80’s music

Least and Most: LA Garage Sessions ’83

/ Tony / 5 Comments

Just when I thought I was out…

In a very selfish and inconsiderate manner, Bruce Springsteen decided to wait until I’d finished my Least and Most series on his work to announce the release of Tracks II: The Lost Albums containing SEVEN entire albums pulled from the vaults.

Except… that’s not entirely true. Of the seven albums one is a mass collection of demos, one an actual album that was ready for release and then shelved, a soundtrack album that never went further than recording, a couple of ’90s album projects that got rounded out by songs added during the ‘boxset’ project, the remainder of a glut of songs recorded while finding the voice / angle for Western Stars and a disc of holdover ‘rock’ songs. However, as these have been packaged, labelled up and marked as albums proper, the Boss has forced my hand here.

There’s a lot of music here. An embarrassment of riches for Springsteen fans. Almost too much to be consumed and considered in one go. Whereas Tracks was pared down from six, to five and eventually a four-disc, 69-song offering, the aforementioned seven albums here (the disc number varying according to format) offer up 83 songs of varying vintage and quality. This being Springsteen, aside from a couple of howlers, the quality here barely drops below solid, often hits dizzyingly high levels and frequently contains moments that make you wonder how they stayed gathering dust for this long. While the marketing around the release contained the suggestion that each of these finds Springsteen playing in genres and sounds unexpected, the truth is that’s only so much hype: taken in context with where these sit chronologically in his ‘canon’ catalogue, they make not only make perfect sense but provide a fascinating insight into his working process.

So, that’s the intro outta the way. Let’s get into it…

LA Garage Sessions ’83

Of the lot, this was the album I was most familiar with ahead of release. I’d mumbled before about the bootleg of a lot of these songs and where they fall in the great Bruce Springsteen Timeline. However, as a quick recap: with most of the songs for Born In The USA written and recorded by mid ’82, the group of songs from his original working tape that he was least happy with the band versions of, was released ‘as is’ as Nebraska. While fully committed to the material and the voice, I think it’s fair to say the positive critical reception to these caused Springsteen to pause for a moment on the big rock record that was in progress. It probably didn’t help that he and Steven Van Zandt had fallen out over creative input and the latter had left the E Street Band.

Holing up in his LA home and thinking a closer-in-approach to Nebraska tact would be the logical next step without dealing with the hassles of band relationships, Springsteen put down another huge draft of material that – having been circulated for years – is now with on LA Garage Sessions ’83.

These are a fascinating and mostly brilliant group of songs. There’s a clear difference between the aesthetic of Nebraska while the song writing matter remains closer to that and his former work than the more direct Born In The USA material, it’s undoubtedly the bridge the between the two sides as well as a massive informer of his work beyond his stadium-ready record. Most importantly, the rounded out sound here shows him taking more confident swings to creating a distinct ‘solo’ Springsteen sound.

While the repetitiveness of the overall disc – there are 18 songs here and three of them start with that ‘Sir, I am a pilgrim and a stranger in this land’ line- the frequent excessive use of reverb and occasionally clumsy synth – means that it’s not going to be a perfect ‘album’ or even lost classic, it is one of the best in this collection and essential listening for a Springsteen fan as a set of what-ifs and roads not taken. For while the production and sound gets gnawing, the songs here are, frankly, fucking excellent and there’s very little to mark out song wise as ‘meh’ or ‘least’.

But, that being whole point of this series…

Least: My Hometown

Ugh… I know! But hear me out: it would be unfair to say ‘this version isn’t as good as it is on Born In The USA‘ because these are obviously demos and would suffer in comparison. But it’s presented here as part of this project and that’s what I’m marking against. It’s just that, for me, the delivery of this song kills it. This is a mature subject matter and yet he delivers it in a weird horse-whisperer rasp that’s not present elsewhere. Again, though, still a bloody solid song.

Most: Unsatisfied Heart

This is actually a pretty tough call. Taking the songs on an individual basis there’s so fucking much gold here. ‘Shut Out The Light,’ for example, has always been one of his best. The provocative ‘Klansman’ is a slice of fried gold, ‘Richfield Whistle’ has long been a favourite character study, ‘One Love’ is a fucking belter and many of these tunes could have been a standout if revisited later in his career instead of left behind as Springsteen continued his perpetual forward motion. ‘Unsatisfied Heart,’ though, is a real stand out for me. It’s as complete as it gets – it’s staggering that while some of the songs from this session were short-listed for inclusion on various Born In The USA iterations, this was never among them. Another of his great character studies of a man whose past catches up to him, ‘Unsatisfied Heart’ straps a killer chorus to the ‘Sir I’m a pilgrim’… line in a song that explores the overall theme of the ‘album’ and gives it a full and glorious melody that, while not given a nod on Bruce’s immediate next, definitely feels like a nod both in substance and vibe on Tunnel of Love.

Least and Most: Tunnel of Love

/ Tony / 5 Comments

While he’s never pulled a Landing On Water style curveball, it’s not as though Springsteen has ever really repeated an album formula since he broke through. From the success of Born To Run he dialled the production down for the leaner, meaner Darkness… while Nebraska‘s stark, acoustic desperation was an equally far cry from the sprawl of The River. Following Born In The USA‘s success with a similar stadium-pleasing muscle-bound punch would have been an easy call and the ’80s were full of similar ‘dial it up a notch for more dosh’ examples. Bruce, however, was ready to move on and look inward instead.

Tunnel of Love is one of Springsteen’s finest albums. Where he’d undoubtedly written about men and women before, this time the voice felt real and the vocabulary didn’t feel borrowed. Just as Springsteen himself got off the road and started to look at his own married life and the issues he was dealing with, he took his characters out of their cars and sat them at the table to take a long hard look at each other. As genuine and nuanced a set of songs as he’d ever release with a gorgeous sound and production.

So is there a least favourite lurking among yet another stellar collection of songs? Yup…

Least: I Ain’t Got You

I guess this is here to say ‘this isn’t another ‘rock’ album’ but ‘I Ain’t Got You’ is an odd choice for Springsteen. By all accounts it lead to the second of Springsteen’s three fights* with Steven Van Zandt when he played it for him. As SVZ put it, when Bruce played it to him: “People depend on your empathy!” I said. “It’s what you do best. They don’t want advice from Liberace or empathy from Nelson Fucking Rockefeller! You shouldn’t be writing shit like this!” While it wouldn’t be the last time Bruce wrote in this style (see Better Days’ ‘a life of leisure and a pirate’s treasure’) it’s more jarring thanks to it’s almost entire lack of musical accompaniment.

Most: One Step Up

This one’s easy for me. ‘One Step Up’ is not only an album highlight but one of my favourite Springsteen songs. A pensive ballad with haunting production that’s got just the right amount of that late-’80s vibe and a simple but effective melody that ticks away throughout that’s possibly the most on-the-nose reference to a marriage breakdown as the album would contain: ‘another fight and I slam the door on another battle in our dirty little war.’ It represents not only a break with the past – Springsteen played every instrument on the track himself with Patti Scialfa adding vocal harmonies – but a clear indication as to where his song writing would move him next, only he’d never quite the balance as perfect as this.

*For those keeping score: Fight 1 was over creative and decision making input around the sessions for Born In The USA which led to SVZ’s departure. The third was down to Springsteen’s induction into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without the E Street Band.

Least and Most: Born In The USA

/ Tony / 6 Comments

“Sometimes records dictate their own personalities and you just have to let them be…. I finally stopped doing my hesitation shuffle, took the best of what I had and signed off on what would be the biggest album of my career”

Work on what would become Born In The USA began in early 1982. The years of sessions would yield close to 80 songs – including those that became Nebraska – would see the departure of Steven Van Zandt and an album that went through multiple versions before the forces that be put an end to the inertia that Springsteen seemed stuck in and his most grab-bag collection of songs was released to kick off BOSS MANIATM with Rambo Bruce rocking a head band or bandana and flexing his way across a stadium stage near you for a year and a half.

I’ve written about those multiple versions, those ‘what could have been‘ albums already. But here we’re talking about two songs from the album we did get. An album that’s a real curate’s egg. king at how this was the last of Springsteen’s albums where there were whole multiple albums of outtakes, you get the feeling that this is the point at which he was starting to get lost in his search and could’ve ended up carrying on to Chinese Democracy lengths if he wasn’t careful. Which certainly explains the reserve with which he’s come to view the album too.

Thing is, each of these songs work. This is still peak-period Springsteen so none of these songs are ‘bad’ in the traditional sense (don’t worry Human Touch is only a few years away) but the album lacks the consistency / sense of cohesion that previously embodied his work. As such, and not so surprising given that seven of its twelve tracks were released as singles, it feels like a compilation rather than an album.

Least: Cover Me

I feel like I’m in a minority with this one given that it was a hit single and all but there’s something about it that just means I don’t take it in as much as the rest of the album. Maybe it’s because it wasn’t written as his own song. It was intended for Donna Summer. While ‘Hungry Heart’ was initially meant for The Ramones it felt like a Springsteen song meant to be given away rather than writing specifically for someone else’s voice. As such the feel of the song in amongst the rest of the album doesn’t gel for me.

