The Dylantantes The FM Podcast Network

A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Twenty-one years ago, the whole wide world was stunned by the release of a new Bob Dylan project unlike any before, a feature-length movie of his own creation aimed at a generalish audience.



Led by a future Nobel Laureate co-crafting the satirical script, populated with a brilliantly star-studded cast, and helmed by a maverick director out to compose what he described as “a great Bob Dylan song” in film, Masked and Anonymous was destined to be a masterpiece. It. Could. Not. Fail.



The film had its origins in an inchoate scheme by Larry Charles, of Seinfeld and later Borat fame, and Bob Dylan to create a network sitcom, a slapstick comedy that reportedly drew from the antics of Jerry Lewis and would star that master of physical comedy Bob Dylan. Instead, with only 20 days of production time, they cranked out a film that drew on Hollywood royalty who worked for scale just to be in the presence of the man himself.



Although I have written positively about the film, I have never been fully comfortable with it. It somehow amounts to less than the sum of its parts. The actors are all game—no one holds back in the least, and some may even go a tad bit overboard: I’m looking at you Giovanni Ribisi. There are many moments of comedy that just don’t come off the way they are supposed to. Perhaps the alternate-universe dystopian setting is too off-putting to frame this blend of sardonic wit, philosophical musings, and dad jokes.



M$B Roundtable Panelists:








Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.



Court Carney is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University, where he teaches courses on Black history and cultural history. He is finishing a book manuscript on the public memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest.



Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.



Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.




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What Is It about Bob Dylan?







You may know Dan Brown as the author of the bestseller The DaVinci Code, but you’ve got the wrong guy. This Dan Brown was born in Tarrytown N.Y, and after a stint in the United States Air Force he moved to New City, NY, entered into a career in the restaurant industry. For the last  15 years, he has been owner of the Wherehouse Restaurant in Newburgh, NY.



His lifelong  passion for music has resulted in The Wherehouse being a hub for young  local musicians to perform as well as network. The decor is also reflective of the passionate musical journey he has taken. And though he is a fan of many bands and performers, Bob Dylan stands above the crowd not only as a songwriter but most important as a storyteller. On more tidbit: the Wherehouse serves a drink called “Blood on the Tracks,” which features Bob Dylan’s Heaven’s Door whiskey.



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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedylantantes.substack.com



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We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Bob Dylan’s 15th, 16th, and 17th studio albums, Planet Waves, Blood on the Tracks, and Desire, had been solid successes when he released Street-Legal in 1978. The album was not universally well received by critics although it was a commercial success.



There is an Extended Version of this episode available on FM+. Details below.



The band was mostly drawn from the large ensemble performing during Dylan’s Japanese and Australian tours and notably included a chorus consisting of Dylan’s future wife Carolyn Dennis, veteran singer Jo Ann Harris, and Helena Sprigs, who was all of 17 at the time. He would continue to record and tour with a chorus through much of the eighties. The recording sessions were reportedly sloppy, being held in Dylan’s rehearsal space called Rundown Studios using mobile equipment on a truck. The resulting sonics from the original mix were less than stellar, which may be why the album had a rough reputation. The saxophone bits sound somewhat dated now, but they still work.



M$B Roundtable Panelists:




Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University.  He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.



Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has presented and published on Dylan and is currently co-editing a volume with Court Carney on interpretations of Dylan’s setlists for Routledge.



Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.



Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.




Let us know what you think!



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



EXTENDED EDITIONS



To hear the Extended and Bonus Episodes of our shows:




Subscribe to FM+ : Click the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts or sign up here. (One subscription covers all our network podcasts for one low price ! )



Join FM Premium: Get an FM+ Subscription plus video interviews, blog posts, a weekly bonus email and more.




FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

A Million $ Bash Roundtable



Bob Dylan’s 31st studio album, “Love and Theft,” was released on September 11, 2001. The album’s lyrics are among the first to be heavily researched for references to and lifts from other works, and there are many—perhaps most notably some lines from Japanese true crime writer Junichi Saga’s Confessions of a Yakuza. The songs are rich with characters—men and women, real and fanciful—and events— as devastating as a flood and as benign as the sound of fornication in the room next door. And there is humor, including some hardcore dad jokes.



There is an Extended Version of this episode available on FM+. Details below.



Sonically the album is as eclectic as any Dylan has released, spanning such genres as rockabilly, old-timey torch ballads, and some of the most hard-driving blues Dylan has ever produced.



