Welcome to issue 11, all being well you
will receive this on schedule (October, 2004). It is, however, slightly
in doubt for the first time. This is due to my being away for much of
the summer and Keith moving house during the same period. This, admittedly
clever, move on his part did not fully succeed as I have tracked him
down and given him an all but impossible deadline to meet. As he’s
always met these before, I am confident he will again.
Speaking of schedules, as I write this introduction, the publication
date of Bob Dylan's memoirs - an event akin to the Loch Ness Monster
appearing on a T.V. chat show at one point - is almost upon us. The
advance excerpts released have had me enthralled, amused and no little
surprised. It is all so generous, revealing and lucid. I am gratified,
too, as a couple of quotes from these passage already exemplify what
I was talking about in a speech I gave at Strathclyde University in
September.
I mention this as it is another of my talks (to add to the one in here)
that will be written up one day so beware its appearance in issue 12!
If so it will be accompanied by another gripping chapter from John Hinchey's
follow up to his excellent book, A Complete Unknown. The aforementioned
Chronicles - plus associated releases and interviews - will
obviously feature heavily in that issue so please send in your thoughts.
I envisage a 'forum' similar to the one Mick Gold conducted on the Never
Ending Tour in issue 4.
Another thing that may be in issue 12 - again feel free to volunteer
- is an in-depth review of Paul Williams's Mind Out Of Time.
Clearly a new volume in Paul's ‘Performing Artist’ series
deserves no less but I fear we may have missed the boat slightly on
this one. As a sponsor I was hoping to get a pre-release copy to review
for you but - presumably due to it being published in Europe - this
didn’t arrive until yesterday. (Many thanks for the inscription
when it did eventually arrive, Paul, most thoughtfully put.) Regular
Judas! readers have, of course, already encountered the Oh
Mercy chapter, which we ran in a previous issue and which surely ranks
right up there with the finest of Paul's writings (In addition, you
can read earlier interviews with Paul on Judas!'s website in
the Homer, the slut archive section of the subscribers’ area.)
Anyway, issue 12 is for the future, for now we hope you enjoy issue
11 which, in addition to my own article, sees Björn Waller, Pádraig
Hanratty and Jim Brady return to these pages, the Judas! debuts
of Scott Marshall and Leonard Cohen expert Jim Devlin adding to Martin
Van Hees’s regular column and the culmination of Andrew Davies’s
epic saga.
