Bob Dylan likes to have fun on social media. There’s his X account, home to musings about Nick Cave, A Complete Unknown, and, most recently, the late bluegrass and country musician Don Reno. Or you can go to his TikTok page, which he launched just before the platform was (very briefly) banned in the United States. Then there is the Bob Dylan Instagram account, featuring tour promos and, lately, assorted video clips, mostly of old movies.
Tonight, however, the Instagram is home to a very different kind of video. Dylan, or whoever runs his Instagram page, posted a 2016 video of the Cleveland rapper-turned-rocker MGK (then known as Machine Gun Kelly) performing at the Orlando, Florida, record shop Park Ave CDs. Why did he post it? Who knows—because he did not caption it. You can watch the video below. Pitchfork has reached out to MGK’s representatives for comment.
You might be wondering: Is there a connection between Bob Dylan and MGK that I’m missing? Not really. It’s possible that Dylan is playing on the musician’s former stage name, as a fascination with the Prohibition-era gangster Machine Gun Kelly seems more up the Nobel laureate’s alley.
Another possibility is that Timothée Chalamet introduced Dylan to MGK and his music—even if that’s also unlikely since the star of A Complete Unknown has not yet met the man he embodied in the Academy Award–nominated film. Nevertheless, Chalamet, while portraying Troye Sivan on Saturday Night Live, in 2023, referred to himself as “a moisturized Machine Gun Kelly.”
Prior to tonight, only one person was brave enough to connect Bob Dylan and MGK. That person, it should come as no surprise, is none other than the inimitable Bristol musician and former Portishead and Beak> member Geoff Barrow. In 2023, Barrow thought to bring together Dylan and MGK while taking a swipe at his eternal nemesis the Weeknd. After the Weeknd paid tribute to the late MF Doom, Barrow compared the act to “machine Gun Kelly dressing as Bob Dylan.”
So, there you have it. Bob Dylan and MGK, now forever intwined. To catch up on more goings-on in the realm of Dylan, read Madison Bloom’s review of A Complete Unknown.
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