Inside Bob Dylan's Shadow Kingdom II: The Filming

Accordionist Alexander Burke describes the secret rehearsals and taping sessions

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L-R: Alexander Burke, Janie Cowan, Bob Dylan, Shahzad Ismaily, Buck Meek. All stills via @zusapictures

Bob Dylan’s film Shadow Kingdom premiered four years ago today. What many expected to be a typical pandemic-era concert livestream turned out to be anything but. Viewers that day were treated to Dylan performing in a variety of smoky-club settings—it was billed as the Bon Bon Club in Marseilles, which is not a real place—playing to an audience of Prohibition-outlaws and mannequins, backed by a mysterious masked band.

As many noticed quickly, both the band and Dylan were miming to pre-recorded tracks. Those tracks, it eventually came out, were recorded by an entirely different group of musicians. I spoke to one of them, guitarist Ira Ingber, earlier this week. He helped create the sounds you hear, but had nothing to do with the film itself.

Today, I speak with someone from the other side of the project, one of the masked musicians we saw on screen. His name is Alexander Burke, and he’s an accomplished Los Angeles pianist and composer who played accordion in the film. He told me about the days of intensive rehearsals with the other musicians, learning to mimic the audio tracks precisely, that led into a week of taping with Dylan and the film’s director Alma Har’el. Below, he sheds some light on Shadow Kingdom, explaining what went into creating this surprising and enigmatic film.

If you haven’t seen Shadow Kingdom, or need a refresher, you can buy/rent it on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, or YouTube. Here’s the trailer:

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Before I start talking, what do you know about it, or what do you think you know about it? I’m curious what’s out there or not.

I know the Bon Bon Club in Marseille is not a real place.

That’s correct.

More broadly, I know that there are two separate components. One is the musicians who played on the audio recordings. The second is the musicians who performed in the video, which includes yourself. It was filmed at a soundstage in Santa Monica for a week or so in May 2021.

It felt very warehouse-y. It was set up for filming and for recording. They built multiple rooms, multiple settings, multiple everything. So we’re just kind of like, film here, step over, film over there. There was an empty storefront next door where there were racks of clothing and stands set up for hair and makeup. But since this was during the pandemic, there was outside seating. So when we’d all hang out or eat, we would all be outside.

How did you get hired?

I played in Dead Man’s Bones, if you know that band. That was my first big gig when I moved to L.A. Dead Man’s Bones was essentially Ryan Gosling and Zach Shields. Alma, the [Shadow Kingdom] director, used to sing in the choir for the live shows. And Honey Boy was one of Bob Dylan’s favorite movies in the last decade, so he asked Alma if she would direct this.

Dylan really wanted a younger band. That was something that was super important to him. Alma reached out to Zach and Alex Somers. Alex was in Jónsi & Alex with Jónsi from Sigur Rós. He scored Honey Boy, and was musical-directing [Shadow Kingdom]. So I got a call from Zach saying, essentially, “Hey, this is going to sound crazy. Bob Dylan’s doing this film, and they’re looking for an accordion and mandolin player. Would you be interested in submitting?”

I had played a little bit of accordion in Dead Man’s Bones, and I toured with Billy Ray [Cyrus] playing a little mandolin. My résumé’s good enough they weren’t worried about me playing, but I had them submit a bunch of photos of me with accordion and mandolin to make sure that I worked right camera-wise

So your submission is not you actually playing. It’s photos of you playing?

Yeah, but everyone who was being looked at were all world-class players. Like you’re not gonna ask Buck Meek from Big Thief if he can play guitar. It was more just Alma wanted to see like how the band would visually look together. Would we look like a band?

I remember I was riding my bike and I got the call that I booked the Dylan gig. I pulled over; my hands were just shaking. I couldn’t quite wrap my brain around that.

Everything was pre-recorded. We had to learn it note for note, but none of us were allowed copies of anything.

How are you learning it then?

