The Traveling Wilburys

[Joe G]

edcolorized

very hip Moon Mullican bit at the start too.

Tammy's voice there bugs me - the way it keeps breaking up. Dug that pedal steel solo, though.

[Alexander]

You know, I really appreciate how this thread has turned into a parade of classic country television clips. What I don't see, however, is what (if anything) this has to do with invalidating the Wilburys or any of the individual artists. Let's make something perfectly clear: The Wilburys were nothing more than a lark. A bunch of musicans just getting together and making music for the hell of it. The kind of thing that if it had NOT been recorded, we'd be bitching and moaning about the "lost opportunty" for us to hear a bunch of great musicians goofing around in the studio. I don't think that anybody is talking about comparing the two Wilbury albums with any of the individual work of Harrison (or the Beatles), Dylan, Petty or Orbison. The music they made was absolutely charming in it's unpretentous nature. It's something I've treasured since the day the first disc came out, and I continue to enjoy. If it brings pleasure to people, what the hell is the harm?

[Aggie87]

I agree with your assessment of this music being a lark, Alexander, and just something those 5 guys did for fun. I'm glad they released it and we got to enjoy it. I essentially made some of the same statements in post 16 as you have.

If Clem doesn't like this music, that's fine with me. Life's short, enjoy and appreciate whatever it is that hits you just right.

It's sad, really. Hey, Clem. How about you do your thing and shut the hell up and let me do mine?

If it brings pleasure to people, what the hell is the harm?

Thanks for offering these comments, Alexander. This is good general advice that can be taken to heart for alot of people, regarding alot of topics.

edited to improve the tone of the post.

Edited July 5, 2007 by Aggie87

[7/4]

Ooo...

[JSngry]

The Travelling Wilber: http://youtube.com/watch?v=rhdeQSe6vFw

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MOsYAGyzILw

http://youtube.com/watch?v=lEnX7GTCgz0

[clifford_thornton]

I remember, vaguely, when I was 10 and heard the Wilburys. Didn't like it then. Probably wouldn't now.

But... if that's your thing, whatevs, it's 2007s.

Enjoying the Wu-Tang supergroup at present.

Not that into 3-Way Tie For Last, fwiw.

[GregK]

You know, I really appreciate how this thread has turned into a parade of classic country television clips. What I don't see, however, is what (if anything) this has to do with invalidating the Wilburys or any of the individual artists. Let's make something perfectly clear: The Wilburys were nothing more than a lark. A bunch of musicans just getting together and making music for the hell of it. The kind of thing that if it had NOT been recorded, we'd be bitching and moaning about the "lost opportunty" for us to hear a bunch of great musicians goofing around in the studio. I don't think that anybody is talking about comparing the two Wilbury albums with any of the individual work of Harrison (or the Beatles), Dylan, Petty or Orbison. The music they made was absolutely charming in it's unpretentous nature. It's something I've treasured since the day the first disc came out, and I continue to enjoy. If it brings pleasure to people, what the hell is the harm?

I'm just bothered at what it COULD have been, without the slick Lynne production. Yes it was just a bunch of musicians having fun in the studio, but then why did he have to gloss it up to make it so radio-friendly? Why not just leave it rough sounding? That's what my main issue is.

[medjuck]

as for Dylan, just because Modern Times sucked the sweat of dead man's balls doesn't mean, say, Street Legal (dedicated to Emmett Grogan, look him up) didn't deserve more sucess.

Why do you presume people don't know who Emmet Grogan was? And if you're old enough to remember him you should stop acting sophomoric.

[clifford_thornton]

The thing I don't understand is why y'all are getting freaked out if someone's having a little fun with your taste in country-fried AOR rock.

My tastes in music - which run the gamut - seem to spark amusement coupled with ire from most people, and I really have no interest in defending what I like/don't like. If someone wants to lay deep slag on Mudhoney, Arthur Doyle, or Euro-racket, hey, I'll be amused to see what they come up with!

[medjuck]

The thing I don't understand is why y'all are getting freaked out if someone's having a little fun with your taste in country-fried AOR rock.

My tastes in music - which run the gamut - seem to spark amusement coupled with ire from most people, and I really have no interest in defending what I like/don't like. If someone wants to lay deep slag on Mudhoney, Arthur Doyle, or Euro-racket, hey, I'll be amused to see what they come up with!

Nothing wrong with esoteric taste but I'd rather hear a better reason as to why I should listen to Mudhoney than just someone claiming that they (he? she?) are superior to Roy Orbison and that if you don't agree you're aesthetically (and maybe morally) inferior.

Clem seems to think he's the only person on the board who ever read a book or heard a rare record. It's an attitude most people grow out of by the time they're 19. (And about that time the frisson of talking dirty usually wears off too.)

[Parkertown]

Is there a way to find out how many board members have Clem on their "Ignore" list?

Heh...

[Alexander]

Is there a way to find out how many board members have Clem on their "Ignore" list?

Heh...

I have him on mine, but I admit that I sometimes (as in the case of this thread) have a morbid interest in the kinds of things he says. It's nobody's fault but mine for looking, of course. It's kind of like a car accident. You know you shouldn't look, but you slow down anyway...