M$B Roundtable Panelists:




Rob “Rockin’ Rob” Reginio teaches modern literature at Alfred University.  He's currently at work on a book about Dylan's album John Wesley Harding.



Nina Goss is Editor of or contributor to the volumes Tearing the World Apart: Bob Dylan and the 21st Century and Dylan at Play. She is a contributor to various anthologies and presented at the first World of Bob Dylan conference (2019), and Dylan and the Beats conference in Tulsa (2022). She teaches at Fordham University.



Court Carney is a professor of history at Stephen F. Austin State University, where he teaches courses on Black history and cultural history. He is finishing a book manuscript on the public memory of Nathan Bedford Forrest.



Erin Callahan lives in the Houston, Texas, area where she teaches English at San Jacinto College. She has presented and published on Dylan and is currently co-editing a volume with Court Carney on interpretations of Dylan’s setlists for Routledge.



Graley Herren is an English professor at Xavier University in Cincinnati, where he regularly teaches a first-year seminar on Bob Dylan. He is author of the book Dreams and Dialogues in Dylan’s Time Out of Mind, and he has a Substack newsletter devoted to Dylan called Shadow Chasing.



Jim Salvucci is the founder and keeper of The Dylantantes.




Let us know what you think!



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



EXTENDED EDITIONS



To hear the Extended and Bonus Episodes of our shows:




Subscribe to FM+ : Click the subscribe button in Apple Podcasts or sign up here. (One subscription covers all our network podcasts for one low price ! )



Join FM Premium: Get an FM+ Subscription plus video interviews, blog posts, a weekly bonus email and more.




FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

What Is It about Bob Dylan?







Michael Glover Smith wrote and directed the feature films COOL APOCALYPSE (2015), MERCURY IN RETROGRADE (2017), RENDEZVOUS IN CHICAGO (2018), and RELATIVE (2022), all of which won awards at festivals across the U.S. and were the subject of rave reviews. The Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper wrote that "Smith has a deft touch for creating characters who look and sound like people we know" and RogerEbert.com’s Matt Fagerholm has called him “one of the Windy City’s finest filmmakers.” His films have screened at the American Cinematheque and Rooftop Cinema Club in Los Angeles, Spectacle Theater and Regal UA Midway in NYC and the Gene Siskel Film Center and Music Box Theater in Chicago. He was a recipient of the Siskel Center's Star Filmmaker award in 2017 and made Newcity Chicago's "Film 50" list in 2018 and 2020 for being one of fifty individuals who "shape Chicago's film scene." He teaches Directing at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee and is the author of FLICKERING EMPIRE (Columbia University Press, 2015), an acclaimed nonfiction book about film production in Chicago during the silent era.



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedylantantes.substack.com



FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.

What Is It about Bob Dylan?







Last year a New York Times article opened with 




"Henry Bernstein has seen Bob Dylan 27 times in concert and owns three items autographed by him: a copy of “The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ album, a photograph of the singer and a “John Wesley Harding” songbook. His favorite song is “Tangled Up in Blue.” 




Henry says this is a double crowning achievement in life. When he's not obsessing over Bob Dylan Henry works in Operations and Logistics for a local Jewish Day School in Chicago. His other great loves besides his family and Bob Dylan are Superman, Star Trek and the Chicago White Sox. In 2018 Henry along with his friend Rabbi Brandon Bernstein (no relation) took their love of Judaism and Comic Books and started a podcast called "Funny They Don't Look Jewish." Henry describes the podcast as a deep dive into explicit Jewish content within super-hero comic books. This can be a character identifying as Jewish, practicing Judaism, speaking Hebrew, learning Torah and everything in-between. Henry also co-hosts a podcast with Dr. Sam Brody called Superman & Lois & Pals, an episode by episode review of the popular CW tv show.  Henry can be heard talking about Bob Dylan often on Pod Dylan. Henry credits his dear friend Rob Kelly with introducing him to the Bob Dylan Twitter community and giving him a platform to be a voice in that group. Henry lives on the Northside of Chicago with his wife—a guitar playing rockstar rabbi—and his two young children, all of whom enjoy Bob Dylan and tolerate his obsession. 



Thanks for checking out The Dylantantes!



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thedylantantes.substack.com



FM PODCAST NETWORK 



We're a proud member of The FM Podcast Network along with PodDylan - Dylan.FM - The Bob Dylan Primer - and more.