I will say, though, that in many respects, this song is a noteworthy one. Just as the message of ‘Born In the USA’ become overlooked some flag-waving Republicans (oh, those were the days, right America? How bad does Reagan seem now?),Springsteen’s singing a song written for and from the female voice without any alteration to lyric is a wonderful thing – here’s Springsteen with his stocky frame now bedecked with muscles calling for a lover to ‘wrap your arms around me, cover me’ and protect him a rough world that’s only getting rougher.

It’s the directness of those lyrics that make it tough for me to call it ‘Least’ but it’s the sound of it that I can’t quite vibe with. He struggled trying to find a way to get it right live on that Born In The USA tour too… it wasn’t a regular set list staple until Arthur Baker’s remix gave him a way in by slowing it and making it a little ominous and brooding. The live versions are now pretty fucking great, but we can’t count those here so let’s move along…

Most: Downbound Train

Only on an album where the majority of songs were released as singles could a song this strong be considered a ‘deep cut,’ but ‘Downbound Train’ feels like a piece of over-looked gold in amidst a sea of chest-thumping stadium pleasers. “Now I work down at the car wash, where all it ever does is rain” might be one of my favourite Springsteen lyrics but this song is fucking stuffed with them, all evocative… what about the whole fucking verse:

“There in the clearing, beyond the highway
In the moonlight, our wedding house shone
I rushed through the yard, I burst through the front door
My head pounding hard, up the stairs I climbed
The room was dark, our bed was empty
Then I heard that long whistle whine
And I dropped to my knees, hung my head and cried”

‘Downbound Train’ is one of those first clutch of songs that came from Springsteen’s home recordings that included Nebraska‘s songs and tracks like ‘Born in the USA’ and ‘Johnny Bye Bye’ that he put to tape in 1982 and appeared on almost every potential track list for release between then and the final album. In less than a decade since the thesaurus-groping first two albums he’d distilled his songwriting down to the point where he could render a full story of broken hopes, marriage and lives with much clearer precision.

Pain, hope, desperation… it’s all there in a tune containing some of his most aching lyrics put to a great driving (or train-like chugging) melody with just the right amount of that ’80s synth. To me, this is the biggest indicator on the album of where we’d find New Jersey’s finest on his next outing.

Least and Most: Nebraska

/ Tony / 7 Comments

How many artists can manage to create a five-star album when they weren’t actively trying to make an album in the first place?

I’m not going to reiterate the story behind Springsteen’s Nebraska. Aside from the fact that there’s already a film of the period in the works – honestly though; ‘man makes austere collection of songs on home four-track as guide for band, carries it around in pocket for so long it nearly gets absorbed by his denim before putting them out as is’ feels as thrillingly entertaining as watching Timothee Chalamet trying not to look like he knows what instragram is for long enough to finish singing ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ – it’s been told many a time.

My connection to Nebraska goes back to 1999, hearing ‘State Trooper’ played over the end credits of a Sopranos episode and – streaming services that mug off artists not being a thing yet – went out and picked up both my second and third (having picked up Greatest Hits in ’95) Springsteen albums in one hit as it came as double-cd combo with Darkness… Talk about an auspicious intro.

This, then, is the hardest one of these for me. There’s not a single song on Nebraska I don’t enjoy. These are ten songs that feel perfectly placed and without an ounce of fat on the whole joint. If I were to be picky, very, very, very picky – which is what I’d have to be to even think like this – I’d say that, possibly..

Least: Used Cars

But only because compared to everything else the lyrics sound a little slight. But then that’s not necessarily a bad thing because Springsteen was ‘high’ on Flannery O’Connor’s work and her ability to write pure narrative including from a child’s perspective and the songs simple yet pure dream of a greater life typified by the feeling that a lottery win would mean – of all things – the ability not to drive a used car is pitch perfect especially as it follows up ‘State Trooper.’ So this isn’t so much Least more like a Least (barely) but still fucking great….

Which leaves the trick of identifying the other end of the spectrum but for me that’s relatively straight forward…

Most: State Trooper

It has to be, for me: it’s the one that sent me spiralling deeper into Springsteen’s catalogue and still captivates me. That pulsating guitar line that emulates the monotonous, repetitive sound of the road.. the pleading ‘Please don’t stop me, PLEASE don’t stop me’… it’s perfect.

Least and Most: The River

/ Tony / 6 Comments

In theory this is where it gets easier. For while Springsteen was still churning work of unyielding quality some of those tracks, in retrospect, probably should have been left in the vault. Doesn’t necessarily mean that choosing a ‘most’ is going to be easier but singling those ‘meh’ tracks out gets simpler

The River, released – just before I was – in October 1980, was Springsteen’s double album statement of purpose. We’re deep into Bruce’s era of stockpiling songs here and between the end of 1979 and May 1980 when recording sessions began and ended across two different phases, close to 60 songs were recorded to a finished state. As the studio time began to clock up an antsy Steven Van Zandt already wanted out, he was convinced to stay put by being made part of the production team that already included Springsteen and Jon Landau. SVZ’s imprint is clear on many of the shorter, punchier tunes but The River is a sprawling beast of an album that for many years became the best one-stop-shop for all things Sprinsgsteen. It’s why he couldn’t let it go – despite a couple of finished, mixed versions going to the label – as a single album:

“It wasn’t big enough. It wasn’t sprawling enough. It didn’t include enough. I’d gotten to the point where I wanted to include everything that I did, from the party material to my character studies, and I didn’t think I could do that successfully on one album at that time. I didn’t take it back with the intention of making two…. I just took it back with the intention of making it better.”

So, twenty songs. Are they all gold? Of course not. Hell, this is the first of many instances where archival releases would beg the questions ‘how did X make the cut over this?’ With that in mind…

Least: Crush On You

“Ooh, ooh, I gotta crush on you, Ooh, ooh, I gotta crush on you, Ooh, ooh, I gotta crush on you tonight”… I mean, it sounds naff enough once, let alone when it’s repeated ad nauseum after just the second verse. Verses so slight they feel like they were put together with fridge magnets. No amount of SVZ styled garage-band-rave-up sound can save this – even Springsteen has called it the stupidest song he’d ever recorded and would sarcastically refer to it as ‘a masterpiece’ in 2009. It becomes even more questionable when you weight it up against the aforementioned tracks consigned to archival releases like ‘Take ‘Em as They Come,’ ‘Roulette’ or ‘Where The Bands Are.’

Most: The River

This is very tricky. I love ‘Point Blank’, ‘Stolen Car’, ‘Wreck On The Highway’…. ‘Two Hearts’ is an underrated slab of brilliance and ‘Out In The Street’ and ‘Hungry Heart’ are undisputed fucking gems. But the second that harmonica hits or Bruce utters ‘I come from down in the valley’ you know where you are. It’s a PIVOTAL song in his back catalogue and while he still felt he needed four or five songs in the same style to make an epic album, Van Zandt was right when he said you only need ‘The River’ and you’ve got an amazing album.

Tracks: Telegraph Road

/ Tony / 3 Comments

YouTube and its algorithm are pretty confident that I want to see seemingly every ‘The Late Show’ guest’s answers to that show’s Colbert Questionert. While puzzling over why an audience seems to whoop and applaud someone’s take on the ‘best sandwich’ is one way to pass the minutes that make up a dull day, the one that makes me wonder is “you only get one song to listen to for the rest of your life: what is it?” The idea that if you could only listen to one song – not all the time, mind, just that if you go to listen to music it will only be this song – is tougher for some than others.

In a way this occasionally picked up, more often forgotten series ‘Tracks’ is my way of highlighting those songs that mean enough to me to probably wind up on a short list. I suppose that I’d want it to be a good long song with lots of parts and yet manages to sustain your ear and pleasure throughout. One that hits both an emotional collection as well as being just a bloody good song. Something, perhaps, like Dire Straits’ ‘Telegraph Road’. I’m not saying that if I were to ever be asked ‘apples or oranges?’ this would be my answer but it’s certainly on the list.

I can’t remember the very first time I heard ‘Telegraph Road’ but I would’ve been young. It would have been on the cassette of Dire Straits song that my dad had in his car which, in turn, had been put together by his friend from the LPs. Telegraph Road had a tiny scratch on it. I know this to be the case rather than a blip in the tape because when that family friend was killed and the LPs became my dad’s – the scuff at “I’ve seen desperation” meant it forever jumped to “see it again.” A tiny detail but one that’s etched as clear in my memory as it is on the wax.

That means that – basing this on the passing of the aforementioned family friend – I’ve been hooked on this song for nearly four decades. It could explain where my love of a slow-burn, building song comes from. Hell you could even extrapolate further to whether that, in turn, was where my lean toward post-rock and its structures of multifaceted songs that rise and fall and span nearly quarter of an hour comes from. Either way, ‘Telegraph Road’ and I go way back.

