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October 11, 2007

No 1. Indies Detective Agency

While dragging through a folder of backups that's moved from computer to computer over the last decade, Jim found an image labeled "dylan_ideas.tif", and when we opened it, we saw this...

old Bob Dylan PR materials?

Here's what our advanced data mining tells us: It dates to the early '60s and is PR material, and searches of ancient mailboxes for mentions of Dylan produced only this unrelated gem. The first question is if it came from a relatively recent boxed set, or if it was an original document that somehow found a lap to fall into. Either way, it was scanned and forgotten. Anyone seen it before? Context? Are there any stories attached to this?

UPDATE: DMC says:

I found it! It's in the booklet (page 20) of the Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (rare and unreleased 1961 - 1991). It has the same picture as above, and is described as "Columbia Records' 1965 marketing suggestions."

Posted at 6:57 PM
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18 Comments

Why "indie" detective agency? Is this part of the "scene"? Will this get me "cred"? What a joke.

At least you know your image-cultivating audience, pathetic as that may be.

Posted by: zach at 10/11/07 7:44 PM | Reply
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They're sellin' you, man!

The difference is that today kids want to be sold. The big promotions don't even have to mask it.

Posted by: Jol at 10/11/07 7:52 PM | Reply
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it's a reference to the book series (& movie tk) "no. 1 ladies detective agency". you know, a stupid "pun". so...yeah, a joke. as pathetic as that may be.

Posted by: jim at 10/11/07 7:56 PM | Reply
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Us young people of today, SO KOOKY!

Posted by: Caleb at 10/11/07 8:00 PM | Reply
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@ zach: man, you're pretty dense.

Great find btw!

Posted by: Ryan at 10/11/07 8:54 PM | Reply
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in all fairness, a cut'n'paste error had the title as "indie detective agency no. 1", which you can see in the URL. but still. every enjoy the funny jpg.

Posted by: jim at 10/11/07 9:11 PM | Reply
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Zach, you are a great example of the kind of humorless jerks that post on this sight and are so up their own ass they couldn't recognize a joke is it was banging their mom while their dad was at work.

Posted by: Billy at 10/11/07 9:22 PM | Reply
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I forget which book it was in, but I've seen this before. This does date to the mid-60's, and it is what it appears to be: an internal memo which was distributed throughout Columbia's promotional department, aimed to guide employees in ways to "sell" Dylan.

Posted by: DMC at 10/11/07 10:27 PM | Reply
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I found it! It's in the booklet (page 20) of the Bootleg Series Vol. 1-3 (rare and unreleased 1961 - 1991). It has the same picture as above, and is described as "Columbia Records' 1965 marketing suggestions."

Posted by: DMC at 10/11/07 10:36 PM | Reply
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nice work, dmc! i'll update the post.

Posted by: jim at 10/11/07 10:47 PM | Reply
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Boot wearing dylan is my favorite era!

Posted by: dannygutters at 10/12/07 9:34 AM | Reply
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Oh, I get the joke and I have humor. Yeah, it's a pun. I get it.

Have you ever heard that Patton Oswalt bit about liquor ads, where he points out how well they know their audience? That's what I'm talking about. It's depressing that no one bats an eye at being relegated to a word. Indie? Doesn't that mean "independent", as in "independent of a major label recording contract"? Since when does that have anything to do with the way your jeans fit or the thickness of your frames? If you can describe your image, or worse - your personality - as a misconstrued concept, then you're just pitiful.

Posted by: zach at 10/12/07 12:51 PM | Reply
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"if you can be this unrelated strawman i have to knock down publicly again and again, you are clearly the one who is worse than me."

Posted by: i am zach's projection at 10/12/07 2:42 PM | Reply
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its from the coffe table book "the bob dylan scrapbook" that came out along with the dvd release of scorsese's no direction home. that wasn't really that hard now was it?

Posted by: jdubs at 10/12/07 3:43 PM | Reply
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my internal spell check must be off. *coffee*

i know this because i used to read the stuff in the bob dylan scrapbook every time i took a shit for about 3 months.

Posted by: jdubs at 10/12/07 3:48 PM | Reply
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jdubs, the scan dates back to 2000-ish, which predated No Direction Home. maybe it's just a famous bit of dylanalia

Posted by: jim at 10/12/07 3:59 PM | Reply
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right, the scrapbook is all reprinted stuff. can't believe you guys aren't blogging the jack and meg white cameras or the weird ass "The tricks of today are the truths of tomorrow" messages they've posted.

Posted by: jdubs at 10/12/07 4:04 PM | Reply
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to the front page with you, then- just got the stripes cameras up

Posted by: jim at 10/12/07 4:36 PM | Reply
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