portrait of this blog's author - by Stephen Blackman 2008

Tuesday, March 21, 2023

Bob Dylan's punk/garage versions with the Plugz - Letterman 1984 [upgraded] Don’t Start Me Talking, Jokerman, License to Kill + Rehearsal tapes

"Don’t Start Me Talking"

                          sometimes ‘mercurial’ doesn’t even quite cut it . . . . . . . . . . !?

How did this even HAPPEN?

DREAM TWISTER!



Youtube poster Peter Stoner Brown Archive notes:
With Dylan, all dressed in black, were three unknown 20-somethings and they were killing it. Guitarist J.J. Holiday, drummer Charlie Quintana, and bassist Tony Marsico — the latter two of whom were members of the L.A. punk band the Plugz — backed Dylan on three songs that night, a fierce “Jokerman” and a perfectly raucous “License to Kill,” both from Dylan’s then-new semi-return-to-form album Infidels, and a swaggering cover of Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Don’t Start Me Talking.” For 12 minutes or so, the musicians proved that Bob Dylan could be jolted out of the perfunctory performances he’d been accustomed to giving then and suggested a future beyond the living relic circuit.
License to Kill



Letterman rehearsals !!

22 March 1984. Band: Bob Dylan, J.J. Holiday, Tony Marsico, and Charlie Quintana. Setlist: I Once Knew A Man Jokerman License to Kill Treat Her Right My Guy

2 comments:

Jobe said...

Wow !!! and he looks like he may be having fun. Never seen this. Thanks Andy

Andy Swapp said...

Aww thanks for dropping by Jobe! Appreciate it. This cleaned up version of the early Letterman appearance seems to have become a meme and hurtled around t’interweb! If you saw it, the Ray Padgett article at Flaggin Down The Double Es is really worth a read too and I found it riveting. another great insight into working with Bobby that goes some way more to illuminate quite how mercurial he could be. They had no idea he was going to take them onto TV and they had not even discussed what numbers they would play!!?!? Staggering.

Hope all is well with you bro!?