Podcasts about Big Pink

On today's show we are talking about the elephant in the downtown. This is the property that was once a symbol of success that has now become a central embarrassment to the city. It seems that almost every city has one, and in some cases more than one. In Houston it's the One City Center Building with 600,000 SF that is 80% vacant. In Portland Oregon it's the 45 story office tower affectionately called The Big Pink that is now 50% vacant and partly over-run with homeless people sleeping on vacant floors. That building just sold for $0.20 on the dollar. In Chicago it's the old post office. This colossal art deco building, one of the largest in Chicago, sat vacant and decaying for nearly two decades after the U.S. Postal Service moved out in the mid-1990s.In Los Angeles there is Oceanwide PlazaIn Memphis it's the Sterick Building. There are quite a few across the nation. ------------**Real Estate Espresso Podcast:** Spotify: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://open.spotify.com/show/3GvtwRmTq4r3es8cbw8jW0?si=c75ea506a6694ef1)   iTunes: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-real-estate-espresso-podcast/id1340482613)   Website: [www.victorjm.com](http://www.victorjm.com)   LinkedIn: [Victor Menasce](http://www.linkedin.com/in/vmenasce)   YouTube: [The Real Estate Espresso Podcast](http://www.youtube.com/@victorjmenasce6734)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/realestateespresso](http://www.facebook.com/realestateespresso)   Email: [podcast@victorjm.com](mailto:podcast@victorjm.com)  **Y Street Capital:** Website: [www.ystreetcapital.com](http://www.ystreetcapital.com)   Facebook: [www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital](https://www.facebook.com/YStreetCapital)   Instagram: [@ystreetcapital](http://www.instagram.com/ystreetcapital)  

One of downtown Portland's most iconic skyscrapers has been listed for sale, a sign of the sluggish recovery of the area following the COVID-19 pandemic.Real estate firm JLL listed the U.S. Bancorp Tower, also known as “Big Pink,” for sale in late April. The 42-story, 1.15-million-square-foot building is currently owned and operated by Seattle-based firm Unico Properties.In this listing, JLL highlighted the building's history, while acknowledging its need for a makeover.

Back on the airwaves of Vinyl Community Podcasts, Alex (Beer & Vinyl) shares a recent interview with musician/songwriter M Ross Perkins. M Ross Perkins is currently a featured artist on the Colemine Records label, and has a new album that dropped on May 2nd (interview recorded prior) entitled "What's The Matter, M Ross?" Composed, performed, and recorded completely by Perkins in his Dayton, OH studio, What's the Matter… is both the most stripped down and expansive within his tryptic of albums ("Wrong, Wrong, Wrong", "E Pluribus M Ross", and Now "What's The Matter..."). The headphone symphonies move with a deliberate, composed sophistication while the lyrics explore fresh territory, turning the camera away from the “butterscotch revue” and pointing it into a mirror. "The touchstones of psych pop remain: flourishes of Nilsson are still here, but so are Gram Parsons and Jonathan Richman. If you want to assign geography to What's the Matter, M Ross?, the album is equal parts Laurel Canyon and Big Pink, more Woodstock the town than the festival. Perkins is a self-contained (late-period) Teenage Fanclub with George Harrison's spiritual sense of inner wanderlust. Want a free copy? Available to anyone in lower 48 states head over to the Beer & Vinyl YouTube channel (specific video link below) and comment with some kind of musical connection to the state of Ohio. Deadline to enter is May 16th, 2025. And don't forget to check out thew new album "What's the Matter, M Ross" at your local independent record store or direct from Colemine Records (link also below). Bottoms up!

Kyle Maggart of Brothers Music in Shawnee joined me for Episode No. 155, and I enjoyed the heck out of our conversation.His joint can be found at 12206 Johnson Drive, and they can be reached at 913-766-3869, or followed on Instagram as @brothersmusickc.We talked about growing up, getting into music at a young age, starting a business, and collecting a ton of vinyl.Naturally, we talked about a few of Kyle's favorites, which were these:Blue Train (1958), John ColtraneThe Band's Music from The Big Pink (1968)There's No Place Like America Today (1975), Curtis MayfieldToots & the Maytals' Funky Kingston (1976)Graceland (1986), Paul SimonUGK's Too Hard to Swallow (1992)I'd be remiss if I didn't give shouts out to the late, great Patrick "Potshake Dubwise" DuBois, and his fantastic KDUR FM radio show, Roots, Ragga, Radio, out of Durango, CO's Fort Lewis College (Go, Skyhawks!). Patrick was as kind as they come, and I'll always be grateful to him for both that and for showing me a few corners of the college/community-radio ropes.I'd also be remiss if I didn't give Kyle props for saying that Southern American Gospel might be the next frontier. One of the cooler collection of words spoken to date on the podcast.Please consider paying Brothers Music a visit if you're in the area, and give them an Instagram follow. Thank you to Kyle, and to everyone who tunes in.Cheers.copyright disclaimer: I do not own the rights to the audio samples contained within this episode. I poached them from an Andrew Gabbard tune called, "Cloud of Smoke," off of his 2023 release, Cedar City Sweetheart, c/o Karma Chief Records, a division of Colemine Records.

 Interview with Eric Earley of Blitzen Trapper 2024   Launched roughly two decades ago in Portland, OR, Blitzen Trapper garnered early attention with a series of self-released albums before breaking out internationally with a pair of critically acclaimed LPs (2007's Wild Mountain Nation and 2008's Furr) that would cement their status at the forefront of the modern indie folk revival. Rolling Stone hailed the band's “hazy, psychedelic Americana,” while NPR praised their “explosive live performances and infectious roots-rock swagger,” and The New York Times compared their songs to Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and Neil Young. Dates with Fleet Foxes, Wilco, and Dawes followed, as did festival appearances at Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, Newport Folk, and Coachella, among others. In the years to come, the band would go on to release six more similarly lauded studio albums, culminating with 2020's Holy Smokes Future Jokes, which Mojo proclaimed “sound[s] like the Beatles at Big Pink.” There are numbers so vast they exceed the scope of human reckoning, concepts so immeasurable they surpass our capacity to understand. On their radiant new album, 100's of 1000's, Millions of Billions, Blitzen Trapper make peace with the unknowable, surrendering themselves to forces beyond their control as they explore the infinite with a broad mind and an open heart. Inspired by singer/songwriter Eric Earley's fascination with Buddhist texts and meditation (the title comes from a phrase that appears over and over in the Mahayana sutras), the album offers a captivating take on rebirth and transcendence, and the circularity of existence, navigating its way through the space beyond dreams and reality, beyond gods and mortals, beyond life and death. The songs here are as sincere as they are surreal, rooted in rich character studies and deep reflection, and unfolding like a riddle-filled journey that asks many questions and offers no answers. The production is intoxicating to match, blending lo-fi intimacy and trippy psychedelia into a mesmerizing swirl of analog and electronic sounds. Add it all together and the result is a gorgeous, sprawling collection wrapped in lush layers of synthesizers and washed out electric guitars–a poignant, expansive exploration of perception and purpose that manages to look both forwards and backwards all at once. Grog Shop Show Info  NOV-4-24 https://grogshop.gs/tm-event/blitzen-trapper/ Blitzen Trapper Info  https://www.blitzentrapper.net/

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month, and the Irish Cancer society is launching their Big Pink Breakfast initiative urging people to be breast aware and remind people that breast cancer can affect anyone. Joining Ciara and Shane this morning was Dr Mariana Cervantes, Dr in Immunology and now a stage three breast cancer patient, Sonya Carr, Cancer Awareness Co-Ordinator Irish Cancer Society and Katie Browne, breast cancer survivor.

Portland city leaders are keeping an optimistic outlook about downtown's ability to bounce back economically after U.S. Bank announced it would be departing from the iconic “Big Pink” tower after more than 40 years. The rose gold-colored U.S. Bancorp Tower itself will remain in its place as that unmissable shimmering skyscraper that greets commuters as they enter the central city via Burnside Bridge. The mayor's office said it has supported a business, LegitScript, moving into the building.

The trio enjoys a lovely picnic. Frey runs into a new friend, Uther runs into a tree, and Stynexx gives blood. Hit us up with any questions or comments:Insta @crittalkerspodcastFacebook: crittalkerspodcastor drop us an email:thecast@crittalkerspodcast.comhttps://acadecon.com/Use code crittalkers for $3 off!Music/Sound Effects Include:Recap voice acting by Jennifer Millard, written by Jake Prewitt"Camera Flash" by MalarBrush"The Details Intro" by Ryan S."The Details Long" by Ryan S."Rest of The Fallen" by GuilhermeBernardes via Pixabay"Comedy - Detective" by Onoychenkomusic via Pixabay"Chamber Strings" by SigmaMusicArt via Pixabay"Dizzy ellectric bolt spell 1" by FxProSound via Pixabay"Wiggle Until You Giggle" by GoldenSoundLabs via Pixabay"Opening a bottle of wine" by Pixabay"Glass Clink 8" by floraphonic via Pixabay"wine glass clink" by Pixabay"Eating sound effect" by Pixabay"Eating Chips" by Pixabay"Rock Smash" by Pixabay"Dragonfly" by Pixabay"Sandy Beach - Calm Waves - Water - Nature Sounds" by JuliusH via Pixabay"Dark Suspense For Trailers And Film" by UNIVERSFIELD via Pixabay"Bug Zapper" by Pixabay"Cyberpunk 2099" by AleXZavesa via Pixabay"Waves, Atlantic ocean, surf, crashes, close up, beach, PEI, 2011" by Pixabay"Near Miss Swing Whoosh 2" by floraphonic via Pixabay"Cute Animal Squeak 4" by floraphonic via Pixabay"Magic" by Pixabay"Sword Swipes" by Pixabay"Lightning Tiger God (LOOP)" by Pixabay"Power Down" by Pixabay"Hitting Metal Hit" by Pixabay"Aggressive Metal (Sinister)" by BrightestAvenue via Pixabay"Sword Slash with a Designed Impact" by DavidDumaisAudio via Pixabay"Face Punch (2)" by Pixabay"Beginning Of A Reversal" by Lui_Epicmusic via Pixabay"Brass Fail 8 B" by floraphonic via Pixabay"Walk Alone | Dark Cinematic Music | Horror Music" by MusiQO via Pixabay"Squelch" by Pixabay"Belching" by Pixabay"The Blade_Main" by Grand_Project via Pixabay"chair squeaking" via Pixabay"Footsteps on wooden floor" via Pixabay"Opening and Closing of a Fridge" via Pixabay"Bag Sounds, Movement, Searching, Zipper," via Pixabay"085594_Potion" via Pixabay

