Michael Gray

Probably my magnum opus, it was first published in the USA on this day 26 years ago:

I think the last time the USA created regime change solely through bombing was in Cambodia, when a massive carpet bombing campaign so destabilized the country that the Khmer Rouge came to power and wiped out the Royal government—the American ally. Genocide followed.

Please, can anyone tell me WHEN in 1964 Joan Baez gave a concert at East Berlin cabaret club "Distel"?

Open For Business — Confessions of a Used Record Dealer in New England by Scott Seward

"I’m used to this. It’s called the Boomer Tease. People threaten to sell their collections full of 'rare gems' that are 'near mint' and they do this for years. If I ever do get any of their stuff it’s almost always littered with beat up Jackson Browne records covered in cat fur."

Not available in my country...

Really?

My favourite director.

The 1960s film "Bonnie and Clyde" is showing on BBC4-TV tonight (9pm UK time). If you haven't seen it - or haven't seen it since it was new - I think it holds up pretty well.

It's always been working, for me at least, using Firefox.

🫩

Just finished reading John Boyne's 2021 novel "The Echo Chamber": a very funny, warm, brilliantly plotted novel about the damaging and addictive effects of social media and the mad extremities of Wokeness. (Very different from his fine Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, which I also admired greatly.)

Thank you: I've seen all this, and I've always been grateful for it. And yes, I do have a far longer version of the Greil Marcus.
Not quite the same as having any quote from Bob, of course 😎

Ah yes: you've reminded me that they found him hilarious. So weird.

I've not seen that: would very much like to, naturally!

By the way: how do you know that?

Norman Wisdom: one of Britain's many unfunniest comedians.

YouTube video by Suzzy Roche - Topic Clothes Line Saga

Clothes Line Saga by Suzzy & Maggie Roche - utterly brilliant cover of this song:
music.youtube.com/watch?v=kk2W...

Not since 1978...

Thank you. I think your first point may well be right, and I hope your second point is too.

This Thursday!

My first gig of 2026:
Tickets now on sale from 01305 266926 or
share.google/PYuHzhpZsJYS...

Bob Dylan meets the drum machine circa 1985 (via Mike Campbell’s recent memoir)

Thank you: I will, though I've never liked that song, or indeed anything else by the Hollies. It was always a mystery to me why Neil Young and co. let Graham Nash anywhere near them; ditto why Joni Mitchell did.

YouTube video by Bob Sheldon Raul Malo Crying

I'm sorry to have discovered Raul Malo only now that he's died. But what a voice!
www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDiW...

My first gig of 2026:
Tickets now on sale from 01305 266926 or
share.google/PYuHzhpZsJYS...

YouTube video by nightly moth Bob Dylan — A Rainy Night In Soho. Dublin, Ireland. November 25, 2025

youtu.be/XrrYKs8aVVQ?...
Lovely if you were there for the atmosphere (and more so if you were aware that Shane's widow was there too, and on their wedding anniversary) but listening to this recording, it would be hard to decipher more than a very few words if you didn't already know the song well:

Maasai Sue Marriott Over Ritz-Carlton Safari Camp Tribal leaders say the tourism development blocks one of the main migration routes of the Serengeti

Leaders of the Maasai ethnic group in Kenya seek a court order to demolish a Ritz-Carlton luxury safari camp, saying it blocks a route on the famous Serengeti wildlife migration.

How can this sentence be contested as anything but the absolute, incontestable truth?!

A reminder, a miniature sample, of what's on offer from "Song & Dance Man" 50th Anniversary Series, Vol. 2, published by the FM Press, NYC and still available in paperback (sorry about this) from you-know-who: