The Dizzle and Jimmy Jizzle's Thread o'Bruce

[muppet hi fi]

I've been going through the back catalog lately and was on Disc 2 of Tracks. Restless Nights and Roulette are so much better than anything that made it on The River.

Better than anything?? That seems a stretch. (Independence Day, Ties That Bind, Wreck On the Highway, Ramrod, etc.).
Yeah, "Roulette" is a monster song, very ferocious and unique in it's unbridled anger and paranoia, never mind the tempo and drumming.
"Restless Nights" is a great performance, PHYSICALLY speaking - nice lead work and b-# from Danny, and Max's drumming is lithe, active and groovy, but the song's a bit week in the melody/hooks department, nor a particularly great lyric. Very exciting performance, but by no means a great song, says me.

[Marky Dread]

I've been going through the back catalog lately and was on Disc 2 of Tracks. Restless Nights and Roulette are so much better than anything that made it on The River.

Better than anything?? That seems a stretch. (Independence Day, Ties That Bind, Wreck On the Highway, Ramrod, etc.).
Yeah, "Roulette" is a monster song, very ferocious and unique in it's unbridled anger and paranoia, never mind the tempo and drumming.
"Restless Nights" is a great performance, PHYSICALLY speaking - nice lead work and b-# from Danny, and Max's drumming is lithe, active and groovy, but the song's a bit week in the melody/hooks department, nor a particularly great lyric. Very exciting performance, but by no means a great song, says me.

I think both tracks should've made the cut but nothing else should be omitted.

[muppet hi fi]

Broooooce rocks with young punk rock kids. Not bad, not bad.
[youtube][/youtube]

[matedog]

I've been going through the back catalog lately and was on Disc 2 of Tracks. Restless Nights and Roulette are so much better than anything that made it on The River.

Better than anything?? That seems a stretch. (Independence Day, Ties That Bind, Wreck On the Highway, Ramrod, etc.).
Yeah, "Roulette" is a monster song, very ferocious and unique in it's unbridled anger and paranoia, never mind the tempo and drumming.
"Restless Nights" is a great performance, PHYSICALLY speaking - nice lead work and b-# from Danny, and Max's drumming is lithe, active and groovy, but the song's a bit week in the melody/hooks department, nor a particularly great lyric. Very exciting performance, but by no means a great song, says me.

Maybe not "so much better", but I can't think of a song that beats either. I love the vocal interplay on Restless and the verse-prechorus-chorus arrangement and also the guitar/organ solos. There are some great songs on The River, but he really left some mediocrity on while leaving some great stuff off ("Drive All Night", "Ramrod" are both bad songs to me).

[Jimmy Jazz]

I've been going through the back catalog lately and was on Disc 2 of Tracks. Restless Nights and Roulette are so much better than anything that made it on The River.

Better than anything?? That seems a stretch. (Independence Day, Ties That Bind, Wreck On the Highway, Ramrod, etc.).
Yeah, "Roulette" is a monster song, very ferocious and unique in it's unbridled anger and paranoia, never mind the tempo and drumming.
"Restless Nights" is a great performance, PHYSICALLY speaking - nice lead work and b-# from Danny, and Max's drumming is lithe, active and groovy, but the song's a bit week in the melody/hooks department, nor a particularly great lyric. Very exciting performance, but by no means a great song, says me.

Maybe not "so much better", but I can't think of a song that beats either. I love the vocal interplay on Restless and the verse-prechorus-chorus arrangement and also the guitar/organ solos. There are some great songs on The River, but he really left some mediocrity on while leaving some great stuff off ("Drive All Night", "Ramrod" are both bad songs to me).

I don't mind those two that much, though Roulette, Restless Nights, Loose Ends and maybe a few other outtakes are a lot better. Crush On You and I'm A Rocker are probably the worst two songs on The River for me. Don't hate them but they're the kind of song Bruce can write in his sleep. That album probably has his most puzzling song choices. Most of the time a great song is left off an album, it doesn't really fit the theme he was going for but these songs all go together pretty well. It's still one of my favorite Bruce albums though.

It's kind of a shame Bruce wasn't an EP/B-Side kind of guy, he certainly had the material.

[muppet hi fi]

I still love Crush On You; Steve's open-G guitar sounds like Keef and the whole vibe is just infectious. Great lyric too. I like fun bruuuce as much as serious or depressed bruuuce. He does fun really really well.

Also we shouldn't be posting on/bumping this thread, as it pisses off a sizable percentage of board members whose screen name is in reference to an elite British Army reconn unit from WWII.

[Marky Dread]

Finally got 'round to listening properly to the American Beauty EP. This is great not a duff track and far better than his recent album for me.

[muppet hi fi]

Finally got 'round to listening properly to the American Beauty EP. This is great not a duff track and far better than his recent album for me.

Marky - I'm curious as to what you think of the last track "Hey Blue Eyes". Murph (SM) said he thought it was a good lyric but that he wasn't sure about the delivery/playing/production. I think he thought it should have been (musically?) even subtler. And I agree the track is super compressed (it was recorded for the 'Magic' album in '07, the Bush Wars album, that was really loud and compressed and nearly distorted, but I thought fitting for the album's vibe).
Anyway, I love the title track (Josh Freese on drums and timpani (!!); long time Westerberg drummer, current Replacements), but I think Hey Blue Eyes might be a modern day bruuuce classic. Curious as to how you received it.

[Marky Dread]

Finally got 'round to listening properly to the American Beauty EP. This is great not a duff track and far better than his recent album for me.

Marky - I'm curious as to what you think of the last track "Hey Blue Eyes". Murph (SM) said he thought it was a good lyric but that he wasn't sure about the delivery/playing/production. I think he thought it should have been (musically?) even subtler. And I agree the track is super compressed (it was recorded for the 'Magic' album in '07, the Bush Wars album, that was really loud and compressed and nearly distorted, but I thought fitting for the album's vibe).
Anyway, I love the title track (Josh Freese on drums and timpani (!!); long time Westerberg drummer, current Replacements), but I think Hey Blue Eyes might be a modern day bruuuce classic. Curious as to how you received it.

Everything about it is great apart from the over compression on that organ wobble sound. It sounds like it's underwater but the delivery and lyrics are top notch. Would it work better with just Bruce and an acoustic? yes it would it would feel more organic but a good song is good song either way.

May I be so bold as to ask who is Catherine Joan O'brien? She looks beautiful in that picture.

[muppet hi fi]

May I be so bold as to ask who is Catherine Joan O'brien? She looks beautiful in that picture.

Yeah that's my buddy Katie (she always spelled her name with a 'K', don't know why the funeral home people got it wrong. Went to grade school with her (she was 2 years ahead of me); we became mates later. Then we were room mates (where I met the Stinson brothers from the 'Mats); then me and my brother Matt formed Dutch Oven with her (bass, vocals) and Christine and played the first 5 or 6 gigs, which were phenomenal, (before we quit to focus on a crappy money-making cover band) as Katie was the queen of the hipsters about town (and many other cities). Then she died. Yeah, she was really beautiful (inside and out); in the film 'Come Feel Me Tremble', Westerberg talks about her briefly, and there's that scene where he takes that very same memorial card, kisses it, and then puts it in the fireplace and watches it burn as he smokes his cigar. Very heavy scene for me to watch to this day. I remember at her wake, Paul couldn't even speak to me - there in his suit - while Lori Barbero was literally screaming in the room where Kate's coffin was. A couple days later there was close to 1,000 people at her funeral, Jim Walsh wrote a piece about her in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the City Pages weekly had an article and all these fucking people and scenesters all knew her and supposedely loved her but she came to my parents house for Christmas after her mom and dad and brother died. So much to tell, mate. If you'd met her once Marky, you'd have been smitten. I do miss her. She was Rock n' Roll.

[Marky Dread]

May I be so bold as to ask who is Catherine Joan O'brien? She looks beautiful in that picture.