U.S. Bank announced they will not be renewing their lease at the U.S. Bancorp Tower, more commonly known as "the Big Pink" in downtown. While they are moving out of downtown, the regional headquarters will remain in Portland and will now be found at the Columbia Center in Northeast Portland. The banks four branches and their client center will remain downtown at 900 Southwest 5th Avenue. Still, people are expecting an economic hit from the headquarters leaving the downtown area. “These are hundreds of employees that are going to be leaving downtown; that's going to affect restaurants, the bars, the ancillary businesses that work with US Bank," said Andy Giegerich, managing editor of the Portland Business Journal. "The vacancy rate downtown right now is 31%, according to Colliers, and so that means 1 out of every 3 office spaces is empty," he continued. City commissioners also were not thrilled about the news. “It's disappointing, but it tells us where our work is cut out for us, to keep investing and doubling down in community safety, public safety," said Commissioner Carmen Rubio. "It's never a good time, especially right as we're trying to recover in our economy." During Thursday's city council meeting, Mayor Ted Wheeler also said that the news was disappointing, and they tried to work through issues with U.S. Bank and Unico, the property owner, but the bank still made the decision to not renew. In a statement, U.S. Bank does not address any issues and instead provided this reasoning for the decision to move to northeast Portland: "In the simplest terms, the decision came down to a confluence of factors — an expiring lease on our space in the building, a reevaluation of our space in 24 key markets we have identified for future growth like Portland, and the availability of a nearby facility that the bank owns where we would accommodate our teams that are not client-facing. These changes have no impact on the way through which most in the local community engage with us, our branch presence in Portland and the surrounding area." In a separate statement to the Portland Business Journal, U.S. Bank also said no employees will lose their jobs. They also said that all employees will move to other locations around town by the end of the year. The city also noted how since the pandemic, many businesses have left downtown and are aware crime and the issue of homelessness contribute to some. However, they said there have been improvements. “Downtown is getting cleaner; it is safer than it was two years ago, but it's not nearly where it was in 2019," said Commissioner Rene Gonzalez. “We have to dramatically change the environment in our city in terms of tax burden and public safety." During the city council meeting and in a statement, the mayor explained more businesses have come to Portland in recent years, and crime has dropped a bit. Part of the statement from the mayor's office reads: "We are continuing to see promising data trends in crime rates, a 16% increase in business openings in 2023 (including Hoka, The Ritz Carlton, SoHo House, and Daimler Truck North America), notable increases to downtown foot traffic, progress on homelessness, and we led in the development of a business tax incentive to encourage businesses to lease office and retail space." Despite this, Wheeler also said it's likely more businesses will leave the area, but also urged the public to keep an optimistic view of the city. Close Ad

Today on City Cast Portland, we're talking about the latest Oregon state kicker tax credit predictions, our new state economist, and U.S. Bank's departure from Portland's iconic Big Pink skyscraper. Plus, we're breaking down some survey results highlighting the contrast between what Portlanders think we should prioritize as a city and what City Hall actually does best. Joining executive producer John Notarianni on this week's Friday news roundup are City Cast's director of digital strategy, Bryan Vance, and our very own producer, Giulia Fiaoni. Discussed in Today's Episode: There's a Gulf Between the Tasks That Portlanders Value Highest and the Ones They Think the City Does Best [Willamette Week] Oregon Hires Wall Street Pro As New State Economist, Filling the Job That Forecasts the Kicker [Oregonian

Hello and welcome back!In this episode we have another exciting guest. While the name of our interviewee may not be familiar to you, his works are for sure.Alex started creating artwork for various Pink Floyd bootlegs in the late 90's and supported the Harvested label on a few releases.He then started a YouTube channel and released animated versions of the official Pink Floyd artwork. This later led to a collaboration with Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets and eventually a close association with the family of Roger “Syd” Barrett, where Alex is the official animator for all content on the official website.The conversation was exciting, funny and insightful, but hear for yourself!Links:https://www.sydbarrett.com/https://www.youtube.com/c/artistontheborderhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZq92A0il6Q (Animated Relics Artwork)

Ahead of Breast Cancer Awareness Month this October, the Irish Cancer Society are looking for people to sign up to host a Big Pink Breakfast to raise much needed funds. Patrice Morrissey, a lone parent of three boys, was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2023, and joins Andrea to share her story.Image: Irish Cancer Society

allmylinks.com/ronnyandchad 

EVERY OTHER KREATIVE KONTROL EPISODE IS ONLY ACCESSIBLE TO MONTHLY $6 USD PATREON SUPPORTERS. This one is fine, but please subscribe now on Patreon so you never miss full episodes. Thanks!Tom Mullen discusses his Washed Up Emo podcast and archival enterprise, working for different labels and conceiving of the video chronicling the road Bob Dylan might have taken from Greenwich Village to Big Pink, getting Jeff Bridges to narrate it and also to join Facebook, a fascinating promo project about Jeff Buckley, bringing Fred Armisen together with members of the Clash for a Funny or Die bit, why he started Washed Up Emo, what emo even means these days, news about the latest season of Washed Up Emo, other future plans, and much more.Support vish on Patreon! Thanks to Pizza Trokadero, the Bookshelf, Planet Bean Coffee, and Grandad's Donuts. Support Y.E.S.S., Pride Centre of Edmonton, and Letters to Santa. Follow vish online.Related episodes/links:WUE #243 - Vish Khanna (Kreative Kontrol)Ep. #868: Kathleen HannaEp. #849: Jim White and Guy PicciottoEp. #845: The Messthetics and James Brandon LewisEp. #828: ‘Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine' with Mark Davidson & Parker FishelEp. #826: Steve Albini and Fred ArmisenEp. #819: ScreamEp. #583: Ian MacKayeEp. #483: American FootballSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/kreative-kontrol. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

9:00 - John Jackson and the Butte Recount - the Big Pink Bus at Gallatin Fairgrounds for Concerned Women full 2538 Tue, 20 Aug 2024 16:01:00 +0000 XbseeV32CVSwh9aZWrBEJ7SYB4uqf2dh Montana Talks with Aaron Flint 9:00 - John Jackson and the Butte Recount - the Big Pink Bus at Gallatin Fairgrounds for Concerned Women Montana Talks with Aaron Flint ON DEMAND 2020

This week DPR gets back to our Patreon Selection Series with Jason Kiehn's selection, “Duma Key”. Join in as we discuss how to draw a picture, the concept of an ‘Other Life', the brutal recovery process Edgar endures, King's use of language as he writes Wireman, dog trauma, Big Pink, the possessed quality of the paintings, the pace of life on the Key, superpowered best friends, theories about Elizabeth's behavior, a crash course in art, and skin-diving. Scratch that phantom itch with Episode 164, ”Would You Turn Around?” Join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/ZNJvTgShkk For more Derry Public Radio, head over to www.patreon.com/derrypublicradio for exclusive episodes, early releases, and more bonus content! For everything else: https://linktr.ee/derrypublicradio

On this, our 20th episode, we speak with a person who has chosen to go by the pseudonym of "Mick the Hat", and when you listen you'll certainly understand why. One of our favorite things to do on this podcast is to interview people who have knowledge that no one else in the world possesses, and who can shed light on some of the most legendary events in the history of Pink Floyd. Mick the Hat is one of those people. For anyone interested in the saga of Pink Floyd live recordings and vinyl bootlegs, you won't want to miss a minute of Mick the Hat's recollections, as elicited by podcast producer and interviewer Ian Priston. His tales of BFI busts gone wrong, of taping some of the most beloved shows in Pink Floyd history, and of dealing with some of the quirkiest characters out there, are one of a kind revelations that you won't hear anywhere else.

What's lanky and lost and pink all over? It's the American Flamingo that spent Sunday afternoon at Chapin Beach in Dennis. Only a lucky few got to see it, but this real, actual flamingo was indeed there. But how did it get there, and where did it come from?

(music) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(5 Hours) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(10 Hours) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(no music) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

This week we chat to Moira from the Blueberry Lounge Podcast. We discuss our thoughts and excitement over Onslaught, tips and tricks we've picked up along the way. Plus the different BRAVE weapons available and the builds and weapons we are using. More vault talk with Destiny Item Manager and weapon overload. New and returning Guardians bump in light. We get a very special 8 minute quick version of This Week at Bungie from Moira. Peroty gives you his weekly update and issues information, Respawn has is report round-up and Nitedemon provides his rundown of the upcoming weeks rotation in This Week at Bungie for the week 21 commencing on April 16th. Plus we have some video suggestions on the new sandbox, Onslaught and more for you to check out over on YouTube.   00:00:00 - Opening 00:02:27 - This Week In Destiny 3 Minutes Reset Guide: Week 21 00:06:17 - Welcome Moira 00:21:10 - Onslaught Discussion 01:23:06 - Whisper of the Worm Exotic Mission Discussion 01:29:04 - Weapons for Onslaught Next Week 01:29:45 - Onslaught Summary 01:31:13 - Update 7.3.6 Information 01:49:11 - Final Shape Stream & Developer Insight Discussion 02:26:33 - This Week At Bungie April 11th 2024 Blueberry Lounge Version 02:34:13 - Blueberry Lounge Promo 02:39:01 - Peroty's Player Support Report 02:43:47 - Iron Banner Gilding Bug Issues 02:48:20 - Respawn's Report Round-Up 03:03:51 - Tips, Tricks, Guides & Builds 03:08:06 - Patreon Thanks & Outro 03:12:00- End   Two Titians and a Hunter YouTube Channel Two Titans and a Hunter Twitch Two Titans and a Hunter Discord Two Titans and a Hunter TikTok Two Titans and a Hunter Instagram Two Titans and a Hunter - Patreon Two Titans and a Hunter Ko-Fi The100 io – GH/GD/2TAAH Group Email: twotitansandahunter@hotmail.com Two Titans and a Hunter Twitter Two Titans and a Hunter – Facebook Artwork by @Nitedemon Xbox Live: Nitedemon, Peroty, Not Arf & No1RespawnsInRL End credits theme song by Elsewhere - YouTube Channel Plus as always, thank you to Alexander at Orange Free Sounds & www.freesound.org for all the sound effects used in our podcast.    Required Stuff: Skarrow9 - Patheon Raid Gauntlet Explained (Spoilers) Froggy618157725 - OOB Hall of Champions Time Sausage Gaming - Hall of Champions Hidden Easter Eggs True Vanguard - Else's Rifle: Messenger on Steroids? Coolguy - Precious Scars Onslaught Titan Build Mactics - Warlock Frost Emperor Onslaught Build Mactics - Broken Onslaught Titan Build Mactics - King of Onslaught, Solar Titan Build Mactics - Titan Wall Build for Onslaught Cheese Forever - Easy Solo Legend No Enemies Whisper Glitch Cheese Forever - Onslaught Boss Cheese Aztecross - Moths To A Thread Hunter Build Aztecross - Salvations Grip Sleeper for Onslaught Aztecross - Whisper Mission 2024 Guide Bungie - Developer Livestream #1 Bungie - Developer Livestream #2 Bungie - Developer Livestream #3 Reddit - Into The Light Roadmap Destiny 2 LFG Discord Link PVE Podcast - Chris Proctor Interview Reddit - Massive Breakdown Chris Proctor Interview Breakdown WowVendor - Moments of Triumph 2023 Guide Bungie - Disabled Link Podcasts: Potato Thumbs Podcast Blueberry Lounge Podcast Guardian Down Cast Guardian Hub Podcast Danfinity – Destiny Digest  

#4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(5 Hours) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(10 Hours) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

(music) #4 Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

We start the new year with another wonderful guest, who is a musician, composer and one of the most versatile artists we had on the show so far. He has been a crucial part on every single Roger Waters tour between 2002 and 2016 and if his last name is familiar, that's because he is also the son of Roger Waters.We talk enthusiastically about music in general, playing to click tracks, his last shows with Roger Waters at Coachella 2016, his excitement about Chick Corea and his programming work for a Nintendo game. Harry played many show with LES CLAYPOOL and reveals how much he loves the Album ANIMALS.We very much respected his wish not to ask him any personal questions about his father so expect a in depth talk about music.

