My Back Pages: 7/25/26

Welcome back to My Back Pages, a weekly digest recapping everything of note from the last seven days—pods, bylines, appearances, plus a few odds and ends.

Let’s get to it.

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Pods of the Week

My friend Sam Adler-Bell joined me on Never Ending Stories for a morning-after breakdown of the scene at Bob’s latest New York City show. And I do mean “morning”—we started podding at 6 AM Pacific, a scant twelve hours after Bob left the stage. Excuse my throaty Tempest voice, it takes a few hours for me to warm up into Nashville Skyline shape…

Sam can typically be found writing and podcasting about American politics, but he’s just as canny a Bob observer. We had a great conversation about the condition of current band, exposing friends and partners to Bob, and the burden of being a Dylan fan in the year 2026, among other things. It sounded like it was a lovely night at Forest Hills Stadium: a meditative, slimmed-down set (“Tryin’ To Get To Heaven” was cut, unfortunately) and a reverent crowd full of true heads.

Stay tuned til the end for an extra little riff on Bob’s ongoing Patreon exploits.

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For the main course of Never Ending Stories, we traveled back to the fall of 2021 for a reevaluation of a momentous event in Bob-story: the very first Rough & Rowdy Ways Tour show.

With the Long Hot Summer Tour continuing its march across the country (not to mention another eight weeks of European dates coming up in the fall), it felt like the right time to take stock of where this all started and how far we’ve come in the ensuing half-decade. Right away, two things are apparent on this tape: 1) the Rough & Rowdy Ways material actually sounds like it does on Rough & Rowdy Ways, and 2) the band rocks. Bob and co. hit a few rough patches (as you might expect after nearly two years off), but the spirit and the sound in the room make this an extraordinary listen nonetheless.

Also managed to slip in a very fun tangent on Bob-themed cocktails, a hypothetical “Planet Wilburys” restaurant, and an animatronic Roy Orbison, which is in the teaser below.

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On Jokermen, we hit Year of the Snitch, the latest (and greatest?) Death Grips album. We’ve got one last song countdown episode coming in the DG series, then it’s on to Jokermen 4.

If it wasn’t already clear who our next artist will be, give the last couple minutes of this episode a spin…

Chune of the Week

The Beach Boys: “When A Man Needs A Woman”

I haven’t been spinning this little Friends gem a ton lately, but it’s still the Chune of the Week for one simple reason—my wife and I are having a dang baby. He (it’s a he) is due at the end of October. We may have a name picked out, but I won’t be sharing it until he’s out of the oven (and no, it’s not “Bob”).

We couldn’t be happier, but there’s been a lot of “hurry up and wait” for the last several months. Brian puts it well in this song:

You know it makes you nervous

When you wait for your boy

You wait nine months for a bundle of joy

There’s a baby

Yes there’s a baby about to born

“When A Man Needs A Woman” is going right on the nursery playlist along with any number of Beach Boys tracks (“Vegetables,” “Pet Sounds,” “Ding Dang”). Feel free to drop a line if you’ve got any nominations…

Fit of the Week

I wore this on Saturday, July 18th for my best friend Ori’s wedding.

I’ve always wanted to give the full tuxedo a go, so when the dress code here came through as black tie-optional, I made up my mind to make it happen. After several months of trawling eBay, I came across the perfect listing: Hickey Freeman for Bergdorf Goodman’s, 100% Loro Piana wool, size 42R. A new tux of this caliber would easily run four figures, but deals abound second-hand. Suits are so little in demand these days that they’re often priced to move. In this case, I made a $210 offer on a $250 listing, and a week later I had my rig.

I’m pleased with the way the jacket fits. The shoulders are broad and padded, but the collar hugs my neck nice and tight—no collar gap here, folks. I had my tailor nip it in a bit at the waist to emphasize that classic V-shape silhouette, which the peak lapels also help accentuate. Besides that and a minor adjustment to the sleeve length, I didn’t touch a thing. A good tailor is important, but knowing your measurements is even more important.

The trousers are a bit on the short side. Were I purchasing a made-to-measure tux, I’d go for another 2”-3” on the inseam so that they break on top of my shoes. As it is, they terminate right around my ankle—not a problem, necessarily, though I certainly want them any shorter. Still, they’re nice and wide, and the single pleat is sharp as a knife.

Buying the suit itself was just the start, as I soon discovered. The properly-executed tuxedo also requires a whole host of accessories: a tuxedo shirt; matching tuxedo studs and cuff links; a silk bow tie; a silk cummerbund; proper black tie shoes; braces; and a pocket square. I pieced the following together over the course of a few months:

• a made-to-measure tuxedo shirt from Proper Cloth. I decided against the wingtip collar (too precious), but I went with the pleated bib for a certain Seventies indulgence.

• vintage Swank studs and links from eBay. Nothing special here—black face, gold-colored (but not gold) detailing. Most vintage stud/link sets only come with three studs, with the expectation that the wearer covers an additional shirt button with a vest. My tux was only a two piece, so I needed a fourth stud, which severely limited my options.

• matching silk bow tie and cummerbund from Shibumi Firenze. My go-to destination for neckwear—half the price of Drake’s, twice the variety. I opted for their largest bow-tie size (8.5 CM) to match the drama of the pleated bib on the shirt.

• black patent oxfords from Meermin. Part of me wanted to go all-in with a pair of opera pumps (the most proper tuxedo footwear choice), but I figured I was ~doing enough~ with the tux itself. Patent oxfords are a less conspicuous choice, and they stand up to stairwells and BART stations a bit better. And you gotta dig that shine.

• a silk pocket square, also from Shibumi Firenze. Despite the fact that the wedding was black tie-optional, loud colors were also encouraged. My wife Grace wore a beautiful green dress, so I tacked on a little green myself to match her and satisfy the wishes of the two grooms.

As for the braces, I cheated a bit and used a maroon set I’ve had hanging in the back of my closet for years. Proper black tie calls for white braces, but I figured I could keep my jacket on most of the night and no one would be any the wiser.

And y’know what? They weren’t.