Dear All,
This is the latest episode of Don’t Press That Button, a newsletter about books and music and movies and cats and baseball and whatnot. As the name would indicate, we are very cautious about buttons around here. Buttons are tempting, but so are a lot of things.
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My gateway to the music of Bob Dylan was 1989’s classic Oh Mercy LP. I don’t know if I had any clue who Bob Dylan was at the time, although I have a strong memory of singing “Blowin’ in the Wind” at an elementary school concert. My dad brought the record home — probably a CD, actually — and played it constantly. The songs really got my attention. Nothing else I’d heard was remotely like it. [The Man in the Long Black Coat] “had a face like a mask.” “Ring them bells with an iron hand.” Death went up the steps of the nearest bank. While Dylan’s voice wasn’t beautiful in and of itself, it did beautifully match the music and the stories he told — the romance and the sly strangeness and the darkness. The way he mixed up the medicine made the world open up to me in a new way.
I was off to the races. I was the most Bob Dylan-loving 12 year-old you’ve ever met1, and his work has been a mainstay across the decades since.
In fact, Dylan is so important to me that I generally keep a lid on it. That’s especially been the case with regard to my writing on the Internet. To be human is inevitably to be tiresome now and then, but when I get going on Bob, I’m certain I can be very fucking tiresome.2 Only fellow obsessives deserve to suffer my deep read of “A Simple Twist of Fate.”
But here in the depths of middle age, I continue to adore his music, to be fascinated by it, to reexamine it, and to let it carry me off to dream in his personal kingdom of hustlers and queens and bums and country girls.3 I expect that will remain the case for as long as I live.
Which brings me to the rare pleasure of hearing him in concert at Jones Beach on August 1 as part of the 10th annual Outlaw Festival. I went with my friends Beth and Tim, otherwise known as the Paranoid Style.
You know that song where Bob mentions that he’s been in trouble since he set his suitcase down? He could have been talking about them. What a beautiful pair! Believe it or not, while we keep our lines of communication open at all times, I hadn’t actually hung with them in person in a decade-plus. Way, way too long. I won’t let that much time pass again. Take it from me: the people you love, you can’t just see them at Bob Dylan concerts.
Anyway, we had so much fun.
Here are the details:
We arrived as Lucinda Williams was getting into the meat of her set. She was in splendid voice. Car Wheels on a Gravel Road is one of my favorite LPs, a masterpiece that can’t be worn out. She closed on a worthy cover of “Keep on Rockin’ in the Free World.” I wanted her to play “I Lost It,” but you don’t always get what you want.
Wilco followed up. For me, Jeff Tweedy and company are right up there with Bob. While I’ll delve more deeply into that another time, I’ll just mention that Tweedy’s recent post at Starship Casual talks about what remarkable individualists Dylan, Lucinda, and Willie all are, and that strikes me as exactly right. The particular artistry that they each model is in the mainstream because they dragged the mainstream over to their artistry; other musicians sound like them, but they never sound like other musicians. (Tweedy falls into the same category, by the way.) For Wilco’s set, we got excellent selections from across their discography (“Handshake Drugs,” “Evicted,” “Jesus, Etc.”, even “Box Full of Letters”!) and a roaring take on “U.S. Blues” that I hope they consider releasing for wider consumption.
Columbia Recording Artist Bob Dylan graced the stage next, and it was exactly what you want from Bob. Awesome, obscure covers? Check (“Axe and the Wind”). Scalding hot blues? Yes, always (“Early Roman Kings,” “Love Sick”). Revelatory rearrangements of classics? Of course (“All Along the Watchtower”). A Shatner-esque spoken word version of a favorite song seemingly designed to make less seasoned fans wonder if he has gone insane? Indeed (“‘Til I Fell in Love with You”). Stunners you haven’t thought about in ages? Bob had that, as well (“Under the Red Sky”). All in all, a spectacular performance.
And then, Willie Nelson and his band — special note here for Waylon Payne, who was a splendid sidekick throughout — sent us home. Willie is 92. 92! His singing, his playing, his presence, I don’t know how to make sense of it, of how it’s possible. He made me laugh and he made me cry. I can’t select a highlight for him. It was all highlights.
The Latest
A terrific time was had at Terrificon! It was a blast to hang out and chat with so many nice people. Thanks to everyone who came out.
As promised, we conducted the Self Help raffle on July 1. The randomizer wheel spun and its arrow fell on Shady J! We enjoyed corresponding with him and he was kind enough to send us this picture with his assorted winnings.
Thank you again to everyone who played the game. When we announce solicitations for Self Help: Lie Another Day we’ll do another raffle for a different character portrait by Marianna Ignazzi, so start planning your aliases. More soon.
Finally, I finished collaborating on a new story with my friend Rio Youers. If you don’t know him, Rio’s a fabulous writer who you ought to read. We had a ton of fun doing it and, you know, I think it’s a damn good yarn! It’s for a 2026 anthology, so more on that down the line.
Recommendations
Eat this mustard. As soon as I learned that Brewers great Gorman Thomas had created his own mustard,4 I knew I needed some, and my expectations were fulfilled. This stuff is freakishly delicious. Your condiment family will not be complete until you get some.
Read Bob Fingerman’s Printopia. This graphic novel is a funny and humane love letter to zines and weirdos. It’s also a showstopping display of Fingerman’s range as an artist.
Listen to the first single off Rhett Miller’s A Lifetime of Riding by Night right now! I was lucky enough to hear a preview, and let me tell you, it’s a doozy.
As ever, if you have a question or a comment or just want to say hi, if you reply to the email, I will see it. I also have a chat here on Substack, and some chatting has taken place. I’m over on Bluesky and Threads and Instagram, too, if you’d like to follow along at any of those places, although I’m not super active. Thank you for subscribing.
All Best,
Owen
Just imagine how annoying that must have been.
If any more needs to be said: I have created a color-coded spreadsheet of every song I have heard Dylan play in concert.
I don’t want to get sidetracked, but I’ll just add that Dylan’s restlessness is endlessly inspiring. He’s spun love stories, hard-boiled crime yarns, and travelogues. He’s written protests, joke songs, tributes, million-dollar bashes, even horror (“Isis”).
Did you know that Stormin’ finished in the top 10 for MVP voting twice?