Last week, I was interviewed for the PITCH: Brand&Content show that aired on @CNNPortugal on January 6, 2024, produced by @Pitch-brand-and-content (great job, btw). Thanks to Creart.pt for inviting me to be a part of this show. You can watch it on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBKKjUu-dsM 00:22 The Three Revolutions: Digital, Green, and Human (Pink/Purple) 01:04 The Role of Europe in Leading into The Good Future 01:11 The Dangers of #artificialintelligence and the Need for Containment 02:19 The Power of Trust and Collaboration in Shaping the Future 04:17 The Emergence of a Better Future: Technology, Regulation, and Happiness This year marks a pivotal moment for humanity as we face the convergence of three monumental revolutions: The digital revolution (big blue) has become almost synonymous with artificial intelligence, driving profound transformations across all aspects of our lives. It could be heaven or it could be hell. Simultaneously, the green, #sustainability revolution will gain dramatic momentum in 2024 as societies move decisively towards sustainability, deeply circular practices, and a much more profound commitment to the environment. No company can afford to ignore this global shift towards greener thinking. Lastly, the third revolution, “Big Pink” (better ...Big Purple) underscores the importance of human agency and purpose. IMHO, #europe stands poised to lead the charge in embracing sustainability and prioritizing the existential importance of human intelligence and agency. In #2024, the central question before us is whether we really should sacrifice our humanity, skills, #freewill and human agency for the elusive allure of efficiency and rapid technological progress... I'll have a few things to say about that:))

In this X-Mas Special we welcome back Phil Salathé to dive into an analysis of Pink Floyd's music. Phil is a professor and teaches music theory and composition at a state university in northern New York, is a musician and composer himself and is therefore the perfect conversation partner to analyze the music and musical development of Pink Floyd over the years and to examine the band's structures from a creative perspective.Since Phil is working on a new book, we also have the pleasure of getting a first insights at the book's topics.Look forward to a great conversation with Phil Salathé and learn what he thinks makes Pink Floyd so special!

The Band were tight - as a touring unit and as friends. After some ups and downs on the road they decided to hole up in upstate New York and start writing what would become Music from Big Pink. The team discuss ragged harmonies, all American songwriting, and beautiful keyboard parts.Email us your complaints (or questions / comments) at 1001AlbumComplaints@gmail.comListen to our episode companion playlist (compilation of the songs we referenced on this episode) here:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/70xdLEWV7UY3Kx19sqs0QR?si=c42c582e83514729Listen to Music from Big Pink here:https://open.spotify.com/album/0ky5kdvfPxSmSpj03hpSAE?si=yoTv8G6cScWnmTFEUT-1TQIntro music: When the Walls Fell by The Beverly CrushersOutro music: After the Afterlife by MEGAFollow our Spotify Playlist of music produced directly by us. Listen and complain at homeFollow us on instagram @thechopunlimited AND @1001AlbumComplaintsSupport us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/1001AlbumComplaintsWe have 1001 Merch! Support us by buying some.US Merch StoreUK Merch StoreNext week's album: Soft Cell - Non Stop Erotic Cabaret

This week Todd welcomes Dave Baehler of the NotNerd Podcast to give a final news roundup up the year! Join us as we tackle news about the "holy grail" of male contraception, ChatGPT gets seasonal affective disorder, First Thursdays at the Portland Art Museum, Big Pink's new security robot, Google's top searches of 2023 (and forever), a rare pair of Nike's gets donated, and more. Happy holidays!

Dave Mustaine got fired from Metallica and vowed revenge in the form of a harder, faster, louder band called Megadeth. The boys talk about technical solos, NEW video game soundtracks, and a lack of low end.Email us your complaints (or questions / comments) at 1001AlbumComplaints@gmail.comListen to our episode companion playlist (compilation of the songs we referenced on this episode) here:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/122pEK7yMTfWuPKrI41IbA?si=669688030b454dc6Listen to Rust in Peace here:https://open.spotify.com/album/4e6ML9RBhDyyKTaTwbiRZv?si=utRdYE75TTeC1I1yAM3MlAIntro music: When the Walls Fell by The Beverly CrushersOutro music: After the Afterlife by MEGAFollow our Spotify Playlist of music produced directly by us. Listen and complain at homeFollow us on instagram @thechopunlimited AND @1001AlbumComplaintsSupport us on Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/1001AlbumComplaintsWe have 1001 Merch! Support us by buying some.US Merch StoreUK Merch StoreNext week's album: The Band - Music from Big Pink

Charles Beterams is not only an icon of the Dutch Pink Floyd fan scene but also an author, publisher, and operator of the world's largest web shop for Pink Floyd related items and memorabilia.Ian met Charles in London and they spoke for over an hour about his love of the band, experiences as a fanzine editor, books and publishing work. Few people in Europe know more about Pink Floyd than Charles, and hardly anyone has attended more concerts or can demonstrate their passion for the band with such sincerity. Enjoy over 60 minutes of in-depth commentary from two Pink Floyd researchers and experts!

Col Turner is an influential and significant figure amongst Pink Floyd fans across the globe who has been following Pink Floyd since 1966.We discuss Col's UFO Club experiences and the London scene. Col emigrated after the Hyde Park 1970 concert and reconnected to the band in Australia in 1971 and 1988. Perhaps best known for 'A Fleeting Glimpse' (www.pinkfloydz.com), Col's website was created 25 years ago and features countless stories, interviews and fascinating Pink Floyd insights.Col has met Roger Waters on four occasions and, as you will hear, it hasn't always gone smoothly.Join us to hear Col, Nils and Ian enjoy a warmhearted conversation and stories from this superfan's 57 year Pink Floyd journey.Facebook ' A Fleeting Glimpse': https://www.facebook.com/PinkFloydAFleetingGlimpse/

Happy Thanksgiving! King Harvest has surely come and we're heading Across The Great Divide to celebrate with The Band! Their self-titled sophomore album builds on everything that made Big Pink great. Expect lots of characters, evocative lyricism, jug-band style jams, and harmonious ballads. We'll get into their award-winning, iconic Last Waltz concert, a feast that included literal tons of food, an elephant mishap, Garth Hudson's toilet seat preferences, and their instrumental round-robins! Whether you're Up On Cripple Creek or reminiscing on The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down... Keep an open mind.Keep Spinning at www.SpinItPod.com!Thanks for listening! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

James is jet lagged and Johnny has nearly built his "Big Pink" house.  The Championship continues, plus we just catch up; because that's really what this is all about - friendship.

This week, we brought on Eddie Fowlkes, the Godfather of Techno Soul. We talk about his history in the music industry and share some stories and thoughts on the current techno scene. Filmed/Recorded at Big Pink on 10/06/2023Contact Big Pink·bigpinklovesyou@gmail.com·bigpinklovesyou.com·Instagram: @bigpinklovesyou·Tik Tok: @munchmusic

#4 “Big Pink Pig Piggy Bank” SLEEPY Boring Objects (Jason Newland) (18th September 2021) by Jason Newland

The PODCAST IS BACK! In this episode, we bring you up to date on what's been happening since we opened our music venue in November 2022. We cover some of the behind the scenes and what we're looking forward to in the future.·Filmed/Recorded at Big Pink on 9/29/2023Contact Big Pink·bigpinklovesyou@gmail.com·bigpinklovesyou.com·Instagram: @bigpinklovesyou·Tik Tok: @munchmusic

Episode one hundred and sixty-seven of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “The Weight" by the Band, the Basement Tapes, and the continuing controversy over Dylan going electric. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a half-hour bonus episode available, on "S.F. Sorrow is Born" by the Pretty Things. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Also, a one-time request here -- Shawn Taylor, who runs the Facebook group for the podcast and is an old and dear friend of mine, has stage-three lung cancer. I will be hugely grateful to anyone who donates to the GoFundMe for her treatment. Errata At one point I say "when Robertson and Helm travelled to the Brill Building". I meant "when Hawkins and Helm". This is fixed in the transcript but not the recording. Resources There are three Mixcloud mixes this time. As there are so many songs by Bob Dylan and the Band excerpted, and Mixcloud won't allow more than four songs by the same artist in any mix, I've had to post the songs not in quite the same order in which they appear in the podcast. But the mixes are here — one, two, three. I've used these books for all the episodes involving Dylan: Dylan Goes Electric!: Newport, Seeger, Dylan, and the Night That Split the Sixties by Elijah Wald, which is recommended, as all Wald's books are. Bob Dylan: All The Songs by Phillipe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon is a song-by-song look at every song Dylan ever wrote, as is Revolution in the Air, by Clinton Heylin. Heylin also wrote the most comprehensive and accurate biography of Dylan, Behind the Shades. I've also used Robert Shelton's No Direction Home, which is less accurate, but which is written by someone who knew Dylan. Chronicles Volume 1 by Bob Dylan is a partial, highly inaccurate, but thoroughly readable autobiography. Information on Tiny Tim comes from Eternal Troubadour: The Improbable Life of Tiny Tim by Justin Martell. Information on John Cage comes from The Roaring Silence by David Revill Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. For material on the Basement Tapes, I've used Million Dollar Bash by Sid Griffin. And for the Band, I've used This Wheel's on Fire by Levon Helm with Stephen Davis, Testimony by Robbie Robertson, The Band by Craig Harris and Levon by Sandra B Tooze. I've also referred to the documentaries No Direction Home and Once Were Brothers. The complete Basement Tapes can be found on this multi-disc box set, while this double-CD version has the best material from the sessions. All the surviving live recordings by Dylan and the Hawks from 1966 are on this box set. There are various deluxe versions of Music From Big Pink, but still the best way to get the original album is in this twofer CD with the Band's second album. Transcript Just a brief note before I start – literally while I was in the middle of recording this episode, it was announced that Robbie Robertson had died today, aged eighty. Obviously I've not had time to alter the rest of the episode – half of which had already been edited – with that in mind, though I don't believe I say anything disrespectful to his memory. My condolences to those who loved him – he was a huge talent and will be missed. There are people in the world who question the function of criticism. Those people argue that criticism is in many ways parasitic. If critics knew what they were talking about, so the argument goes, they would create themselves, rather than talk about other people's creation. It's a variant of the "those who can't, teach" cliche. And to an extent it's true. Certainly in the world of rock music, which we're talking about in this podcast, most critics are quite staggeringly ignorant of the things they're talking about. Most criticism is ephemeral, published in newspapers, magazines, blogs and podcasts, and forgotten as soon as it has been consumed -- and consumed is the word . But sometimes, just sometimes, a critic will have an effect on the world that is at least as important as that of any of the artists they criticise. One such critic was John Ruskin. Ruskin was one of the preeminent critics of visual art in the Victorian era, particularly specialising in painting and architecture, and he passionately advocated for a form of art that would be truthful, plain, and honest. To Ruskin's mind, many artists of the past, and of his time, drew and painted, not what they saw with their own eyes, but what other people expected them to paint. They replaced true observation of nature with the regurgitation of ever-more-mannered and formalised cliches. His attacks on many great artists were, in essence, the same critiques that are currently brought against AI art apps -- they're just recycling and plagiarising what other people had already done, not seeing with their own eyes and creating from their own vision. Ruskin was an artist himself, but never received much acclaim for his own work. Rather, he advocated for the works of others, like Turner and the pre-Raphaelite school -- the latter of whom were influenced by Ruskin, even as he admired them for seeing with their own vision rather than just repeating influences from others. But those weren't the only people Ruskin influenced. Because any critical project, properly understood, becomes about more than just the art -- as if art is just anything. Ruskin, for example, studied geology, because if you're going to talk about how people should paint landscapes and what those landscapes look like, you need to understand what landscapes really do look like, which means understanding their formation. He understood that art of the kind he wanted could only be produced by certain types of people, and so society had to be organised in a way to produce such people. Some types of societal organisation lead to some kinds of thinking and creation, and to properly, honestly, understand one branch of human thought means at least to attempt to understand all of them. Opinions about art have moral consequences, and morality has political and economic consequences. The inevitable endpoint of any theory of art is, ultimately, a theory of society. And Ruskin had a theory of society, and social organisation. Ruskin's views are too complex to summarise here, but they were a kind of anarcho-primitivist collectivism. He believed that wealth was evil, and that the classical liberal economics of people like Mill was fundamentally anti-human, that the division of labour alienated people from their work. In Ruskin's ideal world, people would gather in communities no bigger than villages, and work as craftspeople, working with nature rather than trying to bend nature to their will. They would be collectives, with none richer or poorer than any other, and working the land without modern technology. in the first half of the twentieth century, in particular, Ruskin's influence was *everywhere*. His writings on art inspired the Impressionist movement, but his political and economic ideas were the most influential, right across the political spectrum. Ruskin's ideas were closest to Christian socialism, and he did indeed inspire many socialist parties -- most of the founders of Britain's Labour Party were admirers of Ruskin and influenced by his ideas, particularly his opposition to the free market. But he inspired many other people -- Gandhi talked about the profound influence that Ruskin had on him, saying in his autobiography that he got three lessons from Ruskin's Unto This Last: "That 1) the good of the individual is contained in the good of all. 2) a lawyer's work has the same value as the barber's in as much as all have the same right of earning their livelihood from their work. 3) a life of labour, i.e., the life of the tiller of the soil and the handicraftsman is the life worth living. The first of these I knew. The second I had dimly realized. The third had never occurred to me. Unto This Last made it clear as daylight for me that the second and third were contained in the first. I arose with the dawn, ready to reduce these principles to practice" Gandhi translated and paraphrased Unto this Last into Gujurati and called the resulting book Sarvodaya (meaning "uplifting all" or "the welfare of all") which he later took as the name of his own political philosophy. But Ruskin also had a more pernicious influence -- it was said in 1930s Germany that he and his friend Thomas Carlyle were "the first National Socialists" -- there's no evidence I know of that Hitler ever read Ruskin, but a *lot* of Nazi rhetoric is implicit in Ruskin's writing, particularly in his opposition to progress (he even opposed the bicycle as being too much inhuman interference with nature), just as much as more admirable philosophies, and he was so widely read in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that there's barely a political movement anywhere that didn't bear his fingerprints. But of course, our focus here is on music. And Ruskin had an influence on that, too. We've talked in several episodes, most recently the one on the Velvet Underground, about John Cage's piece 4'33. What I didn't mention in any of the discussions of that piece -- because I was saving it for here -- is that that piece was premiered at a small concert hall in upstate New York. The hall, the Maverick Concert Hall, was owned and run by the Maverick arts and crafts collective -- a collective that were so called because they were the *second* Ruskinite arts colony in the area, having split off from the Byrdcliffe colony after a dispute between its three founders, all of whom were disciples of Ruskin, and all of whom disagreed violently about how to implement Ruskin's ideas of pacifist all-for-one and one-for-all community. These arts colonies, and others that grew up around them like the Arts Students League were the thriving centre of a Bohemian community -- close enough to New York that you could get there if you needed to, far enough away that you could live out your pastoral fantasies, and artists of all types flocked there -- Pete Seeger met his wife there, and his father-in-law had been one of the stonemasons who helped build the Maverick concert hall. Dozens of artists in all sorts of areas, from Aaron Copland to Edward G Robinson, spent time in these communities, as did Cage. Of course, while these arts and crafts communities had a reputation for Bohemianism and artistic extremism, even radical utopian artists have their limits, and legend has it that the premiere of 4'33 was met with horror and derision, and eventually led to one artist in the audience standing up and calling on the residents of the town around which these artistic colonies had agglomerated: “Good people of Woodstock, let's drive these people out of town.” [Excerpt: The Band, "The Weight"] Ronnie Hawkins was almost born to make music. We heard back in the episode on "Suzie Q" in 2019 about his family and their ties to music. Ronnie's uncle Del was, according to most of the sources on the family, a member of the Sons of the Pioneers -- though as I point out in that episode, his name isn't on any of the official lists of group members, but he might well have performed with them at some point in the early years of the group. And he was definitely a country music bass player, even if he *wasn't* in the most popular country and western group of the thirties and forties. And Del had had two sons, Jerry, who made some minor rockabilly records: [Excerpt: Jerry Hawkins, "Swing, Daddy, Swing"] And Del junior, who as we heard in the "Susie Q" episode became known as Dale Hawkins and made one of the most important rock records of the fifties: [Excerpt: Dale Hawkins, "Susie Q"] Ronnie Hawkins was around the same age as his cousins, and was in awe of his country-music star uncle. Hawkins later remembered that after his uncle moved to Califormia to become a star “He'd come home for a week or two, driving a brand new Cadillac and wearing brand new clothes and I knew that's what I wanted to be." Though he also remembered “He spent every penny he made on whiskey, and he was divorced because he was running around with all sorts of women. His wife left Arkansas and went to Louisiana.” Hawkins knew that he wanted to be a music star like his uncle, and he started performing at local fairs and other events from the age of eleven, including one performance where he substituted for Hank Williams -- Williams was so drunk that day he couldn't perform, and so his backing band asked volunteers from the audience to get up and sing with them, and Hawkins sang Burl Ives and minstrel-show songs with the band. He said later “Even back then I knew that every important white cat—Al Jolson, Stephen Foster—they all did it by copying blacks. Even Hank Williams learned all the stuff he had from those black cats in Alabama. Elvis Presley copied black music; that's all that Elvis did.” As well as being a performer from an early age, though, Hawkins was also an entrepreneur with an eye for how to make money. From the age of fourteen he started running liquor -- not moonshine, he would always point out, but something far safer. He lived only a few miles from the border between Missouri and Arkansas, and alcohol and tobacco were about half the price in Missouri that they were in Arkansas, so he'd drive across the border, load up on whisky and cigarettes, and drive back and sell them at a profit, which he then used to buy shares in several nightclubs, which he and his bands would perform in in later years. Like every man of his generation, Hawkins had to do six months in the Army, and it was there that he joined his first ever full-time band, the Blackhawks -- so called because his name was Hawkins, and the rest of the group were Black, though Hawkins was white. They got together when the other four members were performing at a club in the area where Hawkins was stationed, and he was so impressed with their music that he jumped on stage and started singing with them. He said later “It sounded like something between the blues and rockabilly. It sort of leaned in both directions at the same time, me being a hayseed and those guys playing a lot funkier." As he put it "I wanted to sound like Bobby ‘Blue' Bland but it came out sounding like Ernest Tubb.” Word got around about the Blackhawks, both that they were a great-sounding rock and roll band and that they were an integrated band at a time when that was extremely unpopular in the southern states, and when Hawkins was discharged from the Army he got a call from Sam Phillips at Sun Records. According to Hawkins a group of the regular Sun session musicians were planning on forming a band, and he was asked to front the band for a hundred dollars a week, but by the time he got there the band had fallen apart. This doesn't precisely line up with anything else I know about Sun, though it perhaps makes sense if Hawkins was being asked to front the band who had variously backed Billy Lee Riley and Jerry Lee Lewis after one of Riley's occasional threats to leave the label. More likely though, he told everyone he knew that he had a deal with Sun but Phillips was unimpressed with the demos he cut there, and Hawkins made up the story to stop himself losing face. One of the session players for Sun, though, Luke Paulman, who played in Conway Twitty's band among others, *was* impressed with Hawkins though, and suggested that they form a band together with Paulman's bass player brother George and piano-playing cousin Pop Jones. The Paulman brothers and Jones also came from Arkansas, but they specifically came from Helena, Arkansas, the town from which King Biscuit Time was broadcast. King Biscuit Time was the most important blues radio show in the US at that time -- a short lunchtime programme which featured live performances from a house band which varied over the years, but which in the 1940s had been led by Sonny Boy Williamson II, and featured Robert Jr. Lockwood, Robert Johnson's stepson, on guiitar: [Excerpt: Sonny Boy Williamson II "Eyesight to the Blind (King Biscuit Time)"] The band also included a drummer, "Peck" Curtis, and that drummer was the biggest inspiration for a young white man from the town named Levon Helm. Helm had first been inspired to make music after seeing Bill Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys play live when Helm was eight, and he had soon taken up first the harmonica, then the guitar, then the drums, becoming excellent at all of them. Even as a child he knew that he didn't want to be a farmer like his family, and that music was, as he put it, "the only way to get off that stinking tractor  and out of that one hundred and five degree heat.” Sonny Boy Williamson and the King Biscuit Boys would perform in the open air in Marvell, Arkansas, where Helm was growing up, on Saturdays, and Helm watched them regularly as a small child, and became particularly interested in the drumming. “As good as the band sounded,” he said later “it seemed that [Peck] was definitely having the most fun. I locked into the drums at that point. Later, I heard Jack Nance, Conway Twitty's drummer, and all the great drummers in Memphis—Jimmy Van Eaton, Al Jackson, and Willie Hall—the Chicago boys (Fred Belew and Clifton James) and the people at Sun Records and Vee-Jay, but most of my style was based on Peck and Sonny Boy—the Delta blues style with the shuffle. Through the years, I've quickened the pace to a more rock-and-roll meter and time frame, but it still bases itself back to Peck, Sonny Boy Williamson, and the King Biscuit Boys.” Helm had played with another band that George Paulman had played in, and he was invited to join the fledgling band Hawkins was putting together, called for the moment the Sun Records Quartet. The group played some of the clubs Hawkins had business connections in, but they had other plans -- Conway Twitty had recently played Toronto, and had told Luke Paulman about how desperate the Canadians were for American rock and roll music. Twitty's agent Harold Kudlets booked the group in to a Toronto club, Le Coq D'Or, and soon the group were alternating between residencies in clubs in the Deep South, where they were just another rockabilly band, albeit one of the better ones, and in Canada, where they became the most popular band in Ontario, and became the nucleus of an entire musical scene -- the same scene from which, a few years later, people like Neil Young would emerge. George Paulman didn't remain long in the group -- he was apparently getting drunk, and also he was a double-bass player, at a time when the electric bass was becoming the in thing. And this is the best place to mention this, but there are several discrepancies in the various accounts of which band members were in Hawkins' band at which times, and who played on what session. They all *broadly* follow the same lines, but none of them are fully reconcilable with each other, and nobody was paying enough attention to lineup shifts in a bar band between 1957 and 1964 to be absolutely certain who was right. I've tried to reconcile the various accounts as far as possible and make a coherent narrative, but some of the details of what follows may be wrong, though the broad strokes are correct. For much of their first period in Ontario, the group had no bass player at all, relying on Jones' piano to fill in the bass parts, and on their first recording, a version of "Bo Diddley", they actually got the club's manager to play bass with them: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins, "Hey Bo Diddley"] That is claimed to be the first rock and roll record made in Canada, though as everyone who has listened to this podcast knows, there's no first anything. It wasn't released as by the Sun Records Quartet though -- the band had presumably realised that that name would make them much less attractive to other labels, and so by this point the Sun Records Quartet had become Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks. "Hey Bo Diddley" was released on a small Canadian label and didn't have any success, but the group carried on performing live, travelling back down to Arkansas for a while and getting a new bass player, Lefty Evans, who had been playing in the same pool of musicians as them, having been another Sun session player who had been in Conway Twitty's band, and had written Twitty's "Why Can't I Get Through to You": [Excerpt: Conway Twitty, "Why Can't I Get Through to You"] The band were now popular enough in Canada that they were starting to get heard of in America, and through Kudlets they got a contract with Joe Glaser, a Mafia-connected booking agent who booked them into gigs on the Jersey Shore. As Helm said “Ronnie Hawkins had molded us into the wildest, fiercest, speed-driven bar band in America," and the group were apparently getting larger audiences in New Jersey than Sammy Davis Jr was, even though they hadn't released any records in the US. Or at least, they hadn't released any records in their own name in the US. There's a record on End Records by Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels which is very strongly rumoured to have been the Hawks under another name, though Hawkins always denied that. Have a listen for yourself and see what you think: [Excerpt: Rockin' Ronald and the Rebels, "Kansas City"] End Records, the label that was on, was one of the many record labels set up by George Goldner and distributed by Morris Levy, and when the group did release a record in their home country under their own name, it was on Levy's Roulette Records. An audition for Levy had been set up by Glaser's booking company, and Levy decided that given that Elvis was in the Army, there was a vacancy to be filled and Ronnie Hawkins might just fit the bill. Hawkins signed a contract with Levy, and it doesn't sound like he had much choice in the matter. Helm asked him “How long did you have to sign for?” and Hawkins replied "Life with an option" That said, unlike almost every other artist who interacted with Levy, Hawkins never had a bad word to say about him, at least in public, saying later “I don't care what Morris was supposed to have done, he looked after me and he believed in me. I even lived with him in his million-dollar apartment on the Upper East Side." The first single the group recorded for Roulette, a remake of Chuck Berry's "Thirty Days" retitled "Forty Days", didn't chart, but the follow-up, a version of Young Jessie's "Mary Lou", made number twenty-six on the charts: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Mary Lou"] While that was a cover of a Young Jessie record, the songwriting credits read Hawkins and Magill -- Magill was a pseudonym used by Morris Levy. Levy hoped to make Ronnie Hawkins into a really big star, but hit a snag. This was just the point where the payola scandal had hit and record companies were under criminal investigation for bribing DJs to play their records. This was the main method of promotion that Levy used, and this was so well known that Levy was, for a time, under more scrutiny than anyone. He couldn't risk paying anyone off, and so Hawkins' records didn't get the expected airplay. The group went through some lineup changes, too, bringing in guitarist Fred Carter (with Luke Paulman moving to rhythm and soon leaving altogether)  from Hawkins' cousin Dale's band, and bass player Jimmy Evans. Some sources say that Jones quit around this time, too, though others say he was in the band for  a while longer, and they had two keyboards (the other keyboard being supplied by Stan Szelest. As well as recording Ronnie Hawkins singles, the new lineup of the group also recorded one single with Carter on lead vocals, "My Heart Cries": [Excerpt: Fred Carter, "My Heart Cries"] While the group were now playing more shows in the USA, they were still playing regularly in Canada, and they had developed a huge fanbase there. One of these was a teenage guitarist called Robbie Robertson, who had become fascinated with the band after playing a support slot for them, and had started hanging round, trying to ingratiate himself with the band in the hope of being allowed to join. As he was a teenager, Hawkins thought he might have his finger on the pulse of the youth market, and when Hawkins and Helm travelled to the Brill Building to hear new songs for consideration for their next album, they brought Robertson along to listen to them and give his opinion. Robertson himself ended up contributing two songs to the album, titled Mr. Dynamo. According to Hawkins "we had a little time after the session, so I thought, Well, I'm just gonna put 'em down and see what happens. And they were released. Robbie was the songwriter for words, and Levon was good for arranging, making things fit in and all that stuff. He knew what to do, but he didn't write anything." The two songs in question were "Someone Like You" and "Hey Boba Lou": [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Hey Boba Lou"] While Robertson was the sole writer of the songs, they were credited to Robertson, Hawkins, and Magill -- Morris Levy. As Robertson told the story later, “It's funny, when those songs came out and I got a copy of the album, it had another name on there besides my name for some writer like Morris Levy. So, I said to Ronnie, “There was nobody there writing these songs when I wrote these songs. Who is Morris Levy?” Ronnie just kinda tapped me on the head and said, “There are certain things about this business that you just let go and you don't question.” That was one of my early music industry lessons right there" Robertson desperately wanted to join the Hawks, but initially it was Robertson's bandmate Scott Cushnie who became the first Canadian to join the Hawks. But then when they were in Arkansas, Jimmy Evans decided he wasn't going to go back to Canada. So Hawkins called Robbie Robertson up and made him an offer. Robertson had to come down to Arkansas and get a couple of quick bass lessons from Helm (who could play pretty much every instrument to an acceptable standard, and so was by this point acting as the group's musical director, working out arrangements and leading them in rehearsals). Then Hawkins and Helm had to be elsewhere for a few weeks. If, when they got back, Robertson was good enough on bass, he had the job. If not, he didn't. Robertson accepted, but he nearly didn't get the gig after all. The place Hawkins and Helm had to be was Britain, where they were going to be promoting their latest single on Boy Meets Girls, the Jack Good TV series with Marty Wilde, which featured guitarist Joe Brown in the backing band: [Excerpt: Joe Brown, “Savage”] This was the same series that Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent were regularly appearing on, and while they didn't appear on the episodes that Hawkins and Helm appeared on, they did appear on the episodes immediately before Hawkins and Helm's two appearances, and again a couple of weeks after, and were friendly with the musicians who did play with Hawkins and Helm, and apparently they all jammed together a few times. Hawkins was impressed enough with Joe Brown -- who at the time was considered the best guitarist on the British scene -- that he invited Brown to become a Hawk. Presumably if Brown had taken him up on the offer, he would have taken the spot that ended up being Robertson's, but Brown turned him down -- a decision he apparently later regretted. Robbie Robertson was now a Hawk, and he and Helm formed an immediate bond. As Helm much later put it, "It was me and Robbie against the world. Our mission, as we saw it, was to put together the best band in history". As rockabilly was by this point passe, Levy tried converting Hawkins into a folk artist, to see if he could get some of the Kingston Trio's audience. He recorded a protest song, "The Ballad of Caryl Chessman", protesting the then-forthcoming execution of Chessman (one of only a handful of people to be executed in the US in recent decades for non-lethal offences), and he made an album of folk tunes, The Folk Ballads of Ronnie Hawkins, which largely consisted of solo acoustic recordings, plus a handful of left-over Hawks recordings from a year or so earlier. That wasn't a success, but they also tried a follow-up, having Hawkins go country and do an album of Hank Williams songs, recorded in Nashville at Owen Bradley's Quonset hut. While many of the musicians on the album were Nashville A-Team players, Hawkins also insisted on having his own band members perform, much to the disgust of the producer, and so it's likely (not certain, because there seem to be various disagreements about what was recorded when) that that album features the first studio recordings with Levon Helm and Robbie Robertson playing together: [Excerpt: Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, "Your Cheatin' Heart"] Other sources claim that the only Hawk allowed to play on the album sessions was Helm, and that the rest of the musicians on the album were Harold Bradley and Hank Garland on guitar, Owen Bradley and Floyd Cramer on piano, Bob Moore on bass, and the Anita Kerr singers. I tend to trust Helm's recollection that the Hawks played at least some of the instruments though, because the source claiming that also seems to confuse the Hank Williams and Folk Ballads albums, and because I don't hear two pianos on the album. On the other hand, that *does* sound like Floyd Cramer on piano, and the tik-tok bass sound you'd get from having Harold Bradley play a baritone guitar while Bob Moore played a bass. So my best guess is that these sessions were like the Elvis sessions around the same time and with several of the same musicians, where Elvis' own backing musicians played rhythm parts but left the prominent instruments to the A-team players. Helm was singularly unimpressed with the experience of recording in Nashville. His strongest memory of the sessions was of another session going on in the same studio complex at the time -- Bobby "Blue" Bland was recording his classic single "Turn On Your Love Light", with the great drummer Jabo Starks on drums, and Helm was more interested in listening to that than he was in the music they were playing: [Excerpt: Bobby "Blue" Bland, "Turn On Your Love Light"] Incidentally, Helm talks about that recording being made "downstairs" from where the Hawks were recording, but also says that they were recording in Bradley's Quonset hut.  