Bruce Springsteen

The MusiCares “Person of the Year” Tribute to James Taylor, which Springsteen played in February (and which was recently issued on DVD), will be airing on tellyvision, gratis, beginning tonight on PBS. “Bruce’s version of ‘Millworker’ was a completely new and different take,” Taylor recently said, “much more intense, pointing out the aspect that had to do with workers’ conditions.” The broadcast of A Tribute to James Taylor is part of PBS’s Great Performances series; check local listings for when you can catch it.
From www.backstreets.com

A little sidetrack here from the daily hockey goings on that do little to affect the course of our lives.

I recently read about this shooting in New York City and it got me upset big time.This is not, as you will read, a rare occurence. It has happened more than once. Why it is allowed to go on is nuts. The police are supposed to protect and serve. How they can unload their weapons without shots fired at them is unfathomable. How they are allowed to get away with it is ridiculous. This is murder in my eyes. Just because an officer wears a badge, it should give no justification for events like these, it’s beyond simply fucking up!

New York Times reported on Sunday that 23 year old, Sean Bell, died under a hail of over 50 police bullets after leaving his bachelor party at a strip club in Queens. Apparently, a fender bender involving an undercover police vehicle precipitated the shooting.

Bell was supposed to be married the following day. His family had the sad news of informing the attendees that the wedding was off and a funeral was being arranged. Unthinkable!

An angry crowd later gather to demand why police officers killed an unarmed man on the day of his wedding, firing dozens of shots that also wounded two of the man’s friends. Some called for the ouster of the city’s police commissioner.

At a vigil and rally the day after 23-year-old Sean Bell was supposed to have married the mother of his two young children, a crowd led by the Rev. Al Sharpton shouted “No justice, no peace.”

At one point, the crowd of a few hundred counted off to 50, the number of rounds fired.

“We cannot allow this to continue to happen,” Sharpton said at the gathering outside Mary Immaculate Hospital, where one of the wounded men was in critical condition. “We’ve got to understand that all of us were in that car.”

Some in the crowd called for the ouster of Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, yelling “Kelly must go.”

The story surely recalls events in February of 1999, when African immigrant Amadou Diallo was brutally killed in a hail of bullets on Wheeler Avenue in the Bronx-Soundview section of New York City. The 4 officers, members of the now-defunct Street Crimes Unit, fired 41 shots at the 23 yr old believing he was pulling a gun when Diallo was in fact reaching for his wallet. 41 shots! Think about it! Why 41 bullets were fired is a question with no good answer.

A national uproar ensued over what was obviouslya case of racial profiling and police brutaility.The four officers were eventually acquitted of any wrongdoing. A $61-million lawsuit filed by the yound man’s parents was later settled for $3-million.

A number of artists wrote songs that decried the plight of this young man, one of the most memorable being “American Skin (41 Shots)” by Bruce Springsteen. Springsteen sang, outraging police organisations in New York, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and sections of the media.New York’s State Fraternal Order of Police, Bob Lucente, promptly bestowed the ‘floating fag’ tag upon the singer when he debuted the song live in Atlanta, rhyming the lines “41 shots/Kill a fuckin’ cop”.

A week later, Springsteen appeared at Madison Square Garden for a sold out 10 date stand and the NYC police department refused to provide him any escort. As he played the song nightly, off duty police hired as garden security, gave Springsteen the finger from the edge of the stage during each performance. Springsteen never relented in performing the song on the remainder of the stand and the tour, going so far as to release it on CD and DVD versions of the “Live in NYC” concerts. For his part, Springsteen adressed the songs controversy by simply stating the track attempts to understand the human dilema involved in the shooting by retelling the events, then placing it’s context in the eyes of a mother preparing her son for school, while providing him with a lesson on how to react when approached by police.
If all this leaves you untouched, check your pulse and heart.

