Monthly Archives: July 2014

A look back in fear and anger
The tale of Bruce Springsteen’s ‘lost album’ The Promise is full of heartache and legal drama. There is lovely pop here, but it’s not the pop of its time
Harry Browne:The Sunday Times

“Remember,” says Bruce Springsteen to a bandmate, “there’s always room to throw out.” The black-and-white footage shows an astonishingly beautiful young Springsteen in the studio. He is slowly driving his fellow musicians crazy with his capacity to write new songs, record them and then toss them away. The album to be born in June 1978 is Darkness on the Edge of Town, and its gestation appears to be a process of elimination as much as of creation.

Even when it comes to the songs he plans to keep, Springsteen — whose three previous albums had swelled with lyrical and musical excess — is intent on stripping them down. “Roy, you playin’ any fills?” he asks his piano player Roy Bittan. “If so, they’re out.” The tone is mock-Bossy, with a hint of mincing, but he’s clearly serious.

These moments appear in Thom Zimny’s recent documentary, The Promise: The Making of Darkness on the Edge of Town, which — along with other home-movie clips and live footage — fills no fewer than three DVDs in an extraordinary (and pricy) new box set with an annoyingly similar name.

For many fans, this set evokes a lyric from Darkness: “. .

. if dreams came true, oh, wouldn’t that be nice”. The album holds a special place in our hearts; without the hype of Born to Run, the mega-popularity of Born in the USA or the scattergun eclecticism of The River, Darkness is the pure stuff, unadulterated Springsteen at his creative peak. In my own New Jersey adolescence, it was the first record, by anyone, that I fully inhabited, and I’ve heard of a fair few Irish adolescences in which it played a similar role.

As Springsteen describes it in the recent interview that anchors Zimny’s film, Darkness was a “tone poem” of “power, directness and austerity”. The documentary relates Springsteen’s obsessive pursuit of a relentless drum sound. “Stick!” he would scream, annoyed at hearing the drumstick rather than the primal crack-boom of Max Weinberg’s drums. Many songs on the album are so austere that the “melody” consists of little more than whatever note Garry Tallent’s bass intones whenever the bass drum sounds.

With all that stripping clean and throwing away, what was left out? And why was Springsteen only just getting into the studio nearly two years after being the magazine-cover face of record-industry hype with the release of Born to Run in 1975? The answers to these questions go to the heart, not only of this autumn’s “new” release, but also of the special place Springsteen holds in the history of the business — as opposed to the art — of rock’n’roll.

For most of the gap between Born to Run and Darkness, Springsteen was hamstrung by a lawsuit with his former manager that kept him out of the studio. Although it was settled quicker than, say, Muhammad Ali’s ban from boxing eight years earlier, it has taken on some of the same weight for fans. We revel in his defiance of “the Man” — but we still wonder what might have been, if he hadn’t been kept out of the ring in his late-twenties prime.

The Promise, tantalisingly, purports to give an answer, in the form of a double CD of 21 songs — Springsteen’s “lost album”, the one he says “could have/should have been released” in those gap years. (Just to cement the confusion, this album is also called The Promise, with a different ­mouthful of a ­subtitle.)

Springsteen is hardly the only big old star to root through the archives or rejects for Christmas stocking-fillers. Yet he and his PR machine are uniquely playing “back to the future”, magically trying to recreate the “missing” Springsteen album. The vaults were full of unfinished works, so on this album about half the songs are substantially revised, with vocals, instruments and even lyrics that weren’t there at the time. In the liner notes, he writes absurdly: “I did what I would’ve done to them at the time and no more.” Not even “what I think I would’ve done”. No, the 61-year-old Bruce knows the 27-year-old Bruce so well he can reproduce exactly what his younger self “would’ve done”.

Tampering aside, the claim that is this is the “lost album” is demolished when we recall a handful of the best outtakes from this period appeared in 1998 on the four-CD album Tracks and are not repeated here.

Nonetheless, the two discs of The Promise comprise a good old/new Springsteen album. From the opening piano and ­harmonica of Racing in the Street (78) — like the version on Darkness itself but in a less monotonic voice and fatalistic key — to the moving lament of the title track, it often seems a more deliberate successor, or response, to Born to Run than ­Darkness itself does.

Limited Edition Bruce Springsteen book, The Light in Darkness, less than 100 copies left.
Focusing on Springsteen’s Darkness on The Edge of Town 1978 album and tour with amazing photos and stories.
Free Shipping July–August 2014
CLICK HERE TO SAVE NOW- The Light in Darkness
*The Light in Darkness book is not sold in stores

CD-Kritik zu Bruce Springsteen: Darkness On The Edge Of Town, The Promise
Buch-Kritik: The Light in Darkness legendären 1978er-Konzerttournee

von Gérard Otremba

Die musikalischen Schatzausgrabungen verdienter Rock’n’Roll-Gößen gehen weiter. Eine wunderbare CD-Box offeriert nun Sony/Columbia mit „The Promise“ von Bruce Springsteen. War schon „Tracks“ von 1998 eine wahre Fundgrube an bis dato unveröffentlichtem Studiomaterial der Jahre 1972-1995, konzentriert sich „The Promise“ auf die Zeit um das 1978 erschienene Album „Darkness On The Of Town“. Zwischen „Born To Run“ und eben „Darkness“ konnte Springsteen wegen eines Rechtsstreits mit Manager Allen Klein keine Songs veröffentlichen, trotzdem, oder gerade deswegen, eine der schöpferischsten Phasen in Springsteens Karriere.
„The Promise“ mit vielen unveröffentlichten Springsteen-Perlen

Das Nachfolgealbum des Meisterwerks „Born To Run“ und leider immer zu Unrecht im Schatten desselbigen stehende „Darkness On The Edge Of Town“ erhält nun die verdiente Aufmerksamkeit. In der Remastered-Fassung erstrahlen die vielen heißgeliebten Klassiker von „Badlands“ und „Something In The Night“ über „Racing In The Street“ und „Promised Land“ bis hin zu „Prove It All Night“ und „Darkness On The Edge Of Town“ in neuem Licht. Wesentlich wichtiger für die Springsteen-Kenner allerdings sind natürlich die beiden „The Promise“-CDs, voller in diesen Versionen noch nicht veröffentlichter Springsteen-Perlen. In der Alternativversion von „Racing In The Street“ sorgt die E-Street-Band um Gitarrist Stevie Van Zandt für einen opulenten und hymnischen Sound, verglichen mit der bekannten CD-Fassung fast schon bombastisch anmutend. „Gotta Get That Feeling“ ist ein wunderbarer E-Street-Shuffle mit satten Bläsern, überschwenglich wie das auf „The River“ erschienene „The Ties That Bind“.
„Because The Night“ und „Candys Boy“

„Outside Looking In“ ist bester Sixties-Rock’n’Roll, vorangetrieben von Garry Tallent am Bass und Max Weinberg an den Drums und vom Saxophonspiel Clarence Clemons’ verfeinert. „Someday (We’ll Be Together)“ gerät mit pathetischen Chören unterlegt eine Spur zu kitschig, vielleicht Springsteens endgültiger Christmas-Song. „Wrong Side Of The Street“ entpuppt sich als eine gut geölte, aus dem Ärmel geschüttelte, Midtemponummer, „Rendezvous“ ist bereits durch die „Tracks“-Box bekannt und „Candys Boy“ entzückt durch das Orgelspiel von Danny Federici. Jeder, der ein Springsteen-Konzert besucht hat und dann noch das Glück hatte, „Because The Night“ live erleben zu dürfen, weiß, welche Kraft und Dynamik dieser Song entwickelt. Hier als Studioalternative zu Patti Smith-Version. Herauszuheben sind auf der ersten Promise-CD definitiv „One Way Street“ und „The Brokenhearted“. Zwei balladeske Stücke, in denen Roy Bittan am Piano den Ton angibt und Bruce den edlen Romantiker, den keiner im Rock’n’Roll-Geschäft so prägnant verkörpert wie Springsteen. Grandiose Songs, endlich dann auch ganz regulär auf CD veröffentlicht.
Bruce Springsteen als Romantiker