Nearly quarter of an hour… 14 minutes and 18 seconds to be precise. Cosied up with ‘Private Investigations’ on side one of Dire Straits’ finest record Love Over Gold. This epic came to Knopfler (and is also his second song in this series) while sat in the front of a tour bus driving down the actual Telegraph Road – a 70 mile route in Michigan – and happened to be reading Growth of the Soil, Knut Hamsun’s novel about a man who finds a patch of soil in rural Norway, settles down and sets up his home. Mark Knopfler put the two together has he travelled down the road that “just went on and on and on forever, it’s like what they call linear development … I wondered how that road must have been when it started, what it must have first been like … I just put that book together and the place where I was. I was actually sitting in the front of the tour bus at the time.”

Across the song, Knopfler narrates the rise, fall, consumption by modernity – as that track becomes a six-lane monster – and collapse of Telegraph Road (a proxy for Detroit) but it’s the way in which his story is so beautifully synched to the arrangement that makes ‘Telegraph Road’ so magical for me. It starts of with a simple, single note before gradually building up in terms of both instrumentation (it’s nearly a minute before Knopfler’s resonator guitar arrives) and melody. The main theme starts close to two minutes in. There are thunder claps in there, brilliant drumming from Pick Withers (this song would be his last recording for the band) particularly with the explosive hit after ‘then there was a war.’ Knopfler’s guitar work builds apace and lets go in two terrific solos.

There is no realistic way for me to put an estimate on the number of times I’ve heard ‘Telegraph Road’. Much like Dark Side of the Moon it’s one of those musical marks in my life that seems to have been ever present. What I do know is that no matter what that number is, whenever it comes on shuffle in the car I still listen transfixed throughout and that my copy of Love Over Gold (which doesn’t jump the ‘..explode into flames, and I..’ part) has had many a spin. I can also say that their recent remastering campaign means listening to it again on a good pair of headphones is pretty amazing. Whether that means that this song is the one I’d choose to be the only song I can listen to again… well, that’s still undecided but it’s definitely a contender.

Love Over Gold, Dire Strait’s fourth (and best) album was their last to feature original drummer Pick Withers who felt the band was becoming too loud and wanted to get off the treadmill. Rhythm guitarist David Knopfler had already left under less pleasant circumstances. As such Love Over Gold serves as a transitional record for the band as the last of the original members were augmented by new players including Alan Clark on keyboards as Knopfler’s compositions grew in scope and the band evolved into that which would go on to record Brothers In Arms, trot around stadiums around the world, taking a break, coming back to do it all again one more time with On Every Street before Knopfler decided that maybe Pick Withers was right – it was all getting a bit loud and time to get off. Dire Straits have sold an estimated 120 million records, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (whatever that really means) but are exceedingly unlikely to reunite.

We watch the world from the padded cell: Dead Man’s Pop and The Replacements’ revision of history

/ Tony / 2 Comments

You know I get the feeling that Paul Westerberg has quietly retired from music. It would be a real shame if that’s the case, he’s a massively over-looked songwriter of particular skill both across his extensive solo catalogue and, most famously, with The Replacements.

Despite Westerberg’s songwriting chops and the band’s impact on their fans, many of whom would go on to form their own bands and achieve the level of success that eluded The Replacements during their initial run from 1979-1991. Many a pontification has already been made about why that break-through success always seemed, if you will, within their reach never occurred. Was it bad timing? Was it their own self-destructive tendencies?

It could be all of those things but more likely, as Westerberg would surmise in an interview to promote their temporary 2015 reunion and string of shows: “It was reprehensible some of the things they wanted us to do that were supposed to make our career bigger and ultimately make them the money. I swear to God we tried several times to get in line with that and we just couldn’t do it. Our personalities would not allow us to do that thing.”

That’s not to say that, toward the end, they didn’t try after all. Signed to Sire in 1985, their third record for the label Don’t Tell A Soul was a clear attempt at making The Replacments ‘hit’ – presumably at this point the execs were shouting louder than the fans. I’ve always had a lot of time for Don’t Tell A Soul – it contains some of their finest songs and is another clear jump in Westerberg’s songwriting evolution. For the first time they played it ‘straight’ across a whole album and there’s a notable shift toward more a mature take on subject matter.

The problem with Don’t Tell A Soul, though, wasn’t the songs. It lay in the sound. As per seemingly all their releases to date, The Replacements had…. issues with finding the right producer. In this case it was original producer Tony Berg being swapped out for Matt Wallace. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, the record company decided to give the tapes to a chap called Chris Lord-Alge to mix. Chris, in his wisdom, decided to give The Replacements a cavernous, overly lacquered mix that swamped the songs in FM wash and robbed made them sound dated almost as soon as the album hit shelves.

