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- [00:00]
Ian Grant
Jokerman podcast is brought to you by Distrokid and their new direct to fan tool. Allowing any artist to sell merch. Distrokid Direct allows artists to create a merch store in minutes without any upfront costs or any technical skills or know how they'll take care of all the logistics and the nitty gritty. And as with distribution through Distrokid, they never take a cut of the proceeds. You, the artist, keep 100% of your earnings. Once again, that's Distrokid Direct. Open a store today@distrokid.com direct.
- [00:40]
Tim Heidecker
Hey, everybody, this is Tim Heidecker and I am joined. This is going to be a collab. I'm not going to say collab. I'm going to say collaboration with the great Joker Men podcast. So I'm joined by Ian Grant here.
- [00:55]
Ian Grant
Hi, Tim.
- [00:56]
Tim Heidecker
Ian, good to see you. And we are collaborating so that the both of us can talk about a great new book. And we're joined by the author, acclaimed journalist and author Jim Windolf is here. Jim.
- [01:14]
Jim Windolf
Hey, Tim. Hey, Ian.
- [01:15]
Tim Heidecker
Thanks for having me. Yes. Your new book, where the Music had to Go. Ian, what's the subtitle in the book? Because I left it downstairs.
- [01:26]
Ian Grant
How Bob Dylan and the Beatles Changed each Other and the World.
- [01:30]
Tim Heidecker
If there was a book written for me and Ian specifically, this is the one. This is very exciting to see. And just one caveat. I apologize. My voice is a little tender. I was doing my Alex Jones all day yesterday and I was pushed, pushed to the limit. It was like, I'll explain more later on Office Hours. But it's. I can do it for a little while. And then I reach a point where it's like, it's probably very bad for me and I start sounding like, you know, Love and Theft era.
- [02:05]
Ian Grant
Yeah, you're going to sound like 2009 era.
- [02:07]
Tim Heidecker
Bob Dylan or even worse, Tempest.
- [02:09]
Ian Grant
Exactly.
- [02:10]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. Wolfman Bob.
- [02:14]
Tim Heidecker
Jim, this book is. I. My first question, I guess, is like, I can't believe this book took this long to exist in the world. It is so, like, plain as the obvious that this is such an interesting topic. Is, was there anything like it was that sort of what inspired you to. To get into this? Because it just hadn't been explored like this.
- [02:35]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, that's exactly it. And it's like you said, you're.
- [02:37]
Tim Heidecker
You're.
- [02:37]
Jim Windolf
If you're the dream reader for this book, so was I. I just wanted to read it, you know what I mean? And. And I'd gone down the jags of reading all The Dylan and Beatles books. And I just noticed that when they interacted, the stories sometimes conflicted in different books. Like there are books that are otherwise great that either gloss over or actually get basic things wrong. Like the time and place of the first meeting in one biography or others. And there's all kinds of things like that. So I thought the story had been skipped over or missed. And it's kind of hiding in plain sight. And I just went back to it. Original contemporary reporting of the time, which, you know, would tell you things. Like in 1965, there's a new Musical Express reporter who sees Dylan go into the. To the Warwick Hotel where the Beatles are staying. And that kind of doesn't make it into these biographies that came out later, you know. So I went and just pieced the story together little by little.
- [03:33]
Tim Heidecker
It. It almost acts as a. A dual biography of both bands. Like, if you don't. If you haven't read a good Beatles biography, this works pretty well. And likewise with Bob, like, it really works. I think you hit all the main major moments in both of their careers and extending into the solo years and everything up to kind of present day. Which makes it like a handy primer for both artists.
- [04:03]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, I thought the same thing and I wanted to write it. And knowing that some Dylan fans may not be well versed in the Beatles and vice versa, I couldn't give myself the out of like writing it for people who already know everything. So I kind of had to spell things out, which I think helped in the long run. And also the story took me in some little byways that you don't. That don't get made much of in Dylan books. Like his first trip to London where he got. You know, I have. I spend a lot of pages on that. Where he is in the folk clubs and getting derided by the old folk crowd there and stuff. Because I'm setting up stuff that happens later with the beat. And that kind of gets glossed over in the Dylan books too. And I enjoyed that kind of stuff.
- [04:45]
Ian Grant
Yeah, that was new to me, a lot of that. Even like the play that he goes over there to act in, right? Yeah, that's always known in these tales of Bob's early days. But it's typically just a one sentence type of thing. It's like, oh, Bob went over to London to act in a play and then he came back and that was. And I don't think I even knew that he. He went there and he tried to do the play. And I guess Grossman wanted him to do the play. Because he was gonna be making money off of Bob doing the play. And then Bob did so poorly in the play, they had to write a new part for him in the play. It was just, you know, so even myself, who likes to fancy himself a Dylan knower in many cases, there's lots of new stones to unturn, overturn, uncover.
- [05:35]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. And I wanted to show there, too, that even. That's the height of his folk phase. But even then, he seems the traditionalist folk singers in Britain, like Ewan McCall and others looked at him and they thought, there's something off about this guy. He doesn't have the larger movement in mind. So even then he was kind of restless and moving, you know, I'm suggesting there that he's kind of moving away from this world. He doesn't belong there fully. You know, he's. He's ready to leave. Martin Carthy loved him from the start, but there are three or four other people who were big deals in London at the time in that world who really thought he was a charlatan. And part of it is that he put his own personality out there. Like, they wanted you to sing folk music as. As if you're a custodian of the tradition and.
- [06:20]
Tim Heidecker
Right.
- [06:20]
Jim Windolf
And Dylan just loves show business, you
- [06:22]
Tim Heidecker
know what I mean?
- [06:22]
Jim Windolf
He loved.
- [06:23]
Tim Heidecker
He loved Song and dance, man.
- [06:24]
Ian Grant
Song and dance, man. That's right.
- [06:27]
Tim Heidecker
You start the book by, I guess, fairly recently. I don't know what the year was, but Bob in Liverpool going to the. What do you call it? The. Well, they're homes, but they're now national. What are they, registry houses or something? You know, like tours. You can tour Paul's house now and. Is that where he goes to Paul's house?
- [06:52]
Jim Windolf
He went to John's first and he went. It's called the National. It's called the Beatles Childhood Homes Tour. And you can still do it. I did it. It's great. It's really great to do. And it. And it's big stops at Lennon's and McCartney's childhood homes. And Dylan went in 2009 when he was 67. And the tour guide said he was the first celebrity who didn't book a private visit. Which was hilarious, that he just went on the tour bus with the hoodie on, right? Yeah, he had the hoodie on. There are three members of his band and two tourists. Because this was pretty early that it had. This tour had been going for a few years, but now it's, you know, it's like three or four buses a day. Back then it wasn't as popular and there were only five people there. And he really spent a lot of time in John Lennon's house. The tour guide took him aside and they spent private time in Lennon's bedroom and that kind of thing.
- [07:44]
Tim Heidecker
I mean, what this book really. There's so many things to talk about with this book, but it really reminds you and highlights, focuses that these were guys that knew each other pretty well and were, you know, they were just guys. People when they met, were very young and had. They had their own personal, private relationships with each other that we don't think about. We think of them as like guys on the. On a mural, on the side of a building or something, or on Mount Rushmore or something. But they were human beings that knew each other. And it's just a strange image to think of. Dylan is a 60 something year old man standing in his friend's childhood bedroom and what does that mean to him and why did he feel like he needed to do that?
- [08:31]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, it was quite a day. And then from there he went to Strawberry Field, he asked the guide. So he went by himself there. And then he went on to McCartney's childhood home, but he was too late to get in. And that night he played Liverpool Echo arena and he played something that night. So it was like this incredible Beatles Day for him. It's May 1, 2009. And it also shows to me how long it wasn't like Dylan had kind of a Beatles phase in 65 or something. It was something he thought about from then on to the present even. Because even on Rough and Rowdy Ways, there's a Beatles reference in Murder Most Foul.
- [09:08]
Tim Heidecker
Well, there's a reference to just about everybody in Murder Most Foul.
- [09:11]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, I mean, he has the Eagles too, so. Yes, the Eagles.
- [09:18]
Ian Grant
I'm curious, Jim, like, what is your. You write about this a little bit in the book, so you don't need to give it all away, but your personal history with both the Beatles and Bob. Cause I know I have mine and they came into my life in different periods of time and they've kind of refracted off one another. And Tim, I'm sure the same is true for you as well. Where are you coming from as both a Beatles fan and a Bob fan?
- [09:40]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. I always love hearing about people's taste within the Beatles and Dylan because even among the fans it's always different. I'm a 70s kid, so I'm a 70s fan. So it was really when I was. I was a Beatles fan from when I was A little kid, Uncle Albert, Admiral Halsey. The McCartney song got me into the sound. And then I went. Started going back. And then when I was like 11, I heard Hurricane was the song that did it for me. And I got Desire and Hard Rain, which were both out at that time. Those were, you know, like the first 10 albums I had. Those were two of them. And so were Shaved Fish, the John Lennon compilation, and Band on the Run, and then George Harrison's 33 and a third. I was like a nut about Cracker Box palace, that song was. You know, I still love that song. And. And, yeah, so. So that era. And then from there I kind of went back and I've stayed unlike. I'm not. I think a lot of Dylan fans who. Who are not the. The core 60s fans have a wider view of Dylan. So I was still, you know, when down in the Groove came out, I was perfectly happy, you know, I was not really that, you know, I didn't think it was so bad and knocked loaded and. You know what I mean? So I was there through the 80s and I really didn't. It's funny, I didn't really start seeing him live until the early 90s when I was in my 20s. And since then, I've seen him every chance I could. I've seen some rough shows and some great ones, too. And, yeah, so through the Night, I loved World Gone Wrong and Good As I've Been to you, the whole deal.
- [11:10]
Tim Heidecker
Ian, to interrupt or just since you brought up good and bad shows, do you have a quick report on the latest? Cause you were just up. I think I saw. You were just up seeing him in San Francisco, right?
- [11:21]
Ian Grant
Yeah, he played the Berkeley Up. Excuse me, the Greek Theater in Berkeley up here. Beautiful venue on the UC Berkeley campus, you know. Good, very good. Listen, it's hard for me because I've seen, like, I don't know, 12 shows over the last, you know, four or five years at this point, to really knuckle down and say, this is the best one ever. He's in peak condition. He's doing the Bob Dylan. He's wearing the hoodie. You can't see him. You can barely hear him sometimes. But it's a transfixing performance nonetheless. He's playing Trying to Get to heaven right now. And I got I Shall Be Released as well, which is showing up some nights, not every night on the tour, so.
- [12:03]
Tim Heidecker
And then a lot of covers, too, right?
- [12:05]
Ian Grant
I mean, there's certainly a lot of covers, honestly, that. To bring it back to the book, like, seem like the type of music that, like, he and John and Paul would have all been listening to. There's no Little Richard, unfortunately. Would love to get a Long Tall Sally from Bob or something.
- [12:19]
Tim Heidecker
I like to see him, like, putting his heel up on the piano when he's up there trying to do some Little Richard piano moves.
- [12:26]
Ian Grant
We're lucky that he gets his heels just on the stage out there every night. He's not so limber these days. But, you know, Eddie Cochran, Jerry Lee Lewis type stuff, you know, these early kind of pre rock and roll songs, really pre modern, pre rock songs that I think he and John and Paul were all listening to on both sides of the Atlantic. That obviously kind of went on to inform the work they were going to do in the 60s.
- [12:51]
Tim Heidecker
You do such a good job. Speaking of. The book is just so people are clear about this. You weave in both of their histories and a lot of. Not only just their interactions, but their general biographies and notable moments and ups and downs. But you do it in a way that creates almost an eerie feeling of parallel experiences between them and Bob, the Beatles and Bob. And it begins in the beginning with them, where they're listening to the same kind of music. You feel like they have the. They're exposed to the same kind of media in a lot of ways. But then it gets. I think it gets weird, you know, like, just not only the talking back and forth with each other in the music, but I mean, notably, like the break they both take in 68 or 67. 68.
- [13:44]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
The.
- [13:44]
Tim Heidecker
There's a motorcycle accident coinciding with the Maharishi stuff. Like there's just moments like that throughout their careers. And maybe it's just. That's the way it goes with a normal cycle of an artist. But it does line up pretty uncannily.
- [14:01]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, it's kind of strange. I mean, sometimes I wonder, is coincidence meaningful? And is it worth including? But I love to see two timelines overlap and what's going on. So the day that. That the Lennon's bigger than Jesus comment goes out across American airwaves, which is when these DJs in Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, say they're going to have a bonfire that morning. That's the same morning Dylan has his motorcycle accident. I mean, is that. That's. You know, that's what I think we mean by it. It's like, even though it's a coincidence.
- [14:31]
Tim Heidecker
Sorry, his motor. His motorcycle.
- [14:32]
Jim Windolf
Yes, exactly. His motorcycle incident, I suppose you could say. Yeah. I think the best account of that, which I borrowed from accredited, is by this guy Howard. Soons his book down. He really did the reporting where he dug up, you know, Sally Grossman's. She gave her first interview and what she saw that morning and stuff. And it does seem kind of fishy, so I borrowed from that. But it's just strange that that happens at the same time. Dylan is also booked to play Shea Stadium in August, which nobody remembers, you know.
- [15:02]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah.
- [15:03]
Jim Windolf
And so he was going to be the second headlining rock act after the Beatles to play Shea Stadium. That's how people forget what a big commercial force he was in those two, you know, especially 6560 and in the charts. Not only himself, but people doing his songs. So he was, you know, acclaimed and potent commercial force, you know, for a few years there.
- [15:25]
Tim Heidecker
And so he was booked, but then the accident happens and he cancels.
- [15:29]
Jim Windolf
He canceled and also he was booked to play the New Haven. I forget what it's called, bowl or something. And that has had 70,000 seats. That was the week before Shea Stadium.
- [15:38]
Tim Heidecker
So he was Bob at Shea in 66, 6, August 66. What would that have even been?
- [15:45]
Ian Grant
Would have been. Would have been a disaster. Disaster.
- [15:47]
Jim Windolf
It would have been. It would have been a disaster. And. And then his d. What's the drummer? Mickey. Is it Mickey Jones?
- [15:56]
Tim Heidecker
Mickey Jones, yeah.
- [15:57]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [15:58]
Jim Windolf
He. He gave an interview where he said that they were talking about playing Moscow on the. As that tour extended after Shea Stadium. So it was going to go. Another Grossman production where. Where Bob was going to be put through the ringer probably was not up to it.
- [16:16]
Ian Grant
From what? From Albert Grossman's Gulag to the Soviet Gulag.
- [16:21]
Tim Heidecker
Oh, go ahead, go ahead, Ian.
- [16:23]
Ian Grant
Jim, I wonder, like, what's your sense of like the dynamics between Bob and each of the individual Beatles? Because, I mean, I think one of the most interesting threads that you pull at in the book is the way that Bob, you know, interacts with and the kind of relationship between him and Jon and then the relationship between him and George, you know, the former being Bob and John, you know, more of a rivalry type of thing or, you know, you get the sense that Lennon is trying to keep up with Bob at a certain point. And obviously there's the Norwegian wood fourth time around contretemps. But then George and Bob is such a kind of easy and natural brotherhood.
- [17:08]
Tim Heidecker
Non threatening, Non threatening.
- [17:10]
Ian Grant
Exactly. And so then, especially when you take. When you complexify that with George's relationship to John and George's relationship to Paul, the kind of kid brother, you know, always one step behind in the group itself. I don't know. That's always been such a fascinating kind of love triangle in some ways, to me.
- [17:28]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. I mean, the relationship with George really starts when. I mean, it's almost like, you know, leaving. Leaving your marriage for an affair. Because George is really miserable during the White Album sessions and feels really condescended to by John and Paul. And he's not even happy with how they did While My Guitar Gently Weeps. And I thought, well, that's weird. I looked it up and they did 40 takes of wild My Guitar Gently Weep. So maybe his complaint is misplaced, but that's how he felt. So he leaves after those sessions are done, and that's when he visits Dylan near Woodstock in Bearsville, New York. And both George and Patty Boyd said that Dylan was silent, actually silent for two days. And it wasn't until they brought out the guitars that it finally got relaxed. And Dylan does a thing that he rarely had done up to that point, which is not just write with somebody, but do it face to face with guitars, you know, and because some of the basement tape songs he'd given the lyrics to Richard Manuel or Rick Danko to write music for, but he didn't sit with them and do it that way. So he did that with George and. But I think before that, I think he and Lennon were the first two to really hit it off, you know, so there are accounts of that famous. You know, the most famous Beatles Dylan story is that the night of their first meeting at the Delmonico Hotel in New York where. Where they got high together. And I think he and Lennon just are simpatico. And then this other singer, you know, Dana Gillespie, who was a singer, who was Dylan's girlfriend in London at the time. Right, right. She was very, very young. And I interviewed her about it, and she just thought there was something about the way Dylan and Lennon made each other laugh that was just, you know, it can't be faked. But I think Lennon would not defer to. To Dylan and vice versa, whereas George deferred, you know, and he knew. He knew how to navigate difficult egos and big, you know, obnoxious people.
- [19:20]
Ian Grant
Yeah.
- [19:21]
Jim Windolf
So he. He.
- [19:22]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
John.
- [19:22]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, John. There must have been a part of John. He's very insecure person, it seems very. I mean, very. I want to say disturbed, but complicated, emotionally, psychologically person. It seems if you look at his various changes through life and decisions he's made and, you know, not all the time, but seem. Seem to wrestle with that. I can imagine there being like a sense of, I want to Be treated as seriously as that guy. Like, I want. That's the kind of respect I want. Even though I'm in the world's biggest band. And he has this. This conflict between being so proud of the Beatles and so much ownership over the Beatles. But also probably, you know, a year after they break in New York, or less than a year before, after they break in America, he's got his own book of poetry out, you know, like, it's just mind boggling that. So things are changing. Things are happening so quickly. And Lenin's probably. And some of it is like, you know, I'm sure people under. Behind him pushing, you know, how people think of them. But, you know, he's really established as the intellectual and like the. The most analog to Dylan in the group. I just think there must have been a bris. A jealousy, you know, he's a. I'm just a jealous guy. I didn't mean to hurt you, but I want to be. I want to be Bob Dylan, like the song says.
