The Dylan tapes — recordings of 1971 conversations between the singer and self-appointed “Dylanologist” A.J. Weberman — are the gold standard for Dylan-related wingnuttery. They’ve surfaced on various media over the years — originally on a bootleg LP in 1977, which was quickly deleted once Dylan’s lawyers got in touch. Various excerpts have resurfaced online of late — in particular, two telephone conversations between Dylan and Weberman about a previous, unrecorded discussion they’d had, which Weberman was proposing to type up and send out to “every underground paper in America” as an interview feature. Dylan isn’t amused by this — “If you want an interview, I’ll give you an interview,” he tells Weberman, “but that’s sneaky shit.” It’s hard to disagree with Dylan, actually — it’s poor form for Weberman to write up his “recollections” of a conversation and then pass them off as an interview. It’s not clear that Dylan knew the phone conversations were being recorded, either. Apparently Weberman was known for going through Dylan’s trash, so it’s not surprising his journalistic ethics are questionable at best, but the whole weird business is an insight into the way that there can be a fine line between journalism and obsessive fandom (at one point, Weberman tries to claim that one of Dylan’s songs was written for him). Listen via UbuWeb.