On the local front, we have a great new CD from Sean Bodley to give away and review next week, plus Matt Bodman has just released his latest EP on Bandcamp, and the incredibly popular Andrew London Trio are coming from Wellington to the Te Puna Hall for a gig next Friday (November 20).

But we're leaving all that for the moment, as this week saw the biggest ever musical dump of Bob Dylan material and, for us Bob fans, it's like an all-you-can-eat Bob buffet. Or taking a warm bath filled with Bob.

Bob Dylan.

Allow me to elucidate...

As much as in his songwriting broke new ground, so the commercial team behind Dylan has been at the forefront of how music gets released, at least as concerns the traditional model of LP or, subsequently, CD albums.

Dylan released rock's first double album, rock's first boxed set and with the continuing 'bootleg” series has pioneered the idea that studio outtakes and previously unreleased versions of songs are something that people desire and will pay for.

We now take that for granted, classic albums being re-released with extra discs of rehearsals or alternative mixes, but it was Dylan that did it first.

His new set pushes boundaries even more.

‘The Cutting Edge 1965-1966: The Bootleg Series vol. 12' comes in a two CD ‘Best of...' format – a mere 36 songs, or actually 33, since there are two different versions of three songs – and a six CD ‘Deluxe Edition' with 110 songs. But that's a bit deceptive. Disc three contains nothing other than 20 takes of ‘Like a Rolling Stone'.

So this is clearly not a set to listen to, but one to study. This song is so important, it is saying, that you should be able to observe the entire recording process. How many people will listen to that CD more than once?

But that is, astonishingly, just the tip of a musical iceberg big enough to sink any number of Titanic Bob fans.

If you want the complete experience you need to go to ‘Collector's Edition'. Across a staggering 18 CDs you'll find every note that Bob Dylan recorded between January 1965 and May 1966, from false starts on ‘Mr Tambourine Man' through the entire recording of ‘Bringing It All Back Home', ‘Highway 61 Revisited' and ‘Blonde on Blonde' (that aforementioned first double album) to songs played in hotel rooms on a 1966 UK
tour preceding the infamous motorbike accident that briefly stopped the creative frenzy.

During that extraordinary 16-month period Dylan also found time to tour extensively (including two UK tours) and scandalise the music world by going electric at the Newport Folk Festival.

And, as overwhelming as this is (379 tracks including numerous false starts and breakdowns) for Dylan devotees, so is the price tag. Depending upon the exchange rate and shipping it'll cost you something over $1000.

Admittedly, it also comes with a 170-page hardcover book, nine mono 45 RPM singles, a leopard skin printed spindle and a strip of film cells from an original print of the 1965 ‘Don't Look Back' documentary. But a grand is a whole bunch of money.

Meanwhile, I can report that the 2 CD ‘Best of...' is insanely wonderful. Simply brilliant. The punk-tempo version of ‘Visions Of Johanna' alone is good enough to raise the sick from their beds.

And if any particularly generous soul is wondering what I want for Christmas...

watusi@thesun.co.nz