Monty's Gaming and Wireless Outlook - Issue 209

"Dylan was a bas-tard in the second half."

No, not the musings of a Welsh football team's manager, but the comments of a so-called fan at a 1965 Bob Dylan concert in Sheffield chronicled by Martin Scorsese's seminal documentary No Direction Home.

The reason for his outburst: Dylan had gone all electric and had apparently sold out his more tradtional roots. But Dylan has always ploughed his own field and this week Dylan reaped that harvest by celebrating his first No 1 US album for more than 30 years.

As a man who buys every bootleg, knows the words of most the songs and duly slaughters those songs whenever I play them on the guitar, I am absolutely delighted that Modern Times has proved to be so successful and Dylan is cool again.

Dylan is the greatest living American and done more for black people and teaching the diversity of ancient American music and culture than anybody before him. As the latest album proves, the protest singer that the fan in the Sheffield audience wanted him to remain has never disappeared, he's just evolved.

As I prepare to fly to Los Angeles for next week's CTIA trade show, I'm still hoping I get to meet Dylan over there. About 15 years ago, I drove to his house in Malibu and almost convinced the security guard that I was the lead singer of the Waterboys and 'Bob had asked me to drop by if I was ever in LA'. Well, it was worth a try.

So 15 years on, in a bid to gain entry to his house, I might try and convince the same security guard that I'm a serious player in the mobile entertainment industry and 'Bob asked me to drop off a new handset the next time I was in LA'. Mmm, maybe that's not even worth a try.

Still there's always a good Dylan lyric to fall back on and th is one from Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues describes the CTIA party-whirl in quite the perfect way.

"I got shoved down 'n' pushed around, All I could hear there was a screamin' sound, Don't remember one thing more, Just remember walkin' up on a little shore, Head busted, stomach cracked, Feet splintered, I was bald, naked...Quite lucky to be alive though."