Episodes
Saturday Jul 03, 2021
Thru These Architects Eyes Redux: One Fan‘s Idle Speculation
Saturday Jul 03, 2021
Saturday Jul 03, 2021
Bowie Vs. Dylan may have largely run its course but that doesn't mean an obsessive Bowie fan can't obsess over the possible contents of an upcoming release. After a miss in both 2019 and 2020, a fifth Bowie "era" box set was confirmed by Parlophone to be released in 2021. It will cover the years 1993-2001 which makes it largely similar to the predictions I made last year. There's plenty more info available now though so it's time to take another stab at it.
In the past, these sets were announced in June-July for a September-October release. That seems plausible again this year. Let's ride.
Read the rest of this entry »Wednesday Jul 15, 2020
Wednesday Jul 15, 2020
Jake: Well, here we go with another totally normal, on-point, focused edition of Bowie vs. Dylan! What do you say, Chaz?
Chaz: I'd say that you've already gotten us off track by listing too many adjectives to describe how lean and mean this episode, which is live right now, is going to be. JAKE.
Jake: You're one to talk! You could have just said "lean", it's clear, but you just HAD to stick a rhyme scheme in that makes your statement neither lean NOR mean.
Chaz: Well, according to my calculations, before I even said anything, my Podcast Brevity Algorithm, PBA for short, patent pending, suggested that we were on track for a 61 minute episode, which as we've discussed at length, is unacceptable. But now that you've RUINED EVERYTHING ALREADY, we might as well delve into as many tangents as humanly possible, I mean, it's only natural.
Jake: You know, that reminds me of a time when I thought I was on a tangent, but I was actually talking about what I meant to talk about. The year was 2009 and I had just almost murdered a...crap, I forgot to press record again, we'll have to start over, we've been talking for 90 minutes with no podcast.
Chaz: I can't even look at you. I'm blocking your FaceTime video while I start this 1998 edition of Bowie vs. Dylan. (big sigh)...Okay, ladies and gentleman, IIIIII'M Charlie, and IIIIII like-
Jake: WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?!?!?!? Chaz, turn your FaceTime back on!!!
Chaz: I hate you so much! Wait, what? It's a topless man doing a strangely hypnotic dance full of odd moves and contortions! Where'd he even come from? How is he interrupting a podcast? And what's that written on his chest?
Jake: Looks like...BOWIE.NET BOMB?
Chaz: It's the future of the internet, on this edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Thru These Architects Eyes: One Fan’s Idle Speculation
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
Wednesday Jul 08, 2020
For four glorious years, we Bowie fans were treated to big fat box sets containing multiple remastered studio and live albums in super deluxe packaging with non-album tracks, rare mixes, and some frustratingly unnecessary duplication. But it was mostly good!
Then, last year, there was... nothing. But this year, for very good reasons (detailed below), I think a new 1990s-focused set is coming and I wrote a big fat post about what I think will be inside. Hit the jump for my speculations.
Friday May 01, 2020
Friday May 01, 2020
Welcome to the 52nd Anniversary Concert Celebration of Bowie vs. Dylan!!! With your host, David Bowie!!!!!
David Bowie: Thanks so much, you're all so lovely! Well, this is grand, isn't it? It's just me and Bob Dylan, together at last for a special tribute to-
Backstage Lackey #1: (rushes over discreetly and whispers in Bowie's ear, for, like, a while.)
David Bowie: Well, folks, it seems there's been a misunderstanding, I've NOT been invited to perform at long last with Bob and fulfill the secret prophecy of most of the world's religions. (long uncomfortable pause) I'm just here to lend my wonderfully rich voice and presence to the proceedings. It seems no-one, not even my record label, will release me singing or playing anything at all. Just me in tuxedo attire and speaking soothingly as if I was a particular form of sleep aid. Say...that gives me an idea! But anyway, if I wasn't invited to sing, then I guess no-one was.
John Mellencamp, Stevie Wonder, Lou Reed, Eddie Vedder, Tracy Chapman, Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Johnny Winter, Ron Wood, Richie Havens, Neil Young, Chrissie Hynde, Eric Clapton, The O'Jays, The Band but not Robbie Robertson, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roger McGuinn, The Clancy Brothers, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Roseanne Cash, and Shawn Colvin, and Sinead O'Connor: WE were invited!
Bob Dylan: Heeeey, sorry I'm late. I was trying very hard to pretend that I would come by rehearsing and promising to come, but then be so late or have some excuse as to why I had to skip it altogether, but I lost track of how late I wanted to be and accidentally showed up for the at least the last 1/3 of this concert devoted to me.
Everyone: Blowin' in the Wind, anyone? On this 1993 edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Sunday Mar 01, 2020
Sunday Mar 01, 2020
Welcome to this live broadcast from the 33rd Annual GRAMMY AWARDS, hosted by Arsenio Hall!
