"Director: James Bluemel"

• A J Weberman -The Ballad Of A J Weberman | DVD | (03/10/2011) from £4.09   |  Saving you £8.90 (68.50%)   |  RRP £12.99

  "I don't think I'm gonna be really understood until maybe 100 years from now". claimed Bob Dylan one time. Author of the Dylan To English Dictionary, a Dylanologist in extremis and a pioneer of Garbology (the practice of rooting through rubbish in order to gain insight into the lives of the prominent and the celebrated), A.J. Weberman has made it his life's work to understand Bob Dylan, using methods most would consider beyond the pale. Weberman's most notorious activity was his covert recording of a series of phone conversations he had with Dylan in 1970 - both pre and post his first probes into the Dylan household's garbage cans. The results were both staggering and hilarious - as many discovered when the tapes were bootlegged in the years following. At times hilarious, at other times disturbing, this film provides a fascinating document of the life of Alan Jules Weberman, and the dubious lengths to which he has gone to achieve his aims. The aforementioned phone conversations between Weberman and Dylan punctuate the film, which also features an unforgettable cast of supporting characters close to Weberman, including; activist, street singer and all round troublemaker [co-author of the infamous 1971 publication 'Steal This Book', David Peel; former child dancer and singer-songwriter Jay Byrd and Aaron Kay aka 'The Pieman'. The film enjoys a vivid Americana soundtrack, adding an extra veneer of strangeness to the story of A.J. and the universe in which he operates. All these elements combine to create a hilarious and fascinating film which roams freely beyond the boundaries of conventional documentary making.