[clifford_thornton]

(Memorized every line from Two Lane Blacktop?)

Just James Taylor's...

Fave recent David ("Wendys") Thomas quote: "a punk is what they call you in jail."

Yeah, understood re: 3-Way Tie. I got on the bus long after the passing of the band.

Mudhoney: Skipped their "Americana" for the most part, tho the collab with Jimmie Dale Gilmore was actually solid.

[Hot Ptah]

I like to hear "Handle With Care" about once a year. I find the rest of both albums to be quite boring. To me, this is one of those projects where the idea of it is so much better than the results.

[Big Al]

Got it when it came out back in late '89 when I was still in the throes of mass "must have everything Beatles related" euphoria. Didn't make much of an impression on me, and it seemed to open the door for Jeff Lynne to not only fulfill his fantasy of filling the void left by John Lennon, but then proceeded to churn out any number of albums by the various Wilburys that all sounded the same: Full Moon Fever, Cloud Nine (I know it came out before the Wilburys, but still in the same class), the Orbison comeback record (which out of all of these had more than its fair share of grand moments), Lynne's own solo record (I forget the title, it's bad enough I even remembered there was such an animal), Into the Great Wide Open, on and on and on.... all with the same slick synthesized sound. You couldn't tell one record from the other. I'm surprised Dylan didn't get a solo record out of Lynne!

I'm with GregK: this could've been so much better, and the fact that it was so off-the-cuff made the notion of paying for this exercise about as insulting as recording a Beach Boys 'party,' and then making people pay for that (although in all fairness, that contained the kind of overproduction that Lynne only dreams about).

[mjzee]

When the first album came out, I felt so relieved that Dylan seemed like a real person again, able to crack laughs and not take himself so seriously. There had been a string of albums where he just seemed so divorced from ordinary people, so solemn and self-serious, that it was great to hear him sing smutty double-entendres in "Dirty World," and do a great Springsteen parody in "Tweeter and the Monkey Man." So, yah, I loved that first disc. It was obviously a bunch of friends sitting around making music. And Orbison's voice is great: check out "Not Alone Any More."

I never heard Vol. 3, but I guess I'll pick up the box set; it's pretty cheap at Costco.

[Alexander]

When the first album came out, I felt so relieved that Dylan seemed like a real person again, able to crack laughs and not take himself so seriously. There had been a string of albums where he just seemed so divorced from ordinary people, so solemn and self-serious, that it was great to hear him sing smutty double-entendres in "Dirty World," and do a great Springsteen parody in "Tweeter and the Monkey Man." So, yah, I loved that first disc. It was obviously a bunch of friends sitting around making music. And Orbison's voice is great: check out "Not Alone Any More."

I never heard Vol. 3, but I guess I'll pick up the box set; it's pretty cheap at Costco.

I agree. Dylan was in a pretty bad place during the late 80s. "Knocked Out Loaded" and "Down in the Groove" were pretty bad albums (although I admit that I haven't heard them since they came out) and the Never Ending Tour was full of phoned in performances (I saw him several times during the 80s. His shows had degraded into a kind of "name that Dylan tune" contest as the audience tried to figure out just what the hell he was singing). The Wilburys marked the beginning of Dylan's return to form (exemplifed by albums like "Oh Mercy," "Good As I Been To You," "World Gone Wrong," "Time Out of Mind," and his most recent efforts).

[ghost of miles]

Friend of mine who saw Dylan several times in the late 1980s said he sometimes opened shows by singing "I'm In the Mood for Love" (and does a hilarious imitation of it). Granted, Dylan's appreciation for all musics American is wider than some might realize, but evidently said performances helped maintain the grand Dylan tradition of keeping audiences, erm, on their toes.

[Alexander]

Friend of mine who saw Dylan several times in the late 1980s said he sometimes opened shows by singing "I'm In the Mood for Love" (and does a hilarious imitation of it). Granted, Dylan's appreciation for all musics American is wider than some might realize, but evidently said performances helped maintain the grand Dylan tradition of keeping audiences, erm, on their toes.

One of the last times I saw Dylan was in the early 90s. It was at the Palace Theater in Albany, NY and it was by far the best of the many times I had seen him. You could understand what he was singing. He even pulled out "The Man In Me," which I had NEVER heard him do live (in fact, I'd never even heard OF him performing that song live). He talked to the audience and at one point pulled out his harmonica. The audience cheered as Dylan smiled(!) winningly at the crowd. A big difference from the sullen performances I had seen so many times before.

[danasgoodstuff]

I was working at the Electric Fetus in Mpls when the Wilburies were current and people would come in to ask for it and not be able to exactly remember the name...best garblization was "the wandering wallabies". For me, hearing Bob relaxed and funny was by far the best part...

[Alexander]

October 1988, wow-- WILBURYS!!!!!!

(better than DAYDREAM NATION & IT TAKES A NATION OF MILLIONS to name just two most "mainstream" icons of the time, the poorly produced, very well written LUCINDA WILLIAMS album also)

No. Not better. Different. But then I don't make value judgements about the music I listen to. It's all stuff that I like. Some of it gets played more often than other stuff, but that doesn't make it better. It just matches my mood at the moment.