Yeah that's my buddy Katie (she always spelled her name with a 'K', don't know why the funeral home people got it wrong. Went to grade school with her (she was 2 years ahead of me); we became mates later. Then we were room mates (where I met the Stinson brothers from the 'Mats); then me and my brother Matt formed Dutch Oven with her (bass, vocals) and Christine and played the first 5 or 6 gigs, which were phenomenal, (before we quit to focus on a crappy money-making cover band) as Katie was the queen of the hipsters about town (and many other cities). Then she died. Yeah, she was really beautiful (inside and out); in the film 'Come Feel Me Tremble', Westerberg talks about her briefly, and there's that scene where he takes that very same memorial card, kisses it, and then puts it in the fireplace and watches it burn as he smokes his cigar. Very heavy scene for me to watch to this day. I remember at her wake, Paul couldn't even speak to me - there in his suit - while Lori Barbero was literally screaming in the room where Kate's coffin was. A couple days later there was close to 1,000 people at her funeral, Jim Walsh wrote a piece about her in the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the City Pages weekly had an article and all these fucking people and scenesters all knew her and supposedely loved her but she came to my parents house for Christmas after her mom and dad and brother died. So much to tell, mate. If you'd met her once Marky, you'd have been smitten. I do miss her. She was Rock n' Roll.

That's a terrific if somewhat personal story. She sounds like she was one of life's special people. Cheers for sharing.

[Dr. Medulla]

Bruce Springsteen is the perfect embodiment of what sportswriters want to see in the athletes they cover. He is the musical David Eckstein. He's tough! He's scrappy! He comes from humble roots and is self-made. He's blue collar. He's the first guy to get to the stadium and the last guy to leave. He runs out his pop flies. He's loyal to his home state of New Jersey, even though he moved to L.A. for a bit and also has a house in Florida. He is every shitty, awful sports-unicorn trope amassed into a single singer-songwriter. And he writes songs that are "rocking" without anywhere being close to threatening. He is the underdog that so many sportswriters want to see in themselves, which is how they end up composing endless paeans to the sax break in "Born to Run."

When a sportswriter professes his devotion to Bruce Springsteen, he's making a statement about himself (or herself!). He's letting you know that he's a good old-fashioned hard-working American fella with strong values, just like you, Mr. and Mrs. Kitchen Table! You can count on your Bruce fanboy columnist to write about the game the RIGHT WAY, with buttloads of class. And you can count on your local columnist to be the sort of insufferable dipshit who looks back longingly on his Golden American youth and then somehow links it to a double play from last night's Reds game.

http://theconcourse.deadspin.com/why-do ... 1598497909

[Dr. Medulla]

File Under: How To Write Like Greil Marcus

How a Bruce Springsteen concert helped bring down the Berlin Wall

According to the author of a book on the concert, it may have even, along with other factors, led directly to the fall of the Berlin Wall 16 months later.

Sure, there were "other factors," but it was mainly Springsteen.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-a-bruc ... -1.2825639

[matedog]

File Under: How To Write Like Greil Marcus

How a Bruce Springsteen concert helped bring down the Berlin Wall

According to the author of a book on the concert, it may have even, along with other factors, led directly to the fall of the Berlin Wall 16 months later.

Sure, there were "other factors," but it was mainly Springsteen.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-a-bruc ... -1.2825639

Well it certainly wasn't Reagan, so the only other option is Bruce.

[Dr. Medulla]

File Under: How To Write Like Greil Marcus

How a Bruce Springsteen concert helped bring down the Berlin Wall

According to the author of a book on the concert, it may have even, along with other factors, led directly to the fall of the Berlin Wall 16 months later.

Sure, there were "other factors," but it was mainly Springsteen.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-a-bruc ... -1.2825639

Well it certainly wasn't Reagan, so the only other option is Bruce.

According to Billboard, the number one song in the US that week was Cheap Trick's "The Flame" (Jesus …), so I'm nominating that as the reason the Wall came down. Prove me wrong, children, prove me wrong.