Den Romantiker gibt Springsteen gerne auch auf der zweiten Promise-CD, die mit „Save My Love“ beginnt, einer viel zu kurzen Kleinod-Hymne. All die für „Darkness“ nicht gewollten Liebeslieder finden sich nun vereint auf „The Promise“. Diese zwei CDs stellen die perfekte Verbindung von „Born To Run“ zu dem Doppelalbum „The River“ dar. Es gibt wesentlich mehr „Thunder Road“ und „Independence Day“ zu hören, als etwa „Badlands“. Einen mit Handclapping und ausgelassenen Chören ausgestatteten witzigen Bar-Schunkler wie „Ain’t Good Enough For You“ gibt es auf der Darkness“-Platte einfach nicht. „Fire“ ist ähnlich wie „Because The Night“ auf dem Live-Album „1975-1985“ verewigt, während „It’s A Shame“ leichte Jazz-Anleihen erfährt und sich zeitlich eher an Springsteen-Stücke der frühen 70er Jahre orientiert

. „Come On (Let’s Go Tonight)“ ist nichts anderes als „Factory“ revisited und mit knapp über zwei Minuten viel zu kurz geraten. „Talk To Me“ überzeugt durch fanfarenartige Bläsersätze, einem discoartigen Beat und ausgelassener Tanzstimmung. Ganz ähnlich verhält es sich bei „The Little Things (My Baby Does)“. Noch etwas hymnischer gestaltet und trotz des sich nach Stadionrock sehnenden Sounds vermittelt Springsteen wieder einmal diese zutiefst empfundene Romantik, wie sie nur der „Boss“ so einzigartig komponieren kann. Zwei glorreiche Balladen mit „Spanish Eye“ (sehnsuchtsvoll) und „Breakaway“ (dramatisch) runden die zweite Promise-CD ab, die mir „City Of Night“ in einer kleinen Nachtmusik ausklingt. Veredelt wird diese Box selbstredend mit dem Titelsong „The Promise“. Es ist die Quintessenz seines damaligen Schaffens, ganz viel „Thunder Road“, jede Menge „Racing In The Street“ und eine Prise „Darkness On The Edge Of Town“. Ein überragendes Stück Musikgeschichte, man ist zu Dank verpflichtet.
Springsteen-Konzerte live auf DVD

Die drei DVDs halten ebenfalls einige Glanzstücke bereit. Neben dem „Making Of Darkness“ das gesamte Album live 2009 im Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park nur für die Kameras aufgenommen, nun mit Charlie Giordano an der Orgel, der den unlängst verstorbenen Danny Federici ersetzt. Dazu lustige Aufnahmen aus den Hinterzimmern im Jahre 1976 und Live-Mitschnitte aus Phoenix von 1978. Es war damals für die jungen Damen im Publikum noch sehr einfach, kurz auf die Bühne zu klettern und Bruce zu umarmen. Auf der dritten DVD dann noch ein knapp dreistündiges Konzert aus Houston, ebenfalls von 1978. Mit „Independance day“, „The Ties That Bind“ und Point Black“ gibt es drei Stücke zu hören, die erst zwei Jahre später auf „The River“ zu Plattenehren kommen. Unbedingt sehenswert. Alles in allem eine prächtige Springsteen-Box. 100 Prozent Bruce, 100 Prozent Rock’n’Roll. Wann folgen die nächsten Ausgrabungen?

…falls es einige hier immer noch nicht haben: Lawrence Kirsch bietet sein Buch zum Darkness-Album und der 78er-Tour, “The Light in Darkness”, im juli wieder portofrei an! Es gibt mittlerweile nur noch weniger als 100 Restexemplare, wenn die weg sind, sind sie weg. Das Buch hat über 200 Seiten und Fotos, alle Details findet ihr unter The Light in Darkness. Das Angebot gilt vom Juli-August.2014. Großartige Fotos, wie ihr auf seiner Seite sehen könnt, und “Augenzeugenberichte” von damals.

Michele Sensing and Dawn Hobel were among a group of women who crashed the stage during Bruce’s performance of Rosalita in Phoenix on July 8, 1978. Their memories of the moment will be included in an upcoming film about fans who have appeared onstage with the Boss to dance and sing.

More than 17 months have gone by since I first posted a trailer of my documentary “I Could Use Just A Little Help” on YouTube

. Since then, the clip has been viewed nearly 10,000 times. That’s a very modest number in today’s world of viral videos. But I’m excited to know that my work has been seen by that many people, in so many different places around the world.

But since the day I posted the preview, so much has changed about the film, mostly the fact that I have added to it a segment that I believe will put it over the top and make it a documentary that all Bruce Springsteen fans, young and old, will enjoy even more than they already would have. It will serve as the sturdy foundation of a project that I believe could have stood on its own even without it.