Now, my understanding here *could* be very wrong -- I've been unable to find a plan or schematic anywhere -- but my understanding is that the Quonset hut was a single-level structure, not a multi-level structure. BUT the original recording facilities run by the Bradley brothers were in Owen Bradley's basement, before they moved into the larger Quonset hut facility in the back, so it's possible that Bland was recording that in the old basement studio. If so, that won't be the last recording made in a basement we hear this episode... Fred Carter decided during the Nashville sessions that he was going to leave the Hawks. As his son told the story: "Dad had discovered the session musicians there. He had no idea that you could play and make a living playing in studios and sleep in your own bed every night. By that point in his life, he'd already been gone from home and constantly on the road and in the service playing music for ten years so that appealed to him greatly. And Levon asked him, he said, “If you're gonna leave, Fred, I'd like you to get young Robbie over here up to speed on guitar”…[Robbie] got kind of aggravated with him—and Dad didn't say this with any malice—but by the end of that week, or whatever it was, Robbie made some kind of comment about “One day I'm gonna cut you.” And Dad said, “Well, if that's how you think about it, the lessons are over.” " (For those who don't know, a musician "cutting" another one is playing better than them, so much better that the worse musician has to concede defeat. For the remainder of Carter's notice in the Hawks, he played with his back to Robertson, refusing to look at him. Carter leaving the group caused some more shuffling of roles. For a while, Levon Helm -- who Hawkins always said was the best lead guitar player he ever worked with as well as the best drummer -- tried playing lead guitar while Robertson played rhythm and another member, Rebel Payne, played bass, but they couldn't find a drummer to replace Helm, who moved back onto the drums. Then they brought in Roy Buchanan, another guitarist who had been playing with Dale Hawkins, having started out playing with Johnny Otis' band. But Buchanan didn't fit with Hawkins' personality, and he quit after a few months, going off to record his own first solo record: [Excerpt: Roy Buchanan, "Mule Train Stomp"] Eventually they solved the lineup problem by having Robertson -- by this point an accomplished lead player --- move to lead guitar and bringing in a new rhythm player, another Canadian teenager named Rick Danko, who had originally been a lead player (and who also played mandolin and fiddle). Danko wasn't expected to stay on rhythm long though -- Rebel Payne was drinking a lot and missing being at home when he was out on the road, so Danko was brought in on the understanding that he was to learn Payne's bass parts and switch to bass when Payne quit. Helm and Robertson were unsure about Danko, and Robertson expressed that doubt, saying "He only knows four chords," to which Hawkins replied, "That's all right son. You can teach him four more the way we had to teach you." He proved himself by sheer hard work. As Hawkins put it “He practiced so much that his arms swoll up. He was hurting.” By the time Danko switched to bass, the group also had a baritone sax player, Jerry Penfound, which allowed the group to play more of the soul and R&B material that Helm and Robertson favoured, though Hawkins wasn't keen. This new lineup of the group (which also had Stan Szelest on piano) recorded Hawkins' next album. This one was produced by Henry Glover, the great record producer, songwriter, and trumpet player who had played with Lucky Millinder, produced Wynonie Harris, Hank Ballard, and Moon Mullican, and wrote "Drowning in My Own Tears", "The Peppermint Twist", and "California Sun". Glover was massively impressed with the band, especially Helm (with whom he would remain friends for the rest of his life) and set aside some studio time for them to cut some tracks without Hawkins, to be used as album filler, including a version of the Bobby "Blue" Bland song "Farther On Up the Road" with Helm on lead vocals: [Excerpt: Levon Helm and the Hawks, "Farther On Up the Road"] There were more changes on the way though. Stan Szelest was about to leave the band, and Jones had already left, so the group had no keyboard player. Hawkins had just the replacement for Szelest -- yet another Canadian teenager. This one was Richard Manuel, who played piano and sang in a band called The Rockin' Revols. Manuel was not the greatest piano player around -- he was an adequate player for simple rockabilly and R&B stuff, but hardly a virtuoso -- but he was an incredible singer, able to do a version of "Georgia on My Mind" which rivalled Ray Charles, and Hawkins had booked the Revols into his own small circuit of clubs around Arkanasas after being impressed with them on the same bill as the Hawks a couple of times. Hawkins wanted someone with a good voice because he was increasingly taking a back seat in performances. Hawkins was the bandleader and frontman, but he'd often given Helm a song or two to sing in the show, and as they were often playing for several hours a night, the more singers the band had the better. Soon, with Helm, Danko, and Manuel all in the group and able to take lead vocals, Hawkins would start missing entire shows, though he still got more money than any of his backing group. Hawkins was also a hard taskmaster, and wanted to have the best band around. He already had great musicians, but he wanted them to be *the best*. And all the musicians in his band were now much younger than him, with tons of natural talent, but untrained. What he needed was someone with proper training, someone who knew theory and technique. He'd been trying for a long time to get someone like that, but Garth Hudson had kept turning him down. Hudson was older than any of the Hawks, though younger than Hawkins, and he was a multi-instrumentalist who was far better than any other musician on the circuit, having trained in a conservatory and learned how to play Bach and Chopin before switching to rock and roll. He thought the Hawks were too loud sounding and played too hard for him, but Helm kept on at Hawkins to meet any demands Hudson had, and Hawkins eventually agreed to give Hudson a higher wage than any of the other band members, buy him a new Lowry organ, and give him an extra ten dollars a week to give the rest of the band music lessons. Hudson agreed, and the Hawks now had a lineup of Helm on drums, Robertson on guitar, Manuel on piano, Danko on bass, Hudson on organ and alto sax, and Penfound on baritone sax. But these new young musicians were beginning to wonder why they actually needed a frontman who didn't turn up to many of the gigs, kept most of the money, and fined them whenever they broke one of his increasingly stringent set of rules. Indeed, they wondered why they needed a frontman at all. They already had three singers -- and sometimes a fourth, a singer called Bruce Bruno who would sometimes sit in with them when Penfound was unable to make a gig. They went to see Harold Kudlets, who Hawkins had recently sacked as his manager, and asked him if he could get them gigs for the same amount of money as they'd been getting with Hawkins. Kudlets was astonished to find how little Hawkins had been paying them, and told them that would be no problem at all. They had no frontman any more -- and made it a rule in all their contracts that the word "sideman" would never be used -- but Helm had been the leader for contractual purposes, as the musical director and longest-serving member (Hawkins, as a non-playing singer, had never joined the Musicians' Union so couldn't be the leader on contracts). So the band that had been Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks became the Levon Helm Sextet briefly -- but Penfound soon quit, and they became Levon and the Hawks. The Hawks really started to find their identity as their own band in 1964. They were already far more interested in playing soul than Hawkins had been, but they were also starting to get into playing soul *jazz*, especially after seeing the Cannonball Adderley Sextet play live: [Excerpt: Cannonball Adderley, "This Here"] What the group admired about the Adderley group more than anything else was a sense of restraint. Helm was particularly impressed with their drummer, Louie Hayes, and said of him "I got to see some great musicians over the years, and you see somebody like that play and you can tell, y' know, that the thing not to do is to just get it down on the floor and stomp the hell out of it!" The other influence they had, and one which would shape their sound even more, was a negative one. The two biggest bands on the charts at the time were the Beatles and the Beach Boys, and as Helm described it in his autobiography, the Hawks thought both bands' harmonies were "a blend of pale, homogenised, voices". He said "We felt we were better than the Beatles and the Beach Boys. We considered them our rivals, even though they'd never heard of us", and they decided to make their own harmonies sound as different as possible as a result. Where those groups emphasised a vocal blend, the Hawks were going to emphasise the *difference* in their voices in their own harmonies. The group were playing prestigious venues like the Peppermint Lounge, and while playing there they met up with John Hammond Jr, who they'd met previously in Canada. As you might remember from the first episode on Bob Dylan, Hammond Jr was the son of the John Hammond who we've talked about in many episodes, and was a blues musician in his own right. He invited Helm, Robertson, and Hudson to join the musicians, including Michael Bloomfield, who were playing on his new album, So Many Roads: [Excerpt: John P. Hammond, "Who Do You Love?"] That album was one of the inspirations that led Bob Dylan to start making electric rock music and to hire Bloomfield as his guitarist, decisions that would have profound implications for the Hawks. The first single the Hawks recorded for themselves after leaving Hawkins was produced by Henry Glover, and both sides were written by Robbie Robertson. "uh Uh Uh" shows the influence of the R&B bands they were listening to. What it reminds me most of is the material Ike and Tina Turner were playing at the time, but at points I think I can also hear the influence of Curtis Mayfield and Steve Cropper, who were rapidly becoming Robertson's favourite songwriters: [Excerpt: The Canadian Squires, "Uh Uh Uh"] None of the band were happy with that record, though. They'd played in the studio the same way they played live, trying to get a strong bass presence, but it just sounded bottom-heavy to them when they heard the record on a jukebox. That record was released as by The Canadian Squires -- according to Robertson, that was a name that the label imposed on them for the record, while according to Helm it was an alternative name they used so they could get bookings in places they'd only recently played, which didn't want the same band to play too often. One wonders if there was any confusion with the band Neil Young played in a year or so before that single... Around this time, the group also met up with Helm's old musical inspiration Sonny Boy Williamson II, who was impressed enough with them that there was some talk of them being his backing band (and it was in this meeting that Williamson apparently told Robertson "those English boys want to play the blues so bad, and they play the blues *so bad*", speaking of the bands who'd backed him in the UK, like the Yardbirds and the Animals). But sadly, Williamson died in May 1965 before any of these plans had time to come to fruition. Every opportunity for the group seemed to be closing up, even as they knew they were as good as any band around them. They had an offer from Aaron Schroeder, who ran Musicor Records but was more importantly a songwriter and publisher who  had written for Elvis Presley and published Gene Pitney. Schroeder wanted to sign the Hawks as a band and Robertson as a songwriter, but Henry Glover looked over the contracts for them, and told them "If you sign this you'd better be able to pay each other, because nobody else is going to be paying you". What happened next is the subject of some controversy, because as these things tend to go, several people became aware of the Hawks at the same time, but it's generally considered that nothing would have happened the same way were it not for Mary Martin. Martin is a pivotal figure in music business history -- among other things she discovered Leonard Cohen and Gordon Lightfoot, managed Van Morrison, and signed Emmylou Harris to Warner Brothers records -- but a somewhat unknown one who doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Martin was from Toronto, but had moved to New York, where she was working in Albert Grossman's office, but she still had many connections to Canadian musicians and kept an eye out for them. The group had sent demo tapes to Grossman's offices, and Grossman had had no interest in them, but Martin was a fan and kept pushing the group on Grossman and his associates. One of those associates, of course, was Grossman's client Bob Dylan. As we heard in the episode on "Like a Rolling Stone", Dylan had started making records with electric backing, with musicians who included Mike Bloomfield, who had played with several of the Hawks on the Hammond album, and Al Kooper, who was a friend of the band. Martin gave Richard Manuel a copy of Dylan's new electric album Highway 61 Revisited, and he enjoyed it, though the rest of the group were less impressed: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Highway 61 Revisited"] Dylan had played the Newport Folk Festival with some of the same musicians as played on his records, but Bloomfield in particular was more interested in continuing to play with the Paul Butterfield Blues Band than continuing with Dylan long-term. Mary Martin kept telling Dylan about this Canadian band she knew who would be perfect for him, and various people associated with the Grossman organisation, including Hammond, have claimed to have been sent down to New Jersey where the Hawks were playing to check them out in their live setting. The group have also mentioned that someone who looked a lot like Dylan was seen at some of their shows. Eventually, Dylan phoned Helm up and made an offer. He didn't need a full band at the moment -- he had Harvey Brooks on bass and Al Kooper on keyboards -- but he did need a lead guitar player and drummer for a couple of gigs he'd already booked, one in Forest Hills, New York, and a bigger gig at the Hollywood Bowl. Helm, unfamiliar with Dylan's work, actually asked Howard Kudlets if Dylan was capable of filling the Hollywood Bowl. The musicians rehearsed together and got a set together for the shows. Robertson and Helm thought the band sounded terrible, but Dylan liked the sound they were getting a lot. The audience in Forest Hills agreed with the Hawks, rather than Dylan, or so it would appear. As we heard in the "Like a Rolling Stone" episode, Dylan's turn towards rock music was *hated* by the folk purists who saw him as some sort of traitor to the movement, a movement whose figurehead he had become without wanting to. There were fifteen thousand people in the audience, and they listened politely enough to the first set, which Dylan played acoustically, But before the second set -- his first ever full electric set, rather than the very abridged one at Newport -- he told the musicians “I don't know what it will be like out there It's going to be some kind of  carnival and I want you to all know that up front. So go out there and keep playing no matter how weird it gets!” There's a terrible-quality audience recording of that show in circulation, and you can hear the crowd's reaction to the band and to the new material: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Ballad of a Thin Man" (live Forest Hills 1965, audience noise only)] The audience also threw things  at the musicians, knocking Al Kooper off his organ stool at one point. While Robertson remembered the Hollywood Bowl show as being an equally bad reaction, Helm remembered the audience there as being much more friendly, and the better-quality recording of that show seems to side with Helm: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Maggie's Farm (live at the Hollywood Bowl 1965)"] After those two shows, Helm and Robertson went back to their regular gig. and in September they made another record. This one, again produced by Glover, was for Atlantic's Atco subsidiary, and was released as by Levon and the Hawks. Manuel took lead, and again both songs were written by Robertson: [Excerpt: Levon and the Hawks, "He Don't Love You (And He'll Break Your Heart)"] But again that record did nothing. Dylan was about to start his first full electric tour, and while Helm and Robertson had not thought the shows they'd played sounded particularly good, Dylan had, and he wanted the two of them to continue with him. But Robertson and, especially, Helm, were not interested in being someone's sidemen. They explained to Dylan that they already had a band -- Levon and the Hawks -- and he would take all of them or he would take none of them. Helm in particular had not been impressed with Dylan's music -- Helm was fundamentally an R&B fan, while Dylan's music was rooted in genres he had little time for -- but he was OK with doing it, so long as the entire band got to. As Mary Martin put it “I think that the wonderful and the splendid heart of the band, if you will, was Levon, and I think he really sort of said, ‘If it's just myself as drummer and Robbie…we're out. We don't want that. It's either us, the band, or nothing.' And you know what? Good for him.” Rather amazingly, Dylan agreed. When the band's residency in New Jersey finished, they headed back to Toronto to play some shows there, and Dylan flew up and rehearsed with them after each show. When the tour started, the billing was "Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks". That billing wasn't to last long. Dylan had been booked in for nine months of touring, and was also starting work on what would become widely considered the first double album in rock music history, Blonde on Blonde, and the original plan was that Levon and the Hawks would play with him throughout that time.  The initial recording sessions for the album produced nothing suitable for release -- the closest was "I Wanna Be Your Lover", a semi-parody of the Beatles' "I Want to be Your Man": [Excerpt: Bob Dylan with Levon and the Hawks, "I Wanna Be Your Lover"] But shortly into the tour, Helm quit. The booing had continued, and had even got worse, and Helm simply wasn't in the business to be booed at every night. Also, his whole conception of music was that you dance to it, and nobody was dancing to any of this. Helm quit the band, only telling Robertson of his plans, and first went off to LA, where he met up with some musicians from Oklahoma who had enjoyed seeing the Hawks when they'd played that state and had since moved out West -- people like Leon Russell, J.J. Cale (not John Cale of the Velvet Underground, but the one who wrote "Cocaine" which Eric Clapton later had a hit with), and John Ware (who would later go on to join the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band). They started loosely jamming with each other, sometimes also involving a young singer named Linda Ronstadt, but Helm eventually decided to give up music and go and work on an oil rig in New Orleans. Levon and the Hawks were now just the Hawks. The rest of the group soldiered on, replacing Helm with session drummer Bobby Gregg (who had played on Dylan's previous couple of albums, and had previously played with Sun Ra), and played on the initial sessions for Blonde on Blonde. But of those sessions, Dylan said a few weeks later "Oh, I was really down. I mean, in ten recording sessions, man, we didn't get one song ... It was the band. But you see, I didn't know that. I didn't want to think that" One track from the sessions did get released -- the non-album single "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?" [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Can You Please Crawl Out Your Window?"] There's some debate as to exactly who's playing drums on that -- Helm says in his autobiography that it's him, while the credits in the official CD releases tend to say it's Gregg. Either way, the track was an unexpected flop, not making the top forty in the US, though it made the top twenty in the UK. But the rest of the recordings with the now Helmless Hawks were less successful. Dylan was trying to get his new songs across, but this was a band who were used to playing raucous music for dancing, and so the attempts at more subtle songs didn't come off the way he wanted: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Visions of Johanna (take 5, 11-30-1965)"] Only one track from those initial New York sessions made the album -- "One Of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)" -- but even that only featured Robertson and Danko of the Hawks, with the rest of the instruments being played by session players: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan (One of Us Must Know (Sooner or Later)"] The Hawks were a great live band, but great live bands are not necessarily the same thing as a great studio band. And that's especially the case with someone like Dylan. Dylan was someone who was used to recording entirely on his own, and to making records *quickly*. In total, for his fifteen studio albums up to 1974's Blood on the Tracks, Dylan spent a total of eighty-six days in the studio -- by comparison, the Beatles spent over a hundred days in the studio just on the Sgt Pepper album. It's not that the Hawks weren't a good band -- very far from it -- but that studio recording requires a different type of discipline, and that's doubly the case when you're playing with an idiosyncratic player like Dylan. The Hawks would remain Dylan's live backing band, but he wouldn't put out a studio recording with them backing him until 1974. Instead, Bob Johnston, the producer Dylan was working with, suggested a different plan. On his previous album, the Nashville session player Charlie McCoy had guested on "Desolation Row" and Dylan had found him easy to work with. Johnston lived in Nashville, and suggested that they could get the album completed more quickly and to Dylan's liking by using Nashville A-Team musicians. Dylan agreed to try it, and for the rest of the album he had Robertson on lead guitar and Al Kooper on keyboards, but every other musician was a Nashville session player, and they managed to get Dylan's songs recorded quickly and the way he heard them in his head: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine"] Though Dylan being Dylan he did try to introduce an element of randomness to the recordings by having the Nashville musicians swap their instruments around and play each other's parts on "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35", though the Nashville players were still competent enough that they managed to get a usable, if shambolic, track recorded that way in a single take: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35"] Dylan said later of the album "The closest I ever got to the sound I hear in my mind was on individual bands in the Blonde on Blonde album. It's that thin, that wild mercury sound. It's metallic and bright gold, with whatever that conjures up." The album was released in late June 1966, a week before Freak Out! by the Mothers of Invention, another double album, produced by Dylan's old producer Tom Wilson, and a few weeks after Pet Sounds by the Beach Boys. Dylan was at the forefront of a new progressive movement in rock music, a movement that was tying thoughtful, intelligent lyrics to studio experimentation and yet somehow managing to have commercial success. And a month after Blonde on Blonde came out, he stepped away from that position, and would never fully return to it. The first half of 1966 was taken up with near-constant touring, with Dylan backed by the Hawks and a succession of fill-in drummers -- first Bobby Gregg, then Sandy Konikoff, then Mickey Jones. This tour started in the US and Canada, with breaks for recording the album, and then moved on to Australia and Europe. The shows always followed the same pattern. First Dylan would perform an acoustic set, solo, with just an acoustic guitar and harmonica, which would generally go down well with the audience -- though sometimes they would get restless, prompting a certain amount of resistance from the performer: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman (live Paris 1966)"] But the second half of each show was electric, and that was where the problems would arise. The Hawks were playing at the top of their game -- some truly stunning performances: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan and the Hawks, "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues (live in Liverpool 1966)"] But while the majority of the audience was happy to hear the music, there was a vocal portion that were utterly furious at the change in Dylan's musical style. Most notoriously, there was the performance at Manchester Free Trade Hall where this happened: [Excerpt: Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone (live Manchester 1966)"] That kind of aggression from the audience had the effect of pushing the band on to greater heights a lot of the time -- and a bootleg of that show, mislabelled as the Royal Albert Hall, became one of the most legendary bootlegs in rock music history. Jimmy Page would apparently buy a copy of the bootleg every time he saw one, thinking it was the best album ever made. But while Dylan and the Hawks played defiantly, that kind of audience reaction gets wearing. As Dylan later said, “Judas, the most hated name in human history, and for what—for playing an electric guitar. As if that is in some kind of way equitable to betraying our Lord, and delivering him up to be crucified; all those evil mothers can rot in hell.” And this wasn't the only stress Dylan, in particular, was under. D.A. Pennebaker was making a documentary of the tour -- a follow-up to his documentary of the 1965 tour, which had not yet come out. Dylan talked about the 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back, as being Pennebaker's film of Dylan, but this was going to be Dylan's film, with him directing the director. That footage shows Dylan as nervy and anxious, and covering for the anxiety with a veneer of flippancy. Some of Dylan's behaviour on both tours is unpleasant in ways that can't easily be justified (and which he has later publicly regretted), but there's also a seeming cruelty to some of his interactions with the press and public that actually reads more as frustration. Over and over again he's asked questions -- about being the voice of a generation or the leader of a protest movement -- which are simply based on incorrect premises. When someone asks you a question like this, there are only a few options you can take, none of them good. You can dissect the question, revealing the incorrect premises, and then answer a different question that isn't what they asked, which isn't really an option at all given the kind of rapid-fire situation Dylan was in. You can answer the question as asked, which ends up being dishonest. Or you can be flip and dismissive, which is the tactic Dylan chose. Dylan wasn't the only one -- this is basically what the Beatles did at press conferences. But where the Beatles were a gang and so came off as being fun, Dylan doing the same thing came off as arrogant and aggressive. One of the most famous artifacts of the whole tour is a long piece of footage recorded for the documentary, with Dylan and John Lennon riding in the back of a taxi, both clearly deeply uncomfortable, trying to be funny and impress the other, but neither actually wanting to be there: [Excerpt Dylan and Lennon conversation] 33) Part of the reason Dylan wanted to go home was that he had a whole new lifestyle. Up until 1964 he had been very much a city person, but as he had grown more famous, he'd found New York stifling. Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul, and Mary had a cabin in Woodstock, where he'd grown up, and after Dylan had spent a month there in summer 1964, he'd fallen in love with the area. Albert Grossman had also bought a home there, on Yarrow's advice, and had given Dylan free run of the place, and Dylan had decided he wanted to move there permanently and bought his own home there. He had also married, to Sara Lowndes (whose name is, as far as I can tell, pronounced "Sarah" even though it's spelled "Sara"), and she had given birth to his first child (and he had adopted her child from her previous marriage). Very little is actually known about Sara, who unlike many other partners of rock stars at this point seemed positively to detest the limelight, and whose privacy Dylan has continued to respect even after the end of their marriage in the late seventies, but it's apparent that the two were very much in love, and that Dylan wanted to be back with his wife and kids, in the country, not going from one strange city to another being asked insipid questions and having abuse screamed at him. He was also tired of the pressure to produce work constantly. He'd signed a contract for a novel, called Tarantula, which he'd written a draft of but was unhappy with, and he'd put out two single albums and a double-album in a little over a year -- all of them considered among the greatest albums ever made. He could only keep up this rate of production and performance with a large intake of speed, and he was sometimes staying up for four days straight to do so. After the European leg of the tour, Dylan was meant to take some time to finish overdubs on Blonde on Blonde, edit the film of the tour for a TV special, with his friend Howard Alk, and proof the galleys for Tarantula, before going on a second world tour in the autumn. That world tour never happened. Dylan was in a motorcycle accident near his home, and had to take time out to recover. There has been a lot of discussion as to how serious the accident actually was, because Dylan's manager Albert Grossman was known to threaten to break contracts by claiming his performers were sick, and because Dylan essentially disappeared from public view for the next eighteen months. Every possible interpretation of the events has been put about by someone, from Dylan having been close to death, to the entire story being put up as a fake. As Dylan is someone who is far more protective of his privacy than most rock stars, it's doubtful we'll ever know the precise truth, but putting together the various accounts Dylan's injuries were bad but not life-threatening, but they acted as a wake-up call -- if he carried on living like he had been, how much longer could he continue? in his sort-of autobiography, Chronicles, Dylan described this period, saying "I had been in a motorcycle accident and I'd been hurt, but I recovered. Truth was that I wanted to get out of the rat race. Having children changed my life and segregated me from just about everybody and everything that was going on. Outside of my family, nothing held any real interest for me and I was seeing everything through different glasses." All his forthcoming studio and tour dates were cancelled, and Dylan took the time out to recover, and to work on his film, Eat the Document. But it's clear that nobody was sure at first exactly how long Dylan's hiatus from touring was going to last. As it turned out, he wouldn't do another tour until the mid-seventies, and would barely even play any one-off gigs in the intervening time. But nobody knew that at the time, and so to be on the safe side the Hawks were being kept on a retainer. They'd always intended to work on their own music anyway -- they didn't just want to be anyone's backing band -- so they took this time to kick a few ideas around, but they were hamstrung by the fact that it was difficult to find rehearsal space in New York City, and they didn't have any gigs. Their main musical work in the few months between summer 1966 and spring 1967 was some recordings for the soundtrack of a film Peter Yarrow was making. You Are What You Eat is a bizarre hippie collage of a film, documenting the counterculture between 1966 when Yarrow started making it and 1968 when it came out. Carl Franzoni, one of the leaders of the LA freak movement that we've talked about in episodes on the Byrds, Love, and the Mothers of Invention, said of the film “If you ever see this movie you'll understand what ‘freaks' are. It'll let you see the L.A. freaks, the San Francisco freaks, and the New York freaks. It was like a documentary and it was about the makings of what freaks were about. And it had a philosophy, a very definite philosophy: that you are free-spirited, artistic." It's now most known for introducing the song "My Name is Jack" by John Simon, the film's music supervisor: [Excerpt: John Simon, "My Name is Jack"] That song would go on to be a top ten hit in the UK for Manfred Mann: [Excerpt: Manfred Mann, "My Name is Jack"] The Hawks contributed backing music for several songs for the film, in which they acted as backing band for another old Greenwich Village folkie who had been friends with Yarrow and Dylan but who was not yet the star he would soon become, Tiny Tim: [Excerpt: Tiny Tim, "Sonny Boy"] This was their first time playing together properly since the end of the European tour, and Sid Griffin has noted that these Tiny Tim sessions are the first time you can really hear the sound that the group would develop over the next year, and which would characterise them for their whole career. Robertson, Danko, and Manuel also did a session, not for the film with another of Grossman's discoveries, Carly Simon, playing a version of "Baby Let Me Follow You Down", a song they'd played a lot with Dylan on the tour that spring. That recording has never been released, and I've only managed to track down a brief clip of it from a BBC documentary, with Simon and an interviewer talking over most of the clip (so this won't be in the Mixcloud I put together of songs): [Excerpt: Carly Simon, "Baby Let Me Follow You Down"] That recording is notable though because as well as Robertson, Danko, and Manuel, and Dylan's regular studio keyboard players Al Kooper and Paul Griffin, it also features Levon Helm on drums, even though Helm had still not rejoined the band and was at the time mostly working in New Orleans. But his name's on the session log, so he must have m