- [20:48]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, it's crazy that he. And the thing he said to this journalist Al Aronowitz, who was kind of the go between between the Beatles and Dylan.
- [20:56]
Tim Heidecker
I definitely want to talk about him, by the way. Maybe.
- [20:58]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, yeah, he's great. And. But John told him in 64, before he met Dylan, I'm not ready. I need to be his ego equal. So he didn't feel secure enough to meet Dylan yet. Even though that book had come out by then in his own right. His first book. And it was not. I was shocked at the reviews. I mean, they're comparing him to James Joyce and Chaucer and. Which Lennon said, I laughed because I never read James Joyce, you know, when he saw it. But he couldn't have been more acclaimed. And then it wasn't until after the Beatles Australian tour, which must have been mind boggling cause that's the tour where over 200,000 people in different cities would flood the streets and the Beatles would be paraded on a flatbed truck. And there are all these different accounts of people bringing their sick children to them to be healed. And this insane stuff. I mean, that's really the hype. And then A Hard Day's Night comes out and not only is it a box office hit, but all the critics loved it. And he had this weird thing of like the establishment starting to realize, oh, these guys are actually, you know, good because the reviews were in his own right. That was like the literary establishment taking Lennon seriously. And then Hard Day's Night kind of did the Same thing with critics like Andrew Sarris and stuff. And anyway, that after all that then, then Lennon calls Aronowitz and says, all right, bring him to me. You know, he was finally, finally felt ready.
- [22:19]
Tim Heidecker
So talk about, what's his name? Aaron Aron?
- [22:23]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Al.
- [22:24]
Tim Heidecker
Al, yeah. Who's this? This guy's a great character in this book. Kind of a sad character by the end of it, I think, because he kind of fades away and doesn't, you know, but, but he's such an important part of the story. Can you tell us a little bit about him?
- [22:38]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, he, he was, it's amazing because he was 35 years old and 64 and. But he, he loved the Beatles from the start, but he had already, he was already in with Dylan and he introduced Allen ginsberg at the 8th Street Bookstore in an apartment above that store. And he was a big time social connector and he knew Miles Davis and Jack Kerouac. He learned to smoke pot from Kerouac and Ginsburg. And he really believed in pot as like a drug of enlightenment and all that stuff that would soon become cliche but wasn't yet. So he was the driving force behind having the pot at the party at the Delmonico that first night. When the Beatles met Dylan, it was more, you know, people say Dylan turned the Beatles on the pot, but that's not Dylan's style to be like, like, hey, it was really. Ironowitz kind of engineered that and he wrote two great cover stories on the Beatles for the Saturday evening post in 64. And he was assigned to write about Dylan and then he wrote himself in his own self published memoir that he committed the journalist's sin of falling in love with the subject. So he wasn't able to write the story, but he stayed in touch with Dylan. He even sort of became his road manager in the end of the 60s when Dylan played the Isle of Wight. And he kind of was in that sort of in the 70s for a while and, and he, George stayed in touch with him very kindly gave him $50,000 in 1978 when Alaronowitz became a drug addict and was losing all his money. And Aronowitz wrote about that, how grateful he was that, you know, he knew I'd never be able to pay it back. And he had a family at the time, so he really needed the money.
- [24:18]
Tim Heidecker
And so is, is he, is he in relation to that first meeting? He writes these articles about the Beatles and then he's just in that press pool when they come over. And the Beatles see him as like a Hip dude that they can get, that they can hang with, sort of.
- [24:35]
Jim Windolf
He didn't look very hip, but when they arrived. So when they got off the plane the first time at Kennedy, Aronowitz spotted Neil Aspinall, the Beatles road manager. And he realized he's the number two guy. Lenin is number one. And he picked him as the lieutenant. So he went right to him and he said, where do you want to go in New York? And he said, the Apollo. He says, I can get you in there tonight. So he wormed his way in, and then he was with them also.
- [25:03]
Tim Heidecker
Do you know who they saw? Sorry? Do you know who they saw at the Apollo?
- [25:06]
Jim Windolf
I wish I could have figured that out. I couldn't find it. And then that summer, he was reporting on the Beatles all through their Hard Day's Night premiere in London. And so there he is, sitting with Lennon McCartney, two Rolling Stones, and Pete Hamill, this New York journalist, getting drunk at the Ad Lib Club. And that's where Pete Hamill and Aronowitz both write about. That night, Lennon got drunk and started flagging Dylan. This was before he decided he was great again, because Lennon sounds mercurial.
- [25:34]
Tim Heidecker
Can I ask a timeline? Sorry I keep interrupting you, but keep going, Jim.
- [25:38]
Jim Windolf
No, no, go.
- [25:40]
Tim Heidecker
A timeline question here. Cause I got a little confused because I have terrible reading comprehension. But Dylan and the Beatles don't meet on their first trip to New York during the day at Sullivan. They don't. Right.
- [25:54]
Jim Windolf
They meet when they came back. That. Some later that summer.
- [25:57]
Tim Heidecker
They came back in the summer to start a tour or just for. Was that what it was?
- [26:02]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, in February. They came to do Ed Sullivan. They did one show in Washington and they did, you know, five Ed Sullivan tapings. A few of those were in Miami. And then. And then they came back that summer and did their first proper North American tour. It wasn't that long. It was like two weeks. And then they were in New York. They played Forest Hills Tennis Stadium. And. And the night after, they played two nights there after the second night. Dylan came to their hotel room in August 64. And that's the first time.
- [26:31]
Tim Heidecker
The play by play of Dylan, of. Of him. I've never seen. I've never read that. Like you were saying before you went in and got the. The detail almost the minute by minute, play by play of. To describe that. Not to give so much of the book away, but that decision and the fact that Bob's up in Woodstock. Ian, didn't you love just like being a fly on the wall that whole day?
- [26:55]
Jim Windolf
Yeah.
- [26:55]
Ian Grant
Driving down from Woodstock. And then they park the car a couple blocks away. And they're just hanging out there for a couple hours. Like, Bob's just in a car in
- [27:05]
Tim Heidecker
midtown with the teeny boppers out on the street.
- [27:07]
Ian Grant
Exactly. Like, waiting for someone to figure out. How do we even get into a hotel in the midst of this just like, raving band of humanity.
- [27:16]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. I mean, the great thing now is that we have the benefit of all these. You know, everybody's written a memoir. Including, like, you know, Alf Bicknell, the Beatles number three road manager. You know, what you can buy. You know, it's out of print, but you can find it. So I kind of pieced it together. And part of that was from Victor Maimutas memories of that night. And he remembered that drive down and hearing the Beatles on the radio on the drive down and talking about them. So it just builds nicely and to realize what Dylan had to go through to get there. First they drove to New Jersey to pick up Al Aronowitz. Then they drove into Manhattan. Then they had to wait in the car while Al went to check it out, make sure everything was cool. And then Al came back and, you know. So it's funny how Dylan in that time was the court courtier, you know. But later in London, the Beatles were often waiting in the. The antechamber for Dylan to say, you know, come on in, you know, so. So it was.
- [28:05]
Tim Heidecker
Which I do like to think, though, back in 64. That getting from getting around in that part of the world or anywhere was like, a little easier. Because it wasn't. Everything wasn't such a mess. I don't know. Did they have traffic back then like we have now? I do picture it just being maybe a little more loosey and, like, easy to get into the city. But maybe not. Maybe it was a nightmare, too. Who knows?
- [28:32]
Ian Grant
Yeah. There's a great picture of. I'd never seen that picture in the little photo section of the book. Where it's just like a candid street photography picture from. What's it. Henry Grossman, I think. Right. Where it's a picture of. Primarily, I think Victor Mahmoud's and Al Ranowitz. And Bob is just like kind of there off on the side. And I guess you said he didn't even realize that he had taken a picture of Bob until sometime after. Cause he thought he was. He's just like hanging out there in the background. That's such a great. Just like kind of snapshot of that night.
- [29:05]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. This is this great photographer, Henry Grossman, his two specialties were the Kennedy family and the Beatles. You know, he just made, you know, for Life magazine. That was his stock and trade.
- [29:14]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
And he.
- [29:14]
Jim Windolf
And the Beatles knew him. But he was outside the hotel and he took the photo because he recognized Neil Aspinall. He didn't recognize anybody else. And he didn't realize until 40 years later, going through contact sheets that Dylan was in the photo.
- [29:27]
Ian Grant
He's like the main guy in the photo.
- [29:29]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, he's the main guy.
- [29:30]
Ian Grant
Like accidentally.
- [29:31]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. And the weird thing is Victor Mahmudas writes this thing, not about that particular moment. He just happened to say it, that he went with Dylan so many times they'd be going through a crowd and he said Dylan would kind of make himself inert and like anonymous, and people wouldn't recognize him in public even at the height of his fame, because he would just like go dead in the eyes and kind of hunch over and people didn't see him. It's really funny.