At the moment my mood is matched by "Icky Thump" by the White Stripes and "Blue Sky Blue" by Wilco, two bands of whom I am CERTAIN Clem has very strong opinions. But I don't care. Just as I like "Modern Times," I like "Icky Thump." I'm sure that if Clem doesn't absolutely HATE the Stripes ("perhaps you never heard of Flemmy Beebee who's two man Detroit rock absolutely KILLS Jack-Off White and his talentless sister/ex-wife..."), he likes the two albums they did BEFORE they became famous better (of course, if Clem ever listened to them, he's sure to have abandoned them as sell-outs by the time "Fell In Love With A Girl" became a hit, which means he hasn't listened to a single note they've produced since). Also, I'm sure that if Clem has ever listened to Wilco (and I'm sure that he'll come up with a top two thousand list of better alt-country bands) he prefers Son Volt (who I love) or Uncle Tupelo (who I also loved). But, you know, I have HORRIBLE taste in music. I'll just have to learn to live with that.

BTW, I do love "Silvio." I forgot that was on "Down in the Groove."

[mjzee]

I liked Infidels a lot (Dylan sounded a bit berserk on it, but that's all right), and also really liked Real Live. Considered Empire Burlesque a nadir of sorts - the songs seemed pallid and contentless (and the album just goes on and on). There was a King Biscuit Flour Hour of the Dylan/Petty tour which is great. I also liked Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove - Dylan at his confusing best, with a lot of attitude: "Drifting Too Far From Shore" was everything that "Seeing The Real You At Last" was not, "You Wanna Ramble" presages "Someday Baby" from Modern Times, "Silvio" is of course great, and "When Did You Leave Heaven" is a wonderful piece of music - it shouldn't work, with Dylan playing with the song's meter, but it does. I think of these two albums as one; I believe the tracks came from the same sessions, and they're both so short that they can fit on one CD. Collected, the songs sound like a collected bunch of scraps, and the flow from one song to another seems almost like a mix tape. Where I think he really took a dive was with Oh Mercy - a humorless, dank album. I get it, Bob - the world's going to hell in a handbasket (or could it be that you're just getting older and the world is passing you by?). Only one good song, "Everything Is Broken," which has some clever wordplay and a good groove. And Under The Red Sky is probably his worst album, tho I think that's universally recognized. I haven't yet read Chronicles, but I believe somewhere in there he even admits that.

[mjzee]

the Never Ending Tour was full of phoned in performances (I saw him several times during the 80s. His shows had degraded into a kind of "name that Dylan tune" contest as the audience tried to figure out just what the hell he was singing).

I saw him at Jones Beach in 1987 (?), and I agree - a baffling performance, tho the sound mix didn't help. At one point, on a solo acoustic number, I honestly couldn't tell whether he was playing his guitar or tuning it.

But I think the real challenge with seeing Dylan live is that one hearing simply isn't enough - the joys of his music unfold with the rehearing. I have a bootleg of a performance from Philadelphia in I think 1989 that's just great. I'm certain I would not have known how good the performance was if I was at the concert.

[Alexander]

I liked Infidels a lot (Dylan sounded a bit berserk on it, but that's all right), and also really liked Real Live. Considered Empire Burlesque a nadir of sorts - the songs seemed pallid and contentless (and the album just goes on and on). There was a King Biscuit Flour Hour of the Dylan/Petty tour which is great. I also liked Knocked Out Loaded and Down In The Groove - Dylan at his confusing best, with a lot of attitude: "Drifting Too Far From Shore" was everything that "Seeing The Real You At Last" was not, "You Wanna Ramble" presages "Someday Baby" from Modern Times, "Silvio" is of course great, and "When Did You Leave Heaven" is a wonderful piece of music - it shouldn't work, with Dylan playing with the song's meter, but it does. I think of these two albums as one; I believe the tracks came from the same sessions, and they're both so short that they can fit on one CD. Collected, the songs sound like a collected bunch of scraps, and the flow from one song to another seems almost like a mix tape. Where I think he really took a dive was with Oh Mercy - a humorless, dank album. I get it, Bob - the world's going to hell in a handbasket (or could it be that you're just getting older and the world is passing you by?). Only one good song, "Everything Is Broken," which has some clever wordplay and a good groove. And Under The Red Sky is probably his worst album, tho I think that's universally recognized. I haven't yet read Chronicles, but I believe somewhere in there he even admits that.

I have to admit a sentimental attachment to "Under the Red Sky," actually. The songs are fluff, but there are a lot of very strong performances (particularly from the studio band) and Dylan is actually goofing around in a manner that reminds me of the Wilbury albums.

I LOVED "Oh Mercy" when it came out and it remains one of my all time favorite Dylan albums. I listened to it on bus trips between Long Island (where I was living at the time) and Boston (where my girlfriend lived) and I still can smell the Greyhound bus when I listen to that album...

[clifford_thornton]

Mac 10 - yikes!