Larry, with an 'L'

Via.

Thu, 17 May 2012 17:03:55 -0400

Via.

not to pile on, but really

Mon, 14 May 2012 09:49:23 -0400

not to pile on, but really:

Who thinks about baseball this way anymore?

My friend Jeff was invited to the reception that featured this...

Fri, 11 May 2012 16:29:08 -0400

My friend Jeff was invited to the reception that featured this particular spread. I was not. Sad.

Prudential Center, May 2 1. This ranked as my favorite of the...

Thu, 03 May 2012 17:44:47 -0400

Prudential Center, May 2

1. This ranked as my favorite of the four shows I caught on this leg. The seats were close, the sound was crisp, the set list contained a few goody-goodies and the tour mainstays were rendered with a degree of passion. I am not hard to please.

2. But there’s still no coherent thread running through the set. While I suppose one could draw a line connecting the Rising/Lonesome Day/We Are Alive/Land Of Hope And Dreams pre-encore four-pack - the journeys from grief to hope and from despair to deliverance, blah blah blah - the Wrecking Ball shows are still more a collection of (potently delivered) songs than a thematically unified entity. We probably expect too much from Bruce in that regard, but he has set the bar quite high.

2a. I still can’t understand why This Hard Land, a perfect fit thematically and musically, isn’t part of this set. Of course, I’d lobby for the inclusion of This Hard Land even if Bruce happened to be touring as part of a 30-accordion ensemble. I don’t have a point here, other than that I like This Hard Land.

3. There were flubs. The band took an unplanned detour during No Surrender and damn near had to stop and ask for directions during Talk To Me. I am choosing to characterize these performances as “loose” and “spirited” rather than “shaky.” To-MAY-toe, to-MAH-toe, etc.

4. The war horses - Badlands, The Promised Land, Born To Run et al - sounded far sturdier than they did earlier in the tour. Of course, it’s possible that this says less about last night’s performances than it does about the evening’s exceptional booziness. Mixed drinks, it seems, are a more efficient alcohol-delivery vehicle than beer. I have filed away this piece of information for later use.

5. Gotta love the Prudential Center. It’s one of the new enormo-venues with luxury boxes stacked atop luxury boxes, but has neat-o sound and sight lines inside and bright, wide concourses outside. Dining tip: my concert life partner Jeffrey gives the crinkled French fries an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

6. Great crowd, too, even during the nightly fire drill that is Jack Of All Trades. They darn near blowed the joint up during Rosalita. Unrelated: My spell check regularly suggests that I change “Rosalita” to “Rosalina.”

7. Bishop Danced doesn’t rank as one of the 100 best songs Bruce has left off a record; even by the new-Dylan standards of that early stage in his career, it’s nonsensical lyrically. But it was a hoot hearing its first live airing in 39 years, thanks to the Seeger-Sessions-Americana-Appalachia-campfire-hoedown-whatever loosey-gooseyness with which the band rambled through it. And it made for an inspired pairing with Saint In The City - finally performed in its original key of A, which made my ears happy.

8. Max Weinberg recently got a haircut. He looks VERY sharp.

9. Playing The Weight as a tribute to Levon Helm wasn’t as thought-out as the nod to Warren Zevon several years back, but it was beautifully delivered all the same. What can I say? The man knows his way around a moment-with-a-capital-M.

Previous LD.com Bruceiness

4/9/12 MSG

4/3 and 4/4/12 Meadowlands Arena

Hanging with Clarence

Argument with self about Bruce songwriting eras

10/8/09 Giants Stadium

8/19/09 Hartford

4/24/09 Hartford

3/24/09 Asbury Park

7/28/08 Giants Stadium

7/27/08 Giants Stadium

5/8/08 Red Bank, NJ

5/2/08 Fort Lauderdale

"The car chuckled at my failed attempt at manliness"

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 09:09:36 -0400

"The car chuckled at my failed attempt at manliness":

Via Amy Vernon and half the rest of the Internet.

Remember him like this, not as he was on those final few New...

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:43:41 -0400

Remember him like this, not as he was on those final few New Year’s Eves. Dude was a trailblazer.

Madison Square Garden, April 9 1. A bunch of my nitpicks from...

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 18:14:00 -0400

Madison Square Garden, April 9

1. A bunch of my nitpicks from last week’s opus on the Meadowlands shows held true here: the show still lacks any semblance of a sustained thematic thread, the band mails in several of the arena mainstays and there’s not enough material showcasing the horn section. That said, complaining about a Springsteen concert is like complaining about an overabundance of salmonella-free cookie dough in the fridge. “Waaah! I had to sit through The Promised Land again! I have more legitimate grievances than all the world’s amputees and orphaned children combined!,” etc.