- [29:53]
Tim Heidecker
Which parallels to your. It's nice bookends, at least to your interview with McCartney, who describes seeing him in the airport in the 2000s or something and not recognizing him there.
- [30:05]
Ian Grant
Or Bob getting a little homeless guy comes up to him.
- [30:08]
Tim Heidecker
Or Bob getting arrested in New Jersey or something on tour, or not arrested, but picked up because he doesn't have ID on him. When he's just walking around and nobody knows who he is. It's hard to believe. I just want to go back to one thing. It was on my mind. Dylanette, Shea, and just the period of Bob's rock transition. And do you have a sense maybe Ian, you know this too. Or you can both talk about it, but, like, how popular was Bob when that rock stuff start? Like, we always think about the negative side of it, the booing and the backlash from the folk world and everything. But is there something we're missing about just the general pop, the general population, rock audiences, pop audiences that were fucking psyched about it. Like, who would have been in Shea Stadium, like, cheering on for just like Tom Thumb's Blues, you know, like. Cause these were big selling records. Like, people went out and bought all these records and they became classics. But we also, at the same time are hearing about the booing and the backlash.
- [31:21]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, Ian, if you want to go first, that's cool.
- [31:24]
Ian Grant
Yeah, I mean, I think that. I mean, he's very popular is the short and sweet of it. And I think that in the cultural memory, a lot of the story has been dictated by, you know, immediate reactions and especially reactions of like, you know, people with some degree of, like, cultural cachet. You know, obviously the people in the crowd at Newport in 65. There's all the. The British fans that are being interviewed, I guess, a little bit in the Don't Look Back documentary. Although that's before the rock shift. And then certainly with the eat the Document stuff. You know, people who are upset at this. But in general, I mean, Rolling Stone was a number one hit.
- [32:10]
Tim Heidecker
Right, right. So it was. It's funny, it was embraced by the rock move. Was embraced by the culture. It just. We don't talk about that. Cause the numbers speak for themselves, I guess. But we focus on the negative.
- [32:25]
Ian Grant
Yeah. And these couple flashbolt moments. And I mean, you listen to some of these tapes also. You know, you can listen to some of these tapes of Bob playing, like the Hollywood bowl show, for instance, in late 65. He's rapturously received there. And so it's so different from like the May 66 tour that you hear in England. Where he's slurring his speech and shouting at the audience. And, you know, there's this real sense of, you know, vitriol in the air. Those are some of the most amazing concert tapes you could ever hear. But certainly in the States, I think. And Jim, you can expand on this to greater extent, I'm sure. You know, it was much more warmly received, I think, across the general rock music buying populace.
- [33:08]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, yeah, I agree. People forget that he really did expand his audience. That's part of what the folkies hated about it. I mean, we have to remember, to them, the electric guitar. It wasn't like, oh, Dylan stopped playing nice music and is now playing raucous music. Really, it was. No. Dylan's embraced this tool of the capitalists. And he just wants to be on AM radio, which is the. So to them, they saw the electric guitar as a sellout. That's all it was. And they didn't really care so much about the noise it made. I mean, maybe they probably didn't like that either. But really it was a symbol of his move. And the funny thing is, they were right. He did get more popular. I mean, his last album before he went electric at all, another side of Bob Dylan was his poorest selling record since his debut. And then bringing it all back home when he had Subterranean Homesick Blues as his first single with electric, with amplified instruments. That was his first. I don't know if it made the top 20. But I think just about it was his first real hit with him as the singer. Because Peter Paul And Mary had the hit with Blowing in the Wind, not Bob Dylan. So he was on his way. And even in 66, it's amazing to me that Rainy Day Women. Everybody must get stoned. That was number two in America and in the top 10 in Britain in May 66. I mean, he was in the charts with everybody else, with Herman's Hermits and all those people. And also he was in the teen magazines. That's the one thing that I found that was hilarious to me, me that Dylan pops up in teen magazines.
- [34:38]
Ian Grant
Dreamboat. Bob Dylan. It's so funny that Rainy Day Women was a. Like a hit sing.
- [34:43]
Tim Heidecker
I can't imagine people like, well, it's like a novel. It's like a novelty song.
- [34:47]
Ian Grant
Exactly.
- [34:47]
Tim Heidecker
You know, I mean, you say. You jokingly say Dreamboat, but I was just watching. It was watched. Don't Look Back again this weekend because a friend of mine hadn't seen it and it was just unbelievable and wow. Like Oregon. Watch it. I had seen it not too long ago, but I could probably watch that a couple times a year maybe, or maybe once a year. But he's a dreamboat. He is on. He is from three, I think heterosexual men here on this call not to have any opinions about you, Jim. I didn't. I don't know anything about your.
- [35:21]
Jim Windolf
Okay, okay, okay.
- [35:23]
Tim Heidecker
I'm making an assumption. But I.
- [35:27]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
He.
- [35:27]
Tim Heidecker
You can't take your eyes off him. He's. I think he's very. I mean, that's part. It's not like the thing I got from watching that movie a couple things was if you're the Beatles or anybody sitting in those audiences, you're not blinking your eyes the entire time. He is absolutely, totally, 100% captivating that entire room. When he's doing Masters of War and the words are just spitting out without any hesitation, without any stumbling, without full control, full charisma. I just think it must have been the greatest thing you'd ever seen, just if you're into that scene. But he's totally magnetic.
- [36:11]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
And.
- [36:11]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, I get why it's so popular watching that. I could see why it would just be needing to see those like nothing else.
- [36:19]
Jim Windolf
It was amazing then. And the funny thing when you watch, Don't Look Back, that I found in my research, the Beatles are there, just not on camera. You know, that's.
- [36:28]
Tim Heidecker
I was wondering if you knew, did they ever get on camera? Did they come back?
- [36:32]
Jim Windolf
No, they didn't do it until the next year when Lennon agreed. But. But they were. They were there in the hall. They were there with him afterward. And there's that party in Grossman's suite at the Savoy where Allen Ginsberg is there with John Lennon and Cynthia Lennon and Dana Gillespie and all these people. And also, like, I was in the Dylan archive and I saw this. I saw some interview with this guy, Bill Harry, who was the editor of Mercy Beat, do you know this? In Liverpool, this music magazine. And he mentioned that he gave Dylan John Lennon's home phone number. And in Dylan's archive, I found the notebook from his. The Don't Look Back period. And there it was where he'd written down John Lennon's home phone and private phone number side by side. And that was the day after he got to London. That's when he wrote those phone numbers down, called him from a payphone in the lobby of the Savoy, and he went to visit London during that Don't Look Back time, and then 20 years later, told Cameron Crowe that they wrote a song together and recorded it. And that song has since been lost. So that's amazing too, that this is going on. I mean, as if Don't Look Back is not good enough. Imagine if there had been a scene going to Kenwood with Dylan in the middle of that, because that happened that same week, you know, so they're in
- [37:41]
Tim Heidecker
that hotel room, but Pennebaker's not welcome. He's not rolling on it. He's just.
- [37:46]
Jim Windolf
Now, I couldn't determine this, but I have a feeling that the Beatles have film contracts with the United Artists, and they probably for various reasons, decided it's not a good idea. But there was a reporter with them in the Savoy's restaurant, and they'd just been with Dylan. And then they were in the Savoy restaurant, which was famously gourmet. And this hilarious story, it's in Record mirror magazine in 65. The Beatles ordered owl legs for. For dinner.
- [38:12]
Tim Heidecker
Owl legs.
- [38:15]
Ian Grant
The British mind and their fixation on birds.
- [38:19]
Tim Heidecker
Of birds.
- [38:20]
Ian Grant
No wonder.
- [38:21]
Jim Windolf
But Courtney is a vegetarian now, so after eating owl eggs, one more thing
- [38:25]
Tim Heidecker
on Don't Look Back for maybe for both of you, though, just like, maybe this is obvious, but watching it this time, the thought I had was, I wonder how much of that movie was staged. I mean, in a sense of, like, there's a lot of hotel room scenes where, for instance, Joan Baez singing and Bob typing. Like, in my mind now, as like, a guy who's now made a lot of stuff and knows how things work much more than when I watched it when I was in high school or something, like, you can imagine Pennebaker being like, you know what would be great is to see you singing and you're over here, you know, and like just kind of. Of choreograph some stuff. Just like. Because otherwise what are they doing? They're just sitting around smoking. Very much smoking. And then that made me think, well, was the glass breaking stage like. Well, how much of this was like, not as sincere as maybe it feels. Is there any way to know that or do you have any take on that? It doesn't really. Obviously doesn't matter. But I'm just curious if you ever had that feeling watching that.
- [39:32]
Jim Windolf
I have that feeling more. And I saw the footage for Eat, the Document for the movie he made in 66.
- [39:38]
Tim Heidecker
That's very much like we're almost making sketches.