We originally went to Alex’s house. Alex just played everything, and we had to sit there and transcribe our parts. It almost felt like we were back in high school. It was terrifying, because I was a prodigy kid, a world-class piano player, vibe player, keyboard player. But on accordion, I’m very meat-and-potatoes. I can get by, but I’m not virtuosic.

I did notice when I was looking through your credits on your website, I think this was the only one that said accordion.

I toured with Save Ferris, so there’s videos of me playing accordion occasionally on “Come on Eileen.” And I score a lot of TV and films, so I’ll do basic accordion on things, but I’m not fast.

We’re all at Alex’s house, sitting there transcribing. So it’s me next to Josh Crumbly, who plays with Leon Bridges and Kamasi [Washington], and Buck Meek, and all of these great players. Just listening to the recordings and writing down what we think is happening, and trying to play it softly. But then it was pandemic time, so we’re all sitting kind of far away from each other. It was definitely a bonkers moment.

This was so hush-hush, they didn’t want anyone to know about it, so they rented us a house in Laurel Canyon. We did two or three days at Alex’s house, and then five or six days there. Some of us stayed there. Alex’s job was just to constantly play the music for us and make sure we’re doing everything right. We literally didn’t have access to any of the music.

There was nothing around. Because, again, it was COVID, so they wanted to have open windows, have us outside, but they didn’t want anyone to hear Bob Dylan’s stuff. Because Bob Dylan hasn’t played acoustic on those songs in so long. They wanted to be very, very, very hush-hush.

So the music is just being played over and over at that house?

“Hey, can I hear that section again?” “Can I hear this one?” If you need a break, you just go outside.

We learned everything note for note, and they recorded everything we were doing. So it’s this thing where, I don’t think that they wound up using anything we did on the record, but it could be. There’s no credits.

It’s a weird thing where there’s so much mystery around presumably the biggest thing I’ve ever done and will ever do. Even if I wind up scoring a Marvel movie or play with Taylor Swift, I feel like you can’t get bigger than Dylan. Because I live in California, I’m required to do yoga and meditate and try to be present and do all that bullshit. And it’s very strange to go into something knowing this will be a defining moment in your life. When it ends, there’s this postpartum depression, for lack of a better word. Like, “Was that the highlight of my life? Will the rest of my life be just talking about this moment?” So many things I’ve done, I didn’t know they were important moments going into it. It’s strange to go into something knowing that this is going to be one of the most important moments of your life.

Was the playlist set in stone from day one, or were there songs that you learned that didn’t get used?

It was all songs that had been pre-recorded already.

It was all the same songs that ended up in Shadow Kingdom?

Yeah.

If you had to guess, how many times did you listen to each song over and over again?

Probably 20 to 50 times?

I also learned something. You realize why he has the greatest bands in the world: It’s that Dylan’s a wild animal. You don’t know what he’s going to do. Like he might, on the bridge, go to the minor six today when he always goes to the four. The guy is so present. He’s so in the moment. I mean, I’ve played with some of the best musicians in the world. The way I describe it is, when you play, at least for me, it’s almost like your mind is doing sonar. You’re listening to what the bass and the drums and the guitar are doing. You’re kind of circling, hearing everyone and reacting to everything around you. Where, with Dylan, you’re focused on this singular microscopic point, and everyone’s focused on that together. A singular focus as opposed to a circular focus. It’s a level of being present that I’ve never experienced before or since.

I had a girlfriend that was very into TM and had me read some of those books. With the Maharishi, when you’re with the master, it’s the same as meditating, how present you are. That’s not what it felt like hanging out with Dylan, but that’s what it felt like playing with Dylan. It’s this level of presence and awareness with music that I’ve been trying to tap into ever since.

During the actual taping, if someone was standing in the room listening, what are they hearing? Are you all actually playing your instruments? Is the audio from the recording also playing?

We were playing it note for note while the audio was playing. And there was a couple of wrong notes that Buck would even play on guitar.

Wrong notes from the audio recording?

Yeah. Because the wrong notes that whoever played guitar played, you could tell, “Oh, Dylan moved here when he was expecting him to move here.” You could hear a wrong note that then he slides into [the right note]. Which, live, it’s fine, but you would never do that on a recording. But Buck was learning the exact wrong notes to play at certain moments.

I had some notes in my pocket of all the random accordion things, just to remind myself what was what. So much of it was like, is the first or second break a little longer? Remember to count an extra second here. A lot of little cues like that. Because we usually didn’t know what songs were being played on what day, and because I wasn’t able to listen to the song.

Dylan actually didn’t like my accordion playing at one point. He thought that what I was playing looked too boring on film. He wanted me to move around and do all these more showy things. I was like, “Well, yeah, I get that it looks boring, but that’s what the person’s doing. I can’t play that and be showy.” He’s like, “This is a film. Don’t worry.” So there’s a few moments where he had me go completely unhinged and not play what was there.

There was another point where he had Buck not plug his guitar in, because he just wants to constantly throw people off. Like in Rolling Thunder Revue [the Scorsese film], there’s a lot of things that are not real in that. He loves to create a thing where people really aren’t sure. “They’re playing the right thing, but then they’re not, but then this is so precisely correct.” He really wants people to not know what the truth is.

Has anyone told you about his assistant? He had a guy who looked like a cowboy. Jeans, cowboy boots, white shirt. He sounded like he was from the South. Every day before filming, he would come up and be like, “I got a friend coming. You might recognize him, you might not, but there’s a few rules. You can’t talk about the past, how much you love any of his art that you might know about, and you can’t talk about the future, what he’s planning on doing. You can only talk about the present. Nothing about the present is off limits, but you’re not allowed to talk about the past or the future.”

I’m paraphrasing, he did it much more succinctly and charismatically, but it was essentially, we could talk to Dylan about anything as long as we were talking about the present. With Dylan, how many times did someone say, “Your song saved my life,” “Your song got me through my parents death”? He’s heard it every day of his life.

I tried to talk to him a lot, but he’s really not interested in talking about himself. He was very interested in all of us. Like, “Who are you?” “What’s your band?” He thought we were a proper band that they had just hired. He said, “I really like your band. I’d like to play with you all sometime.”

Whereas you didn’t even know these people before.

Yeah, but we became really good friends. I’m working on a solo record that Josh Crumbly’s playing on. Buck played on a score I did. We’ve all stayed really close.

He really was very engaging with us, but when you tried to engage with him on his things, he would just circle back to talking about us. Or just be playing music and want us to play along with him.

He was very polite. Like I was playing on the upright piano when we were jamming. Buck or Alex came up to me and was like, “I think Dylan wants to play piano, but doesn’t want to kick you off.” I look and Dylan’s just behind me being very patient. I step up and he sits down and starts playing.

At the end of the second day, he found me and patted me on the stomach, kind of fatherly, and was like “I really liked what you were doing” and walked off. I have two degrees in music, and that means more than all my degrees.

Take me to the first day. You walk in, you see these soundstages, you first meet Bob, you’re getting set up. What do you remember?

The beginning of this was in the heart of COVID. And I think this was also Bob’s first time filming a concert film since MTV Unplugged. He was meeting new people and working with new musicians in the height of COVID when we’re all kind of rusty. It took everyone a minute just to relax into it.

There was also a thing of it being a concert film, and, for me at least, figuring out how much to perform. Like, how big do I get? How gregarious? Because I don’t want to pull attention. There was a lot of just figuring out how to perform on it for a second.

The first thing we filmed was the stage where there’s the curtain and it’s just the five of us. That was the first day. But as it went on and he got more comfortable, he started bringing the audience closer. He just started grabbing people, pulling people up. Like in the scene where there’s the girl next to him on the piano bench, she was the set designer who was walking by. He just had her lean on the piano. She’s like, “I’m not wearing makeup.” He’s like “There’s smoke, it doesn’t matter.” He just gets inspired and wants to do things in the moment.

“Watching the River Flow”

We were getting COVID-tested every day, by the way. They had us go to a facility on the west side, and then they would send it in. They wanted us to go to a proper place so nothing could be faked and it could be as hardcore as possible. There was a COVID person on set. So I think his team was worried about him. But as it went on, as he got more excited, he just started like: “Sit down over here!” “Come over here!”

Before that, we had done fittings for our suits. They gave us really fancy-looking black masks. You can see how pretty our masks were. We presumed we would be in masks going in, because we knew we were doing this around Bob Dylan’s 80th, and this was the height of COVID. I thought we might be unmasked on camera, but I really wasn’t surprised. So we went in knowing we were going to be all covered up, which didn’t bother me until I saw the extras weren’t covered up.

Originally, it made sense we were masked. We were back here, and then the audience was over here.

So there was initially a big gap, you’re saying, between the band and the extras in the audience.

Yeah. Also a lot of the audience was fake. I would say there’s maybe eight to 10 audience members and the rest are dummies that they shot and dressed up. With the people moving, that’s why you couldn’t tell.

There are a few moments where they zoom in on a dummy and make it obvious.

It was very funny to me. We were putting all of our instruments on the dummies and just being dumb. The one time I got in trouble is, we weren’t supposed to take photos. I wanted to take a photo of the dummies wearing the instruments, but the cowboy dude just walked up to me and shook his head, very disapproving. I deleted it in front of him just to be like, “No worries!”

Bob wanted to take a big group photo with all of us. I don’t have it, but I’d love to see it again someday. Bob is smiling in the photo. He has a huge grin. But he also made a point to go to the very back of the photo. So you barely see his little head popping up behind everyone.

Is it like one song per day?

I think it was a four-day shoot, if I remember. Four or five, Monday through Friday or Monday through Thursday. We were doing two to three songs a day.

Who is giving direction or guidance? Is Dylan giving feedback? Is Alma handling that?

Alma was really running the show. Bob respected the shit out of her. They would have disagreements, and I think one reason he loves Alma is Alma would stand her ground. Like you’d see him get annoyed, and then you’d see him get really happy. When Alma would say no, he would have this smile like he was like up to mischief. He smiles a lot more in the real world than you see him smile on stage. But he does that kind of smile where you’re like, “I could picture you at 14 years old. I feel like you’re Puck and very mischievous.”

There was one time he didn’t want to play harmonica. Because I play a little harmonica, he asked me to play. So I played on one take. Halfway through the take, I stopped. I said, “We can’t do this. It’s obviously you on harmonica. If I’m playing harmonica [in the video], everyone’s gonna get pissed at me, and they’re gonna get even more pissed at you.” Once I said no and gave it back to him, he got the biggest shit-eating grin and nodded. After that we got along great. I think he doesn’t want yes-people. He just wants people who’ll be themselves.

In the holding rooms, he was doing hair and makeup next to everybody. He didn’t have his own special place. He and Alma ate alone, because they were probably planning things, but getting ready, he was doing that next to all of us.

Was this catered? Were you eating there?

They had it catered incredibly well. I remember eating salmon. I think you had to go outside if you were eating or not doing things. It was just when restaurants and bars were starting to open again, but they were putting the plexiglass shields between the booths and everything. It was at that stage of Covid where it wasn’t like, “Oh everyone’s back, and things are starting to open.” It was that stage where we’re just starting to get vaxxed, and everyone’s very, very nervous. I remember even in our costume fittings, us all being masked up. We had to prove we were vaccinated. I got my second shot right before we started filming

Did any of the songs or setups take longer? Were any of them, for one reason or another, particularly tricky to capture?

Some of the ones with choreography. The one where Buck steps in front of the camera, plays guitar, and steps away, that one took quite a bit of choreography to figure out.

“The Wicked Messenger”

I thought that was maybe superimposed. He’s literally just walking out there, then walking back?

Yeah. He stepped in front. What’s really crazy about it all is they were all live takes. Everything you’re seeing, I don’t think there were any edits from any of those songs. Their goal was to make everything one take.

You’re all accomplished musicians. Like you could have done the audio. Was there any frustration, maybe, that he didn’t actually record it with you all? That you’re lip-synching essentially?

