Blog Love: Expecting Rain

Expecting Rain is a Bob Dylan news aggregator and fan resource that has been running continuously since the early 1990s. It was one of the first music-focused sites on the web and remains one of the most complete single-artist information resources available.

The site collects news, reviews, bootleg information, setlist data, and links to Dylan-related material from across the web. It does not editorialize extensively. It accumulates. The result, over thirty years, is a document of what the Dylan community was paying attention to at any given moment.

The Blog Love format

The Blog Love entry at this site is a short note on another music site, blog, or resource that is worth knowing. It is an acknowledgment that the music web is a connected space and that other sites are doing useful work.

The format was more common in the early years of music blogging, when the blogroll was a standard feature and linking between sites was a primary mode of discovery. That culture has changed. The Blog Love format is a modest way of keeping some of that linking culture alive.

Why Expecting Rain

Expecting Rain is not a blog in the contemporary sense. It does not have a distinctive editorial voice or a design aesthetic. What it has is completeness and continuity. For anyone tracking Dylan's touring, recording, or critical reception over any period, it is the most comprehensive single resource.

The site is run by Karl Erik Andersen and has been since the beginning. That continuity of editorial attention is the thing most worth noting.

For the site's own Dylan coverage: Dylan Goes Twang series and the Video of the Day Bob Dylan entries.