Just Some Rock n Roll

I've noticed that The Boss has been getting quite a bit of face-time lately. Obama's inauguration with a choir doing "The Rising." Then that crappy little set at the Super Bowl. Do you think that some marketing guy got together a thousand 20-somethings, paid them to learn the lyrics to "Born to Run" and put them up by the stage? I do. I totally believe that!!! Just like when the Stones played the Super Bowl whenever that was. All those kids knowing the words to every song they played. PLEASE!!! Let's have a little dose of reality with the 40...or 50-something used-to-be MILF with her halter top and no-bra saggy boobs up by the stage singing along with the Boss. Springsteen had built up at least a little bit of "cred" in the last few year, moving on to become more of a roots rock icon, but all that just got blown at halftime. He went back to the washed-up wannabe rocker along with the Stones and the Who playing a bunch of 30 year old tunes in front of a bunch of teenagers who are saying, "Oh yeah, I know that song. It's in that commercial for Hummers." If Neil Young ever plays the Super Bowl, then I fuckin' quit!!!

Nevertheless....(deep breath)....I do love me some Boss. My senior year in high school and my freshman year in college I played the crap out of every single Springsteen album. While I may have followed the crowd on Born in the USA, I also quickly moved on to Welcome to Asbury Park, N.J...in my own defense. I hazily recall being drunk in some bar in Houston, singing all the words to "Thunder Road" with some girl. (It wasn't playing on the jukebox; we just decided to sing it.) Bruce is a significant part of my musical pedigree. So here's some Boss that doesn't suck. I stopped with Nebraska, because do any of us really need to ever hear ANYTHING from Born in the U.S.A ever again? I also left off "Born to Run," the song, not the whole album. Again, I think we've heard much too much of that particular song, and it really isn't that good to begin with. I've tried to put together a mix that honors Springsteen the poet more than Springsteen the rock star. He is quite the amazing lyricist, but sometimes all that gets lost in the mystique. As always, I hope you like this.

1. "She's the One," Born to Run
2. "Adam Raised a Cain," Darkness on the Edge of Town
3. "Independence Day," The River

4. "Johnny 99," Nebraska
5. "Does This Bus Stop at 82nd Street?," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.
6. "Rosalita," The Wild, the Innocent and the E-Street Shuffle

7. "Mary, Queen of Arkansas," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J
8. "Lost in the Flood," Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.

9. "Jungleland," Born to Run

10. "State Trooper," Nebraska

11. "Something in the Night," Darkness on the Edge of Town

12. "Backstreets," Born to Run

13. "Nebraska," Nebraska

14. "The River," The River

Click on Bruce for link.

I figure its about time that I posted some Stones. The question was only what Stones to post? I mean Sticky Fingers or Some Girls or one of those would really be silly. You can find those on the internet without me. So I'm posting a boot that I've had for quite some time. Actually I think it may be the first boot I ever owned. I was never really into bootlegs, but about 10 years ago a guy I worked with handed my 3 discs that he had burned. Now this when "burning discs" was still a big deal, a fairly new technology. So they were probably also my first "burned" CDs. He knew that I was a huge Rolling Stones fan and gave me 3 Stones bootlegs. And this one is my favorite. The first half of it is a concert from Honolulu in 1966 and the second is some studio stuff from around the same time period. I think that the concert part is far more interesting than the studio part. This is not groundbreaking stuff, but it's a nice disc to have.