“I’m Not There” hits DVD shelves today and, in keeping with the film’s theme of the “many faces of Bob Dylan,” we offer you one of the more unexpected performances in the prodigious YouTube archive of Zimmy’s stagework: Dylan perfoming “Hava Nagila” with Harry Dean Stanton. Really. We’re not joking.

And is it just us, or does the Spokesman for a Generation look eerily like a brunet Harpo Marx in this clip?

Some “Hava Nagila” trivia: Julie Andrews, Twisted Sister, Anthrax, Dick Dale and Harry Belafonte are some of the unexpected folks who have recorded the song or pinched its melody.

– Geoff Boucher

Photo: AP / DEA

“Everybody needs to bring their A-game,” Dave, a.k.a Plug Two, a.k.a Trugoy the Dove from De La Soul, hollered into his microphone during the news conference Tuesday in Claremont for Rock the Bells.
He was referring to the all-star lineup, representing the so-called golden age of hip-hop that will anchor this year’s annual concert.

Fans of that era, (late ’80s to the early ’90s) will no doubt be reminded of yesteryear when the South L.A. quartet the Pharcyde takes the stage this summer, consisting of MCs Fat Lip, Slim Kid Tre, Bootie Brown and Imani. The group, which split in the mid-’90s, only released two albums that yielded a handful of classics, including “Drop” and “Passing Me By.”

“We’ve always been doing music [since the breakup], but to do it up here,” says Imani, raising his hands up in the air, “as the Pharcyde, we haven’t done it in a while.”

When asked about the convergence of young and old that will see relative newcomers such as Washington, D.C.’s Wale and New Orleans’ Jay Electronica (for whom Erykah Badu created a record label solely to release his upcoming album), A Tribe Called Quest DJ and producer Ali Shaheed Muhammad said: “Lyrically, they’re carrying the same flag we picked up … in bringing something that’s positive and uplifting. We all from the same root.”

– Camilo Smith

P.S. Also filling out the bill, which was rapped in a freestyle by MC Supernatural, are:
Co-host B-Real of Cypress Hill
Kid Sister
Flosstradamus
Amanda Blank
Kidz in the Hall
B.O.B
Santogold
Cool Kids
Dead Prez
Spank Rock
Immortal Technique
Ghostface Killah and Raekwon the Chef
Redman and Method Man
Rakim
Nas
Mos Def

Hip-hop reconciliation and reformation will be the marquee draws at this year’s Rock the Bells, the top-grossing hip-hop event in the country last year.

A year after the multi-platinum-selling rap-metal band Rage Against the Machine played on the traveling festival’s stage, two late, great rap groups that splintered in the ’90s are getting their acts together for Rock the Bells.

The Los Angeles alterna-rap quartet the Pharcyde will perform as “special guests,” while the Queens, N.Y., “abstract poetic” trio A Tribe Called Quest will come together at the festival for the second consecutive year; in 2007, the group reformed for Rock the Bells after a six-year absence.

At a news conference for the event in Claremont on Tuesday, organizer Chang Weisberg of Guerilla Union promised that unlike in previous years, 85% to 90% of the headliners would perform in every city.

“Rest assured there will be surprises,” Weisberg said. “Music history could be made every night.”

Other featured headliners for the tour, which kicks off in Chicago on July 19 and reaches Los Angeles on Aug. 9, include De La Soul, Rakim, Nas, Mos Def, Murs and Raekwon from Wu-Tang Clan.

“Everybody up here is legends in their own right,” Murs said at the event. “Being part of this is awesome.”

Ali Shaheed Muhammad, A Tribe Called Quest’s DJ-producer, put into perspective how special it was to reunite with the members of De La Soul — the group’s confreres in the Native Tongues hip-hop collective, leaders of the so-called “conscious” rap movement in the ’90s.

“We haven’t been in the same room together since 1994,” Muhammad said. “I’m really amped right now. I can’t wait to get to it.”

Added the ne plus ultra freestyle MC Supernatural, another Rock the Bells headliner: “It’s going to be the best summer vacation I ever had.”

–Chris Lee

Photo of Q-Tip from A Tribe Called Quest by Stephen Osman / Los Angeles Times

The Purple Prancer, as I heard Prince recently called, is all fine and good — but what about little blue creatures who only want Smilax berries and peaceful working villages?

That’s right, the Smurfs are coming to Coachella and you can party with them until you’re blue in the face. Or, more likely, blue on the tongue. Hpnotiq, the turquoise-hued liquor, is one of the sponsors of the Smurf Village, a weekend-long event that will celebrate all things Smurf at an undisclosed residence close to the Polo Fields. (Read: You can’t get in unless you’re on the guest list. Or, maybe a desperate dip in blue body paint will get you in. Talk to your neighborhood Blue Man for that.)