Weight just a minute! It's another episode of THE STORY SONG PODCAST! Join your hosts as they review the 1968 classic “The Weight” by influential rock band, The Band. In this Summer of Symbolism episode, we pull into Nazareth to get CPR certified, look for a mattress sale, and shop for a bag big enough for your burdens. So feed Jack the dog (when you can), catch a cannonball, and come on let's go downtown on this episode of THE STORY SONG PODCAST. Say hey to Fanny for us. Continue the conversation; follow THE STORY SONG PODCAST on social media. Follow us on Twitter (@Story_Song), Instagram (storysongpodcast), and Facebook (thestorysongpodcast). THE STORY SONG PODCAST is a member of the Pantheon Podcast Network. “The Weight” by The Band (from the album Music from Big Pink) is available on Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Pandora, Spotify, or wherever you listen to music. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Alert Vixen Mimi finds Vintage Vixen jeans for sale. Our legal department is on the case, filing copyright infringement charges.  We're coming for you, Bann's Boutique.RIP  Robbie Robertson, Canadian singer-songwriter extrordinaire with The Band. Music from Big Pink was a landmark album.  Listen to The Weight from their documentary The Last Waltz. It doesn't get any better than this.Several listeners claim to have seen aliens, know aliens or perhaps be aliens. Dave suggests trees may be aliens and then learns somebody else already thought  the same thing.Dave rents About My Father, unfortunately a very unfunny movie. Watch the trailer, it's better than the movie.Del and Dave see Oppenheimer and both love it. Spectacular performances, so many shades of gray. Go see it!Del leads Dave to believe he rides his bike naked. Not a visual you want to remember.Dave offers a Public Service Announcement on the dangers of leaping before you look. Looking ahead, our Tahoe writers, Bridey Thelen-Heidel [episode 118] and Bruce Rettig [episode 125] will be back soon to tell us what's happening in their worlds.Frank Young [episiode 135] will also be back later this month to share some of his experiences from his career in USAID.BONUS TIP: The Perseid meteor shower peaks this weekend.Give us your thoughts: BUCKSTWOOLD@GMAIL.COM Find us on Twitter: @twooldbucks1Leave a Voice message - click HERE

