My favourite boot site, Big O, have the Bob Dylan Beijing Concert that there was SO much fuss about and it's really worth a try....I will put this over on my Dylan page in good time but for now it's here on Big O

Bob in Beijing @ Big O

 

 Beijing, China
Workers Gymnasium

April 6, 2011

1.	Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel)
2.	It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel)
3.	Beyond Here Lies Nothin' (Bob on guitar, Donnie on trumpet)
4.	Tangled Up In Blue (Bob center stage on harp, Donnie on pedal steel, Stu on acoustic guitar)
5.	Honest With Me (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel)
6.	Simple Twist Of Fate (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel)
7.	Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum (Bob on guitar, Donnie on pedal steel)
8.	Love Sick (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on electric mandolin)
9.	Rollin' And Tumblin' (Bob on keyboard)
10.	A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on electric mandolin)
11.	Highway 61 Revisited (Bob on center stage on harp then keyboard, Donnie on lap steel)
12.	Spirit On The Water (Bob on keyboard and harp, Donnie on pedal steel, Tony on standup bass)
13.	Thunder On The Mountain (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on lap steel)
14.	Ballad Of A Thin Man (Bob center stage on harp, Donnie on lap steel)
	(1st encore)
15.	Like A Rolling Stone (Bob on keyboard, Donnie on pedal steel)
16.	All Along The Watchtower (Bob on keyboard then guitar, Donnie on lap steel)
	(2nd encore)
17.	Forever Young (Bob on keyboard and harp, Donnie on pedal steel)

 and just to add the 'final' word (sic!) from the Bobster hisself about all that nonsense and I got this from the wonderful DylanNL who should have the Feis 2011 Finsbury gig anyday now unless anyone knows otherwise.........this is the master from Bob Dylan.com

What we would never have believed, did happen Dylan himself (or his management) did react on the Chinese rumors on dylan.com:

"To my fans and followers

Allow me to clarify a couple of things about this so-called China controversy which has been  going on for over a year. First of all, we were never denied permission to play in China. This was all drummed up by a Chinese promoter who was trying to get me to come there after playing Japan and Korea. My guess is that the guy printed up tickets and made promises to certain groups without any agreements being made. We had no intention of playing China at that time, and when it didn't happen most likely the promoter had to save face by issuing statements that the Chinese Ministry had refused permission for me to play there to get himself off the hook. If anybody had bothered to check with the Chinese authorities, it would have been  clear that the Chinese authorities were unaware of the whole thing.

We did go there this year under a different promoter. According to Mojo magazine the concerts were attended mostly by ex-pats and there were a lot of empty seats. Not true. If anybody wants to check with any of the concert-goers they will see that it was mostly Chinese young people that came. Very few ex-pats if any. The ex-pats were mostly in Hong Kong not Beijing. Out of 13,000 seats we sold about 12,000 of them, and the rest of the tickets were given away to orphanages. The Chinese press did tout me as a sixties icon, however, and posted my picture all over the place with Joan Baez, Che Guevara, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. The concert attendees probably wouldn't have known about any of those people. Regardless, they responded enthusiastically to the songs on my last 4 or 5 records. Ask anyone who was there. They were young and my feeling was that they wouldn't have known my early songs anyway.

As far as censorship goes, the Chinese government had asked for the names of the songs that I would be playing. There's no logical answer to that, so we sent them the set lists from the previous 3 months. If there were any songs, verses or lines censored, nobody ever told me  about it and we played all the songs that we intended to play.

Everybody knows by now that there's a gazillion books on me either out or coming out in the near future. So I'm encouraging anybody who's ever met me, heard me or even seen me, to get in on the action and scribble their own book. You never know, somebody might have a great book in them." 

Bob Dylan

.............oh! they have a boot from a band called The Beatles too.....I hadn't got this one.........so


The Beatles - Off White

It's from the ubiquitous Philip Cohen who says......"here’s another bootleg of 1968 demos from George Harrison’s house in Esher." - Philip Cohen
Big O says.....
If the Twickenham sessions in 1969 were abrasive, these demos, a year earlier, showed the good natured side of The Beatles with Paul McCartney’s demo of Goodbye (for Mary Hopkin) sounding precious even. With Child Of Nature sung to the tune of Jealous Guy, and a sun-soaked feel to Honey Pie, these tracks are both heart-warming and nostalgic.

 Enjoy! 

I'll be back with more geniuine stuff from the Swappster vaults soon...........there's a Dylan StewART compilation to start with...over on the Bobby page but I'm not yet back in the total swing....


Meanwhile, to paraphrase my beloved Sir Stanley Unwin and The Small Faces Ogden's 
"Stay Cool won't you?"