41 shots….and we’ll take that ride / ‘cross this bloody river / to the other side / 41 shots…. cut through the night / you’re kneeling over his body in the vestibule / praying for his life

Is it a gun? / Is it a knife? / Is it a wallet? / This is your life

It ain’t no secret / No secret my friend

You can get killed just for living in your American skin

41 shots…. Lena gets her son ready for school / she says “on these streets, Charles / you’ve got to understand the rules / if an officer stops you / promise me, you’ll always be polite / that you’ll never ever run away / promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight”

Is it a gun?…. You can get killed just for living in your American skin

Is it a gun? / is it a knife? / is it in your heart / is it in your eyes / It ain’t no secret /41 shots… and we’ll take that ride / ‘cross this bloody river / to the other side / 41 shots… got my boots caked in this mud / we’re baptized in these waters / and in each other’s blood

Is it a gun? / is it a knife? / is it a wallet? / this is your life

It ain’t no secret / no secret my friend

You can get killed just for living in your American skin

01 Night
02 10th avenue freeze-out (acoustic)
03 Spirit in the night
04 Does this bus stop at 82nd street?
05 It’s my life
06 She’s the one
07 Born to run
08 Pretty Flamingo
09 It’s hard to be a saint in the city
10 Backstreets
11 Mountain of love
12 Jungleland
13 Rosalita (Come out tonight)
14 4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
15 Detroit Medley
16 Quarter to three
17 Thunder road
18 Twist and shout

We would like to here from you
Please post you first set list and any commemts about the show
You can get all the info @ http://www.brucespringsteen.it/

Neil Young has made 20 years’ worth of benefit performances available as “The Bridge Collection” – but only as downloads on iTunes.

The 80-track six-volume compilation is compiled from the numerous concerts that Young and his wife Pegi have held in support of the Bridge School – for speech-impaired children in the San Francisco Bay Area.

All proceeds from the tracks will be donated to the school.

The collection features a multitude of special guests who have appeared live and acoustically with Young over two decades.

Artists include Crosby, Stills & Nash, Bruce Springsteen, Green Day, Lou Reed, Metallica, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, R.E.M., Smashing Pumpkins, The Pretenders, Wilco and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke.

Two of the tracks, Neil Young’s “Comes a Time/Sugar Mountain” medley and a collaboration with Dave Matthews on “Cortez the Killer”, will be available only to those who purchase the entire “Bridge Collection” although all the other tracks are available for separate downloads.

The Youngs still support the Bridge School with concerts, the most recent being in October, when rockers Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews and Dave Grohl’s Foo Fighters all played.

Uncut’s music editor John Mulvey explains the significance of this magnificent Neil Young archive – much of which has never been released or heard – unless you were there…

He says, “This is fantastic news. Young has been promising to unlock his library of unreleased material for years now, only to be distracted by new projects. The appearance last month of his Live From The Fillmore East [1970] set was pretty significant.

“But The Bridge Collection is a monument to Young’s influence over generations of rock’s finest, and further evidence that - following the streaming of Living With War earlier this year - that he’s become an unlikely internet proselytizer. “

Mulvey adds optimistically, “With a bit of luck, the long-rumoured Archives box set might even appear in 2007.”

Pic credit : Pieter M Van Hattem
Thanks To http://www.uncut.co.uk

Somewhere about midway through this great DVD, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, one of the numerous “friends” who join Nils Lofgren here–and no guitar slouch himself–offers the following assessment of Lofgren:

“There are three kinds of guitar people. There are guitar owners, and there’s about a million of those. There are guitar players, and there’s a few of those. Then there are guitarists,” Baxter says turning to look at his friend Lofgren. “Nils writes great songs. He sings beautifully. But there are only a few people who can do what he does with a guitar.”

To be sure, Nils Lofgren has written some damn fine songs over the years. It’s possible you may have even heard a few of them. The funky “I Came to Dance,” the lovely ballad “Valentine,” or his ode to a Rolling Stone “Keith Don’t Go” come to mind.

However it’s far more likely you haven’t, as Nils Lofgren is best known as a sideman. You know him for his fine work on Neil Young albums like After The Gold Rush. You even more likely know him as that guitarist for Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band who looks like a sawed-off cross between Keith Richards and Joey from Friends.

You remember right? Nils was that guy who did the backflips off a trampoline on the Born In The USA tour. He even did a solo album called Flip around that time.

The thing is, what a lot of people don’t know about Lofgren is that he is a world class guitarist. Although he has had his moments with Springsteen–the solos on the title tracks of both Tunnel Of Love and The Rising are just two such moments uniquely stamped with his signature–Lofgren’s virtuoso ability is largely swallowed up in the big noise created by the E Street Band.

