Jakob’s a bit touchy on the subject of, well, antecedents. Raised in L.A., the youngest of Bob Dylan and Sara Lowndes’s five children, Jakob made several valiant attempts at not being a songwriter. He briefly attended art school, thinking he could be a painter; he tried drumming and playing guitar in bands, all to no avail. ““It was something I felt compelled to do,’’ he says. ““So I just started. Everybody lives under shadows. I obviously have one but I don’t pretend it’s any worse than anyone else’s.’’ Ask him about his family, and he squirms. ““There was a divorce [in 1977]. Everything else was pretty much your standard situation.’’ In fact, ask him anything remotely personal, and he clams up. Does he enjoy living in Hollywood? ““I don’t really mind – it’s fine.’’ Did he listen to the radio a lot as a kid? ““I didn’t not listen to it, but I didn’t live by it.’’ Did he have a swing set in his backyard? ““You know, I can’t say I really have fond memories of having one or not having one. But I’m sure I did. I don’t see why I wouldn’t have.''
We don’t want to ram this father-son comparison into the ground, but whom do those nonanswers remind you of? ““I don’t have lots of great stories to tell,’’ he admits. In fact, if there’s one thing missing from ““Bringing Down the Horse,’’ it’s a slightly stronger sense of Jakob himself. His songs are full of quirky characters and wry observations, but they don’t always add up to a coherent perspective. ““I guess I should be ashamed, but I forget to be vain/I did the best I could I guess, but everything just bleeds,’’ he sings in ““Bleeders.’’ The transcendent melodies and the band’s furious precision carry him through when he’s too shy to put himself on the line. As a songwriter, Jakob has a way to go. But the better he gets, the more those comparisons to his dad are going to sound like compliments.