Yeah, I’m bummed I wasn’t on the record. But he also didn’t know who any of us were when he made that. I mean, I’m not going to lie, we were all hoping we would do shows with him. But we performed it with him, and he was still singing along.

I believe things were plugged in for recording. Again, I don’t think it’s me on the record, but we played things note for note. They could have swapped intros in, parts in. Even if I’m not on the record, I feel like I’m on the record, which is a weird thing to say.

I’m sure it’ll never come out, but it’d be interesting to hear your version of Shadow Kingdom audio-wise.

I mean, our version of Shadow Kingdom would sound exactly the same. What we played was dead-on. My accordion tone, the bass tones, everything that we were doing was so similar.

My accordion, I freaked out about. I still have Ryan Gosling’s accordion, because he left it in my old studio and just forgot about it. But Ryan loved very-’80s looking gear. Like he used Steinberger guitars that don’t have the headstock. So it’s an ’80s accordion. It sounds amazing, but looks very ’80s. I showed up with that accordion. They’re like, “You can’t use that one.” They wanted all the instruments to be vintage and old, like they could be from the ’40s. Then I grabbed my Roland accordion. They’re like, “That’s still too new-looking.” My friend Renee Albert, who’s an amazing old Second City comedian, has a crazy accordion collection. She gave me that accordion.

Something that was very cool is the dude, he never wants to stop playing. Between every take, if he wasn’t giving notes or looking at the camera or talking to Alma, he was just wanting to jam. It’s funny because he looked stiff and old at the beginning, but we were up on platforms in that place, and [by the end] he was literally jumping on and off like he was 15. He’s in amazing shape. So we were jamming non-stop with him.

You’ve mentioned the jamming a few times. Are you playing these same songs, or are you just playing instrumental music?

Everything. We either played his songs or we just were playing whatever.

Always the songs from Shadow Kingdom that you knew?

It was always either Shadow Kingdom songs or like— Buck is an amazing jazz guitarist, and I think we might have been messing around playing standards at one point. Buck and I might have just thrown out things: “All of Me,” “Autumn Leaves.” But we were pretty much just making things up on the spot.

Dylan was playing a Gibson L-5, a super rare vintage guitar. I think they’re about $10,000. They rented old guitars and stuff like that for them to play. And Bob was shredding on that L-5 acoustic. You don’t think of him as like a great soloist, but Dylan is incredible. We would jam and he would just start shredding on top. He can play guitar like he’s anywhere from Hendrix or whatever guitar great you want to play like. His ideas and his shredding is just incredible. I think he’s probably one of the most underrated soloists.

“When I Paint My Masterpiece”

Let’s go song-by-song through the video and you tell me what you remember. I’ll play it in the background while we talk. First up, “When I Paint My Masterpiece.”

That was on the last day.

First song, last day?

Yeah, because they wanted to end on more of that party vibe. These last two days, he was just super excited and happy about how it had all been going. He just wanted to play and jam. We were jamming between every take. Near the end, there weren’t as many stories to be had, but they were my favorite days.

There’s a lot of smoking in the movie. Was that real smoking or was this prop cigarettes?

They were all prop cigarettes. It was not real smoke.

Are there two stages basically? This one, and then in a song or two we’ll hit the checkerboard-floor one.

I think it was just those two.

Next song, “Most Likely You Go Your Way.”

They want it to look like an old diner-type place. They made all these wood slats.

Was it this dim in person? Looks hard to see on stage.

It was pretty dark, but not this dark.

So is this like a faux building built inside of another building?

Yeah, it was connected to the empty storefront. Like it was the most surreal thing to walk through the storefront and then just see the soundstage.

What was really hard is I’m 5’5”, and Bob is maybe half an inch taller than me. Everyone else in the band happened to be much taller, like close to six feet, if not more. Because I’m shorter, they had me standing next to Dylan for a lot of it, and they put all the other guys in the back or had them sit. And accordions are heavy. They wanted me to perform and jump around. I had to see the chiropractor afterwards, because I was carrying the accordion so much. I never sat.

“Queen Jane Approximately.”