- [39:42]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. So that one, like, especially this footage. Ian, I don't know if you've seen this because I don't know how widely it's circulated, but Dylan filmed his own trip to Liverpool. And he went to this place, this warehouse, the Clarence Warehouse, where the Beatles had done a photo shoot. And then he does his own.
- [40:00]
Ian Grant
Right?
- [40:00]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, and he does his own photo shoot there, which I. I believe he chose that spot because people knew those Beatles photos, they were pretty famous photos of them outside the warehouse. And it's weird that he went into their territory, but he also had his camera crew filming that entire photo shoot, which is at the Dylan archive and is fascinating to watch. And I think that's like, to Dylan, it's like, here's a good scenario for a scene. It's almost like the way we do reality shows now. It's like we just need the setup and then we can go from there.
- [40:29]
Ian Grant
Yeah. And Bob was, I think, directing things a little bit more by the time you get to the document footage than he was on Don't Look Back, which to me, I think that I wouldn't go so far as to call it like staged, but I do think people are aware of the camera. And Bob certainly is playing up. You know, he wants to present a certain image there. And I think that part of the magic of that film really is the fact that it's presented as this verite style document. You know, there's no talking heads, there's no voiceover. You know, you never see the filmmaker himself. And this is a big contrast to something like Hard Day's Night, obviously, which is a fantastic film, but it's clearly like a studio production. There's a script, it's staged, there's actors, and here comes Don't Look Back. And it Seems like, at least to audiences in 1967, when the film comes out like you're a fly on the wall. This is unmediated reality. This is the real Bob Dylan compared to, you know, the carefully manicured images of John, Paul, Ringo and George.
- [41:32]
Tim Heidecker
It's another parallel, right, Like Don't Look Back and Hard Day's Night. Perfect parallel.
- [41:36]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, but not only. There's even more perfect, which is the Maisel's brothers made the movie that's called the first U.S. visit, and that's really the same thing. And the Maisels knew Pennebaker, they worked together, so it's incredible. I mean, it's a coincidence in one way or on the other hand, you could say they were attracted to the same kind of media. And the Beatles signed on with it, you know, to appear before the Mayles brothers. And we kind of forget now that those portable cameras and portable sound equipment were new. And so that's why this stuff is happening then and so fresh, you know.
- [42:09]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah. I wonder where you would have seen the Beatles First US Visit. The Maisels film, contemporaneously, it was made
- [42:16]
Jim Windolf
for ITV in Britain. That's what signed them, like Granada Television or something. And then I think it was shown on CBS like one night and then never to be seen again. You know what I mean?
- [42:27]
Tim Heidecker
It doesn't enter the canon.
- [42:29]
Ian Grant
A lot of that footage was recently repurposed for that. There's that Disney documentary that came out. Yeah, Scorsese ago, something like that.
- [42:36]
Jim Windolf
The Ron Howard one. Eight days a week.
- [42:38]
Ian Grant
Exactly, I think. Yeah, I think Scorsese EP'd it or something. Yeah, that's right.
- [42:42]
Tim Heidecker
There's two, actually. Sorry to be this guy. There are two. There's the Ron Howard eight days a week and then there's. Scorsese directed the. Which I don't think he really. I think he puts his name on these documentaries. Like, I don't think he really did much on, like, the George Harris. I mean, he's.
- [42:58]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
He's.
- [42:58]
Tim Heidecker
Whatever. It's a little bit different than, you know, Goodfellas, but his product.
- [43:04]
Ian Grant
Bone to pick with Marty there.
- [43:05]
Tim Heidecker
I mean, Marty is a. Is a. Is a, you know, brand. It's like you. I don't know if he's like. Well, he's not doing the interview, we know that about the Dylan documentary. He's like, not interviewing Bob, but there's another document. There's another one that he put out that is about their visit to New York. It's. I think it's called Beatles 64 and I think that is where they use a lot of that Maisel stuff.
- [43:26]
Ian Grant
They use more than Maisel's footage. Exactly.
- [43:28]
Jim Windolf
That's right.
- [43:29]
Ian Grant
Sort of similar to the way that The Rolling Thunder 2019 documentary repurposed a lot of the Ronaldo and Clara footage. Right.
- [43:36]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. I think they had higher hopes for that 64 documentary. It didn't really make that much noise.
- [43:40]
Ian Grant
Yeah, I mean, it's fun to see the footage. And it looked.
- [43:43]
Tim Heidecker
I liked, Got me in the heads of what it was like to be a fan, I guess, or what that experience of them. I think the one interesting take I got from it that I remember was the way the Beatles visit, the way that changed the perception of what masculinity is, what men could be, what it meant to be a man. Because before that, you've got crew cuts, football players, varsity jackets as the sort of template for what a man is. And then you've got these kind of feminine guys, you know, these guys that are. That are a little androgynous, with the longer hair and the tailored suits and the boots and everything. And they're funny and they're vulnerable. And that was just maybe an obvious take, but it was one that resonated in that documentary.
- [44:33]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, I think that's where the girls come in. Because the screaming girls, it's not just silliness, like they're voting for that kind of man, you know, all over the country, you know, millions of them. And it's. And it's a signal to the guys with crew cuts, like, you know, maybe, you know, you're not. You know, maybe that's not the look people want.
- [44:50]
Tim Heidecker
It's a cry for help, like, we don't want this anymore.
- [44:56]
Ian Grant
I wonder if you could talk a little bit, Jim, about the relationship, such as it is, between Bob and Paul. Because, you know, I think that when you think of Bob and the Beatles like the John Bob dichotomy springs to mind. And then obviously, there's the Bob George relationship that goes on into the future. Traveling Wilburies and so on. And in some ways, Paul is sort of the least. Bob like Beatle, I think, when it comes to approaches to songwriting, certainly approaches to recording. In other ways, though, they have kind of proven to be the most alike, right down to the fact that Paul just released a new solo album in his 84th year or something a month or two ago. He's still touring all over the world, not quite as frequently as Bob, but he is really, of all of the Beatles, the lifer, in a way, that Bob is the Lifer. So it's been an interesting thing to think about. Just the ways that the two of them rhyme and the ways that they kind of completely contrast with one another.
- [46:05]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. Paul, when I interviewed him, he said, it seems they were closest in 71, which I hadn't thought of at and didn't really know about.
- [46:15]
Tim Heidecker
That just interrupt. That blew me away. That little period that is almost an unknown moment. I guess Paul's making Ram at the time in New York.
- [46:25]
Jim Windolf
Yep.
- [46:26]
Tim Heidecker
And living next to or near Bob in the Village or staying somewhere down there.
- [46:31]
Jim Windolf
Well, weirdly, Lennon is living a few blocks from Bob and McCartney's on the upper east side of the Stanhope Hotel in that period. But let me just.
- [46:42]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah.
- [46:42]
Jim Windolf
What led me to. There's a. There's a. You know, a coffee table book of Linda's photographs, and there's. There's a lovely portrait of that 1971 new morning era, Bob in there. And I just asked Paul what's. What happened? You know, how did this picture come about? And he's like, oh, we used to go round to McDougal street and see it. You know what I mean? Like, it was. He said, we were really quite intimate then. We would go down with the kids because the McCartneys brought their two children at the time, during the six months of recording Ram in New York. And Dylan was in his new mourning period. And that kind of, you know, ended of the self portrait bleeding into New Morning. And they would go down there and he said, and Bob and the family would come up to the hotel and we were really quite intimate. And he said, which is why I kick myself now, because I should have stayed in touch more, is kind of how he put it. Like, George did it, so why didn't I? And that's when he said he would be open to writing songs with Bob even now, which might not work, but it might be fun.
- [47:37]
Tim Heidecker
I think it's so obvious, too, now that it's put in that context, because. Because first they've known each other now, like, you know, several years. They've crossed paths number of ways. And they're probably. They're in a rare, rare era of people that can. That can appreciate what the other person's kind of dealing with. Like, you can talk to that person about their life and you can tell them about your life, because they will get it. They will understand what you're going through. And it makes total sense that they would feel like comfort in each other's company.
- [48:10]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Company.
- [48:10]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. And at the time, they're really the only you know, family man, rock stars. Or at least public about it to some degree.
- [48:17]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
At least.
- [48:17]
Jim Windolf
And even in their songwriting and things, too. It's an interesting period. It's also. That's the period where, strangely enough, like, all of them are on this parallel track of. Of putting out pageant, prop political songs, you know, one after another, including Dylan, George Harrison with Bangladesh, even McCartney with Give Ireland Back to the Irish. And Dylan with George Jackson and John and Yoko. John Sinclair, New York City. Yeah. John Sinclair, many of those stuff. Yeah. So that was a moment that they were in sync.
- [48:48]
Tim Heidecker
And it leads all the way up to the modern days, like you were saying, Ian. But I would ask whoever's editing this if they could put in this great quote from Bob that you probably have all heard about McCartney, where he talks about him being the greatest songwriter. It's effortless. I wish he just would stop. He says, yeah, I wish he'd quit.
