A little knowledge is a dangerous thing; none whatsoever is worse.

The Band, A Musical History (EMI)

David Peschek

Friday September 23, 2005

The Guardian
If ever there was an argument for the occasional pernicious evil of the CD reissue, this five-disc-plus-DVD box is it. A Musical History is certainly comprehensive: it runs from the Band's early backing-band days -- first for Ronnie Hawkins, then the newly electric Dylan -- through seven albums that document their evolution into trad-rock behemoths. And, for completists otherwise at a loose end, it includes 37 unreleased tracks. Critical consensus has it that this is seminal and hugely important music. But it's clear -- especially over five CDs -- that it is music whose ersatz nature, conservatism and ill-disguised fakery attains a crushing critical mass of boredom. Creating a plodding, hybrid Americana from borrowed blues and country, the Band have squatted over a certain kind of North American music ever since their heyday. But painfully evident in their cod-soulful straining for gravitas is the lack of the vitality of their influences, smothered as it is by the deadening weight of heritage. And does anyone need to hear The Night They Drove Ol' Dixie Down ever again?

Um, yes -- especially with what's been happening in that part of the world over the last couple of weeks.

You read something like this and wonder how it happened. Was there an editor somewhere on The Guardian’s staff who figured The Band were overdue for being taken down a peg or two? Maybe that would have been a better move before they broke up in 1976 . . . or before two members died.

Or is this David Peschek’s take? If so, it unwittingly exposes stunning ignorance. As for that crack about “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” it would seem that Peschek is unaware Robertson wrote the song, seemingly assuming – incorrectly – that it’s “trad. arr. by” instead of an original composition. He also seems unaware that The Band created the genre the British call “Americana.”

But then, should we expect anything other than tone-deaf inaccuracies from somebody who’s a DJ for something called “Horse Meat Disco”? (Eew.)