Part 11 - Shuffle Synchronicities Podscript 🎙📇 with Ray Padgett

the judas moment that night

Today in other Substackers to follow if you do get the app, we’re going with

Daniel Pinchbeck

whose books include Breaking Open the Head: A Psychedelic Journey into the Heart of Contemporary Shamanism and who also has a strong social media presence such as on Instagram. He also produces a Substack:

captioned: I just finished a two-part essay reflecting on Jewish identity, anti-Semitism, and the concept of Tikkum olam. The essay is up on Substack... here is an excerpt: "For many centuries, the position of Jews in the world was very precarious. As a stateless people, we were often denied rights and abused. Poor Jews were outcast, subject to pogroms, beatings, rapes, and mass murders, demonized as an “other.” At a time when most people were illiterate, Jewish religious practices focused on developing critical analysis and literacy: Study and commentary on sacred Jewish texts, particularly the Torah. As society became more complex and text-based in the modern era, the Jews’ refined capacity for critical thinking and analysis gave us a tremendous advantage in business and other intellectual disciplines ranging from literature to physics to computer science…Modernization and liberalization are not only creative but also disintegrative forces. With the development of Capitalism and the modern nation-state, Karl Marx wrote, “All that is solid melts into air:” Traditional social bonds dissolved. This close identification between Jews and modernism also meant that regressive political movements – authoritarianism in its various masks – would in the past, and still today, target the Jews, the exemplars of this process, as their inevitable scapegoat.

He has some really interesting stuff on Kanye and anti-semetism like above.

OK!

Previously…

In Part 10 🎙📇

Dave and guest finally made it to the Bob Dylan concert, just in time for I've Made Up My Mind To Give Myself To You. And the recounting of the synchronicities experienced while hearing it played by Bob and his band begin.

Want to catch up?

Part 10 is available here. Part 9 here. Part 8 here. Part 7 here. Part 6 here. Part 5 here. Part 4 here. Part 3 here. Part 2 here. Part 1 here. Preamble here.

Don’t want to wait?

The audio of the full Podcast is also already available:

Otherwise…

Part 11 of The Shuffle Synchronicities Podscript 🎙📇 with Ray Padgett

begins now!

Dave

It was, like, human relationships are also art, you know? And that there's not something beyond. Hurting someone is not worth your art ever.

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

Lot of people gone, lot of people I knew.

Dave

Your art is your life.

also from the post later that night of the concert

Dave

And so yeah, I just, I went home and I… just wanted, I wanted, I needed, to take it down right away.

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

It’s something I knew. 

Dave

And it was really, really impulsive.

there was indeed no going back…but also there was?

Dave

And I'm, I'm not even really explaining.

would be interesting to do a tv show called the other truman show show which would be about a mentally ill person with the truman show syndrome, more here, including the screenwriter of the Jim Carrey movie, saying after hearing about the condition, “You know you’ve made it when you have a disease named after you.” haha?

Dave

Kind of all the things that happened that well, about that show.

the end of the post that night after the concert ;)

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

Show me something that I don’t understand.

Dave

Oh, okay. Yeah. So yeah, the thing, the thing that I noticed there too is that going back to The Royal Albert Hall show, and one thing you brought up was The Royal Albert Hall Show is a misnomer. Can you, so can you talk about the history of the Royal Albert Hall Show, kind of set up this part of the story that I'm gonna tell about my experience at the Dylan Pantages? 

one of the favorite albums ever, of everyone, however, on Spotify, they cut out the most famous part?! But seems like Marty Scorsese made them keep it on the No Direction Home soundtrack, linked, here

Ray

Yeah, sure. So the show that is known as The Royal Albert Hall Show, is this very, very, probably his most famous show ever. Probably definitely one of the most famous concerts ever by anyone.

It is at the end, near the end of this tour, his first tour where he quote-unquote ‘went electric’. Um, and it, the whole, the whole time people were booing and yelling and it was extremely controversial and, you know, all the Folkies were basically very pissed off about him having a loud rock and roll band. And then it all culminates in the show, again, supposedly at The Royal Albert Hall, which I'll get to in a second, but, where, very hostile audience people are booing, and then you can hear it very clearly on the tape near the end of the show, in between songs, one person loudly, very loudly, yells out, Judas!

Dave

Right.

Ray

Which is just this great line. It's frankly, very clever. Even if I think the meaning, you know, the intention behind it was, was very stupid.

Dave

<laugh>

Ray

The actual Judas, that's, that's kind of a smart <laugh> a smart burn. And then Bob, unlike usual, Bob responds, he says, um, you know, he goes, <Bob voice> I don't believe you. You're a liar! And then you can hear 'em off-mic, say to the band, Play fucking loud! And so they go into this Like a Rolling Stone, that is just an absolute barnburner.

Dave

Yeah.

The ‘The Royal Albert Hall’ Show

Audience Member

Judas!

<crowd cheers and claps and laughs>

Bob Dylan

I don’t believe you.

…

You’re a liar!!

…

(off-mic) Play it fucking loud!!!

if you’ve never heard it, recommend you also play it f——- loud!

Ray

Anyway, the, it’s called The Royal Albert Hall Show on bootlegs for like a million years. At some point, someone figures out that in fact he, while he did play The Royal Albert Hall, that, those shows were several days later, this was in fact in Manchester, um, UK.

Dave

Yeah. 

Ray

North of London, uh, at The Manchester Free Trade Hall. But it's still known as quote unquote The Royal Albert Hall Show. 

could be because presenter Tito Burns marketed it as a ‘folk music concert’…is manchester uk just tragically conservative at that time?