If there were a prison for musical crimes, Chris Lord-Alge would still be serving time for his massacre of Don’t Tell A Soul‘s songs. While I’ve always had a soft spot for this album it’s always been hard to get past the poor mixing of great songs like, say, ‘Inherit The Earth’ (from which the album’s title is taken).

Thankfully, though, we no longer have to. The critical and, relative, commercial success of the Rhino release of For Sale: Live at Maxwell’s made that label release that there was still a love and hunger for archival Replacements material – Dead Man’s Pop arrived in 2019 and is a vital piece of the puzzle.

Yes, there’s the usual live recording and outtakes discs (pretty much everything recording during the Don’t Tell a Soul sessions including tracks with a visiting – and drunk – Tom Waits) that typically accompany such a release but what makes Dead Man’s Pop such a regular play for me is that it features the Matt Wallace mix of the album, restored as intended at the time and original sequencing.

With Lord-Alge’s studio bodging stripped from its songs, Don’t Tell a Soul becomes nothing short of a revelation for Replacements fans. It feels rawer and moodier than Pleased To Meet Me but its force places it close to Tim while the subject matter and streamlined songwriting clearly mark it as the work of a more mature band that are clearly pushing forward.

It still retains the ragged beauty that you’d associate with the band, if anything the removal of the studio glitter has revealed more that that. ‘Talent Show’ now begins with behind-the-scenes noise and the band chatting and laughing as they tune their equipment.

This human element, an earthier quality to the mix and sound, is on show throughout the album. The effect is that these songs suddenly sound more natural and organic compared to their previous incarnations, even to the point that the overtly FM-sounding songs like ‘Back to Back’ suddenly feel like they come from the same band that made ‘Bastards of Young’, just one that’s reaching for a higher place musically.

For me the version of Don’t Tell A Soul revealed as part of this box set has been highly addictive – even if it’s taken me so long to write about it. I’d never felt the songs got the attention or credit they deserved but thanks to this recasting the album has been removed from the mists of the late ’80s swamp and given a sound that no longer kneecaps some of their best songs. As bassist Tommy Stinson puts it: “maybe we’ll now sound like a band that stood the test of time.”

If you haven’t heard Don’t Tell A Soul in a while, or at all, do yourself a favour and wrap your lugholes around Dead Man’s Pop.

We should have kept it every Thursday, Thursday Thursday in the afternoon…. for a couple of spins

/ Tony / 2 Comments

Never fear, readers of the blog world! I am here to put your mind at rest on multiple fronts: yes, I’m still about; yes, I’m going to answer that burning question ‘what the fuck has he been listening to?’; yes, you’ve made it to the ‘good’ list and Santa shall be dropping gifts beneath your tree; no, the Right will not win forth; YES, you have just seen the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, house-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking, love-making, legendary E STREET BAND!

Well.. at least some of those, ok?

Life, being monumentally busy with work, health, DIY projects… all of these things have conspired to keep my fingers away from pushing ‘new post’ but music has continued to throb through my ears at various decibels throughout.

On a side note, I spent last year’s festive period absorbing ‘Get Back’ at leisure whereas this year looks set to be spent soaking in the joy of Lee Child’s famous one-man-army being perfectly captured by Amazon with the second season of ‘Reacher’ providing a pleasing counterpoint to the usual fluff on at that time of year:

So aside from a lot of Bruce (as I work on another longer-form Boss Post), what do I want to share today? Here are a few nuggets you can take or leave….

Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul – Inside of Me

It’s not Bruce but it’s definitely connected…. I’ve just got underway with Stevie Van Zandt’s book ‘Unrequited Passions’ and while I’m a way off I’m looking forward to getting his take on his departure from the E Street Band. Everything I’ve read indicates it was down to Van Zandt looking for more of a creative partnership whereas Springsteen wasn’t looking for that level of input. Given that Miami/Little Steve was already in the progress of making Men Without Women at the time the ‘now or never’ feeling to step out and try it alone proved too strong. I’ve yet to delve too deep into Van Zandt’s solo work but I’ve been giving that first album a lot of time this week. There’s some great lines in this one: “There was a moment in time, we could almost taste the adventure every day. Now I know that we’re a little bit older
but that don’t mean there’s nothing new left to say”

New Dad – Nightmares

In my efforts to stop myself turning into a guy in his mid 40s and paraphrasing Homer ‘they stopped making good music in 1996′ I keep trying to find new music that gets my feet boppin’. New Dad are exactly one of those newer acts that just tick a whole lot of boxes for me. They’ve been dropping great individual tunes over the last year or so with their debut album primed to drop early doors next year and no doubt going straight into my slightly-less-stuffed record shelves*.

