Friday September 16 2005 P25/Dv

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16 2005 I WINNIPEG SUN 25 AVDVDs compilation from last year’s fes- ow many roads must a man tival gives you a little bit of walk down before you can everything: Local heroes like Bob Hcall him a legend? However No Direction Home follows Schneider and Los Lonely Boys, many it is, Bob Dylan has been there jammers like Trey Anastasio, and done it — and he’s got the legion country gals like Roseanne Cash of dedicated followers to prove it. and Shelby Lynne, hipsters like Chief among them these days Franz Ferdinand and Pixies, seems to be Martin Scorsese. In the Dylan on musical odyssey southern rockers like My wake of his deservedly acclaimed Morning Jacket and Drive-By documentary series The the face of rock with Like a Limits Music Festival is an eclec- Truckers, and even Canucks like Blues, the most influential Rolling Stone. And of DEVO tic and egalitarian affair, with a Sloan and Broken Social Scene. American filmmaker of his course, we get to hear varied slate of bands doing their Plus it’s a lot cheaper than a generation has turned his about it from the horse’s Live 1980 thing in a local park over three plane ticket to Texas. focus toward the most mouth. MVD days each summer. This DVD ### influential American Ultimately, though, And we say yeah, singer-songwriter of his Dylan’s input ends up yeah, yeah, yeah, generation. And the results being both the documen- yeahyeahyeahyeah are every bit as extensive as DARRYL tary’s biggest coup and its yeahyeahyeah you might expect — STERDAN biggest disappointment. YEAH! If you’re like us, you’ve got an though perhaps not quite [email protected] Sure, the reclusive singer uncontrollable urge for vintage as definitive as you might discusses his past more DEVO video. But for years, the hope. than he ever has before. But he still Spudboys have been frustrating us No Direction Home, premiering on doesn’t say much of any impor- with limp reunion-tour vids and PBS’s American Masters Sept. 26 and tance. Ever since his early days, promo-clip comps. Well, somebody 27 but in stores Tuesday on DVD, is Dylan has been a master prevarica- finally opened up the vault and a two-disc set that chronicles the tor, obfuscator and self-mythologist. brought out the good stuff — Live first few years of Dylan’s relentless, And he isn’t about to change his 1980. Recorded in a San Francisco decades-long musical odyssey. ways now. Throughout the inter- theatre on the band’s Freedom of Combining extensive archival views, he continues to deny the Choice tour, this is 75 minutes of footage, interviews with Dylan’s obvious, romanticize the mundane, classic DEVO, complete with flower- friends, lovers, contemporaries and avoid the uncomfortable and claim pot hats, bodysuits and twitchy per- competitors, and — most potentially more memory lapses than a presi- formances of Whip It, Jocko Homo, revealing of all — in-depth conver- dent under cross-examination. Even Satisfaction, Smart Patrol / Mr. DNA, sations with the man himself, the worse, Scorsese, either out of rever- Come Back Jonee. Historic to say the 210-minute epic follows the young ence or reluctance, lets him get away least. Too bad that whoever wrote Robert Zimmerman from his the introductory CGI crawl didn’t youth in rural Minnesota to his have a sense of history — it claims status as the so-called Reagan was president in August “spokesman for his genera- 1980 when this was taped. Looks like tion,” ending with the turmoil de-evolution is true after all. and controversy sparked by his ###1/2 decision to go electric in 1965. Disc 1 plays like the Dylan version of Bound for Glory. Confined by the limits of life in Flaming small-town Hibbing, the young Zimmy strikes out for Lips Minneapolis and then New VOID York City, where he rewrites his past, immerses himself in the Warner city’s coffeehouse scene and As the recent meets up with his folksinger rockumentary The hero Woody Guthrie. Catching Fearless Freaks established, the ear of renowned talent Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips are one of scout John Hammond, Dylan the most creative and endearingly becomes a recording artist, quirky bands around. Not surpris- slowly climbing to global fame ingly, most of their videos earn the thanks to inspirational songs same adjectives and accolades. like Blowin’ in the Wind and VOID — Video Overview in Mr. Tambourine Man. Deceleration — compiles 19 of the But fame, typically, is not all eccentric pop outfit’s promo clips it’s cracked up to be, as we learn from 1992 - 2005. Along with the in Disc 2. Quickly elevated from with all of it. If you want to hear familiar hits like She Don’t Use Jelly, folksinger to folk hero, Dylan seeks to about Dylan’s life outside of music, Turn it On, Do You Realize and Fight keep moving forward, but can’t seem his relationships, his drug use — Test, you get weird little nuggets like to escape demanding fans, idiotic pretty much anything that might Frogs and Everyone Wants to Live journalists and even fellow artists add some human depth to his story Forever, and even the new Mr. who want him to remain the same. — forget it. While we spend tons of Ambulance Driver — all remastered The climax comes on his infamous time staring right into Dylan’s eyes in 5.1 audio to add yet another U.K. tour in 1965, when he ends up and listening to his words, a true dimension to the Lips’ psychedelic sparring from the stage with a heck- picture of him remains as madden- arsenal. Turn it on, crank it up and ler who brands him a “Judas” for ingly elusive as ever. Which, we sus- get your freak on. playing electric guitar with a band. pect, is just how he wants it. ### To any Dylan fan, it’s a familiar One last point. If you’re wonder- tale. But Scorsese’s documentary ing why you should shell out for a brings it to life in a way printed DVD of a show that’s gonna be on Austin City Limits biographies never could. For the first TV for free, here’s why: 1) Because time, we see it all: The streets of his the DVD extras include seven com- Music Festival home town, the clubs he played in plete performances edited down for New York, the artists he hung with, the show, along with an unused Various the studios where he recorded. Positively 4th Street promo film, per- Artists Thanks to the mountain of live formances from the likes of Maria footage — including a slew of previ- Muldaur, Joan Baez and Liam Rhino | Warner ously unreleased performances — Clancy, and more; 2) Because even Much like the we get to watch Dylan evolve from the least dedicated Dylan follower is venerable TV the young, rudimentary performer going to want to watch this historic music series that and songwriter into the charismatic, footage way more than once. shares its name, frizzy-haired genius who changed #### the Austin City.

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