Before I get into details, I’d like to share two important moments that I think back on regularly:

The first one happened one Saturday afternoon as I was sitting on my couch at my home in Morris County, N.J. The Yankee game was on television and I was flipping through my iPhone, Googling phrases like “Rosalita stage crashers” and “girls who jumped on stage with Bruce in Phoenix.” I spent a good hour doing this, digging through random articles that could have offered some kind of hint about who these people were and where they might be. I eventually realized I would have had more luck waiting inside Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport, standing next to the limos drivers and holding a small sign that said, “ROSIE GIRLS.”The next moment came as I sat in a movie theater watching “Springsteen and I,” the Bruce doc that came out last summer and included a few interesting segments similar to the entire premise of my film – fans getting onstage with Bruce to dance and sing with him. When I saw Philly Elvis on the big screen and then realized that producers of that film had managed to “get” the guy who played guitar with Bruce in the middle of a street in Europe back in the 80s, I said to myself, “You’ve got to find those girls.”

With the help of a Bruce fan in Arizona who was originally from New Jersey (of course), and a blog posted on the website of the Phoenix New Times, I was able to track down two women who were part of one of the most historic stage crashing moments in rock & roll history.

On July 8, 1978, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band played a show at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Phoenix. Early in the performance of Rosalita, women started rushing Bruce on stage. Just as Bruce sang the line, “I ain’t here on business, I’m only here for fun…” one of the girls circled around him and nuzzled up to the left side of his face before a roadie chased her away, Bruce and Clarence Clemons following the two into the darkness at front of the stage.

After Bruce returned to the mic, a blonde wearing white pants and yellow shirt popped up and gave him a kiss on the cheek before sneaking away. Two other girls jumped up there in the first half of the song, one simply screaming into Bruce’s mic when he clearly had shifted to the side to share it with her – like he usually does after saying, ‘C’mon, Steve!’ – the other just reaching out and touching him. That girl had come out of the same darkness that the first girl disappeared into.

Later, a group of women attacked Bruce just after he and other band members hollered the ‘Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!” part of the song into their mics. Bruce fell to the stage and at least one of the female fans stuck her tongue in his mouth. Whether another did too is up for debate.

This entire scene was beautifully written about by Dave Marsh in Rolling Stone just a few weeks after that show. One of the women I was able to track down was the one who “reached out and touched” Bruce, and she brought along an original copy of the magazine when we met for an interview in the parking lot of the Coliseum last November. She was 16 at the time of that historic show, so the awkward silence in her car as she searches for her glasses so she can read from the article actually tells part of the story. It’s been a long time – 36 years this summer.

She underlined part of that story and wrote the word “me” in the margin.The other woman I met at the Coliseum that day didn’t bring any mementos with her, and her memory was a bit rusty (as you’ll see in the clip).
But she did bring her grandson along with her and his brief interview with me helps make the segment fun and hammers home this point, which some of us relatively young Bruce fans tend to forget: The man has been doing this for a long time! And the only thing that makes watching your grandmother grope a young man even remotely bearable is when that young man is the biggest rock star in the world (and your grandmother was not your grandmother yet).

I also met separately in NYC with Dick Wingate, who was Bruce’s product manager at the time, responsible for coming up with a marketing plan for the Darkness on the Edge of Town album. Wingate gives some historical perspective to the segment, and it was a thrill for me to interview someone who was so much on the “inside” at that time. Wingate remembered those stage crashers well and since the live performance videos they were shooting at the time were part of the marketing plan he conceived, girls rushing on stage to kiss Bruce during one of his best-known songs made Wingate feel as if they’d “struck oil.”

He also puts to bed the notion that these girls were somehow ‘planted’ or that the moment was a setup. It wasn’t. One of the woman I spoke to was at the show with a couple of friends and some family members, including her aunt and uncle (seen in the segment), who had given her tickets for her 16th birthday just 10 days earlier. She broke away from the group and then followed the other women on stage, figuring, “what the heck?” when she saw the others run up there, one by one.

No one was arrested. The roadies were “kind and gentle” according to one of the women. Bruce clearly loved every second of it, rubbing his hands together and screaming “alriiiiight!” after getting a kiss from one of his female admirers. I’ve often wondered what it would be like to be in the same position as Bruce that night. What male fan hasn’t?!

