The Boss is Streaming

The Boss is streaming his new album Working on a Dream online here. Check it out before it comes out next week.

The Boss Wins

From Billboard:

Bruce Springsteen won the Golden Globe for best song for the title track from "The Wrestler".

It's Springsteen's second Golden Globe; he won in 1994 for "The Streets of Philadelphia" from "Philadelphia." That year, he also won the Oscar for Best Song for the same track.

The Gaslight Anthem

Last week, The Gaslight Anthem, one of my new favorite bands from 2008, was on Letterman. They performed their song "The '59 Sound", which, if you haven't heard, you need to check it out above. I would advise listening to the album version too, especially if you are not too impressed with their performance here (the album is better...).

The Gaslight Anthem are from Jersey, and uncoincidentally, sound like a punk rock version of The Boss, if they had Social Distortion, Against Me! and the Killers' bastard love child of rock playing their music and singing with Springsteen writing the lyrics.

I started with 2008's The '59 Sound, but those that I have talked to that have been a fan for a little while have told me to start with 2007's Sink or Swim and go from there. The Gaslight Anthem's The '59 Sound will be in the top of my list for '08, so keep an eye out for that.

More New Boss - "My Lucky Day"

Here's more new Boss for you, from his upcoming album Working on a Dream. As we reported here, the new record will be out in late January. While the single "Working on a Dream" hasn't been as well received as one might think, "My Lucky Day" seems to be more of a classic Springsteen tune, complete with prominent keys and sax, driving drums, a good hook, and of course that "Bruce rasp" that we all love.

You know, the voice that made him The Boss.

The Boss

In addition to playing the Super Bowl Half Time in February, The Boss will be premiering his new tune "Workin' on a Dream" this weekend on the Sunday Night Football game on NBC.

"Workin' on a Dream" will be on the forthcoming album from Springsteen, due out in late January on Columbia Records. See Backstreets for more info.

The Boss says, "Trick or Treat?"

Any day with The Boss in it is usually a good day. And that holds true today, even on Halloween.

The Boss is offering you a treat today (and through Sunday night) with a free download of the never before heard "A Night With the Jersey Devil" on his website. You can download it and watch a video of it as well. Download here/Watch here.

No trick. Only a treat.

Thanks, Boss.

the Super Boss, err, Bowl 2009

Announced yesterday on Billboard.com:

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Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band will play the halftime slot at the Super Bowl in Tampa, Fla., snagging the spot at the most-watched musical event of the year, according to the organizers.

This year, more than 148 million viewers in the U.S. watched Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play at the championship game of American football, the National Football League said yesterday (Sept. 28). Other recent halftime acts have included Prince, the Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and U2.

The most infamous performer was Janet Jackson, who bared her breast during the 2004 event, triggering a crackdown on televised smut. The Super Bowl will be televised by NBC. Springsteen and the E Street Band recently finished an extensive world tour in support of the 2007 album "Magic."

Goodbye, Big Russ

Again, my M.O. is sometimes being a little late. Which, probably won't help me in this area of my life. A couple of friends sent this link to me a few weeks and I forgot all about it. This is from Tim Russert's Memorial a few weeks ago, with Tom Brokaw and Tim's son Luke Russert introducing the next piece. Apparently Russert was a big Bruce Springsteen fan from way back in the day when Bruce and Tim were unknown faces to the world.

Watch the Boss plays "Thunder Road" for Big Russ, as he called him, via satellite from Europe. My friends all agreed that if this didn't make you tear up just a bit, you have no soul.

Well, do you?

Pope Dylan and the Excommunication of Vegas

As I thought a little bit about this site and the contributions I have made thus far, it comes to my attention that even though I'm not a big fan of the "singer songwriter" title and genre, I have written my first two posts about quite possibly my two favorite songwriters, Bruce Springsteen and Steve Earle. In both cases I mentioned that each artist had the "Next Dylan" label placed on him at some point in time. I also mentioned that while I appreciate Dylan and the contributions he made to pop music, I do not go crazy about him like a lot of people do. He's not my favorite songwriter in the world nor is he probably in my personal top ten. That's not to say that I don't think he's one of the greatest, he's just not anywhere near one of my favorites. (For the record, my top 5 favorite songwriters probably look something like this in no particular order: Bruce Springsteen, Steve Earle, Neil Young, Johnny Cash, John Prine, Stevie Wonder, Jay Farrar. Yes I know that was a list of 7 people for my top 5 songwriters. This is hard to do. Deal with it.)