This week our guest is Anthony and Luis from Fellow Robot, we sip 'delos and discuss; Covid, 10 wks, Ringo, Signal Hill, $1800 Wig, Fab 4, Tools of War, Mr. Moonshine, Fathers and Sons, Big Pink, Andrew Scheps, Alex!, The Pizza Song, Temecula, East LA. Fellow Robot the Comic, Death Metal and much more!

Ooh, Baby, Ooooh wee!Ooh, baby, oooooh wee!It's that Million Dollar Bash.I hear that chorus and I'm smiling. It's a celebration, a party. Dylan and the boys are off the hard road, and they're just having fun in the Big Pink basement with the Revox tape recorder.  There has been some interpretative gobble dee gook about it being Dylan's satirical payback to Andy Warhol and his pretentious Factory parties, with a salvo to Edie Sedgwick - the (“big dumb blonde) -, who dumped him, but really, that feels like a stretch. Those intimations might be there, but when Bob sings:“Well, I'm hittin' it too hard, my stones won't take-I get up in the morning but it's too early to wake,First it's hello, goodbye, then push and then crash,But we're all gonna make it at that mIllion dollar bash!It feels to me like an expression of sweet release. An appreciation for the moment at hand. And, imagining where the heads of the bar band turned folk-rock players assembled in that bucolic place were at…. -, the men who, for me, comprised the greatest American band in rock history - in the chrysalis from which they were about to emerge to ignite a musical revolution - I can feel the spontaneous energy of joyous creation. Oooh baby, Oooh weeeee!