A few of the highlights of the event, according to co-producer BPM Magazine’s Matt Colon: Papa Smurf and Smurfette will be making the rounds in classic costumes (let’s hope those get-ups are air-conditioned) and celebs, our village’s version of Vanity Smurf (some named Hilton, some not), will be on hand to get gift bags and be photographed, much to the glee of your favorite nasty-tempered blog. Oh, and on the decks: Steve Aoki, Joel Madden of Good Charlotte, Tommie Sunshine, Junior Sanchez and other special guests. There’s also a Gargamel potion bar.

Why Smurfs in the desert? For one, the demographic is just right: We people in our late 20s and early 30s have a seemingly endless reservoir for nostalgia, especially when alcohol is supplied.

BPM and the Smurfs are also priming us for Paramount’s the re-release of the vintage cartoons on DVD in about six months (distributed by Warner Home Video), along with T-shirts, mugs and the like, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Belgian creation.

So, yes, this is a giant advertisement and, at first glance, little blue friendlies in the desert may seem an odd fit, but lest you forget, the desert is a trippy place. “I just got a shipment of plush mushroom seats, and a fold-up mushroom house,” Colon said. “The irony isn’t lost on anyone.”

–Margaret Wappler

Illustration of Papa Smurf by Peyo/IMPS

Billboard is reporting that Klaus Dinger, the iron-limbed drummer for Neu! and an early incarnation of Kraftwerk, died March 21 of heart failure. As odd as the time-lag seems between that date and today’s sad announcement from Neu!’s label Grönland, it makes a strangly perfect kind of sense given the comparable lag with which most listeners came to hear of Neu! — many years removed from their ’70s heyday (I’m looking at you, Stereolab fans).

Blessed with lovingly remastered reissues on Astralwerks in 2001 (which are, of course, now out of print), a whole new generation became acquainted with Neu! and Dinger’s signature, relentless “motorik” beat, which inspired crate-digging underground acts ranging from the aforementioned Stereolab to Tortoise to Wilco (remember “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”?). If you can get your hands on a copy of one of these Neu! reissues, particularly their debut, you’ll be amazed not only at how contemporary they sound some 30-odd years later, but also how if anyone deserved to do something as unlikely as copyright a drumbeat, it was Klaus Dinger.

Naturally, there’s limited to no video reference for Neu!’s work to post in tribute, but there’s something beautiful about this fan-made clip. There’s no wiggy camera work, no storyline, just the band’s self-titled debut spinning placidly on a turntable as the driving, druggy weirdness of “Hallogallo” spins right along with it. Danke schön, Klaus.

– Chris Barton

A few weeks ago, I interviewed Bad Religion founder Greg Graffin about his band’s recent string of L.A.-area dates. Bad Religion’s been through several commercial revivals, as wiseacre punks, as an unlikely radio act in the mid-’90s (”You and meee … have a diseeease …” ) and most recently as something approximating a hugely successful local band. They play large theaters and festivals and sell decently around the world, but to someone whose experience with rock radio is limited to KROQ, they must seem as big as Linkin Park. I always chalked it up as a Southern California thing, that the ’90s varietal of double-time skate punk that came to be called the “Epitaph Sound” put its claws in deep after the Offspring and never let up. All that grindable pavement, the year-long sunshine and the intraversible open space of L.A.’s mutant version of urbanity certainly helped.

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A country for starlets: I love the Coen brothers, but their shruggish acceptance speeches unfortunately defined what felt like one of the most perfunctory Oscars in years — with one notable exception: Marion Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf to brilliant, mind-blowing, shape-shifting perfection in “La Vie en Rose.” You might think I’m grossly overselling it, but the frothy adjectives apply. See it now, if you haven’t already.

Homeward bound: We’re heathens around these parts but we were sad to hear about Larry Norman’s death Sunday.

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I was caught off guard this week by the news that TVT Records had fired a good 80% of its staff and that it is expected to file for bankruptcy soon. In the mid-’90s, I worked as a publicist for the label in its New York office on 4th Street, across from what was then Tower Records.

TVT is best known these days for its roster of hip-hop acts (Pitbull, Lil John, the Ying Yang Twins, etc.), but in the late ’80s/early ’90s it was (briefly) the home of Nine Inch Nails. And while NIN’s Trent Reznor famously had a falling out with TVT founder and President Steve Gottlieb (as it seems most big artists on the label eventually did), TVT still prospered over the last 15 years due to Gottlieb’s determination. At one point, TVT was the nation’s largest indie, cranking out CDs at a dizzying pace and competing with major labels despite numerous distribution disadvantages.

