Geoff Dyer

Is It Rolling, Bob? Talking Dylan

When writer Geoff Dyer approaches us as a fan of the podcast, we jump at the chance. He leaps right in with a detailed analysis of Idiot Wind, praises previous guest Michael Gray, quotes Simon Armitage and Clinton Heylin, applauds Desire and Scorsese’s Rolling Thunder Revue and hails Dylan’s voice: “you always believe what he’s saying, even though he’s always an unreliable witness. It’s his incredible narrative power”.

A few of the many topics: the 1978 Blackbushe gig (“explosively exciting”), his early years as Dylan freak (“I look back fondly on the exchange of cassette tapes in a pub – the early Christian era of Dylan bootlegs, this circle of initiates”) and the cleaned-up release of I’m Not There (“the value of it was somewhat diminished, I felt”). Geek out with Geoff in this passionate episode.

Geoff Dyer is the author of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and three previous novels, as well as nine non-fiction books. Dyer has won the Somerset Maugham Prize, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction and was named GQ’s Writer of the Year. He has won a National Book Critics Circle Award and the Windham Campbell Prize for non-fiction. His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. He currently lives in Los Angeles where he is Writer in Residence at the University of Southern California. Geoff’s most recent book is Broadsword Calling Danny Boy, about the film Where Eagles Dare.

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/twenty-questions-with-geoff-dyer/

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Twitter @isitrollingpod

Recorded 19th July 2019

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