It's not that I don't like Dylan. I really do. In fact I went through a small Dylan stage several years back where I got into him and really started digging a lot of his stuff. Blonde on Blonde is great. So is Highway 61 revisited and Blood on the Tracks. But the truth of the matter is that Dylan just really doesn't do much for me. In fact, 9 times out of 10 I'd rather here someone else sing and play his songs because at least then the songs begin to come alive and breathe a little. I feel like in another life Dylan could have been William Shakespeare or even Tennessee Williams. Both were brilliant writers, but when you start thinking about their plays they don't really come alive until the right players take on the right roles and make them their own. Hendrix did this with All Along the Watchtower much like Marlon Brando did with Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire. The words and characters that each artist wrote were brilliant in their own right, but it took someone else to truly give the words life. (For the record I have a Marlon Brando post in me somewhere just dying to get out. We'll tackle that at a later date.) Dylan had the incredible ability to put words together that created unbelievable art. The only problem with him, in my assessment, is that he lacked fire, soul, hurt, emotion, feeling and balls.

For my money I would always rather hear Hendrix play Watchtower, or Mike Ness' testicular tour de force rendition of Don't Think Twice It's Alright. They Band's version of When I Paint My Masterpiece has been a favorite as of late, and hell even Rage Against the Machine's (another band to whom I am pretty indifferent) at least give a sense of aggression to Maggie's Farm that is just lost to me in the Dylan version. Again, this doesn't make Dylan less great, but it does make you think a little about this greatest ever title. Can you be the greatest ever if other people performed your songs better than you did, especially with a guy like Neil Young on deck? Neil's voice isn't much either but the way he sings speaks to me. Cortez the Killer, Down By the River, Southern Man? Could anyone perform these songs better than Neil Young? Not in my mind.

Let me, however, be perfectly clear in saying that I do not fault Dylan for the fact that other people covered his songs better than he ever played them. I think this is something to be admired, to have created such sensational music that so many others wanted to be a part of it is one of the highest compliments any artist can be paid. His versions just don't do anything for me, and for that reason I just can't get into him as much as the rest of the known universe seems to think I should.

I will, however, make one exception to this whole post. I truly love to hear Bob Dylan sing It Ain't Me Babe. For some reason either the song, the words or the way he sings it (probably a combination of all three) just seems to work. He seems to embody the spirit of that song like no one else does, including Johnny and June (Hollywood please don't hate me for saying that). The combination of desperation and heartache and a little hint of a middle finger in the air just works with him in that song. That's probably why it's my favorite Dylan song ever.

Even though the movie was juvenile and crude, there is a line in Road Trip where the old Grandpa character tells the nerd pothead that he's "all brains and not enough cock and balls." This is how I feel about Dylan and a lot of other cerebral musicians like Radiohead, Joy Division, The Cure and others. Yeah they have some good songs, but they don't speak to me at all. They don't get into my guts and make me feel anything. They don't make me stop everything that I'm doing and listen to a song again. I could never put a Dylan song or album on repeat and let it almost burrow its way into my head or heart. I just can't seem to soak him in. For that matter, I don't get Dylan songs stuck in my head. He's brilliant, talented, and will be considered by most to be the greatest pop songwriter to ever live, but for me, it's simply too much brains and not enough cock and balls.

It's interesting to think about why Bob Dylan is the savior of pop music songwriting. Was he really that much better than everyone else? Did he come along at the perfect time? Are there others who would have been just as successful had they had the same timing and fortune as Dylan? I don't really know. I do think that Dylan was great, but I don't think he's any better of a songwriter than Neil Young, Springsteen or Johnny Cash. And I do think that timing played a major part in it. But then again I think that's true of any truly great artist. The same can be said of Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, Elvis, Springsteen, The Ramones, Nirvana, and Public Enemy. Sometimes timing has as much to do with greatness as anything else, not only with music. Would JFK have been the icon that he was if he had been President during the 50's? Not likely. Does that diminish his greatness? Not at all. I think the same can be said of Dylan.

I know that I might lost the 3 readers that Hollywood and I have in posting this, but then again this is my time to write what I think and feel, and the bottom line is that with Dylan I think plenty but I rarely feel anything at all. I don't deny his greatness, but just like you can have The Beatles, I'll take The Rolling Stones. You can have Dave Matthews, I'll take Steve Earle. You can have Ryan Adams, I'll take Jay Farrar. You can have Bob Dylan, I'll take Neil Young.

A Blessing and a Curse

Keeping with the Truckers theme to non-related news, it came to my attention today that The Boss will be in Atlanta on April 25 in support of his and the E Street Band's new release, Magic. Yes, this is a blessing- the Boss doesn't come down South too much.

The curse is that that Friday I will be at Talladega for my annual boys' weekend o' filth at the race...

Now it has already been discussed about driving over from Talladega to Atlanta on Friday night to the show and then back to the 'Dega afterwards to resume our annual festivities. It's only two hours each way...What to do, oh, what to do...?

We are hoping for a Nashville or Lexington show in case everything doesn't quite come to fruition. We shall see.


Oh well, I'm off to see The Bravery with Straylight Run and De Novo Dahl.