Carl Newman discusses the New Pornographers and their new album, Continue as a Guest, kitties and Neko Case, Woodstock, Big Pink, and Levon Helm, playing on a cruise ship with Neko and Jeff Tweedy, topical songwriting and pondering the pandemic, isolation, existentialism, fraying humanity, and strengthening relationships, collaborative songwriting and new songs, other future plans, and much more. Supported by you on Patreon, Blackbyrd Myoozik, Pizza Trokadero, the Bookshelf, Planet Bean Coffee, and Grandad's Donuts. Support Y.E.S.S. and Black Women United YEG. Follow vish online.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/kreative-kontrol. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who's lived a more varied, interesting political life over the last 6 decades than Jeff Greenfield? Aide and speechwriter to Senator Robert Kennedy...staffer for NYC Mayor John Lindsay...successful political consultant with the famed David Garth...and then as an omnipresent political commentator at CBS, ABC, NBC, CBS, and CNN...5 time Emmy Award Winner...author of several books. This is a great, wide-ranging conversation with one of the most respected, enduring, and distinctive voices in American politics.IN THIS EPISODEHow the New York Yankees are responsible for Jeff's political obsession…The serendipitous path that led Jeff to become an aide to Senator Robert Kennedy…Jeff's memories of the U.S. Senate of the 1960s…Jeff on the political savvy of RFK…The stories behind two of RFK's most memorable speeches in the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr's Assassination…Jeff talks how the 1968 election might have played out had Senator Kennedy lived…What it was like writing a speech for Robert Kennedy…Jeff's theory on the right match of speechwriter and speaker…Jeff's time working with famed political consultant David Garth…The ad Jeff wrote as a media consultant of which he's most proud…Jeff talks his connection with longtime friend William F. Buckley…The story of Margaret Thatcher insulting Jeff on national TV…Jeff's move from political consulting to working in television…The media job Jeff held that was the most fun…Jeff's approach to interesting television commentary…Four of Jeff's pet peeves about contemporary political punditry…The “single most powerful event” Jeff ever attended…Recommendations from one of Jeff's favorite restaurants and favorite band…AND  Aeschylus, Muhammad Ali, Barney Greengrass, the Beatles, Tom Bettag, Beyonce, Big Pink, Tom Bradley, the Bronx High School of Science, Ron Brown, Buggs Bunny, bullshit measurements, Hugh Carey, William Sloane Coffin, communist cigars, computer manuals, Daffy Duck, Richard Daley, doo wop, Fred Dutton, Peter Edelman, Dwight Eisenhower, elephants, Firing Line, Joe Frazier, John Kenneth Galbraith, John Glenn, the Grateful Dead, Averell Harriman, Lester Holt, Hubert Humphrey, Inspector Javert, Irving Ives, Jacob Javits, journalistic utopias, jut jaws, Murray Kempton, Henry Kissinger, Ted Koppel, John Lindsay, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Lil Nas, losing altitude, Russell Long, the longest slogans in the world, Al Lowenstein, the Making of the President, Eugene McCarthy, Joe McCarthy, George McGovern, Stephen Miller, mock primaries, Bill Moyers, the National Review, The New York Times, Richard Nixon, Lee Harvey Oswald, particle physics, personal antipathy, Ronald Reagan, Robbie Robertson, Howard Samuels, Ted Sorensen, Aaron Sorkin, Adlai Stevenson, Norman Thomas, Donald Trump, two doses of herpes, Unconventional Wisdom, the unit rule, V-E Day, the violence of institutions, Adam Walinsky, wartime correspondents, Watergate, Billy Wilder, wretched ironies, Sam Yorty & more!

We had the pleasure of interviewing The Big Pink over Zoom video! American Musical Supply: Receive $20 off your next purchase over $100https://ter.li/AmericanMusicalSupply-BiB1After making a rapturous comeback earlier this year with their stunning new singles “No Angels,” a song that saw support from the likes of Rolling Stone (who labeled the song “shoegazy”), Steroegum, Under The Radar and more, and the more recent “Love Spins On Its Axis,” The Big Pink have released of their long-awaited third studio album The Love That's Ours, their first in a decade, alongside the vibrant new single “Rage.” Produced by Tony Hoffer (Beck, Air, Phoenix), the record includes a host of guest collaborators, including Jamie T, Jamie Hince (The Kills), Nick Zinner (Yeah Yeah Yeahs), Ryn Weaver, Mary Charteris, Ed Harcourt and many more, all aiming to make this new release their most memorable to date. We want to hear from you! Please email Tera@BringinitBackwards.com. www.BringinitBackwards.com#podcast #interview #bringinbackpod #TheBigPink #TheLoveThat'sOursCrazyTown #NewMusic #zoomListen & Subscribe to BiB https://www.bringinitbackwards.com/follow/ Follow our podcast on Instagram and Twitter! https://www.facebook.com/groups/bringinbackpod

#496: On today's episode we are joined by Jason Widener of Erewhon. If you're in LA you have to check out the Lauryn Bosstick PINK DRINK- it's avail at all Erewhon stores. You can expect a slightly sweet, icy strawberry drink that tastes like what dreams are made of. On this episode you will learn wellness hacks, brand favorites, how to get on Erewhon's radar, and all about the LB PINK DRINK (and lucky you: you can make it at home). In-stores now until 10/15/2022. Cheers!  To connect with Erewhon Market click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential. This episode is brought to you by Ritual Protein powders can be intimidating. But the fact is, we all need protein. Get 10% off your first month at ritual.com/SKINNY. This episode is brought to you by Water + Wellness Rarely will you find one product that provides such whole body effects in just one easy-to-drink glass of H2 infused water. Go to waterandwellness.com/SKINNY to get 20% off of the already discounted price. This episode is brought to you by Delta Airlines When you travel well, you arrive feeling better than when you left. Isn't that how every trip should be? Wherever you travel, travel well with Delta Airlines. Visit delta.com/travelwell to learn more. This episode is brought to you by LMNT LMNT is a tasty electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. It contains a science-backed electrolyte ratio: 1000mg sodium, 200mg potassium, and 60mg magnesium. Get a free sample pack with any purchase at drinkLMNT.com/SKINNY This episode is brought to you by Cymbiotika Cymbiotika is a health supplement company, designing sophisticated organic formulations that are scientifically proven to increase vitality and longevity by filling nutritional gaps that result from our modern day diet. Use code SKINNY at checkout to receive 15% off your first purchase at cymbiotika.com Produced by Dear Media