you realize that members of the grand jury have children who are buying that book at newsstands right near their school?'' Rosset recalled. "And I looked at him and said, 'If that's true and they buy it and read it all the way through, you as parents are to be commended.'"

"The Million You Never Made" by Ani DiFranco

Ron Rosenbaum proclaims himself the Jesus of Dylanology

Ron Rosenbaum has written an article for Slate to let all those Bob Dylan experts out there know that he is the real Bob Dylan expert and all the rest of them should shut up. I'm not sure when Slate started publishing Atlantic Monthly-length missives but Rosenbaum clearly had a lot to get off his chest. Dare not criticize Mr. Rosenbaum, lest you be called a "Bobolator," that term of endearment he reserves for all Dylan cultists who are not named Ron Rosenbaum. Previously an anthologist on all things Shakespeare, Rosenbaum has moved on to reclaim his place on the authorial throne next to the modern Bard, Robert Zimmerman of Hibbing, Minnesota. Rosenbaum is an expert on all things Dylan, in part, because a girl once left him and he quoted a line from Dylan and he immediately found a new girlfriend. He is also writing a book from "Yale University Press" and is sure to let us know. And yes, he also interviewed Dylan for Playboy in 1978.

Clinton Heylin, watch out!

It is not difficult to find some of the people whom Rosenbaum is referring to as "Bobolators."

On Sean Wilentz: "The book and blog Bobolators, with few exceptions, cumulatively give one the impression of a cult of scriveners all eager for a few favors from the Dylan Industrial Complex—a liner-notes commission here, a super-impressive title ('Historian in Residence' at the official Bob Dylan website) there."

On Greil Marcus: "The fashionable thing to think these days is that the roots of what made Dylan Dylan are to be found in the distant past either in the old weird America of coal mines and Appalachian hollows and hollers or in the Popular Front politics of the prewar '30s. Aaron Copland—yeah, right."

Rosenbaum must have felt after writing this article that he had just typed up his Twilight of the Idols. Only the whole article is so much rubbish.

Replies to Maureen Dowd's "Blowin' in the Idiot Wind"

Comments on the New York Times website about the Maureen Dowd article "Blowin' in the Idiot Wind" have maxed out and the newspaper is no longer accept new submissions. Below are a few quotes. The full list of 200+ comments can be seen here.

"We might also start sending 95 percent of our take-home pay to our own federal government, so we can settle our tremendous financial debt to the ruthless leaders of China. Dylan only sings for them. The rest of us have surrendered our wallets -- and perhaps the future -- to them." - Marie Burns, Florida

"Sorry, Maureen, but don't you think your disappointment at Dylan's failure to sing protest songs should have been directed at President Obama, who, when visiting China and better positioned to denounce human rights abuses directly to the party bosses, never said a word." -JG

"When someone like Bjork comes to China and protests on stage, she gets credibility outside of China, but the impact inside China is to shut down the tiny amount of freedom and latitude that exists, to push the ripsaw closer to the musicians on the ground." -Bystander

"Dylan may have traded 'Positively 4th Street' for a beachfront mansion in Malibu, but his work stands the test of time. If his recent circumscribed performance in China gets the camel’s nose into the Chinese tent and a few hundred million curious young people latch on to a bootleg download of 'Bringing It All Back Home,' all to the good. -Tom Sullivan, California

"While his post-political music is a little less direct, I think there is something that is actually more culturally subversive about playing introspective blues-based music to a nation that is still, by and large, listening to sugar-coated, bubble-gum pop." -Thin Man, China

"I've seen Dylan in concert four times betwen 1997-2004--not once did he sing 'Blowin' in the Wind,' 'The Times They Are a-Changin',' 'Subterranean Homesick Blues,' 'Masters of War,' or 'The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.'" -Sandy, Illinois

"Dylan gave his concert in the right place in Beijing since on the grounds with the Worker's Stadium is, believe it or not, a Hooters. So pandering is what this corner of Beijing is all about." -Harold Berk, Pennsylvania

"It seems that using Dylan's voice as a weapon against the Chinese was no more effective than sending Castro an exploding cigar. When it comes to entertainers and money, Frank Zappa said it best." -JR, California

"... I suspect some of what [Maureen Dowd] quotes (the white picket fence stuff especially) is Dylan putting people on. His beliefs are imbedded in all his songs, not just the ones that are obviously polemical. And whenever he sings them and gains new fans, he is promulgating those beliefs. Does he have to wear a sandwich board as well?" -Ed, California

"Respectfully Ms. Dowd, you seem neither an artist nor a revolutionary, and you fail to see that you can't compile a Dylan setlist of 15 songs and not find something to shake up the rigid and perplex the complacent." - Richard, New York

"Sometimes (very often, actually) the comments are better reading than the article and this is one of those times." - Barry Moyer, District of Columbia

"When Dylan sang 'Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones' last week in China, he could have been making a remark on the powers-that-be but just as easily a nod toward Ms. Dowd and other critics, who are now making much ado about the fact that Dylan didn't sing 'The Times They Are A-Changing'' and other protest ballads from the early 1960's. Dylan threw off the mantle of would-be spokesman for a generation 47 years ago. But he never stopped being an artist. Instead of focusing on songs among the hundreds in his catalog that he didn't sing, I wish these critics would have focused more on some of the lines that he did perform, starting with the opening line of both shows, 'Gonna change my way of thinking, make myself a different set of rules/ Put my best foot forward, stop being influenced by fools.' 'Desolation Row' and 'All Along the Watchtower' are not soft touch songs." -Jeremy Breningstall, China

Read more:

Bob Dylan in Shanghai, China: Concert Review

Comments from a China Historian

 

Bob Dylan: songs 'banned' in China

Here are links to the songs mentioned by Western media in the last few days as being too controversial for Bob Dylan to play in China. All of these links are to Chinese YouTube clone sites, websites in China which are heavily censored by Chinese authorities.

Chinese audiences, enjoy (Youku blocks outsiders from viewing their videos).

Though newspapers have been repeatedly announcing banned songs as fact, I have yet to see any sourcing for their information. One reporter compared the set lists in Taipei and Beijing and erroneously inferred "Desolation Row" had been banned. Then a story in the Guardian in turn announced as fact that "Desolation Row" had been banned. That's funny, because I remember him playing an extended version of the song in Shanghai, China, April 8, 2001. I've never known Dylan to play the same set list at consecutive venues.

The "Times They Are A-Changin'," so oft referred to in headlines, hasn't been performed by Dylan on tour in more than a year-and-a-haf.

There are credible reports that a set list was submitted and approved to the Chinese Ministry of Culture- but there is no reason to believe any of the countless journalists who have written about the concert know what was on that set list and if any modifications were made.

We won't know the real story on that until someone actually interviews Dylan, a band member, or another tour insider.

Until then, apparently newspapers around the world feel free to make up whatever information they like.

Blowin' in the Wind

The Times They Are A-Changin'

 

Masters of War

Desolation Row

Hurricane

More... Bob Dylan in China: Review of the Shanghai concert

An Acrobatic Evening of Dance and Burlesque at Chinatown Shanghai: Photo Gallery

 

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Christmas Eve 2010, Chinatown Shanghai

Photos from last year's party can be viewed here.