“Queen Jane” I think might have been the first song we did.

Our first one in the checkerboard room too.

There was also a ship’s mast at the edge that you never see.

You mean next to Buck? I see a rope or something.

Yeah. It felt like a massive part of it. It was originally going to pull back more. You would see an audience watching us, I believe.

One thing that struck me watching all these last night is there are not many shots where the camera moves. Occasionally with the audience, but especially when it’s on you all, it’s almost all a static shot like this.

Because they wanted people to be unsure if this was live or not.

The reason Janie [Cowan] and Josh were both playing bass is Josh was the first call, but he was playing with Leon Bridges at the time. And Leon Bridges was doing a live record and stream that he was already booked for at Gold Diggers.

So at a certain point he had to bounce?

Yeah, but they really wanted him. And then they were like, well, if we can’t get him for everything, we also really like Janie, who’s the one playing bass on this song. So they just decided to hire the both of them.

“I’ll Be Your Baby Tonight.”

Do you know who the girl is on the right?

Barb from Stranger Things.

Yes.

So this was planned. He didn’t just pull these two up surely?

I honestly don’t know. We were not in the room when they were setting up the shot, then they just pulled us in.

Again, Dylan kept wanting people closer. They’re just kind of awkwardly staring at the camera, and they’ll occasionally look at him. I do remember Alma saying, “Dust his jacket off.” They did a bunch of things because they didn’t want people to know what was really happening. Like, “Is this real? Is this not?”

“Just Like Tom Thumb’s Blues.”

The Black guy right there, he was doing a lot of choreography on this as well. And then the guy in back smoking the cigar, he’s an actor who’s in a lot of things, King Orba. A lot of the extras were people who have worked with Alma in the past.

Craig Stark is the guy with his head down. Did you ever see Hateful Eight? He was the full frontal naked guy with Samuel L. Jackson. He’s friends with Tarantino, and Tarantino puts him doing ridiculous things in all of his movies.

I love the shitty blinds.

What would be on the other side of those Venetian blinds?

It would be the warehouse. It was all just set up within this huge warehouse.

So what are you and Bob and everyone on stage looking at? Is this like Seinfeld where the apartment has no fourth wall?

Exactly. It was just three walls. And our eyelines, we were all told to look in different directions. There were times where I was told to look at Bob, and this one I was told just to look straight forward. I think everyone was just told to look in the direction they were sitting.

Including the extras, it would seem.

Yeah, which to me adds a lot to the vibe of this thing.

In this one, the crowd all seems to have something else on their mind. Like an old Western where they’re all troubled. They’re maybe listening to the music, but not paying that much attention.

And Bob’s style is amazing. Even the clothes he would come into set with, he was always doing this Western thing, but tailored. Like Western fancy, or Western formal. I don’t quite know how to describe it.

“Tombstone Blues” here. I just saw him raise his hands. When you see him live, he’s doing a lot of conducting with his hands. But there all the musicians are staring at him, whereas here none of you are looking at him. So when he’s raising his hands like that, is that a cue for you all?

Because we were playing the songs note for note, I wasn’t looking at him for cueing… Now I’m wondering if he was. I actually have no idea.

When we were jamming during breaks, he wasn’t doing any physical cueing. He would just change chords and move things around. A lot of the hand movements were just more emotional too. When he was getting into things. I remember there’s a couple ones that really moved me.

“To Be Alone with You.” One visual thing I’d forgotten was the beat-up air conditioner with all the tinsel coming out that.

I love that thing. It was all Christmassy looking. I remember being so happy in this one because the accordion got so heavy and I was burning up just from wearing a suit. I remember being so stoked about [being in front of the air conditioner].

So this is a real, functioning air conditioner?

Yeah. Which is why none of these songs were probably our recordings.

That noise would be a problem, I suppose.

If you look right there, you can see where back wall ends.

At the top?

Yeah, then that’s just light from the stage. If it was in color, it would be pretty obvious. That was just wood walls. I worked at a haunted house growing up, and it kind of reminded me of when you build the haunted house sets. How it feels so real, but then the second you step back, you’re like, “Oh. Shit.”

