Bob Hates Andy in Rolling Stone, April 17, 2008
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No. 6: Bob Hates Andy
Inspired by Dylan's encounters with Warhol in he sixties, the comic at bobhatesandy.com hysterically portrays the icons debating topics like love and Tom Ford's perfume. Creator Joshua Cicerone says the whole idea was based on real tension: "Dylan blamed Andy for Edie Sedgwick getting into drugs, and Dylan supposedly used a Warhol painting as a dartboard." -Rolling Stone Magazine, April 17, 2008
Bob Hates Andy?
A collection of rumors and stories surround the Silver Elvis painting that Andy Warhol gave Bob Dylan when he visited the Factory.
Andy: I liked Dylan, the way he created a brilliant new style... I even gave him one of my silver Elvis paintings in the days when he was first around. Later on, though, I got paranoid when I heard rumors that he had used the Elvis as a dart board up in the country. When I'd ask, 'Why did he do that?' I'd invariably get hearsay answers like 'I hear he feels you destroyed Edie [Sedgwick],' or 'Listen to Like a Rolling Stone - I think you're the 'diplomat on the chrome horse,' man.' I didn't know exactly what they meant by that - I never listened much to the words of songs - but I got the tenor of what people were saying - that Dylan didn't like me, that he blamed me for Edie's drugs.
In his Diaries, Warhol records the following:
Oct. 77 – Albert Grossman, who used to manage Dylan, told me again that he has my silver Elvis, but I don’t understand that, because I gave it to Dylan, so how would Grossman get it?
May 11, 1978 – Robbie [Robertson] said he knew me from the Dylan days. I asked him whatever happened to the Elvis painting that I gave Dylan because every time I run into Dylan's manager Albert Grossman he says he has it, and Robbie said that at some point Dylan traded it to Grossman for a couch! (laughs). He felt he needed a little sofa and he gave him the Elvis for it. It must have been in his drug days. So that was an expensive couch.
Years later, in an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Dylan had second thoughts.
Bob: "I once traded an Andy Warhol "Elvis Presley" painting for a sofa, which was a stupid thing to do. I always wanted to tell Andy what a stupid thing I done, and if he had another painting he would give me, I'd never do it again."
More references, fragments and eye candy coming soon...