Windows Filled With Frost

Swagger is telling the publishing company that wants to buy your life's work that, yes, it can have everything you did in your first eight decades here on Earth, every world-changing acoustic folk song, every universe-altering electric rock song, every story song, every protest song, every love song, every 10-minute-plus epic about sad eyed ladies and desolation rows, every song anyone alive or dead has ever covered or ever will cover, every song you've ever sold to Victoria's Secret or Chobani, every song that helped you win your Nobel Prize, every song about time or death or women or men or America or anyplace else, every song on BLONDE ON BLONDE and DESIRE and SHOT OF LOVE and LOVE AND THEFT, every vision of Johanna and twist of fate and tale of Yankee power, every joke you've ever thought of and every melody that's ever coursed through your veins and everything and anything else you've ever done, they can have all of that, free and clear, but *only* that. Anything you write this year when you're 80 years old or record next year when you're 81? You're keeping those for yourself.

Maybe that's how these things are always done—the publishing company or hedge fund that's buying your songs for a few hundred million bucks takes possession of your existing catalog but not your future catalog because your future catalog doesn't exist. But I like to think this is specifically what Bob Dylan, who turns 80 today, wanted. A clean break with his past, which he's just been making up all along anyway. A chance to move on one more time, to whatever he makes up tomorrow. A bet on his own future. Sure, UNIVERSAL MUSIC PUBLISHING GROUP gets "I CONTAIN MULTITUDES" and "I'VE MADE UP MY MIND TO GIVE MYSELF TO YOU" and "MURDER MOST FOUL" and the rest of the magnificent ROUGH AND ROWDY WAYS, released 11 months ago, when Dylan was a mere child of 79 years. But Bob Dylan's keeping the next one. And the one after that.

Bob Dylan sells and negotiates with the wisdom and confidence a man who knows what's still to come. He wheels and deals—or maybe they just said here's several hundred million dollars and he just said yes, I don't know—with the ease of a man who's never stopped writing, never stopped recording, never stopped touring, never stopped being a troubadour. And with the knowledge that no amount of money, no contract, can buy that from him. Universal gets hundreds of classic Bob Dylan songs, and all the non-classic ones too. Bob Dylan gets Bob Dylan.

Happy birthday Bob.

Every Dylan album, ranked. "My favourite Dylan song" by MICK JAGGER, MARIANNE FAITHFULL, YOLA, MEGHAN REMY and others (no one asked me, but it's "IT TAKES A LOT TO LAUGH, IT TAKES A TRAIN TO CRY," maybe). Deep cuts. Eighty things you should know. Read. Watch.

That time he sparred with BOOM BOOM MANCINI. And what FRANK SINATRA told him that time Dylan and BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN were invited to a dinner party at Sinatra's house: "We were standing out on his patio at night and he said to me, 'You and me, pal, we got blue eyes, we’re from up there,' and he pointed to the stars. 'These other bums are from down here.' I remember thinking that he might be right."

No Direction Home

In what Billboard says is a "speed bump" for investment in songwriting catalogs and master recording revenues, UNIVERSAL MUSIC will no longer agree to redirect royalties from artists and songwriters to "entities with no legally recognized relationship" with the music company. The change in policy on letters of direction means artists and songwriters who sell future royalties to investors will be responsible for actually getting those royalties to them going forward. UMG is citing "tax and legal liability issues." Observers suggest the company, itself a buyer of catalogs, may have an interest in making such deals more difficult for the competition. Question: If Dylan's label, SONY, adopts the same policy, will it refuse to pay his mechanical royalties directly to Universal Music Publishing Group?

Dot Dot Dot

The music industry-backed DOTMUSIC (officially .MUSIC, but this sentence would be confusing if I spelled it that way) has moved "a major step closer" to being able to launch and operate the .MUSIC internet domain. Here's a good thread from IP lawyer ANNEMARIE BRIDY on what that means and how it will work... My sister Linda's new favorite riot grrrl band, the LINDA LINDAS, are on the verge of signing with EPITAPH RECORDS after this glorious performance at a branch of the Los Angeles Public Library went viral. Despite ranging in age from 10 to 16, the LLs are already veterans of the SoCal rock circuit. Also, despite it only being May, "RACIST, SEXIST BOY" is already the best rock song of 2021... Congrats to my friend DANIEL EFRAM on successfully funding his STEVE KEENE ART BOOK via KICKSTARTER. It will be the first book devoted to the work of rock's favorite (and the world's most prolific) painter.

Rest in Peace

Acclaimed hip-hop photographer CHI MODU, who shot iconic images of the Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur and many others for the Source... Columbus, Ohio, rapper BOOG THE BANDIT, at least the 11th hip-hop artist murdered in 2021; it's May... CRAIG DUFFY, tour manager for Duran Duran, Blur, Radiohead and others... ARTHUR POMPOSELLO, longtime host of the Algonquin Hotel's Oak Room.