Dave

Yeah. And it, it was so memorable growing up. That was like: The Show. I was like, I wish I had been in that show. You know, and I, and I wish I was Bob Dylan at that show, you know, playing. And I also wish I was that guy, like, who had been there to yell out Judas, because it is so memorable. Or even to just boo that guy, I always just wanted to be at that show.

haha is that the audience? seems to be?!

Dave

And so when I was, when I was at this show, you know, at The Pantages, I was feeling, like, Dylan was tuned into the mindset that I was in, of like, every moment's perfect. And, you know, we're in heaven right now. 

this one does seem like the pantages, perhaps the third night, can’t tell, but don’t you see, def in heaven right now? he even said something like “Wish I could take you all with us” and the audience seemed to think he meant to the next city, but he kind of half-sneered/more-so-guffawed, as if he was saying I wish I could take you all to heaven, but you’re already here ;0

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

My eyes like a shooting star. It looks at nothing here or there, looks at nothing near or far.

Dave

The kingdom of God is within you. And if you're realizing that like it doesn't matter what's happening around you could be late to a concert, you know, the friend could be tapping you. Like, you know, ‘I want to leave now’ <laugh> before the concert was even over, we actually left before the finale.

Uh, and so, as we're leaving, you know, I had wanted to yell out to Bob in that way of Judas. Like, I had this kind of impulsive manic mindset to be like, you know, I want to do what this guy Judas did. But the opposite. I wanted to do the positive version of Judas to just kind of exclaim to Bob. So he could hear me, and everybody else could hear me, [so] they could all understand how important, you know, what’s going on is, all the time, not just at that show. And so I was, right as…the person [with me] is like, You know, can we leave early? I have to <laugh> get home to go to sleep <laugh> ? Can we go back to Santa Monica <laugh>? 

it really was a lot faster going back!

Dave

So, uh, so, I'm like, Okay. In that state <laugh> I'm like okay generally. It’s like, okay, we only saw three songs before this, but that's fine. Like, we'll go. It's really been perfect. I saw all I needed to see. I really felt that way. Which is weird to say now, but I really felt that way.

So as we're leaving, he's introducing the band, right? Because that's what he does. He introduces the band before the final song normally. Right? That's something you've written about, right?

Ray

Right. <affirms> Yeah.

Dave

So he’s introducing the band and he happens to get to the point where he is introducing the, I think he called him the, the steel guitar player or something like that, like electric guitar player. Maybe you have a better phrase that you, you know that stuff more than me. But he, and he, as he's doing, he's kind of riffing within the introduction, saying something like, and we all know how, uh, you know, uh, how people think about that.

And to me, on one level, it was like The Royal Albert Hall thing, which to be clear is like, he was a folk artist to many people, which is all acoustic. And then he went electric, and that was what the Judas moment was. And then the second part was, to me, it seemed like he hadn't been playing electric guitar on this tour at all. Whereas, and whereas other times he had at least tried, because you said that before the pandemic he tried to play electric guitar a little bit, right? One of your posts. 

Ray

Yeah, he, um, he played electric guitar for a few songs here and there, but for most of the 21st century, he has been on piano. 

Dave

Oh, okay. Okay. So then, so maybe it was just the first thing, which is the Judas thing. And so, but that was all happening literally as I was <laugh> yelling the thing out.

Ray

<laugh>

Dave

Right as he was talking about the electric guitar introduction. 

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

[something something] on steel guitar.

Dave

I yell out, like, you know, something like, We're all in heaven right now! And it’s, like, it doesn't mean anything to anybody else. And it was, and it was over. No one heard it. No one heard it. 

Ray

<laugh>

Dave

But it was me in, like, my own Judas moment.

Ray

<laugh>

Dave

With Dylan and this positive thing. 

Bob Dylan

(That Night’s Live Recording)

(Hey) stand up!

Dave

And I think, like, that like what was helpful was like seeing later when you wrote about this, you wrote about how like the actual Royal Albert Hall show, you know, was totally different in a way that he was like way more positive.

The Real Royal Albert Hall

Dave

Like he wasn't fighting them in that kind of, like, pugilistic way that everybody remembers him as like, Play fucking loud. Like, you had this really nice quote. I’ll see if I can read parts of it. Um, let's see, of what he actually said, which is like, let’s see, um, yeah, he just said at the actual Robert Albert Hall Show, he says:

“We're gonna leave after this song. And I wanna say goodbye to all you people. You've been very <laugh> warm, great people. You've been very nice people. I mean, you are sitting here in this great huge place and believe me, we've enjoyed every minute of being here.”

And so I think that “We've enjoyed every minute of being here”, and you added ‘a far cry from play fucking loud,’ which is funny because I’m a far cry <laugh> Like no one heard my, my cry, you know? 

Ray

<laugh>

Dave

And like, I think that's the thing is like, Dylan can be both things. He can be really pugilistic, but he can also be really warm. And that's something that I think that your interviews capture, kind of going back into another quote. Like there's this interview with this, with this guy who went swimming with Bob Dylan and, and they went out and they swam. And then he was like, Oh, do you wanna go back? And Dylan said something like, and he was like, Because I wanna go keep going swimming forward. And Dylan's like, I'll swim there if you, if you want to, I will. You know, and, and that person used that phrase. I will, if you will. To like kind of sum up Dylan.

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And for supporting Volume 2 of Shuffle Synchronicities.

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