Duane said:

"Devil's and Dust" !!! There's another one that'll grow mold next to "Tom Joad". What a piece of self-indulgant @#*x.



I hear ya, Duane.

Note to Bruce: Cut out the folky, "I'm an artiste", political crap, and just rock. You're one of the best when you do that. If I want to hear Woody Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, or Peter, Paul, and Mary, I'll buy their stuff. Folk blows as bad as rap. (Just one rocker's opinion).

Elmo ducks from high-minded types who don't know how to shake their moneymaker/groove thang!

"No Anchovies, Please"

Duane in Houston Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> "Devil's and Dust" !!! There's another one that'll
> grow mold next to "Tom Joad". What a piece of
> self-indulgant @#*x. He must have one HELL of a
> recording contract!


Actually, you've got that all wrong, Duane. You see Tom Joad effectively rescued Bruce's career from the doldrums after the post-divorce/remarriage/fatherhood/mid-life crisis that was the Human Touch/Lucky Town/Fake Band era. That alienated not just the fairweather fistpumpers who'd jumped on the Born In The USA bandwagon, but a lot of his hardcore constituency as well.

Tom Joad and especially the tour helped Bruce reconnect with his songs, his muse and his core audience. You may hate the album and tour, but I and practically everyone who saw those shows loved them. There were some breathtaking moments, like how he reworked The Promised Land into a very eerie dirge, which reinvented the song completely. He even rescued If I Should Fall Behind from Lucky Town purgatory and gave it a stripped down, soulful reading which brought out the song's fragile beauty. You really would have to be a very one-dimensional Bruce fan not to appreciate that.

Devils & Dust is, in my opinion, the best album Bruce has released since Tunnel of Love, and the tour took the Joad experiments even further. The finale - a cover of Suicide's Dream Baby Dream - was downright moving.

This is a road he wanted to go down after Nebraska. He was going to shelve the Born in the USA material indefinitely and release another acoustic/solo album he cut in LA in 1983. Landau talked him out of it - and quite wisely at that stage of his career. I'm not a big fan of Born in the USA - overproduced and full of mostly empty songs - but it was completely necessary because its success freed him up to follow his muse.

Bruce is now at a similar stage Neil Young reached in the early 80s. He did, on balance, a rock album, then a country-ish one, every other year. Then he signed to Geffen and made a lot of difficult, challenging, experimental records, some of which bore no resemblance to anything he'd done before or after. Love 'em or loathe 'em, they were fascinating failures (except for Everybody's Rockin', which was an expensive joke). I look forward to Bruce's shelved hip hop album in the near future.

Hey, Duane, maybe you and me can go see the Fiddy Springsteen Pimp My Rock tour when it his Houston and breakdance to the hip hop version of Jungleland.

Elmo Lewis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Duane said:
>
> "Devil's and Dust" !!! There's another one that'll
> grow mold next to "Tom Joad". What a piece of
> self-indulgant @#*x.
>
>
>
> I hear ya, Duane.
>
> Note to Bruce: Cut out the folky, "I'm an
> artiste", political crap, and just rock. You're
> one of the best when you do that. If I want to
> hear Woody Guthrie, The Kingston Trio, or Peter,
> Paul, and Mary, I'll buy their stuff. Folk blows
> as bad as rap. (Just one rocker's opinion).
>
> Elmo ducks from high-minded types who don't know
> how to shake their moneymaker/groove thang!


The Van Halen reunion tour being cancelled must've hurt you bad, Elmo. Nevermind, I'm sure they'll do it next year, when Dave finds the right fright wig toupee.