I also wonder if Bruce remembers those girls rushing up on stage to kiss him, to throw him to the ground or just to reach out and touch him. He’s seen millions of faces staring back at him over the years, but how many have actually done what these girls did?

Shortly after jumping into this project with the simple objective of doing something really cool, I started to look at it like this was my chance to help the people who have been on stage with Bruce – whether invited or not – tell their stories. And my chance to give back to Bruce by introducing him to some of the people he’s shared such wonderful moments with over the course of his career.

The other people I talk to in this film lived through their own unique situations, from the Filipino woman now living in Brooklyn who was a college student when she went to a show in Ottawa in 1981 and ended up dancing the tango to Sherry Darling, to the teenage girl who was pulled up to dance with Bruce twice in three years, to the 20-something girl who was sure she was about to pulled up for a Courteney Cox moment only to be ignored by Bruce before eventually receiving the surprise of her life.  There are 7, 8 and 9 year old kids who sang into the same sweaty microphone as one of rock’s greatest legends, and a middle-aged woman who obsessed over Bruce in the early- to mid-80s only to dance cheek-to-cheek with him during the opening night of the Tunnel of Love Express Tour as her future husband watched from the front row.

Each of these segments has something different to offer. And, oh yeah, I tie all of them together by using the experiences of these other lucky fans as a way to prepare myself for my own attempt to get on stage with Bruce.

I’m editing footage as you read this, and the plan is to show this film to a very small group of fans sometime in August. Then I would like to have a larger screening sometime in October/November. From there, who knows?

I’ve got high hopes but at some point, because of the performance footage included in the film, as well as some of Bruce’s music, it’s likely going to have to get approved by the man himself.

I’m hoping he respects what I’ve done, tracking down a few of the people he’s shared some of his greatest moments with, including a couple of fans who hadn’t been heard from since that very historic night 36 years ago.

Seven minutes into that song on that night, Bruce sang the line, “Someday we’ll look back on this and it will all seem funny.”

Well, for two fans we now know are named Michele and Dawn, someday has arrived.

Julian Garcia
2014

Julian Garcia is a journalist and filmmaker who lives in Montville, New Jersey, USA.

Limited edition Bruce Springsteen book, The Light in Darkness.
IF you have ever considered buying this book, Now is the time.
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The online video service, which houses thousands of decades-old concert snippets, has remastered and released more than 13,000 clips to YouTube, giving fans access to long-lost live shows from legendary rock and soul artists like Bob Dylan, James Brown, The Who and much more.

Two dozen of those newly released black-and-white videos show Bruce Springsteen rocking the defunct Capitol Theatre in downtown Passaic as part of 1978′s Darkness Tour.

The Boss and his E Street Band played the old vaudeville house Sept. 19-21, and nearly all of the Sept. 20 show — 20 of the 22 songs Bruce played that night — is now available both on YouTube, and in a nicely ordered list on Music Vault’s website.

A few clips are also available from the Sept

. 19 show, which was famously broadcast live on tri-state radio stations, and has subsequently been bootlegged as Bruce’s “Pièce de résistance” ever since.

Among fans, the fall show supporting the year’s “Darkness on the Edge of Town” album is regarded as one of the prolific singer’s finest nights.

Springsteen also played Capitol Theatre on New Year’s Eve 1977, in a show headlined by Jersey guy Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. Videos from that night are available, too.

Content Editor Bill Antonucci told Rolling Stone that Music Vault plans to expand on its YouTube library over time.

SEPT. 20, 1978 SETLIST

Videos for all but two of these songs are available for viewing here.

Good Rocking Tonight

Badlands
Spirit in the Night
Darkness on the Edge of Town
Independence Day
The Promised Land
Prove It All Night
It’s My Life
(The Animals cover)
Thunder Road
Jungleland
Santa Claus Is Coming to Town
Fire
Candy’s Room
Because the Night
Point Blank
Kitty’s Back
Incident on 57th Street
Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)
Encore:
Born to Run
Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
Detroit Medley
Twist and Shout

Limited edition Bruce Springsteen book, The Light in Darkness, less than 100 copies left.
Focusing on Springsteen’s Darkness on The Edge of Town 1978 album and tour with amazing photos and stories.
Free Shipping July – August 2014
CLICK HERE TO SAVE NOW- The Light in Darkness
*The Light in Darkness book is not sold in stores