Slowdive – Kisses

We’re already into that time of the year when everyone is publishing those ‘Best XXX of 2023’** lists and there’s been a lot of great albums. Slowdive’s Everything Is Alive is just one of those but it’s had a seemingly constant presence in the rotation list since its release.

H.E.R & Foo Fighters – The Glass

I had no clue as to who H.E.R was until I caught her collab with the Foos on SNL and then saw her mentioned when Music Enthusiast put Rolling Stones’s ‘fucking fiasco’ of a 250 Top Guitarists List on blast. As we’re talking great albums of the year I’m as surprised as anyone that Foo Fighters would make that list for me in 2023 as anyone else but But Here We Are is worthy of that place and this is a great take on one of its cuts.

Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears – Bitch, I Love You

Some time ago I got lost down one of those Spotify rabbit holes while delving into blues-rock and ‘artists like’ stuff and found Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears and stuck around to explore and enjoy. This is the kind of love song that should get more play – though I don’t think I’d try singing this to my wife at any point+.

F.J McMahon – The Spirit of the Golden Juice

A couple of months ago we popped over to Amiens and grabbed a copy of Mojo en route. I’ll often pick up one music mag or another a month these days but the ‘Buried Treasure’ cd on this one caught my fancy and F.J McMahon’s ‘The Spirit of the Golden Juice’ really stood out.

I’ve been thoroughly enjoying his album of the sam name since. It’s one of those glorious ‘mystery’ albums (much like Solid Oak’s Top Drawer) in that since being pressed in a small run in 1969 it and F.J disappeared without making an impact. I read recently that, frustrated at diminishing returns in a crowded scene, F.J headed to Hawaii on a friend’s advice but gave up after realising he’d ended up a covers act / juke box for tourists and walked away from music. He joined the Navy and got training and a career as a field computer engineer. His record, meanwhile, was becoming something of much-loved cult classic and, once it was rereleased properly back in 2017, found a much more appreciative audience than it had fifty years earlier.

*upgraded storage not ditching any wax

**XXX as insert here rather than “step bro, what are you doing?”

+Not more than once that is

Is Thumbelina size ten…. on a Wednesday: mid-week listens

/ Tony / 2 Comments

It’s been a while again but welcome back, my friends, to the show that stumble and mumbles along in fits and starts.

After a couple of weeks without being able to really access music of my choosing or new music this month I’ve spent the last week or so making up for lost time, positively abusing my ears like a conservative politician abuses the truth.

Here’s a few choice picks from what’s been penetrating my aural orifices since I hit land:

Bleach Lab – Nothing Left To Lose

Sitting in the ‘good new shit’ playlist is the latest from Bleach Lab (not to be confused with Beach House) – a band I’ve been enjoying each new tune from lately to the point that I anticipate a strong album from them shortly. Plenty of obvious touch points in the music but not to the point of being derivative – if Hole had gone shoe-gaze and chime instead of angst and bitch perhaps.

De Le Soul – Eye Know

3 Feet High and Rising was one of those albums that had become almost mythical and hard to get your mitts on until this year thanks to its uncleared samples causing legal headaches. Having it in the wild now is great as it means that – after we saw Seth Rogen’s ‘TMNT: Mutant Mayhem’ (absolutely brilliant, btw) last week – I can dial up ‘Eye Know’ on Spotify along with Tribe Called Quest and other tracks featured on its soundtrack for the cub to get into too.

The Big Moon – Wide Eyes

Another from the ‘new’ file.. well, it’s from last year’s Here Is Everything that I saw all over the year in ‘best album’ playlists but somehow failed to pay attention to until I started hearing this track on the radio recently.

The Replacements – Left of the Dial (Ed Stasium Mix)

I’ll be swinging back (like a swinging party) to the subject of The Replacements’ revisionist packages soon on this blog but this one has been getting a lot of ear time lately. While The Replacements were often their own biggest hurdle on the road to success, their choice of produce was probably just as big a factor and it seems that they’re out to fix some of the damage.

Their major label debut Tim contains some of their best songs but the production was shite. Originally recorded by Thomas Erdelyi. Unfortunately, Thomas’ ears were shot – no surprise really when you consider he’s usually known as Tommy Ramone, the original drummer for The Ramones. So he listened back to everything and mixed it using headphones which can really only result in album that sounds like it was mixed on headphones. The new Tim: The Let It Bleed Version features, along with the requisite dump of unreleased stuff, a new mix of the album by Ed Stasium. Given how much stronger ‘Left of the Dial’ sounds I’m looking forward to this one.