- [49:10]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
I mean, I'm in awe. For Cartney. He's about the only one that I am in awe of, but I'm in awe of him. I mean, he can do it all, And he's never let up. He's got the gift for melody. He's got the rhythm. He can play any instrument. He can scream and shout as good as anybody. And he can sing a ballad as good as anybody. And his melodies are effortless. That's what you have to be in awe. I'm in awe. It was just because he's just so damn effortless. I mean, I just wish he'd quit, you know, Anything that comes out of his mouth, he's just framed as a melody, you know?
- [49:59]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. And it was funny that McCartney quoted that quote back to me. So he noticed that and tucked it away. So that's really. It's really interesting. Yeah.
- [50:08]
Tim Heidecker
How was it. How was it interviewing Paul? I mean, that's a big deal, I guess. I mean, it was a big deal. I guess he sits down with everybody, but.
- [50:15]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, now. Yeah, now he's on chicken shop date and everything. But a year ago, in 25, it was different. No. So he was. It was a. It was a phone call, and they said, he'll give you 10 minutes or so. And we stayed on for an hour.
- [50:26]
Tim Heidecker
So that was great. He loves talking and he loves talking about music. So what are you gonna do?
- [50:32]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, also some of this stuff. I didn't want him to trot out the old stories. And he hadn't really been asked about these specific Bob moments that he's had before. So that was new stuff.
- [50:43]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah. Getting him to break away from the script is a major achievement. And I really appreciated hearing that voice of his. And there.
- [50:52]
Ian Grant
Yeah, yeah, he's.
- [50:54]
Jim Windolf
Where are you? Where are you and your Dylan? What do you listen to in Dylan and Beatles or where. Where do you go?
- [50:59]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Oh,
- [51:02]
Tim Heidecker
Dylan. I stick a lot with the new stuff, the later stuff these days. Again, my friend I was hanging out with this morning or this weekend hadn't heard some of the newer stuff. They had just gone to see him in Santa Barbara and was. And hadn't seen him before and was like, this is crazy. Baffled and baffled and intrigued. And I gave them the one two Rough and rowdy Ways and Love and Theft, which I think Love and Theft is maybe my favorite late period record.
- [51:34]
Ian Grant
I'm with you.
- [51:35]
Tim Heidecker
But I grew up like in my dad being a boomer, having the greatest hits and going from there. Greatest Hits, volume one and two. And then. Yeah, I mean, I think volume three of that came out when I was in late high school. So Hurricane came back up again. There was the Hurricane movie, Denzel Washington, I think. And I just followed along the whole way. I just became fascinated by him. And then the Beatles, same thing. Dad's a boomer. Greatest hits. I was much more a Beatles guy than a Dylan guy, I guess, and had all the paraphernalia and the books and the collecting stuff. And these days. I think I'm an earlier Beatles fan these days than the psychedelic stuff. I think I'm fascinated by the energy and the youth and the camaraderie and the sort of. John Wurster made this point. Point. We were talking about it like in those first four. First three years, like 63 to 65. When you get to listen to those records, you're getting to listen to four guys in a room together playing a song. For the most part, there's a little noodling going on afterwards. But you're essentially getting live performances of these songs by four guys. They're doing it in real time together. And I now can really. I really appreciate getting to hear that. The psychedelic stuff is fun. And then the stuff towards the end gets a little 70s rock to me. It almost like becomes rock music. And I prefer the early stuff. I'm that guy.
- [53:21]
Jim Windolf
Yeah. I started as I was just listening and re listening. I developed this new love for the album Hard Day's Night, which is just such a perfect. True.
- [53:31]
Tim Heidecker
That would be my pick. And I was past few years throughout. Like once or twice a year I have these friends that get together. They're all unbelievable musicians. Who play with like Mickey Dolan's and they were playing with Badfinger when they were touring and stuff. And there's these. And then. And a couple of famous people, I would say fellow by the name of Eric Idle. Okay. And a couple other people like that. Michael McKeon. And they'd have these parties that I would go to and we'd, you know, talk and have some food and a drink or two. And then at some point guitars would come out and we'd get. It's called. We call it the Ding Dong. And we'd just start playing Beatles songs. And it's the best because these guys know every song and they know. And I pick up a guitar and try to follow along because I. I'm not quite so versed in everything. But we play the early to mid period stuff. That's what gets the most joy from everybody. It is the stuff that has the most. They're sort of the most campfirey kind of songs, you know, they are sing alongable more maybe than obviously than like Only a Northern Song or something like that. Ryan the Walrus, which is amazing. But something off of Hard Day's Night or Help or Beals for Sale. Any of those songs. Look what you're doing or something like. They're just fun with some acoustic guitars and a piano and people singing loudly. And nothing is more joyful than doing that with those people. It is incredible. But we don't play Let It Be. Let It Be would be a drag to do kind of a drag of a song. So that's my Beatles, Dylan, Dylan perspective. And I should continue on then.
- [55:26]
Jim Windolf
That's great. I wanted to mention this one song that I found amazing because it's a George, Paul, Dylan thing, which was when George was visiting Dylan in Thanksgiving 68. They tried to write the song called Maureen which they didn't complete. But there is a bootleg of it you can hear on YouTube of the Beatles in the Get Back sessions playing a bit of it with Paul singing along. And this song is based on a McCartney melody that he wrote for a TV theme. And George brought that to Dylan and then they tried to write words for it together and. And got, you know, halfway done with a song that would have fit in with like The White Albums, 1920s kind of stuff or, you know.
- [56:05]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [56:05]
Jim Windolf
It's also weird that at the time they were all besotted with Tiny Tim who was kind of moving weirdly back and forth between the Beatles and Dylan worlds at the same time.
- [56:12]
Tim Heidecker
Yes, Another weird glue link there. Yeah, I Would think about that timeline, that period, that 68, as the craziest period, for many reasons. But in the world of the Beatles, you have. If I get. So let me see if I get this right. They make the White Album kind of. Well, even at the beginning, they're in India. I can't believe how long they're in India for. John and George are in India for,
- [56:39]
Ian Grant
like, four months with Mike Love, don't forget.
- [56:43]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [56:43]
Tim Heidecker
Like, four months is a long time to be somewhere, anywhere. And so they're there, they come back. They do the White Album through the summer, up until. I mean, up until the fall, into November, I think. I mean, they pretty much wrap that up. So in my mind, I'm thinking, all right, you finish in my life, you finish something in November, you're not really starting anything for a little while. Like something big. You might have other stuff to do, but you've got Thanksgiving, then you've got the Christmas, holidays, New Year. Like, everything kind of slows down in our world in my business. And these guys take like a week off. And then on January 2nd or 3rd, whatever it is, are in that Twickenham studios with the edict to make a new album in front of cameras at nine.
- [57:35]
Jim Windolf
Anybody else would've. Anybody else would've said, like, they could have. They could have easily made a nice set list out of their. You know. Cause they were planning to do a live show and they could have put together. Do the White Album. Yeah, right.
- [57:47]
Tim Heidecker
It's made to be done live. A lot of it is a rock and roll record. Like, what the hell were they thinking to go right into another project? It just baffles my mind.
- [57:57]
Ian Grant
Yeah. I mean, that was just the pressure of the industry back then. So many of the artists, you know, from the 60s are on this treadmill. Beach Boys are a similar one as well, where it's just like, as soon as you're done with one, you're on to the next. And we benefit in the long run because the Beatles are extraordinarily productive. Between 1962 and 1970, the Beach Boys are as well. Bob is. But at the same time, it's sort of like, how much longer might these careers have lasted if they hadn't felt the pressure to just make a record, cut a single, do a couple shows, and then do it all over again Immediately, it just does kind of boggle
- [58:37]
Tim Heidecker
the mind, the fact that we have, on tape or on film, the conversation of John and George, where George is like, I feel like I should just go off and make my own record, get all these songs out of the way, and then we can make another Beatles record. Like that could have been one of the avenues towards more Beatles music, I guess. Or the band staying together through the 70s was like, yeah, go up. Yeah, who cares? Go off and make a solo album and we don't have to break up. But obviously they broke up for a lot of reasons, but. But that pressure of, like, and there only being one way to go felt like, impossible to continue. And explains why they reacted so much against it, fought it in so many different. You know, Bob constantly throwing away a trajectory that was moving forward and going like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm doing this.
- [59:27]
Ian Grant
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [59:29]
Jim Windolf
And then in 69 line, it's also on tape when John. John and George come up with the idea of Beatles and Company, which is basically like expanding the lineup, like, like Talking heads did in 1980 or anything like that. And. And they're talking about bringing in Billy Preston and Dylan into the. Into the group.
- [59:45]
Tim Heidecker
And what would. That. That would not have worked.
- [59:47]
Ian Grant
That would have gone great.
- [59:52]
Tim Heidecker
What's your favorite. What's your. What's your. Like when you're talking to people about Dylan and what's, like, your favorite story that you love telling people about him or thing that people might not know to just. To kind of. I have a couple, but. And there's lots of, like, tall tales, I guess. But what's something about the weirdness of him that you love that. That sticks out?