2. Man, did Bruce work hard last night. While he took the sitter-downers to task by chiding them for sitting down, mostly he shamed them into participatory compliance by prowling the stage like an eager-to-please 25-year-old. He’s 63 come September; he should not be physically able to do this four times/12 hours per week. If the music thing doesn’t work out for him, I have to think he could make a mint by sharing the secrets of his nutrition and workout regimens. You know, like “The Rumson Diet” or “Born To Digest” or “Everybody’s Got A Healthy Heart! And So Can You!”

3. Sitting behind the stage might mean more gazing at Garry Tallent’s deceptively contoured tuchas than one signed up for, but they’re my favorite seats in the building (save, of course, for the first few rows out front and on the sides). Observing the band members interact - Max tracking Bruce’s movements like an obsessive stalker, Nils nearly knocking Soozie into next week while sprinting back to his mic - is a hoot, as is watching Bruce during the lulls. Mostly he yells “yeah!” and garnishes his exclamations with salty language, but there are water chugs and quickie self-administered sponge baths as well.

4. Along those lines, our seats gave us a straight-on view of the backup singers’ teleprompter, which revealed truths both welcome (their parts are highlighted in a different color than the rest of the lyrics) and unwelcome (the set-list previews and changes remove some of the fun and mystery from the concert experience; seeing Backstreets peeled off the screen and replaced with Because The Night was a “Nooooo! Why? Why, God, why?” moment). Nearly all the mid-song raps are written out, too, though Bruce frequently improvises. They seem to have the effect of a few strategically placed post-it notes.

5. Backstreets remains one of the greatest compositions, musical or otherwise, in the history of western civilization. He went off script here, audibling in Backstreets/Land Of Hope And Dreams in the slot where Thunder Road was setlisted. That’s the Springsteen-concert equivalent of three dimes for a quarter.

6. I’m rooting for Jake Clemons, because his addition appears to be a rare instance of a family-member swap not motivated by nepotism. But he had a rough, rough night, underpowering the solos for Spirit In The Night, Trapped and Born To Run, among others. Hey, it happens.

7. Three Bruce shows in six nights = a fine week. Now, excuse me while I reacquaint myself with the wife and kid, and make the appropriate gestures of contrition.

Previous LD.com Bruceiness

4/3 and 4/4/12 Meadowlands Arena

Hanging with Clarence

Argument with self about Bruce songwriting eras

10/8/09 Giants Stadium

8/19/09 Hartford

4/24/09 Hartford

3/24/09 Asbury Park

7/28/08 Giants Stadium

7/27/08 Giants Stadium

5/8/08 Red Bank, NJ

5/2/08 Fort Lauderdale

Chart coolness via @FabFourFacts. Pretty sure this will never...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 09:23:12 -0400

Chart coolness via @FabFourFacts. Pretty sure this will never happen again.

East Rutherford, NJ - April 3-4, 2012 1. Anyone who nitpicks...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:25:02 -0400

East Rutherford, NJ - April 3-4, 2012

1. Anyone who nitpicks about a Bruce Springsteen concert should be sentenced to an eternity of listening to Dave Matthews playing Phish covers. Bruce Springsteen concerts are, always and forever, life-affirming affairs. I am wildly fortunate to have been in attendance at many of them.

2. That said, I’m going to nitpick about a Bruce Springsteen concert, because 10 shows in, the Wrecking Ball tour is still searching for an identity. Is it a lean, loud elaboration on the new record’s populist underpinning? A tribute to the band’s soul-man roots? A big-tent sprinkling of the hits, topped with a glaze of intra-band whimsy? The two Meadowlands concerts “only” amounted to an ecstatic recital of some of the greatest songs ever written, performed by an 18-strong band with chops and swagger to spare. I’m totally demanding a refund.

3. I blame the segues. E St. Shuffle into Jack Of All Trades, Rocky Ground into Out In The Street, She’s The One into Easy Money… They’re jolting musically and don’t make sense in the context of the bigger “conversation” that Bruce keeps prattling on about. Either you take the easy way out and announce “we’re gonna shift gears here,” or you mine the back catalog for songs that can more smoothly bridge the gap between the old and the new. My humble suggestions, in case Bruce is too proud to ask for help: Cover Me, Downbound Train, This Hard Land and The Price You Pay. Most anything from the circa-1982, BIUSA/Nebraska songwriting turboblast would get it done.