Hüsker Dü – Don’t Want To Know If You Are Lonely

Another of those bands I’d heard of but never really tuned in for – and a fitting tune to follow The Replacements – this one sits in the midst of side one on a compilation album I was recently given and provided just the nudge I needed to delve deeper into this Minnesota band’s back catalogue.

Thursday now, that’s such a crazy, lazy day…. current spins

/ Tony / 13 Comments

A whole month between posts…. this is getting pretty sporadic to say the best.

Thursday is a pretty good day really – the weekend is just a nad hair away and it’s time to load up on caffeine and hit up Mr Fyfe’s weekly quiz. It also feels like a good moment to cast an eye / ear over what I’ve been enjoying of late.

Pearl Jam – In My Tree (Live at Melbourne Park)

Record Store Day this year was a bit of a non-starter for me. I spent a couple of weeks of this last month barely able to walk thanks to severe knee pain – caused by what turned out to be something called a Baker’s Cyst* – so the notion of getting up at a dirty time of the morning and standing for hours was ruled out. Thankfully the one thing I had my eye on wasn’t this year’s big draw – seems like Pearl Jam aren’t as popular with RSD crowds as Taylor Swift or The 1975 – and I was able to wander down at a much more human time of 11am and find plenty of them left.

Give Way – the sign used in place of Yield in most places outside of the States especially Australia – is a live album that’s long been sought after. It was originally prepped for CD release as a freebie for early purchases of their ‘Single Video Theory’ but minds were changed at the last minute and 55,000 copies were ordered destroyed. Some escaped the cull and became massively valuable. Twenty five years later as part of Yield‘s anniversary (one of their finest and ranked fourth in my list way back when) and the concert – recorded March 5th in Melbourne Park – was unleashed for RSD.

A live Pearl Jam album is always worth wrapping your ears around and this one is another brilliant addition to their already strong selection – it’s a real showcase for Jack Irons’ drumming and the vibe his looser drumming style bought to the band. Sadly the run in Australia would be Jack’s last as he was battling a lot of mental health issues behind the scenes and would soon announce his decision to part ways with the band following the tour – he’d be replaced on the Yield tour by Matt Cameron, documented on Live on Two Legs.

Paul Westerberg – Mannequin Shop

My son is building up a Spotify list of his ‘favourites’ – though this is more any song that takes his fancy. We recently caught ‘Waiting for Somebody’ in the car and it made me dig out Westerberg’s 14 Songs for a spin – it’s still a solid listen but it’s the delightful take on the plastic surgery of the early ’90s that has been stuck in my head since. Much in the same way as I wonder how the writer of ‘Answering Machine’ would feel about today’s lack of real communication I’d have to wonder how Mr Westerberg would feel about the state of enhanced vanity in 2023. Unfortunately though, Paul seems to have gone to ground again.

Adé – Insomnies

I popped over the channel again this weekend past for a couple of days and have been keeping an ear to RTL2 since both to assist with the language learning and the variety of music – it seems hard to find a station here that plays as genuine a variety (though their obsession with Harry Styles and Ed Sheeran gets annoying) . Last summer I heard Adé’s ‘Tout Savoir’ a lot and, this trip, it seems that her song ‘Insomnies’ is the current radio player and another I’ve been enjoying.

Daughter – Be On Your Way

Daughter’s new album Stereo Mind Game is bloody good. Gorgeous sounds and arrangements with Elena Tonra’s vocals breathing through an album of lush shoegaze / moody indie-rock vibe.

Slowdive – When the Sun Hits

Speaking of lush shoegaze… I picked up Slowdive’s Souvlaki recently and have spent many a glorious spin lost in the warm blanket of sound it generates.

Silver Moth – The Eternal

One of those albums I hit pre-order on as soon as it was announced – Silver Moth are a band formed out of a few online conversations during the pandemic. Only members Stuart Braithwiate (of Mogwai) and his wife Elizabeth Elektra had met before they hit the studio on a remote Scottish island and recorded Black Bay in just eight days. It’s a bloody strong album – a multilayered beast of slow-burning yet immediate songs that combine its members’ shoegaze** and post-rock dynamics with two vocalists who’s vocals find a place between Kate Bush and Elizabeth Fraser.

Faith No More – Epic

Another one of those ‘hey, if you like this one, check this out’ conversations with the cub after picking up a 7″ of ‘Easy / Be Aggressive’ recently. There’s very little like this and it remains a fucking awesome tune some (gulp) thirty four years later.

Stevie Ray Vaughan – Texas Flood

Texas Flood is forty years old this year, which is as little a reason as I need to have been giving this one some attention.

*whether this is something first experience by a chap called Baker or those spend their time kneading dough develop the issue I don’t know.

**third and final mention.