Not so on this great DVD. Recorded live over three nights at a place called the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia before a rapt audience of hard core fans, Lofgren is joined here by an assortment of friends including three of his guitar playing brothers. In a set that covers his lengthy career from his first band Grin to last year’s solo album Sacred Weapon, Lofgren shows that he is indeed a great, perhaps even under-appreciated singer-songwriter.

But mostly he puts on what basically amounts to a guitar clinic. Of the numerous musical highlights on this DVD–and there are many of them–none of them match simply watching Lofgren play his instrument. Whether you are a musician or not, seeing Lofgren’s technique in the several closeup shots shown here is just nothing short of amazing.

Lofgren doesn’t merely strum or pick the strings the way that many guitarists do. He plays the entire instrument. He strums it open-handed at times, using all four fingers and his thumb at the same time. At other times, particularly when playing in the open-ended harmonics he so often favors here, Lofgren will play from the top of the neck all the way down the fretboard. The resulting sounds you wind up actually hearing are simply as stunning as they are beautiful.

Lofgren plays in this harmonic based style completely solo on “Keith Don’t Go,” making the one acoustic guitar he plays sound more like two playing at once. You hear both the lower bass parts and the higher notes. On “Girl In Motion” he continues to play in the harmonic style while switching over to an electric guitar. Here he takes one of the countless stunning solos heard throughout this DVD, as Buck Brown’s equally dextrous fingers match him note for note on the keys.

By the time of “Because The Night,” (the only tune played here not written by Lofgren), there is a full compliment of guitarists onstage in the form of Lofgren’s brothers Tom, Mike, and Mark. Together, they make as big as noise in their own way on the Patti Smith hit as Springsteen does when it’s played in stadiums with the E Street Band. There’s also yet another of those great, crying guitar solos from Nils.

Earlier in the set, Nils also comes across as an engaging, even funny performer at times. Knowing he has this particular crowd eating out of his hand, he promises a long night early, joking that “I couldn’t take a show this long myself, so if you need to get up and get a drink, you won’t hurt our feelings.” Performing solo acoustic, Lofgren seques nicely from a lovely sounding “I Found You” into the borderline spanish style of “You”. Lofgren’s playing here takes on such a dramatic, flamenco type of feel you half expect sagebrush to go floating across the stage.

On “Black Books,” Lofgren goes back to electric and proceeds to take off on yet another harmonic fueled solo tear, as Buck Brown’s pastoral synthesizer provides a swirling backdrop. For “Valentine” and “Tender Love,” Lofgren is joined by Baxter and Mary Ann Redmond for a round of vocal duets. At one point during “Tender Love,” Lofgren stops and says “we gotta do that again.” After replaying the track a few times, I still couldn’t locate the apparent screw-up here.

When Lofgren later uses improvised song lyrics to announce “It’s so nice to have friends who play so great, I feel so inspired think I’ll take a break,” he leaves the stage to Baxter and Buck Brown who use the spotlight to get into a tasty little guitar duel of their own.

Bob Berberich, who was Lofgren’s one-time partner in Grin joins him here for a reprise of Grin songs “Everybody’s Missing The Sun” and “Aint Love Nice.” The show finally draws to a close with “I Came To Dance,” “No Mercy,” and a searing “Moon Tears” which features another Lofgren solo which begins dark and bluesy before taking a left turn into Hendrix territory.

The extras on this DVD include several bonus tracks, including a few I’ve already mentioned here such as “Because The Night” and “Keith Don’t Go.” There is also a backstage interview where Nils talks about his shaky start doing acoustic performances at a time when he felt “a little more naked and exposed.” He humorously recalls one early gig with several false starts where he was “waiting for the fire alarm to go off.” There is also footage from the rehearsals for the shows captured here.

On Live Acoustic, Nils Lofgren & Friends more than prove their mettle as performers, and Lofgren’s songs alone are enough to make for a great night. But if you appreciate watching a great, if criminally underrated guitarist do his thing nearly as much as I do, this DVD rates as required viewing and listening.

Thanks to
http://theglenblog.blogspot.com/

Written by Glen Boyd