“What Was It You Wanted,” the one more recent song of the bunch, relatively.

They had a bunch of stuff in the background that was creating all those shadows. I cannot remember what they were putting over their lights, but they were having rotating things create all those spinning shadows in the background. Probably how they came up with the name Shadow Kingdom.

There’s the album cover photo shot right here.

That’s a vintage Neumann U 87 that he’s singing on. I believe that was also the same mic he used for the record, because they actually recorded the record at that same warehouse. I was told they did it in the same room. They all pretty much just did it in a circle and set up all the mics and just ran through everything live together.

“Forever Young.” This is the one song you are not on.

That’s a Marxophone. It’s a really weird instrument. It’s kind of like a zither, but you push a key and this hammer hits the strings and bounces in a crazy way. They could not find that instrument to save their life. The one that they finally rented was from a museum and was broken. It just made the most horrendous sound.

So I guess this would be the one song where what was being played in the room does not sound exactly like the recorded version.

Oh yeah. The sound of it was horrible.

Is it making the noise right now, or is Buck able to just lip-sync the instrument and not make that horrible noise while Bob’s trying to sing?

He’s playing it correctly, even though it sounds terrible. It was just Bob’s shadow, bass, and that instrument.

Wait, that’s not a real other person in the back?

No, that was Bob’s shadow… Wait, that looks like a guitar.

Yeah, that silhouette guy’s wearing a hat! It is another person. But wait…now he’s not in that shot. Now he’s gone. Now he’s back.

“Forever Young.” Same song in both shots, but watch the blinds. Now you see him…

…now you don’t!

I wonder if they added that in post. I would bet my life savings that that song was only the two of them, Josh and Buck. This is one of my favorite songs of his. I remember us all being so bummed we weren’t doing it.

Were you there watching it?

No. Because of COVID protocols, if you weren’t needed, you were not in the main room. Because Bob was unmasked. Even though you know how everything went, with him grabbing people. But the extras, when they weren’t filming, would put masks on, all that kind of stuff.

Would Bob be popping a mask on and off?

No, he never wore a mask.

The silhouette looks like it’s Shahzad. I remember being outside with him [though].

“Pledging My Time.”

This was the second to last day, which was the most fun. This was the day where Bob took the photo with everybody. This was the last day with all the extras, when he was really just having the best time.

What made it the most fun day?

The first day was just so high pressure. Then him not liking what I was playing because he wanted me to be more bombastic, even though it was what was on the record. And with COVID protocols, I think we were all very nervous. It was a scary time, so I think a lot of people were scared to get closer to talk to each other. Not because of social dynamics, but just because of Covid.

I think this is where we’ve all been tested for three or four days, we’ve all been around each other, we’re starting to get along and trust each other. At this point Dylan’s wanting to jam between every song, so it just felt like a real band. It felt like a great community on set. Dylan was having a ton of fun. He was pulling up the extras. He liked what was happening with Alma. He felt like he didn’t have to second-guess her. Like we didn’t jam the first and most of the second day, because we would do takes and then he would want to watch it. I think at this point he just felt good about things.

“Pledging My Time”

They really went out of their way to create a world. It was fun watching them set this up. All those like streamers and the little locks together, they wanted that all to be handmade. They wanted to feel like it was a church dance from the 1950s that people threw together. It’s this weird moment that you feel like you’re performing it for a church party, but you also are like, “I’m with Alma, who’s one of the greatest living directors, and I’m with Dylan, who’s just the greatest.”

I don’t know if this is normal or not with Dylan, but we’d all refer to him as The Man. Is that something you’ve heard?

I have not.

Because we were told not to talk about the project, we all just started calling him The Man. Like, “Oh this we’re doing this thing for The Man.” “The Man’s coming.”

You mean amongst each other?

Yeah, when we would talk about this. There were a couple nights where we would go out and have drinks afterwards. I remember we were at King’s Head, the bar in Santa Monica.

Here comes “The Wicked Messenger.”