Here's a little gobbit of joy....it's a long story but I browsed the Beefheart site the other day and found a comment asking if the Andy Swapp on there was me [it is!?] from a lovely guy I was at school with. One Michael Bristow and he was an influence on my musical tastes all those years ago ( some Forty plus!) He introduced me to an album called 'Safe As Milk' and bands like Frank Zappa, Clear Light etc etc and I haven't been the same since. It's his fault I went to see the Doors in 68 ['69 ED] at the Roundhouse! So I googled him (its relatively painless I am assured. ED) and found some Youtube entries, decded it must be him & dropped the guy a line and found out it was him and we have hooked up via the t'internet....ain't this an amazing place?

So here's Mike doing a lovely arrangement of the Beatles 'I Will' that I dedicate to my daughter, Amy & her boyfriend, singer songwriter and Beatle nut bar none, Rob Power, and doing another lovely version of Clarence White of The Byrds' fame's 'Nashville West'.......on the Ukulele!
I kid you not! This last one for Byrds fan par excellence, Dave Seal and for his keeping in touch with his kind words an all at this difficult time for me

Mike does The Beatles 'I Will'

The Byrds 'Nashville West' by Mike Bristow

Can ya diggit?
I think you can.....mo' later everybody peeps


Peace out,
Swappers

One for 'Bob' who asked about my Harmony geetars and linked me to a nice Ry Cooder page about the making of the film 'Buena Vista Social Club' 'Paris Texas' (ooops, what a plum! Thanks Bob!)[Pay Attention Swappers, yeah YOU! Sitting in the back of class as usual!ED] with Wim Wenders
Well here's the master Lightning Hopkins playing a H162, it looks like the mahogany one to me and somewhat more than a 'junky guitar' as Ry referred to it.....I prefer the term 'poor man's Gibson'.;o)
Enjoy, this one's for you Bob


Also while we're about it, it occurred to me that I was asked by Doug about the Dylan Supper Club sets on which I made a mistake and got corrected on the day my daughter, Amy, got to see Bob Dylan for the first time at The Feis in Finsbury Park ["Cut the Finsbury's dear, cut the Finsbury's" Ian Dury ;o) ]


What goes around comes around.....especially Bob!

You know that expression that if you sit still long enough the entire world will drop by your door [well ok, I am paraphrasing but you get ma drift] if you stop still long enough Bob Dylan is bound to show up in your town sooner or later...[one of us must know? ED]

still touring around God's Golfball weeks after his 70th birthday

Haven't been 'in' for a while folks......my dear Mum passed away last month and things have been taken up with that rather. I'm sure, in fact I know, some of you understand.......Thanks for dropping by 'new' people (there aren't any old people! ED) and thanks for the corrections and the Ry Cooder comments and link from 'Bob'
I'm sorry not to have been posting of late and have just managed to update the link for the broken Bob Supper Club Disc Three for 'Doug'!

So, "I've just dropped in to see what condition my condition was in"............ (the late great Mickey Newbury......)

Enjoy yourselves, it's later than you think.....

Mother & Son - taken by Amy Swapp 2011

A few posts today for the weekend........about as wide a range as I can muster.........from Edinburgh based 'undiscovered' wonders Ballboy from the John Peel Sessions to Joe Cocker in Los Angeles in 1976.........a fine set to help you raise a bigbadboogieboybop for the end of the week.....to Frank Zappa and the Good Captain Beefheart live in Providence in 1975 from my favourite period of their collaboration..........over on their respective pages..........(huh? ED) .......that's Ballboy over on the music page and Joe and Frank over on the My Back Pages page................get it.....got it?.........good!

find Ballboy here...down the bottom of the page

Find the Frank here......down at the bottom......

 

 

 

Find Joe live in LA here.........down the bottom of the page

Can you dig it? I think you can!................

oh Ok, I'll tell you what lets' throw in some Lou Reed too.......I have gone on record as adoring the work of John Cale and the Velvet Underground were a seminal part of my growing into whoever it is that I am now.....but Lou was important too.....and this set is the band that I loved from the live period par excellence that brought us the peerless 'Rock 'n' Roll Animal'

Find Lou here.......................right down the bottom

Enjoy!

Gil Scott-Heron R.I.P. 1949-2011

On the afternoon of May 27, 2011, poet, spoken-word artist, musician and author Gil Scott-Heron died at St. Luke’s Hospital, New York City, after becoming sick upon returning from a European trip. He was 62.

Seen as the Godfather of Hip-Hop, Public Enemy’s Chuck D commented: “RIP GSH… and we do what we do and how we do because of you. And to those that don’t know tip your hat with a hand over your heart & recognize… Quite stunned at the fact I just wrote and recorded guest vocals on one of his next albums. This makes one realize that time is precious, damn."
Thanks to Big O who share his blistering set in 2005 Gil Scott-Heron - Live at the Village Gate, New York; 1976

This is what Doinker, the poster, noted:

If you have ever lived in, or around a big city anywhere in the world, or if you have ever been in one long enough to catch its flavor, you need this music.

