From the album ‘Scott 2’ (1968)
I fucked up. I use YouTube for music browsing, but on the odd occasion other “culture” videos recommended by the algorithm pique my interest. This time it was one of Limmy playing Dark Souls III. I shouldn’t have watched it. Seeing Mr Limond go from anguish to ecstasy in short order, as Dark Souls III typically does, gave me the irresistible urge to play it again. It also made me realise that the game I was playing, Judgement, isn’t a patch on Dark Souls III, because it wasn’t designed to truly challenge you.
Think of that record you can’t stop spinning, or movies that reel you in instantly when channel surfing (remember when that used to be a thing?), say Grosse Point Blank, The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction for instance. Dark Souls III similarly captures you with a vice grip. Forget Pringles, this is crack cocaine – once you start, you can’t stop. And I’m finding the relapse has only strengthened the addiction. This time I want all the lore, collectables and to trigger all the boss fights possible. The first time I couldn’t sleep after getting my hands on the Ringed Knight Paired Greatswords, now I’m jonesing to just get my hands on them. Why haven’t I learned to use homeward bone when I’m low on HP? Leaving an area unfinished at 1:30 am (because you have work the next day) irks you more than it should, and that cunting boss you’ve failed to defeat in ten attempts persistently occupies your thoughts: you dream about strategy (I’m prepared to be judged, harshly), when taking a shit, doing your ASDA shop or during a meeting at work. Not to mention it piques your PTSD and paranoia. Ever walked around the house at night with the lights off? Surely you have. During a Dark Souls III playthrough you start to feel the inevitability of something lurking out of sight or behind a corner waiting to garotte you as the game is full of sneak attacks.
The Ringed City DLC has been added since I first played, which is an additional enticement. That and I didn’t explore the online element the first time around. Back in 2016 there was too much faffing around with slow matchmaking and, of course, disgusting amounts of lag. The prospect of using the Cracked Red Eye Orb and invading another player’s world, providing you could even manage it, seemed cruel given the game’s hard enough. Plus, going up against someone on level 99 with all attributes maxed out and getting demolished, only to never have another crack at them, still has a limited appeal. Particularly as I always imagine it to be some slovenly obese incel trainee software developer half my age, living in their parent’s basement, handing me my arse.
It’s also brought daft social insecurities to the fore. Should a man in his early forties still indulge in fantasy RPG games? I passed Warhammer in town the other day and noticed men my age loitering in the shop, a sudden wave of embarrassment descended that I could be one of their tribe and so I sped up my stride. Is Dark Souls III that far removed from painting figurines or discussing Magic: The Gathering on a sub reddit? My bias says yes, it is. Sporadically playing Dark Souls III is in itself not a fandom and I’m gaming in private; nobody can see me. And because nobody reads this blog, I can plausibly deny it.
While I can’t deny Souls’ epic gameplay, aspects of this remaster have been disappointing and the game is showing its age. The frame rate is locked at 60 fps. I’m rocking a 4070ti these days and the fans on the card don’t even turn on while playing the game. 60 fps I can live with, but the screen tearing on my 2k 144hz monitor was disgraceful, but was fine at 4k with G Sync disabled. The fight mechanics feel somewhat clunky compared to From Software’s Soul’s derivatives Sekiro and Elden Ring*.
*I’d love to include Bloodborne but it hasn’t received a PC release yet. Look, ranting is often boring and ineffectual, but let it be said, many of us PC gamers will never buy a gaming console. Compared to gaming on a high-end PC it’s simply an inferior product and experience. We’ll happily miss out on a few games rather than capitulate as most of the riff-raff do. Sorry to be snobby and fash about this, but console gamers aren’t hardcore gamers, they’re casual gamers like the FIFA playing YouTube scammer scum. It’s the same as champagne socialists not being real socialists.
Suitably the title of this piece is facetious, verging on disingenuous. My only real lament is playing a game for second time, no matter how long ago you first played it, and no matter how great it still is, is never as rewarding an experience as the first. The surprises are fewer, the highs are still high, and failure still stings, but not as acutely. Not helping is that I picked the same character profile (Knight) as my first play through. I’m already too far in to this playthrough to start again – for me that inflection point is very early on, when you get that orgasmic surge after beating that first Mimic in the cellar under the dragon sitting on Lothric Castle. And, crucially, this is something I had forgotten, “playing it safe” in Dark Souls III betrays the way it rewards you, through failure and embracing experimentation. I flunked the game’s first test, by not testing myself with a character profile with different strengths and weaknesses.
I know I’ll do another play through after this one, even if it won’t be straight away. Because when you’re involved with Dark Souls III it evokes paradoxical urges: I don’t want it to end but being psychologically normal again, and not feeling as though I’m a complete dork, would be welcome.
