Bonus Tracks: Lee Ranaldo & Steve Shelley of Sonic Youth Talk 'Going Electric' in Tulsa

"People talk about, 'Oh, he's not a good singer.' He's an AMAZING singer."

I interviewed 15 different musician for Behind the Scenes of the Bob Dylan Center's 'Going Electric' Concert, and only had room to use a few sentences from each in that big feature. But there was so much more! So, today, as promised, the first subscriber-only Bonus Tracks: Extended versions of my conversations with the musicians who performed at the all-star Tulsa tribute concert.

First up, two members of the show’s house band The Million Dollar Bashers: music director/guitarist Lee Ranaldo and drummer Steve Shelley. They’ve played together before in fact, in a little band called Sonic Youth. And they were also both in the original Million Dollar Bashers, the band that backed Eddie Vedder, Karen O, and others on the I’m Not There soundtrack. (You might have heard of their bass player from back then: Tony Garnier.)

All these were just casual hangs backstage at Cain’s Ballroom in Tulsa. Much looser than my usual deep dive interviews. I didn’t have lists of questions or anything, I was just winging it, and conversations were often interrupted by other musicians wanting to discuss arrangements or just shoot the breeze.

Here’s me chatting with Lee and Steve about the show and about all things Bob. I’ll share more of these soon.

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Lee Ranaldo: Music Director, Million Dollar Bashers Guitarist

Courtesy American Song Archives

So how are you feeling after show number one? [Nore: Most artists I interviewed in the afternoon before the concerts, but Ranaldo was so busy rehearsing everyone I didn’t grab him until between the early and late shows.]

I'm feeling very relieved. We had a long rehearsal yesterday, as you know, and all day today, and I was expecting it to be harder than it was when we got here. I mean, I did a lot of prep in corralling all the singers and who's doing what. But it all flowed so smoothly.

Did the band itself have rehearsals before yesterday?

No. Everybody just did their own woodshedding at home and came. Guys like Mikael [Jorgensen] and Nels [Cline], they hardly even have any charts. Maybe Mikael does, but Nels just lives and breathes this stuff.

So when did this start? When did this idea come about?