- [60:22]
Jim Windolf
Well, I heard this kind of secondhand, but it sounds true that one night he was playing in the early 90s, and G.E. smith came up and he told the other guys in the band, I'm going to sing harmony with him tonight. And they said, don't do it. He's not going to like it. And then he went up and joined him at the mic and sang harmony. And Dylan was furious. And as they're walking back to the tour bus, he was saying to somebody on the crew, like, God damn it. Fucking God. And the whole way he was just pissed all the way. Walking back like that one I find hilarious. And then the one you mentioned before was when he gets picked up in Freehold, New Jersey. The Jersey, sure. By the cops, because. And. And it seems he was looking for Springsteen. Spring.
- [61:01]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [61:02]
Ian Grant
Oh, my God.
- [61:02]
Jim Windolf
And that was the same period where he went to Lennon's house. He also stopped at Neil Young's childhood home in Winnipeg, which was not, you know, not open to the public. He just showed up in the door and the. The parents the, you know, the people who own the home were very surprised to see him. And he told them why he was there, and they let him go up to Neil Young's childhood bedroom and he took a look and. And left. So he was. He also saw Graceland around that period. So he had something in mind at the time where he was going to the source for all these musicians that he thought about or loved. So those are a couple.
- [61:35]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, Ian.
- [61:37]
Ian Grant
Yeah. I mean, there's too many to count. The one that comes up often or, you know, that we think about often on the show is. I don't even know when he played this show. It was in Bloomington, Indiana, I believe. And, you know, just some random never ending tour show where he rolls into town and. And the manager of the theater or whatever, Bob comes in and the manager of the theater's like, hey, Mr. Dylan, so excited to have you here. Can we do anything? Do you need anything? Anything in the green room that needs to get added on? And the only request he has is that the manager of the theater, or whoever it was, take him to Hoagie Carmichael's grave at the local cemetery. Hoagie Carmichael, of course, the songwriter of Stardust and a zillion other kind of Tin pan alleys, early 20th century standard songs. So it's a little bit like the, you know, the visit to Bob and John's. Excuse me. To John and Paul's home or Neil's or Graceland. Like, you know, Bob. And you even have this on Rolling Thunder, like when Bob goes to
- [62:42]
Jim Windolf
Kerouac's grave.
- [62:43]
Ian Grant
Kerouac's grave. There are these sites for him that are, you know, like, holy and that he feels a need to make a pilgrimage to, you know, for whatever reason, presumably to kind of chase them or something. But, yeah, just take me. Take me to Hoagie's grave. I love imagining Bob just making that one demand.
- [63:05]
Tim Heidecker
Well, I have one that I think is unknown because I got it. Maybe it's known, but it got it from my wife who's friends with a makeup artist who worked on Shadow Kingdom, the. Whatever that was, the Veeps live It's not so Live thing. She said that he was nice. He sat in the makeup chair. And what he. You're not gonna believe this. What he really wanted was to do the Rolling Thunder White Face for that.
- [63:38]
Ian Grant
Wow.
- [63:39]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, for sure.
- [63:40]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Wow.
- [63:40]
Ian Grant
For Shadow Kingdom.
- [63:41]
Tim Heidecker
Gee, yeah. Can you start? Can you close your eyes and picture what that would have been?
- [63:45]
Ian Grant
Oh, man.
- [63:46]
Tim Heidecker
And he was very insistent and they had to get, I think, Jeff Rosen, the manager, the guru, whoever's running the show over there, there to come in and like, really say, we can't do that. Like, it's not going to happen. Bob and I believe that story. I mean, it came from a firsthand source, so. Or I guess secondhand source for my wife. But that's what, four years ago? Like, that's still where the mind is for him. I'm always fascinated, like, what is Bob doing on this tour bus? Like, what is he doing? What is going on in there? What's he building in there? You know, he's just looking. He's just on the Internet. Internet. He's just on. He's scrolling.
- [64:25]
Jim Windolf
IPad.
- [64:25]
Tim Heidecker
He's on the iPad. Instagram, I guess. What? Like, what is he looking at? Twitter.
- [64:31]
Ian Grant
He's got the Patreon account. He's competing with you and I on. On the Patreon.
- [64:35]
Tim Heidecker
I know. I don't know. How do you feel about that Patreon?
- [64:39]
Ian Grant
Oh, man. I mean, I. It's a puzzle that I have yet to solve.
- [64:45]
Tim Heidecker
Do you know about the Patreon?
- [64:47]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [64:49]
Tim Heidecker
They're AI. If people don't know, there are these sort of audiobooks, like mini audiobooks, stories about famous raconteurs of history or men of history. But are they real? Are they. They're AI. There's an AI voice. But are the stories written by anybody?
- [65:09]
Ian Grant
It's a little unclear. There's also the short stories that are written by other people but credited to Bob Dylan. And then the letters never sent, where someone, I should say, writes a letter in the voice of one dead celebrity to another dead celebrity who never met.
- [65:29]
Tim Heidecker
So the question is, what is Bob's involvement in this?
- [65:33]
Ian Grant
That is the question.
- [65:34]
Tim Heidecker
Is he.
- [65:35]
Ian Grant
The question.
- [65:35]
Tim Heidecker
I mean, there are hours to kill on the bus. You can't just go see celebrities homes all day long. You have to sit there in Toledo, especially the cities he's playing in. No disrespect to. To American cities in general towns, but he's playing some off the, like, places that don't have a thriving tourism industry.
- [65:57]
Ian Grant
He sure is.
- [65:58]
Tim Heidecker
And so what is he doing in that bus on the iPad? Has he figured out how to use Claude or Grok? And is he in a relationship with a Grok man? Yeah, he's a Grok man. And he's just saying, I want to put a book out about Jesse James. Help me out, Grok.
- [66:15]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Get to work. Work.
- [66:18]
Tim Heidecker
I'll be back in an hour. I mean, even, like, it's funny because, like, I also know the guy that did his, his radio show, which is great, obviously, the radio show is great. But he's not. I mean, yeah, he's. He's reading, he's just reading that off and he's like, you know,
- [66:39]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
the.
- [66:40]
Tim Heidecker
Eddie's writing that and he's reading it, you know, like, like a friend of mine did that show as a guest and he's like, I didn't meet, I didn't talk to Bob. I just said, I just answered some questions. And then you listen to it. He goes, I'm here with, I'm here with John C. Reilly. John, what are you up to these days? He gets away with it. And my friend was like, he seems like a nightmare, this guy, you know, like, because he doesn't. And I'm like, yeah, but he's the one we give the pass to, I guess. He's fascinating. And then. What do you think of Paul? What's your take on Paul's new album? Anybody have hot takes on Paul's new album or Ringo's for that matter?
- [67:24]
Jim Windolf
I have no hot takes yet. Yeah, I have to listen to them more. I only listen to a couple tracks from Paul's. I have to get on it.
- [67:30]
Tim Heidecker
But I think we have to keep Bob away from Andrew Watt. That's the big.
- [67:34]
Ian Grant
Keep Andrew Watt away from Bob. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [67:37]
Tim Heidecker
Do you know about this, Jim? This is the producer, celebrity producer that's ruined all the. My friends and I consider it elder abuse.
- [67:46]
Ian Grant
You know, there's an argument to be made. The Paul album is not so bad, but it. I don't know, I have a hard time Investing myself in 80 something year old Paul the way that I can invest myself in 80 something year old Bob.
- [68:01]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, it's different, isn't it? It's like as much the irony with Paul for me is, is there's so much depth in his real life. Like the guy's mother died when he was 16, his best friend died, his wife, love of his life died. And then just like the pain and trauma of the breakup of the Beatles. Like the guy's been through hell and back in a lot of ways, but it never, to me, it never seems to work its way into the music or into the writing. Like there's still just a aloofness to him as he presents his art that isn't there with Bob. That Bob seems to be able to have more depth. And the older Paul gets, the more that's like more apparent to me. Even though he's like trying to be writing about his life and his Childhood and all this stuff. It just doesn't feel like. I don't know. That's my take on poor Paul. Paul who's going to be fine regardless of what I think.
- [69:04]
Jim Windolf
I constantly make playlists of all songs no one knows, and they're great. I mean, it's buried. It's all across his catalog and they're buried. And he's not the best judge in a way of his own stuff. And the personal stuff comes out in strange ways in his music. It's like almost when he tries to do it, it's not there. And when he does.
- [69:27]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah.
- [69:28]
Jim Windolf
When he's not aware, he accidentally does it and it's there. He made this album rushes in the 90s with as the Fireman. And that's weirdly. It has. He's. He threads in Linda's voice into the soundscape and. And it's kind of very moving in a weird way and. And eerie and actually great. And then for the late stuff, you know that. That album he did with Nigel Godrich.
- [69:52]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah, Chaos.
- [69:54]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, yeah. That's a great writing to Vanity Fair. I think it's a great, real. A real kind of tough song for him.
- [70:01]
Tim Heidecker
And Jenny Wren is like an all time.
- [70:03]
Jim Windolf
Yeah, you're right. So. But. And I like the sound of McCartney 3, you know, as the sound. You know, but anyway. But I know what you mean.
- [70:14]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah. Well, we have a few minutes left. Do you have any closing thoughts, Ian, or. Or anything you want to add?
