When issue four was sent out we had some postal problems. People in
certain European countries or American states did not receive their
issues at the same time as their neighbours did, despite all issues
being mailed at the same time. Thankfully the majority eventually arrived,
but the delays occasioned Keith writing out to many of our subscribers
to check what was happening. This, added to many of you including notes
with your re-subscription payments, had the happy benefit of letting
us hear from a wider spread of you than is normally the case, especially
happy as you added praise and support for the magazine along with details
of your postal status.
This general acclaim for where we are heading was helpful as ‘letters
to the editor’ tend to be on specific points. It was good for
us to get an overall view on how we are doing. I apologise in advance
if this has led to an overly positive letters’ section!
A number of people have either asked in which direction we now see ourselves
developing or told us how they would like to see us progress. I’ll
attempt here to give a broad, if basic, answer.
As we have said from the beginning, although we want you to have fun
and pleasure reading Judas! we also want you to feel assured
that you are reading something that treats Dylan with the serious attention
he deserves. Professor Christopher Ricks has said that Dylan needs a
critic who is an expert on ‘lyrics and music’ plus ‘voice
and voicing’. Such a critic does not exist, but being a magazine
we can aim to bring you the most insightful writing on Dylan in these
areas. Aiming is easier than achieving, though.
Lyrical analysis is something we have been able to bring you in sufficient
quantity and quality to feel we are covering this topic handsomely,
not denying that we will always be looking to bring you more and improve
our offerings in any way we can. We do not advocate the kind of academic
criticism that is written in a specialised language that only initiates
can understand but we do look for a similar level of insight and research
as an academic would be expected to bring to his work along with a clarity
in communicating what that research and insight has revealed.
This clarity can be difficult to achieve when dealing in expositions
of complex linguistic or poetic practices, and it would seem to become
almost an impossible task for a writer in the other fields. Readers
of Wilfrid Meller’s book A darker shade of pale who don’t
already understand music will surely struggle with it. Similarly, the
recent book The Four Voices Of Dylan looks on first glance
a difficult undertaking for the general reader.
We are doing our best to cover these areas, however. Renowned guitarist
John Perry is writing an article for us on Dylan’s acoustic guitar
playing in 1966 for a future issue and David Pichaske tackles one aspect
of Dylan’s ‘voice’ for us in a two-parter beginning
in this issue. We have split his article into two as the subject is
quite heavy going due to its specialised nature. David has done remarkably
well in making it all understandable for those, like me, with no background
in phonetics. As the article progresses its importance to the Dylan
listener (dare one say, ‘student’?) becomes ever more obvious.
This is the kind of article we hope you will keep and refer back to
long into the future. Well, we trust you’ll keep all your Judases
come to that.
The subject of Dylan’s art has all kinds of subsets beneath that
trilogy of ‘lyrics, music and voice’. Perhaps most obviously
in the split between studio and live performances. We are not ignoring
the ‘Never Ending Tour’, but this is covered in great detail
elsewhere and we do not want to duplicate that. (So we were delighted
to get a letter saying how well we complement Isis.) Our different
approach to commentating on the ‘Never Ending Tour’ in last
issue polarised opinion. For many it seemed to be either the best or
worst thing we’d ever done.
I am saying all this to let you know that we do concern ourselves with
keeping a balance and variety in each issue and we are helped in this
by Dylan doing things like writing for and appearing in films. Masked
And Anonymous may be a ‘work in progress’ but its triple
showing at the Sundance Festival was a new Dylan release of a kind and
our man on the spot, Lucas Stensland reports back from there. As does
Nigel Hinton in addition, Nigel has interviewed Masked And Anonymous
producer Nigel Sinclair exclusively for Judas! We are extremely
grateful to both as they had to go out of their way amidst other time-pressured
projects to allow us to bring this to you in time for this issue. We
take this opportunity to reflect on Dylan’s first foray into the
world of film too, with an insightful look at Don’t Look Back
from the wonderfully named Dylan Dryden.
Throughout this issue you will find allusions to our new ‘Subscriber’s
Area’ on the website. We are delighted to bring you this added
benefit to subscribing. There you will find back-up to articles that
appear in the issues, news of things to come in the Dylan world be they
official or unofficial (sorry, though, we can only provide the news
itself), outtakes from my previous magazine, Homer,
the slut and a myriad of other delights. One being a section
for material we think you should see but did not suit our magazine format,
the first in that area is a delightful approach to Dylan and the Cowboy
Song by Pat Fitzgerald. Perhaps most controversial is the section showcasing
articles that were rejected by me, allowing you to see if you agree
with my decision or not.