Audience: (pumping fists in a medium-tight circular motion near their heads) Hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo!
Arsenio Hall: Guys, that's enough, even I'm sick of that bit, kind of like David Bowie and Tin Machine, amiright?!
Audience: (pumping fists in a medium-tight circular motion near their heads): Boo boo boo boo boo boo!
Arsenio Hall: Or what's the deal with Bob Dylan's shattered love life, flatlining album sales, flagging cultural relevance, and obvious but functional alcoholism? What a card, AMIRIGHT!?!?
Audience: (pumping fists in a medium-tight circular motion near their heads whilst softly crying): Boo hoo boo hoo boo hoo.
Arsenio Hall: Let's get right to it, with some awards, and in the interest of time and frankly, my sanity, there's one winner for the following 18 awards: Best Rap Album, Best R+B Album, Best Rap Song, Best R+B Song, Best Music Video Long Form, Best Hammer Pants, Best Dope Haircut, Best Life, Best Tour That Had To Be Cancelled But Whose Fault Is That Really Anyway The Fans That's Who For Not Supporting MC Hammer Scratch That It's Just Hammer Now Quiet Down Critics Still A Tour As Lavish As His Lifestyle: You're not gonna believe this, but ALL of those awards go to...
MICHAEL BOLTON!!!!
Steel bars, wrapped all around us, on this 1991 edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Friday Nov 15, 2019
Scene: Inside the gameplay of a state-of-the-art, immersive virtual reality experience available on 7 CD-ROMs, particularly the 4th CD in the series of 7.
Bob Dylan: Hey fans. Come along on an epic virtual journey with me, Bob Dylan, by watching this grainy, pixelated music video from 1986, available to view when you enter the door of 1961-era Cafe Wha?
David Bowie: NOT DARK ENOUGH, man. Where, for example, are the gutted pigs, the shaved heads, the too-long trench coats, over-saturated color pallet?
Bob Dylan: What? Are those words that you just said? I can only assume that it has something to do with this archival photo of me, Bob Dylan, at Columbia Records Studios circa 1962 waiting for you in a dirty bathroom in Greenwich Village?
David Bowie: OOOOOOH, that does sound goth. Goth is really in right now, says my best friend Trent Reznor. Trent, come on over and play this game with me, it's really goth, man, really goth.
Trent Reznor: You know, I would? But I've got a date with Marilyn Manson to hang each other by giant hooks in a rotting meat locker by our belly buttons. So...
Bob Dylan: How does that work? Who goes first? How does the second person get hung when the first one is already up there?
David Bowie: Really goth, man, really goth. I'd rather do that than bow to the establishment like a bloody sheeple wallowing in society's constraints. I'm not playing my hits, so DON'T EVEN ASK!
Bob Dylan: I'm playing my hits...
David Bowie: Erm, well, me too, but not until 2000 or so, but until then, DON'T EVEN ASK.
Trent Reznor: In order to continue, please change to disc #5, on this edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Thursday Aug 15, 2019
Welcome to the 1st Annual BvD Obie Awards, an unnecessary and confusing side entry award appendage to the Actual Obie Awards! Presented posthumously, back-dated 20 years to 1999. Our presenting sponsor is nobody.
Best Adult Contemporary Album Sandwiched In Between Two Industrial-Lite Albums in the Year of Our Lord 1999, Award: David Bowie
Best Attempt at Killing Oneself Through Never-Ending Never-Ending Tours in the Year of Our Lord 1999, Award: Bob Dylan
Best Line Reading of a Lost Crappy-Cheap Crime Movie Trailer Featuring Iffy New Jersey Gangster Accents, Nomination: Jake, Bowie vs. Dylan Podcast
Best Early 70's BBC Announcer Accent For the Duration of a Strange 1966 Bob Dylan Interview Featuring Not-A-BBC-Announcer Interviewer, Nomination: Chaz, Bowie vs. Dylan Podcast
Best New Original Podcast Featuring Two Brothers Discussing David Bowie and/or Bob Dylan, Nomination: Bowie vs. Dylan
Best New Original Podcast Featuring Two Brothers Discussing David Bowie and/or Bob Dylan, Award: Vacant, No Suitable Candidates
Best Listener Experience Of All Time, Not Just in the Year of Our Lord 1999, But Forever; Hey, Send Us an Email Why Don't You, Award: You, our dear listeners, on this edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Wednesday May 15, 2019
Wednesday May 15, 2019
Chaz and Jake sift through the mild emotional wreckage that was the year 1996 for tasty goss on their muses both dead and alive. Spoiler alert: there's not much to say, except that the brothers somehow spew an unhealthy 75 minutes of morning drive-time jock-talk with what amounts to practically nothing. We leave it to you, dear listeners, to decide if that's any different at all than their other podcasts.