From the single “Crimes Of Passion” (1982)
From the album “Jazz Masters 29” (1994)
I’ve been meaning to focus on this one for a while. It’s been prompted by reading the illustrated edition of Robert Shelton’s Bob Dylan – No Direction Home, which I got from my aunt at Christmas. You can buy it for £30. If I didn’t already have a copy, I’d happily pay double for it.
The older I get the more I seek out bootlegs of rehearsals. Why? There’s nothing better than a live performance done right, especially accompanied by exuberant audience feedback. Its strips the sanitization out of a studio recording and it reveals the worth of the artist. Can you elevate the song without relying on multiple takes and editing (the are you a serious musician test, basically)? For this reason, many of my favourite versions of songs are live versions. A few random selections: Slippery People by Talking Heads (from the Stop Making Sense live album). In Every Dream Home A Heartache live in Glasgow 1988 by Bryan Ferry, Michael Hedges’ cover of the Fine Young Cannibals “She Drives Me Crazy” at Philips Uni in 1989, The Stones performing Sympathy For The Devil at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Circus 1968, Judas Priest covering Fleetwood Mac’s “The Green Manalishi” from Unleashed In The East – Tokyo 1979. Even David Essex’s live version of Rock On (from what I assume is The Grey Whistle Test) is the best.
Albums of concerts are common as muck and far easier to track down than bootlegs or soundboards of rehearsals. Which is a shame as some of the best live performances are reserved for rehearsals not intended for public consumption. It makes sense, there’s no pressure to perform or audience expectation to cater to, so there’s a looseness that lends itself to experimentation. Numerous takes and fragments of songs on occasion offer a window into the embryonic process of how a song could be constructed or refined. The recent Beatles documentary capturing Macca conjuring the melody to Get Back in real time being a fantastic example.
Where Voices Of Freedom sets itself apart from other bootlegs (caveat here – that’s I’ve discovered, it’s a big world out there), is that it weaves Bob Dylan and Keith Richards’ philosophical approach to writing while they’re practicing. It lets you under the hood. Normally, this is piecemeal process, you need to sift through a ghastly journalese interview for quotes on their process and a bootleg or deluxe reissue to ratify that. No better example of this happens during the “Blowin in the Wind” take which is eight minutes long. Keith muses “that after you’ve been playing your songs for so long you start to re-write them” to which Bob, immediately, knowingly emphatically agrees. A true moment of kindship that only two songwriting veterans who know the game could have. It’s also a beautiful take of the song with some gorgeous guitar embellishments, dare I say improvements, by Keith, followed up with them discussing optimal composition for a few minutes on the next track. Then Bob strums a chord sequence interspersed by Ron and Keith talking random bollocks. That doesn’t sound brilliant, but trust me, it is, because the session is uncut it places you right there. Almost as brilliant is the guitar improv all three bring to “Dark Eyes”.
It’s also amusing and full of gossip, if that’s your thing. Highlights include Richards’ slapping down Mick Taylor for being disorganized and a slow writer after Bob praises “Leather Jacket” from Taylor’s 1979 debut album (the song being a shot at Mick Jagger’s celebrity lifestyle, so even during their falling out Keith was always loyal to Jagger). Ron and Keith adlibbing a cynical song about Careless Ethiopians wasting cash – they’d get cancelled into oblivion and accused of being racist these days. I also chuckled at Ron Wood ordering booze and fags by the barrel load as he coughs up a lump of coal. Him and Keith really do live up to the hard living billing.
It’s amazing the Voices of Freedom collab even happened at all. Dylan had not long emerged from his born-again rabbit hole (let’s not knock the musical output of this phase, it was worthwhile). Mick and Keith were somewhat publicly feuding through the media, “Mick was unbearable” during the early eighties according to Keith, and they certainly were not working together at the time. Had they been, surely the Stones would’ve performed in either London or Philadelphia as a group and Bob might’ve had to draft in some other less interesting musicians to rehearse with.
Indeed, the least interesting part of the Voices Of Freedom release is the recordings of the live gig, it’s standard fare. But even here we get reminded of a fascinating historical nugget – Bob Dylan made a faux pas, suggesting that the US farmers should get a subsidy from the Live Aid proceeds, and was heavily criticized for this at the time.
I’ll stop with the music history geekery here, suffice to say this one offers us a rare insight into some of the best and most influential musicians of our age. We, sorry, I, need more of this of-the-cuff stuff, warts and all, than sanitized documentaries with excerpts of perfectly curated studio sessions that may or may not appear on an album reissue.
Voices Of Freedom, sadly, is the exception. Thanks to the era of cancel culture coalescing with the ubiquitousness of cameras, the one sanctuary in which show business could actually allow its stars to drop their guard, as Bob, Keith and Ron do here, has gone for good. The threat of being hounded in person and online for not being morally and politically perfect isn’t worth granting such intimate access. Instead of freedom of expression these days it’s self-censorship. But, thanks to Soulseek and a few other places, Voices Of Freedom and the like are there to remind us to judge the art and not the artist.
Wichita Lineman Was A Song I Once Heard 
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