- [70:23]
Ian Grant
No, I mean, I would just say I think it's a really rewarding and well conceived narrative that you thread here, Jim, because, you know, a lot of the Bob's. I'm coming more from the Bob side, obviously, and a lot of that is sort of known to me, although not all of it, as I said earlier. But the Beatles material is, you know, I know the Beatles big beats of the story, but the intricate details and certainly the way that they intersect with the Bob stories are not necessarily quite so clear to me. I loved that the 64 cross country trip that Bob is taking where he's writing Chimes of Freedom and he's writing Tambourine man is taking place literally at the same time, at the same time that the Beatles have come to the United States for that first tour.
- [71:13]
Tim Heidecker
Right.
- [71:14]
Ian Grant
Yeah. And I guess I knew that because I knew when Bob took that road trip and I knew when the Beatles came through in 1964, but for some reason I had never kind of put those two things together in my mind. And so I think that for anyone out There. Even if you feel like this is a story that, you know, I'm deeply familiar with this stuff. I think the way that it's presented and, and knit together I found to be really rewarding. So namaste for job well done.
- [71:45]
Jim Windolf
Thanks. Yeah. And I love, at the end of that, you know, he's on that car ride. The reason I wrote about that car ride is because it leads up to him deciding that the Beatles are great, whereas he'd been initially skeptical and dismissive. And then at the very end, in California, I found this little nugget like buried in a memoir that he was in a cafe pumping in coins to hear she loves you and I want to hold your hand. And also the account of that Santa Monica concert, which was on like Leap Day 64, that was in a way the beginning of this kind of Dylan mania where his dressing room was surrounded and they were pounding on the car when he was leaving. It was like this new level of fame for him that was suddenly picking up.
- [72:27]
Tim Heidecker
How cool that Dylan got it so early. I mean, admittedly he didn't at first, at the very first, but quickly realized that this is legit and that he saw the musicianship and this sincerity and the genuineness of these guys. Guys, when a lot of people a little bit older, you know, there's this, I think there's. I just randomly found this. There's a great clip of Johnny Carson, the Tonight show the week before. The Beatles are coming and I guess there's a, a bit of a stir about them coming. They're already in the charts and stuff and that they're probably the talk of the town even before they land because why wouldn't they be? Because then, you know, it leads to that excitement of them arriving and it's a joke. It's a. It like they're a joke. They're a punchline for Johnny Carson and that's set. They just, It's. If you're 16, it's different. But if you're like a 30 year old guy in the culture, it's like they're wearing, they have, you know, they're making fun of the hair. They're saying it's. He looks like Mo from the Three Stooges, you know, and. Yeah, they do. And they do. Like, it's not that crazy. Yeah, but it's funny to see just like, well, something's coming next week. These Beatles from England, it's going to, you know, they're shaking their heads and, you know, wearing mops on their heads and finding the novelty in it. But Dylan's smart enough and hip enough to know that, no, this is the real deal.
- [73:49]
Jim Windolf
Yeah.
- [73:49]
Tim Heidecker
I think the book proves clearly that you kind of don't have one without the other the way you'd have it, like, extremely influential on each other through. Pretty much from. Right. As they become aware of each other, that fusion happens. And really, you always know that the Beatles love Dylan. But I think the love and appreciation that Dylan shows towards the Beatles really shines through in the book and makes you like the Beatles more. And makes me like Bob more. Makes me like them both a lot more, just to hear how they intersect with each other. So I would recommend people are listening that are not big Bob Dylan fans, but they are, you know, vice versa. It's a great read. I mean, I couldn't put it down. And I hope you write one about the intersection of. Let's see, Ian. The Rolling Stones and. Elvis.
- [74:54]
Jim Windolf
I know. I'm trying to think. I'm like, do Cap Power and Feist know each other. You know, I'm trying to figure out what it would be.
- [75:00]
Tim Heidecker
Right.
- [75:01]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [75:01]
Tim Heidecker
What is it?
- [75:01]
Jim Windolf
Probably not going to do another one. Yeah.
- [75:03]
Tim Heidecker
Ian, I know you are. Are you still in the Death Grips phase?
- [75:07]
Ian Grant
We are, yeah. Momentarily. That's just our little summer miniseries.
- [75:11]
Tim Heidecker
Are you a big Death Grips fan, Jim?
- [75:13]
Jim Windolf
No, I am aware, but not a huge fan.
- [75:15]
Tim Heidecker
But I have to say, and I listened to the first one and there's like, a bit of lore between them and me. I don't know if you're familiar with that.
- [75:21]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
I don't know.
- [75:22]
Ian Grant
That is swim stuff.
- [75:25]
Tim Heidecker
No. Years ago on Office Hours, I was giving Anthony Fontano a hard time. And I think in that context, I was like, sorry, you know, he's not reviewing my album. Sorry, I'm not fucking Death Grip. And I didn't even know what that meant. I just knew that it was like, you know, one of his favorites and. Yeah. And that it was just. It's very hard music to penetrate.
- [75:51]
Ian Grant
Music versus a lot of people.
- [75:53]
Tim Heidecker
Yes. But I enjoyed the episode that I listened to about them. It was very interesting. And I have an appreciation of what. What they're. What they're. What they're up to, what they're doing.
- [76:02]
Ian Grant
Yes. We just wanted to try to, you know, after two plus years of the Brian Wilson experience and some era Mike Love Travesties. We just need.
- [76:12]
Tim Heidecker
Jim, I'm not sure if you're aware they. They just went through every album of the Beach Boys now. Every album.
- [76:17]
Jim Windolf
I know.
- [76:18]
Tim Heidecker
Yeah.
- [76:18]
Jim Windolf
I didn't. I listened to some, but not all.
- [76:20]
Ian Grant
I hope you didn't listen to all of it.
- [76:23]
Jim Windolf
I mean, that 76 stuff is incredible. Oh, of course.
- [76:27]
Tim Heidecker
But then, you know, there's also probably a 96 record that you don't want to.
- [76:31]
Ian Grant
There is a 96 record, 2006. The Beach Boys, Stars and Stripes, Volume 1. Their beautiful country collaboration with artists such as Toby Keith and Doug Supernov. Anyways, we just need to. We need to scrub that from our memory very intensely. So that's inspiring. The Death Grips miniseries.
- [76:48]
Tim Heidecker
Do you think he'll ever do the Beatles? Is that just never going to happen?
- [76:52]
Ian Grant
I think we will do the Beatles, yeah. I mean, that's sort of a break glass in case of emergency thing for us, you know.
- [76:58]
Tim Heidecker
But it's also a tangible thing. I mean, you can. If you limit it to the Beatles
- [77:01]
Ian Grant
and not go, well, that's the question
- [77:02]
Tim Heidecker
is, do we do Ringo albums?
- [77:04]
Ian Grant
Well, yeah.
- [77:05]
Tim Heidecker
Do we do just the 50 Ringo albums or.
- [77:07]
Ian Grant
Yeah. Do we do all of the Ringo, all of the Paul, all of the George, all of the John? I mean, that's appealing to me, but that. That's the real kind of Everest that I don't know that. That we're ready to climb quite yet, but.
- [77:19]
Tim Heidecker
Which was almost the name of the White album.
- [77:21]
Ian Grant
That.
- [77:21]
Jim Windolf
Well, yeah, that's right. All right.
- [77:23]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [77:24]
Jim Windolf
Abbey Road. Yeah.
- [77:26]
Tim Heidecker
Or Abbey Road, sorry.
- [77:27]
Ian Grant
Abbey Road.
- [77:28]
Jim Windolf
Yeah.
- [77:28]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
Yeah.
- [77:29]
Tim Heidecker
Well, this is a treat. I'm nervous to stop because I don't know if we've been recording it looks. What do you think, Ian? Should I hit stop recording?
- [77:36]
Ian Grant
Yeah, I think you can hit stop recording and that should do the job in my experience.
- [77:41]
Tim Heidecker
Jim, thanks again, man. That was conversation and I hope you hope it sells a book for you here and there.
- [77:49]
Jim Windolf
Thanks so much. I really appreciate it. I'm glad you liked it mainly. So both of you. That's. That's great. You thank to hear.
- [77:55]
Tim Heidecker
Cool. All right, nice talking to you and talk to you guys some other time.
- [77:59]
Jim Windolf
Okay, cool.
- [78:00]
Ian Grant
Thanks, Jim. Take care.
- [78:01]
Tim Heidecker
Bye.
- [78:19]
Ian Grant
That's me. Something of the way.
- [78:33]
Jim Windolf
I don't want to leave her now
- [78:37]
Tim Heidecker
you know I believe. Something in the sky that she show
- [79:09]
Jim Windolf
I don't want to leave it now.
- [79:24]
Additional Guest or Minor Speaker
You ask it me where I go. Stick around.
- [79:44]
Jim Windolf
I don't know I don't know.
- [80:02]
Ian Grant
Sam.
- [80:29]
Tim Heidecker
Something in the way.
- [80:39]
Jim Windolf
Of love
- [80:43]
Ian Grant
Something in the way
- [80:46]
Jim Windolf
that she shows me.