Here's Bowie's year: He's at least lookin good, I guess?
Let me just check my notes on Dylan one more time, there's got to be something here...wait, how did we miss this?! Says here that a handsome man with the surname Dylan fronted an inexplicably popular alternative rock band with several top ten hits with an album that sold 4 million copies and won a bunch of Grammy's! Bob Dylan was in a band called the Wallflowers?! That wasn't in my narrative at all! You'd think I'd have caught it, but boy, does this change everything, we're gonna have to go back and re-do the points, Chaz is NOT going to be pleased at this development. Another win for Dylan, baby, on this award-winning (our own awards, sure, but still sanctioned in 2 states) edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Hey there. Are you through with Tin Machine for a year? Are you distracted from writing decent songs by your exhausting but highly fortuitous involvement in a better-than-decent supergroup? Did you remix one of your songs so many times that the remixes turned back into the original song somehow? Did you fire G.E. Smith for no good reason? Do you need some good old-fashioned cash stacks and the only way you can think to stack cash is to "retire" your classic material on a massive tour? Did Don and Jon and Bon and Juan Wan hire Slash to provide some disappointing licks for your disappointing album? You mean you haven't had enough of Jake and Charlie's nuclear and extended family blabbering on about maybe the subject we asked them about?
THEN BOY DO WE HAVE ANOTHER TREAT FOR YOU.
Because it's Dylan's turn to steer the Nadir-O-Rater into the yawning abyss of 1990. Hang on tight, because it's a mildly boring ride ripe with self-parody on this VERY special Part 2-ish Diamond Jubilee/Tarnished Tin episode of Bowie vs. Dylan.
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Ep17: 1992 - Oy Vey Baby vs. Good As I Been To You or the Coen Brothersing of 1992
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Thursday Nov 15, 2018
Hop out of the fire and right into the frying pan to join the meaty goodness of this week's podcasting Bouillabaisse, where the ingredients vary in quality but have all been somehow approved by the FDA for consumption by your ears. There's potatoes from a 1963 European trip (still fresh!); leftover mash from a second re-heating of Tin Machine (not as fresh!); a bland but nutritious casserole from Dylan (palatable!); and a redeeming, delicious seasoning of Mick Ronson, whose licks are so tasty they overpower the otherwise rotten nature of the stew. Who's ready for a second alimony tour, huh? Huh? Anyone? All those in favor: use your wallets, half-heartedly attend your own 30th anniversary tribute show at Madison Square Garden, and adopt your worst best Frank Sinatra accent while you lustily and full-throatedly growl, "OY VEY, BABY!" on this edition of Bowie vs. Dylan.
And for dessert, there's more of the same in the form of this episode's custom Spotify playlist, available at bit.ly/BvD-EP17. And please, for goodness' sake, use a napkin.
Wednesday Aug 15, 2018
EP11: 1994 - Jump vs. Forrest Gump, or How I Learned to Rhyme in 1994
Wednesday Aug 15, 2018
Wednesday Aug 15, 2018
It's the first (and last?) edition of Bowie vs. Gump as Charlie and Jake explore the early teenage wasteland that is 1994. Jake buys his first CD player (and subsequent CDs), which quickly leads him down the long, strange, mystical trip that some of us call "ROCK N' ROLL" and others of us call "slightly edgier but ultimately mostly just his parents' music collection". Still, some of the "32 American Classics on 2 CDs" that comprise the seminal Forrest Gump Soundtrack happen to involve Bob Dylan, which if you think about it, pretty much means that sweet Forrest is responsible for this podcast, along with all the other major events of recent American history, I'm just saying is all. Meanwhile, Chaz wanders down some virtual hallways, looking for what he doesn't know yet, but wait what's behind this door, a pixelated music video by David Bowie?! YEEEEESSS, that's what he's talking about! Was "BOOYAH" a thing in 1994? You, dear listener, can "JUMP" at the chance to discover the historic ending to this edition of Bowie vs. Dylan, right after you insert CD-ROM disc 5, and wait patiently for it to load!
RUN, LISTENER, RUN!!! On over to Spotify to check out this week's playlist at bit.ly/BvD-EP11
Tuesday May 01, 2018
Tuesday May 01, 2018
Jake struggles to impart the weight of history as Dylan has his most monumental and important year since 1975 with the release of his universally acclaimed studio album "Time Out of Mind". Marvel at how Charlie manages to hijack Bob's victory lap by giving credence (and more alarmingly, POINTS) to Bowie's endless stream of singles from that same year. The brothers bicker like it's actually 1997, but nonetheless share a special moment when identifying the components of late 90's industrial techno music videos. The completely arbitrary points are shockingly close; who will win, by how much, and at what personal cost?
When you're done with the podcast, check out our Spotify playlist for 1997 at bit.ly/BvD-EP04.