People can say what they will about the news of TVT’s seemingly imminent closure (although, in fairness, Gottlieb says a leaner version of the label will soldier on and the publishing division will likely remain open, according to Billboard), but Gottlieb was a vicious and incredibly smart competitor. He started TVT on his own (while still in law school) and went on to build a music publishing empire and record label that produced multiple platinum-selling albums. And like most music industry figures in New York, he was eccentric (and, sadly, ponytailed).

But what I’ll remember most about my time at TVT (besides the bad records I had to promote, such as the dreadful Gravity Kills debut) was the bizarre interview I went through with Gottlieb in 1996. Almost everyone in the music industry in New York during the ’90s passed through Gottlieb’s office for an interview at some point in their respective careers. What transpired during my sitdown seems sufficiently strange, looking back on it now.

Instead of being asked the usual questions about my qualifications as a publicist (and I was qualified, mind you, just coming off a stint as national director of publicity at a Virgin Records-affiliated label), Gottlieb, barefoot in his office, proceeded to ask a series of questions better suited to a game show than a job interview. “What would you say the square footage of the office is, Charlie?” is the one query that sticks out in my mind the most. Needless to say, I got the job — hey, I have good spacial skills!

The staff at TVT probably aren’t too jazzed today; on the other hand, Reznor is certainly pleased.

– Charlie Amter

Photo of Gottlieb, left, and a visibly drunk Charlie at SXSW circa 2000 by Victoria Smith.

Kyla Fairchild’s home in Seattle is a sanctum of the salvaged homespun: a brick Tudor furnished with thrift-store finds, from the comfy couches to the art on the walls to the kitchen stuff that helped this businesswoman, mom and community connector host frequent parties over Pabst Blue Ribbon and backyard barbecue. Fairchild’s sensibility extends to Hattie’s Hat, the Ballard neighborhood bar she and her husband, Ron, helped save from the yuppie invasions that offed most of the working-class Pacific Northwest’s leisure landmarks. At Hattie’s, the bartenders all play in bands, but a fisherman can still feel comfortable. City council members throw fundraisers there.

I bring up these real spaces touched by my friend Kyla, because a virtual space she helped build is about to endure major downsizing. No Depression, the magazine for which Fairchild served as publisher, is fading from print to ether. For 13 years, that journal was the major organ of Americana music – a.k.a. alt-country, or (after the magazine, in fact) No Depression. Its name was thrifted from an Internet mailing list, which had recycled it from an Uncle Tupelo album title, which came from a Carter Family song. The community No Depression repped believes that things are better when they’ve been lived in awhile.

Magazines come and go, but this one’s demise is hitting some particularly hard, even though the memo announcing it suggests we should have seen it coming. In the last decade, Fairchild and editors Grant Alden and Peter Blackstock have seen their beloved music go from obscure to cool to relatively obscure again. The Americana scene’s traditionalist bent made it an unlikely flavor of the month. These days, pop’s interest in tradition takes a more urbane form, in the music of Amy Winehouse, Sharon Jones and other retro-soul champions, or the disco faux-stalgia of bands such as MGMT.

Today’s retro-ism has one big plus: It’s more interracial, based in black-defined dance music instead of white-dominated strum and twang. It’s also very stylish. But No Depression (the magazine and the movement) has some great qualities of its own, which just aren’t made for these rapid-file sharing times.

It’s a slow read, for one thing. An issue of No Depression demands focus, not only because its features tend to be long, but also because its writers focus on the craft side of creativity, rather than chasing scandal or trends. It follows artists throughout their careers, even when they didn’t have much commercial pull. Compared to the declarative neon of instant-judgment criticism or the true lies of celebrity profiling, No Depression is actually pretty boring. It’s homemade and whole grain. Same with the music it upholds.

The diminishment of No Depression (it will remain alive, somehow, on the Internet) is a business story, but it’s a cultural one too. We’re living in a time of accelerated change, and most pop consumers seem happy to embrace it. Today’s ruling aesthetic is shiny, quick and fairly low-rent. Thrifting is out; Target is in. But the homespun always makes a comeback. No Depression may lie fallow for a while, but we’ll hear from Fairchild and her friends again.

– Ann Powers

Preeminent Jazz pianist and composer Herbie Hancock received three more Grammy nominations this year — for album of the year, best contemporary jazz album and best jazz instrumental solo. Tonight, he added to the 10 he already has by winning album of the year for “River: The Joni Letters.”

Hancock has had a career that has spanned, to employ the cliche, the sublime to the ridiculous; high art to the crassly commercial. There was never a slow decline, as with so many other important jazz artists of the ’60s. He’s managed to mix it up and come out smelling of roses and earning the respect of everyone in the industry.

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