Larry Ryan: Caught in the Net

Recently, volume eight of the seemingly never-ending Bob Dylan "bootleg series", Tell Tale Signs: rare and unreleased 1989 – 2006, came out and it has garnered the usual amount of grand praise from devoted critics. Given that there are 51 official Dylan releases, you might be a little fatigued by yet another collection. American radio station NPR is streaming the whole thing at http://tinyurl.com/438ejp so you can test it before any further investment. Alternatively, Dylan's excellent website streams his entire back catalogue, http://www.bobdylan.com.

Enjoyment of this collection probably depends on where you stand on Dylan, "the croaky years" (or is that croakier?). I would argue that at least two albums from the 1989 to 2006 period, Oh Mercy and Time Out of Mind, are brilliant. One of the standout tracks from Tell Tale Signs is "Dreamin' of You", which is culled from the Time Out of Mind sessions. A new video was made for the song with veteran actor Harry Dean Stanton playing a starring role as a sort of Dylan surrogate – http://tinyurl. com/5jmz2b.

As an interview from last year in the excellent Stop Smiling magazine reveals ( http://tinyurl.com/ 5scs7t), Stanton started out in a travelling choral group before turning to acting and he kept a band going for many years after. He even managed to perform with Dylan on a 1989 Chabad telethon hosted in ramshackle style by Jerry Lewis with a little help from Jon Voigt. With Stanton playing guitar and harmonica, Peter Himmelman on vocals and Dylan playing the flute and recorder, the trio, claiming to be a band called Chopped Liver, performed a song in Yiddish. It seems like an odd out-take from a long lost Robert Altman film but you can watch it at http://tinyurl.com/ 6ezt73. Maybe the performance will be on volume nine of Bob's bootlegs.

It's a stretch, perhaps, but some have argued that the more socially conscious elements of hip-hop are the modern equivalent of the type of folk movement Dylan was a leading light of in the early Sixties. One such socially conscious rapper is Mos Def. He's been off his game for a couple of years now: I saw him in concert last year and he pretty much phoned it in, while his last essential album was Black on Both Sides from 1999. Hopefully his forthcoming album The Ecstatic will display fresh vigour. The lead-off single shows a few good signs. It's optimistically called "Life in Marvellous Times" and you can hear a preview at http://tinyurl. com/62szh6.

Mos Def is not one to hide his political leanings under a bushel, and the new single is appropriately released on US election day, 4 November. He has also recorded a video for the "If I were President" project, with people in the public eye and average Joe the plumber making videos declaring what they would do if they were president. You can see the videos on the community forum/social networking site 247 Townhall – http://www. 247townhall.org.

Among the policies advocated by Mos Def are the sensible – "universal healthcare" – and the slightly fanciful – "free breakfast for all the kids" – along with a confident declaration, "if I were President, America would be cool again." He also calls for a 100-year moratorium on the use of the phrases "in da club" and "drop it like it's hot", and proposes a national Jam Master Jay day. You can't argue with that.

While Snoop Dogg might miss out on a national day for his role in popularising the phrase, "drop it like it's hot", he's probably worthy of having his image on a dollar bill. Recently Snoop has collaborated with Massive Attack (using the name 100 Suns), which can be heard on the latter's website, http://www. massiveattack.com. The song is for the film In Prison My Whole Life (http://www. inprisonmywholelife.com), a documentary about the death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, which features interviews with Snoop, Steve Earle, Mos Def and Noam Chomsky among others. Perhaps the song is to Snoop Dogg, as "Hurricane" was to Bob Dylan.

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Nialler9

The Dublin blogger Nialler9 is an ever-present source for new and interesting music, with news, streams and mp3 downloads. Recently he's been calling attention to a new hip hop super group, The Mighty Underdogs, which features Gift of Gab from Blackalicious, the producer Headnodic and Lateef of Latryx, along with guest appearances from the likes of Damian Marley, MF Doom and DJ Shadow.

http://www.nialler9.com