"Dylan seems to me a totally pernicious influence — the nasal whine of death and masochism. Certainly, this would be a more cheerful world if there were no Dylan records in it. But Dylan and his audience mirror each other, and deserve each other; as Marx said, a morbid society creates its own morbid grave-diggers." - RAW

Figures! I always knew Monday Night RAW had it out for Dylan. Greased up little bullsht closet super-homoerotic example of American marketing GENIUS....

Yeah, anti-Semitic much you giant toddlers?

Sheesh!
...

Yeah I'm kidding. I had hoped that might be funnier in typeface than it was in my head, where it's only funny to people who laugh at everything because they're stoned or sizzurped.

*sigh*

Dylan has never been one of the greatest to me, but year after year I have started to like him more. But quite recently I found that Cohen is lot more greater than Dylan & deserves to be in the place of Dylan.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nos...ature=youtu.be
Mindless Delta Children - Go South

Tom Waits - Closing Time

Never really sure what I think of Tom Waits stuff in general but this has slowly grown to become one of my all-time fave albums.

I think you already have listened also the Heart of Saturday Night, but anyway it´s twin brother of Closing time. Both albums never been my fav Waits, but I have really always liked the warm feeling in them. BTW Closing Time is my first Waits-album ever heard.

Whoah, whoah. Let's not get crazy here. That quote is from an interview with Robert Anton Wilson; the answer is to a question about his feelings toward major pop culture phenomena borne of the "hippie" era. Because it's RAW, a prankster by trade and vocation, I'm not sure how seriously it can be taken.

The interview was conducted in 1976, via mail. Wilson apparently misspelled his own name on the return address and decided to take over the role of interviewer intermittently, posing questions to himself which he then answered.

I don't understand the logic behind the quote, assuming the statement is genuine. Dylan is a lot of things, but a symbol of masochism? Of Deathism! Surely not. Especially since “Deathism” is the very word RAW uses to describe the U.S. government later in the same interview.

He also said this, of Poul Anderson:

...
So I think it's safe to say that some responses were deliberately rabble rousing & tongue in cheek. I mean, this is Robert Anton Wilson we're talking about here.

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As to the Cohen comment, I must disagree. Cohen occupies an entirely different place in the cultural zeitgeist than Dylan ever has or ever will. Though both are logical extensions of the beat philosophy of Kerouac and Gibsberg, Dylan was never a poet or a dreamer. Dylan doesn't deserve the treatment given to him by RAW, and life certainly would be no better if Cohen had taken his place.

But shit, I don't know. I'm probably wrong. I just don't like thinking that someone I respect so much had such a negative attitude toward the man behind Blonde on Blonde & Highway 61 Revisited.

Insanity!

My problem is I've wanted to like him more than I do because of Closing Time. I like Heart of Saturday Night a lot too but, like you say, that's more like its (slightly jazzier) twin and still a way from what he'd quickly become. Besides the odd song I kind of lost interest after Nighthawks, when he seemed to be edging more towards something like performance art.

Ha! I think it's the least Waits-ian, so there you go.

Although SMALL CHANGE isn't a consistent record, the best songs strike me as the best of his early, lounge period. It's the only pre-80s Waits I listen to.

A phenomenal release, all four sides of it (a 7" is sneakily included with the 12"). Pierce is on fire as an improviser - I hope some of this gets injected back into Spiritualized's next album, whenever it comes.