There’s Buck stepping in front of the camera. I remember him being like, “Shouldn’t I plug this in”? And they’re like. “No.” It’s just weird. That guitar isn’t plugged in at all.

I totally thought that was superimposed.

No, and they put a real cigarette in there too. That was an Alma thing.

New streamers. It’s like every song now, there’s additional streamers and confetti.

They would change things around after every take.

How involved is Dylan with the extras?

It was really Alma, but Dylan would engage with them. Like “Come over, sit down,” pulling them closer. But she was more directing them with what to do.

“Watching the River Flow.” There’s the woman leaning you mentioned.

Yeah, she was the set designer I think.

He just pulled her up?

Yeah, she was just walking by. He’s like, “It needs more people. Just sit here.” She’s like, “I’m a set person.” And he’s like, “Eh, whatever.”

I don’t know how much you care about gear, but Fender Custom Shop’s reissuing a lot of the amps and they’re tweed and they look like how they used to. So Buck brought a Fender Custom Shop Champ there that sounds amazing. Even though it’s new, it looked vintage.

“It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” now. The final song.

I’m going back to where you were like, “Do you wish you were on the record?” The thing about the film is, my name’s on it forever. To have a piece of art with my name next to Dylan’s is like one of the greatest things ever happened. That scroll and seeing my name under his was, to this day, still one of the greatest feelings I’ve ever had. Because I’ve been a part of a lot of things that have been cut or not come out. Like I played on a Bruce Springsteen record that never came out. I’ve done so many things that haven’t quite made it.

Doing Dylan, then seeing my name underneath and knowing, “This will be there forever. This is a piece of art that will outlive me. My name will always be on that scroll.” Again, I’ve done really cool shit. But if all I did in my life was to get to be on a concert film with Dylan, I kind of feel like that’s enough.

They messed up on my credit. I go by Alex with friends and family, but for credits, I always do Alexander. Because it never said who was playing what, I think it was Rolling Stone who said I played guitar on it. So everyone thought I was this random Alex Burke in the Midwest who plays guitar. So there are all these videos like, “Unveiling Bob Dylan’s band” and there’s this random dude in the Midwest named Alex Burke, which was very annoying.

Is it the same on the album that finally came out?

There’s no credits there. That’s why I’m saying, “I don’t think I played on it, but I’m not 100%.” So much of this is as much a mystery to us as everyone else. I think that he just wants to keep us guessing.

It was a wild experience. There was the weird moment after I finished the recording but before it came out where I’m like, “Okay, what do I do with my life now?”

I’m guessing maybe exacerbated by the fact that it comes out and it’s still COVID times.

My best friend was making fun of me recently. He’s a big Dylan fan and he was listening to some music podcast. The guy was like, “I would just love for him to redo all of his classic songs with a small acoustic band.” Pretty much describing Shadow Kingdom, but he didn’t know it was a thing. I was just like, “How are you involved in one of the most important things in music in the last 20 years that no one knows about?” It’s weird because, for as popular as Dylan is, I feel like it’s the most forgotten thing he’s done.

How did it end?

It really reminded me of T. S. Eliot: Not with a bang but with a whimper.

The second to last day was one of the most amazing days of my life. If it was like some Our Town thing where I could relive a day, that might be the day I’d want to relive. All the dancing, everyone partying together. That was the day where he wanted a group picture with everyone.

Where the last day, he came in, we did maybe one more song, and then everyone just kind of packed up and went home. No fanfare, no big moment. You’re like, “That’s…that’s it?” I remember wishing there was more of a celebration, but also feeling very euphoric.

I think Shahzad was going straight to the airport, and Janie wasn’t in that day, so Alex, Buck, Josh and myself went to get margaritas. There was some corporate restaurant that was still open. The four of us all got a margarita and sat around, smiling and not talking much. We just experienced this amazing thing. There was nothing really to say. We just sat there smiling.

Alexander Burke is an accomplished session musician and film composer. He just co-founded a new music production company Coffee Car Music. Learn more at coffeecarmusic.com.