4. Tuesday night’s show felt like three different concerts crammed into one. You had the songs that put the horns front and center (City of Ruins, 10th Ave., E St. Shuffle, So Young and In Love, Apollo Medley), which were joyously, warmly rendered. You had the material that is modern musically and pointed lyrically (We Take Care Of Our Own, Wrecking Ball, Rocky Ground, Land Of Hope And Dreams, Easy Money, We Are Alive, Jack Of All Trades, Seeds, American Skin), which sounded vital but didn’t play in the arena setting. I’ve never seen a rush to the bathroom/beer lines like the one during Jack Of All Trades; it was as if somebody had shouted “free pizza in the concourse!” And then you had the arena mainstays (Badlands, Prove It, Promised Land, Because the Night, Thunder Road, BTR, Dancing In The Dark, Waitin’ On A Sunny Day, Out In The Street, The Rising), which felt like a chore. Nils salvaged BTN with some guitar acrobatics and the horns breathed life back into Thunder Road, but the others are candidates for an extended hibernation. The DITD whoa-oh-ohs, the extended Badlands guitar coda - enough.

4a. Bruce is performing for 20,000 people a night, a great majority of whom aren’t pining for material from the new-band period to return to the regular rotation. He has to play the war horses. I get this. There are worse fates than having to sit through another Sunny Day refrain, I suppose.

5. Wednesday night’s show was shorter and even less thematically coherent - and better for it. He plucked wisely from the played-every-so-often file (Jackson Cage, Racing In The Street, The Ties That Bind, Trapped, Candy’s Room) and didn’t work so hard to sell the slower/more unfamiliar elements of the show to the masses. I dug Johnny 99 as the night’s major horn-section showcase, even as it remains odd to recast a tale of murder and alienation as a jaunty two-step.

5a. An SAT-style analogy. Racing In The Street/original version : Racing In The Street/alternate version :: opening birthday presents : dropping heavy objects on your toe. The alternate isn’t weak so much as the original is epic, especially with the musical victory lap that is its drawn-out coda. Wednesday’s performance was like a coming-attraction for summer.

6. Since the end of the Rising tour, I’d been lobbying (lobbying = whining to the two friends who indulge me in such discussions) for Bruce to tour with a leaner version of the E Street Band. Owing to his obvious physical distress, which limited him as a performer, Clarence would’ve been one of the cuts. In retrospect, that was right up there with “I’m sure there will be a bathroom on the bus” in the pantheon of bad LD ideas. His absence hangs over the proceedings; the notion of an “E Street Brotherhood” ain’t just stage shtick. The tributes are lovely, but the stage looks unbalanced without Clarence lording over the left side of it. It’s a loss musically, too: Nephew Jake is technically proficient, but his note-for-note renditions of the solos feel just a little off.

Previous LD.com Bruceiness

Hanging with Clarence

Argument with self about Bruce songwriting eras

10/8/09 Giants Stadium

8/19/09 Hartford

4/24/09 Hartford

3/24/09 Asbury Park

7/28/08 Giants Stadium

7/27/08 Giants Stadium

5/8/08 Red Bank, NJ

5/2/08 Fort Lauderdale

My Happy Ticketmaster Story, by Larry Accidentally, and not in a...

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 12:05:35 -0400

My Happy Ticketmaster Story, by Larry

Accidentally, and not in a let’s-see-what-I-can-get-and-I’ll-deal-with-the-extras-later way, I wound up with two pairs of tickets for an upcoming event. This wouldn’t have been a problem but for Ticketmaster’s new (and as-yet-inviolable) paperless-ticket scheme, which only grants admission to individuals who verify their purchase information, true identity and pureness of heart via retina scan.

This left me in the position of having to call Ticketmaster and ask them to cancel one of the orders, despite repeated airings of a “no refunds or cancellations, pal” message during the purchase process. I expected to end up swallowing the extra pair and I braced for a wordfight. My strategy? To repeat “let me speak with your manager, please” until the CEO got on the phone, at which point I’d start weeping and pleading poverty.

Instead, I connected with a customer-service rep who was smart, sympathetic and empowered to help, even though he stressed that it was a longshot. A week later, not only did the full refund pop up on my credit card, but I received the handwritten note above from a member of the TM service team. What a nice and unexpected touch, especially since I was the one in the wrong.

We take a big Internet poop on any company who messes up, so it’s only fair to give props when they’re earned. Without further ado, then: Thanks, Mr. Ticketmaster, for going above and beyond.

(New bit here: Larry’s LünchMuzik, in which I revisit an album...

Fri, 23 Mar 2012 12:25:00 -0400

(New bit here: Larry’s LünchMuzik, in which I revisit an album from my youth over a sandwich and nutritious glass of milk)

Larry’s LünchMuzik, issue 3: Tonight, by David Bowie

Release date: September 1, 1984

Original purchase format: Vinyl. I remember being impressed by the shininess and stained-glass motif of the cover. Not coincidentally, this is when I discovered the lack of reliable correlation between quality of album art and quality of music that resides within.