LOGIE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> R Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >> The SSB schtick is a cheesy contrivance and
> > nothing more. It stiffed in the United States
> > which is why Landau took it back to Europe. AT
> > BEST it's (hopefully )a creative spark for
> Bruce's
> > own lost muse. If you like it, fine, that's
> your
> > perogative. Please feel free to spend the
> > hard-earned money I USED TO SPEND on Bruce and
> his
> > ridiculous hootenany project.
>
>
> I can recall people saying exactly the same thing
> when Tunnel of Love came out!
>
> If you like the old records (and nothing else),
> then my advice is to stay at home and play them.
> Somehow, I don't think that Bruce is going to lose
> any sleep worrying about the money THAT YOU USED
> TO SPEND.
>
> If he was concerned about money, he'd have already
> made Born in the USA Volume 10 by now.


Tunnel of Love was a great album. But musicly,it's a far cry from what he did with the seeger sessions..........No one's saying he has to rewrite Born To Run....But he doesn't have to reinvent the wheel either.

sweetcharmedlife Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> LOGIE Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > R Wrote:
> >
> --------------------------------------------------
>
> > -----
> > >> The SSB schtick is a cheesy contrivance and
> > > nothing more. It stiffed in the United States
> > > which is why Landau took it back to Europe.
> AT
> > > BEST it's (hopefully )a creative spark for
> > Bruce's
> > > own lost muse. If you like it, fine, that's
> > your
> > > perogative. Please feel free to spend the
> > > hard-earned money I USED TO SPEND on Bruce
> and
> > his
> > > ridiculous hootenany project.
> >
> >
> > I can recall people saying exactly the same
> thing
> > when Tunnel of Love came out!
> >
> > If you like the old records (and nothing else),
> > then my advice is to stay at home and play
> them.
> > Somehow, I don't think that Bruce is going to
> lose
> > any sleep worrying about the money THAT YOU
> USED
> > TO SPEND.
> >
> > If he was concerned about money, he'd have
> already
> > made Born in the USA Volume 10 by now.
>
>
> Tunnel of Love was a great album. But musicly,it's
> a far cry from what he did with the seeger
> sessions..........No one's saying he has to
> rewrite Born To Run....But he doesn't have to
> reinvent the wheel either.


Tunnel was terrific. I think the Born in the USA airpunching fairweather hopalongs were expecting him to come out with more of the same histrionics and felt cheated. What they failed to realise is that Bruce never repeats himself. All his albums are different one from the other, even the ones he released the same year, or on the same day.

And E Street tours are different one from the other too, and you always get a strong hint as to what his next musical direction is going to be like from those tours too.

Hey, Nikolai, if it's any of your business (which it ain't), I love Bruce so much that "If I Should Fall Behind " was the song that was played at my wedding. My father and step-mother liked it so much that my brother-in-law and myself played it at their wedding.

Oh yeah, can't wait to see with Roth w/Van Halen (oh, already did at the 1981 Stones show in Orlando), while you're listening to that ******* folk music. Get a life. Go to the Pete Seeger board, chump.

"No Anchovies, Please"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2007-05-31 11:13 by bv.

Bruce is also my second favourite artist, after the Stones, and I remember an interview in which he said it's like the vote for the stamp - which Elvis do you want? The young Elvis or the old Elvis? You can have your favourite, but don't expect a true artist to stay in your favourite period forever.

Which reminds me - Bruce does an absolute killer version of James Taylor's "Millworker" on YouTube. Whatever version of Bruce you like, this'll send a chill down your spine. (Okay, no link. You gotta work a little!)

Yeah Nikolai come out of this one looking like the ignorant a**hole... its called roots man. You clearly didn't see the half-full American venue carrying the "Pay Me My Money Down" chorus throughout the 10 minute encore break.

Like others are saying... imagine the Stones doing 2.5 hours of old blues covers with three re-worked stones songs. Playing in venues that were smaller and more intimate. It would be the most amazing thing ever.

Music is protest, that's what artists have done since the beginning of time. Get over it. The war songs are inspiring, and it doesn't necessarily have to be about politics.

Whether you like it or not Folk also had huge influences on Rock and Roll. And yes, you can hear some of Seeger and Dylan's influence in every Bruce song.

Now we know Elmo is either a huge Bush supporter or a closet David Lee Roth fan, neither of which I want anything to do with...