  Here's wishing

a Happy 70th Birthday to Bobby..................

Bob in Beijing

there's a coupla boots over on the Bobby page

.....seeing as everyone's doing it!

Check out Big O for a fine, fine set from the same year and Dylan NL have a massive list of compilations 1-7 discs and have also made available the Travelling Wilburys singles box available here:
Traveling Wilburys - Single Box
Traveling Wilburys - Single Box II
Download both rar files before extracting yeah?

 

Bob Dylan with a Harmony guitar...thanks to friend Stephen I have one of these............bit of a wall hanger but hey.....sure is purty tho'......

Ruminating on how we find music we like these days.....it IS extraordinary how things change....years ago listening to John Peel on the scratchy portable little transistor radio underneath the bed clothes at night and hearing strange musics that permeated through to the muse and pleasure zones.......even catching pieces that have stayed with me forever (Pictures at An Exhibition by Moussorgsky for solo piano as it was originally intended NOT Ravel's orchestration thereof stands as one of my favourite classical pieces along with Orff's Schulwerk first heard this way)...........
.................now we hear a piece on the TV soundtrack, look up the lyric on Google, check out the name of the band and find their website.....find they have an EP which you can pay whatever you like for and download it in a variety of formats (MP3 & FLAC since you ask......) paid via my computer (Paypal website) account and will receive a hard copy 'digi-pack' with artwork by the drummer, Ruth, in my mailbox in due course] but could play it back within minutes of hearing it.....on the TV

The name of the band was Wilful Missing....the track was DIY........their website is here ....update:within a couple of days I received the CD digi-pak through the post and it was followed by an email from them with a general hope that I had rec'd it OK! This strikes me as amazing! Also I mention that I have written this in tribute and in the hope that more people come across them and an email exchange takes place where I am chatting to them about their music and the service of the website and suchlike.........and the music goes around and around and it comes out here........... Lovely contacts from wonderful people making wonderful music....ASTONISHING!.......they asked me to update their links so here goes...........


Wilful Missing new site link

Now Brian Eno is as important as any of the folks who have their own pages but there is [ARE ED!] scant bootlegs that are worthy of my posting here....except this one! I got this from the wonderful Big O several years ago now and love this performance from the BBC go here!

It is over on the music page and  I heartily recommend it as indeedie doodlie I doodlei doo for all my findings. of course.........

'Brian Eno' - Painting by Andy Swapp 1978 Acrylic on Canvas 3' x 4' destroyed

WORD GAME

by Stephen Stills

Would you knock a man down if you don't like the cut of his clothes

Could you put a man away if you don't want to hear what he knows

Well it's happening right here, people dying of fear by the droves

And I know most of you,

Either don't believe it's true,

Or else you don't know what to do

Or maybe I'm singing about you,

Who knows.

It's incredibly sick, you can feel it, as across the land it flows

Prejudice is slick when it's a word game, it festers and grows,

Move along quick, it furthers one to have somewhere to go

You can feel it as it's rumblin'

Let emotions keep a tumblin'

Then as cities start to crumblin'

Mostly empty bellies grumblin'

Here we go

People see somebody different fear is the first reaction shown

Then they think they've got him licked the barbaric hunt begins and they move in slow

A human spirit is devoured the remains left to carrion crow

I was told that life is change

And yet history remains,

Does it always stay the same

Do we shrug it off and say

Only God knows

By and by, somebody usually goes down to the ghetto

Try and help but they don't know why folks treat them cold

And the rich keep getting richer and the rest of us just keep getting old.

You see one must have a mission

In order to be a good Christian

If you don't you will be missing

High Mass or the evening show

And the well fed masters reap the harvests of the polluted seeds they've sown,

Smug and self-righteous they bitch about people they owe,

And you can't prove them wrong, they're so God damn sure they know

I have seen these things with my very own eyes and defended my battered soul,

It must be too tough to die,

American propaganda, South African lies

Will not force me to take up arms, that's my enemies' pride,

And I won't fight by his rules that's foolishness besides,

His ignorance is gonna do him in and nobody's gonna cry,

Because his children they are growing up

And plainly tired of putting up

With bigots and their silver cups

They're fed up, they might throw up

On you

Just because I was listening to it and it sums up much of what I was thinking at the time about pacifism, tyranny, prejudice etc.......great expression of rage against the war-mongers and the line "Will not force me to take up arms, that's my enemies' pride and I won't fight by his rules that's foolishness besides" has always stayed with me since first I heard it.........