Related: It was around this time that my delicate-flower young ears started to hear the difference in sound quality between vinyl (thicker sonic midriffs) and cassette (flabby lows and scratchy highs). This posed a real dilemma: Should I purchase the bulky, travel-unfriendly LPs for their superior audio and artwork/lyrics, or the hissy cassettes for their easy portability? I lost sleep over this. My childhood was quite Dickensian.

Possible original motivation(s) for purchase: I’m sure it had something to do with a girl in art class, because why else would anybody listen to David Bowie? But I could never draw and usually took a different elective, like wood shop, so that explanation doesn’t hold water. Separately, gravity kicked my school-made spice rack’s ass, and it wasn’t a fair fight… I did get into Stevie Ray’s guitar on China Girl and a few of the other Let’s Dance hit-a-roos, so maybe I was hoping for more of the same? I dunno.

Frequency of listening during adulthood: Never, though I picked up an MP3 of the title track along the way. Then as now, an apt description for it is “reggae for really, really, really white people.”

Aged well: Neighborhood Threat, which is so instantly memorable that no clip of it exists on YouTube. But really, we’re just dealing with degrees of disaster here. At least this one is loud and boisterous.

Aged poorly: Loving The Alien. I half-remembered the pre-chorus build and vocal hook that follows. I’d blacked out the syntho-bass, thick strata of echo and seven-minute running time. Here’s an argument for another day: For which songs can we waive the nothing-over-four-minutes rule? Off the top of my head, lots of old Dylan, Dire Straits’ Tunnel Of Love, Bruce’s Incident On 57th Street/Rosalita block and some of the Neil Young/Crazy Horse workouts on Ragged Glory.

Better or worse than remembered: I remembered it less than fondly and it didn’t clear that low bar. Don’t Look Down and Tumble And Twirl start in one place and don’t go anywhere; they’re like melodic paraplegics. God Only Knows might be the most overwrought cover version of all time - which, considering that Michael Bolton covers Otis Redding songs on a regular basis, is a powerful statement indeed.

Final thought: Tonight sounds like Rubber Soul next to the record that followed it, Never Let Me Down. I bought that one, too. I should be telling this to either my shrink or my rabbi.

Previous editions of Larry’s LünchMuzik:

1999, by Prince

Learning To Crawl, by Pretenders.

The wind blew this into my face during my run just before. I...

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 12:57:28 -0400

The wind blew this into my face during my run just before. I hope Ava says yes. Honesty and straightforwardness are underrated.

grade inflation

Sat, 17 Mar 2012 07:49:01 -0400

grade inflation:

If Working On A Dream merits five stars on a one-to-five scale, how many do The River or Tunnel Of Love deserve? Thirteen? Sixteen? Some lofty number that doesn’t yet exist, like eleventy-five?

This provided exceptional cover for a Twinkie purchase....

Mon, 27 Feb 2012 16:04:54 -0500

This provided exceptional cover for a Twinkie purchase. “But it said ‘bread,’ honey,” etc.

"Where did all this sh*t in the bed come from?"

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 14:30:27 -0500

"Where did all this sh*t in the bed come from?"

From the lovely site Shimmering and White.

Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:34:00 -0500

From the lovely site Shimmering and White.

It’s easier to imagine Eli hanging with Mickey and Goofy...

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:23:11 -0500

It’s easier to imagine Eli hanging with Mickey and Goofy than with D.J. Ware or Dave Tollefson, no?

“Also, you killed your friend’s girlfriend and...

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:21:26 -0500

“Also, you killed your friend’s girlfriend and caused two planes to collide.” Epic work by College Humor here.

My very, very socially adroit clique often mocks the hardcore...

Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:18:57 -0500

My very, very socially adroit clique often mocks the hardcore Springsteen nerds, last seen casting aspersions on the maternal forbears of Ticketmaster and Live Nation execs in the wake of another unsuccessful on-sale Saturday. But the extent to which they go to share vintage audio and video is pretty effin’ amazing. Hypothetically, if there were a torrent site named after one of Bruce’s most famous songs, you might be able to find the full-show audio there. Hypothetically.

updated from November 17, 2008

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 17:41:15 -0500

The post that fine morning was titled “LD reactions to the first song off a new Springsteen record in the years since he (LD, not BS) attained semi-adulthood.” So without any ado at all:

We Take Care Of Our Own, January 19, 2011: “His Bon Joviest moment yet. And with that, I am going to stick my head in the blender.”