So Long Astoria @ Twenty!

“My favourite thing to do was run away.”

– Richard Hell

I can’t remember how I first discovered The Ataris, though it was probably through their cover of Boys of Summer, which was on heavy rotation on MTV at the time. I loved the original, but the cover was spiky, energetic, and had a harder edge. This was at the height of my pop punk phase, so I decided to take a punt and buy the album. That meant a trip to HMV in Cardiff, which was where you had to go to get anything cool if you lived in the south Wales valleys twenty years ago. That, or Spillers Records, which is still there and now the oldest independent record store in the world.

Kind of like weed, So Long Astoria was my gateway album, and for the next couple of years I feverishly set about collecting everything the Ataris had ever put out. I still do, though they’ve lapsed into a funk over the past few years and apart from the odd single, live recording and demo, haven’t released anything new since 2007, though they’ve been threatening a new album for a couple of years now. They’ve never been the most settled outfit, with lots of label and line-up changes, the only constant being singer/songwriter/guitarist Kris Roe.

So Long Astoria, which like all the best albums, is a snapshot in time. Whenever I play it, I am magically transported back to the summer of 2003. It was a special time. My first book had just come out to modest success, I’d left my factory job, which I’d held for almost a decade, and was on the verge of moving to Southampton to study journalism at uni. I’d been writing diligently for eight or nine years by that point, and the hard work was finally beginning to pay dividends. I was also trying to extricate myself from a very bruising three-year relationship that had turned decidedly toxic. In short, my whole world had been turned on its head. Whereas before, it was a world of drudgery and stifled dreams, now it was one of unlimited possibilities.

Looking back, that period felt a lot like a dream. Mostly, I felt a sense of freedom I’d never experienced before. I also felt lucky, and proud that my hard work was finally paying off. I was also slightly terrified. Change is always terrifying, especially when everything changes at the same time. It seemed like every day I had to make potentially life-changing decisions, and I was afraid of fucking things up. There was excitement for my new life, and a duty to navigate my ship responsibly, but there was also a yearning for the past, where my existence was more structured and conventional. I’d spent most of my life trying to break out of a box and when I finally managed it, I had no idea what to do next.

The group of songs on So Long Astoria all fit a certain mould. They are full of optimism, yet many are also tinged with sorrow or regret. It’s an album of new beginnings and second chances. It’s looking forward, but glancing behind with a plaintive, wistful gaze. That fits with the overall context of the album’s release, as it was the band’s major label debut (for Columbia Records) after spending their early career on smaller labels like Kung Fu and Fat Wreck Chords. The mood is encapsulated in the title, a reference to the classic eighties flick The Goonies which is set in a place called Astoria. Roe has said the album’s overall theme was inspired by the book Go Now by Richard Hell (who was a member of several notable punk bands including the Neon Boys, Television and The Heartbreakers with Johnny Thunders) which alluded to the concept that memories are better than life itself. “I wanted this record to portray, that life is only as good as the memories we make,” Roe later explained, echoing the lyrics in the title track that kicks off the album.

The theme of escaping small town life and somehow making it big is carried onto the next song, Takeoffs and Landings, which is about the dissolution of a relationship and probably my favourite cut on the album. That and many other songs like Summer of ’79 and All you Can Ever Learn is What You already Know maintain the tempo and call to mind vintage Bouncing Souls or Sum 41. But they aren’t all spiky pop punk rockers. There is depth here, too. My Reply is about a hospitalized fan close to death and Unopened Letter to the World is an ode to American poet Emily Dickinson.

One of the key tracks is first single In this Diary, which was released on 11 February 2003 and later featured in teen heist comedy The Perfect Score. The below verse is pretty typical of the lyrical content:

I guess when it comes down to it
Being grown up isn’t half as fun as growing up
These are the best days of our lives
The only thing that matters is just following your heart
And eventually you’ll finally get it right

Some versions have a selection of bonus tracks on the end of the standard 13-track release. The pick of these for me is a remake of I Won’t Spend Another Night Alone, a song from the album Blue skies, Broken Hearts… Next 12 Exits, but A Beautiful Mistake, which came out as a b-side in some territories, and the cover of Rock n’ Roll High School by the Ramones are also worth checking out.

So Long Astoria was released on 4 March 2003 and was certified gold in America, selling over 700,000 copies. It sold 33,000 in its first week, debuting at number 24 on the Billboard 200. and charted at a slightly less impressive number 92 in the UK. I was hoping we’d get one of those deluxe 16-disc boxed set reissues, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. It wouldn’t really be necessary as the demos and live recordings from the era are available on the band’s Bandcamp page. After all this time, the album’s impact remains undimmed, especially among pop punk aficionados. The album was included at number 25 on Rock Sound’s 51 Most Essential Pop Punk Albums of All Time list. They later ranked it at number 97 on the list of best albums in their lifetime, and as recently as 2017 it was voted number 30 in Kerrang! Magazine’s list of Greatest Pop Punk Albums of all Time, the entry saying:

“While his powers have waned, Kris Roe’s skill with three chords and the truth was once second to virtually no-one. The Ataris’ So Long, Astoria is solid-gold evidence of that fact while their cover of Don Henley’s Boys Of Summer remains as good as (dare we say, even better than) the original.”

They are not wrong. Of all the album’s I have ever listened to, So Long Astoria is one I cherish most, and probably always will. If you’ve never heard it, go treat yourself.

Ryan Adams – Nebraska (album review)

Ryan ‘Not Bryan’ Adams has covered Bruce Springsteen‘s muted masterpiece Nebraska in its entirety. That came as a bit of a surprise. Not that it should. He has form in this area, having also issued song-for-song covers of both Taylor Swift’s 1989 album (2015) and Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks (2022). Adams is nothing if not resourceful. After being cancelled and then (sort of) uncancelled when charges of sexual misconduct against him were dropped after an FBI investigation, Nebraska was his sixth album of 2022, and two of them were doubles. That’s some effort. Even more admirable is the fact that he made it free to download. That at least injects some integrity into the project and suggests he did it out of genuine respect rather than as a quick cash grab, and God knows he could do with the money. His output hasn’t always been consistent, veering wildly from the stone cold classic Rock n Roll (2003) to the unchained weirdness of his sci-fi metal concept album Orion, but he’s one of those artists you have to admire, if nothing else for his unwillingness to do things by the book.

Anyway, let me try to focus on the subject at hand. Nebraska. The original was recorded at home on a 4-track by a burned out Boss in early 1982. They were intended as demos for the E Street band, then riding the crest of a wave after the soaring success of The River album and tour, to work up as their next project, but were eventually released more or less as is. As Wikipedia says, “the songs on Nebraska deal with ordinary, down-on-their-luck blue-collar characters who face a challenge or a turning point in their lives. The songs also address the subject of outsiders, criminals and mass murderers with little hope for the future—or no future at all.”

If that sounds depressing, that’s because it is. Music critic William Ruhlmann called it “one of the most challenging albums ever released by a major star on a major record label” and the release was seen by many Springsteen fans as a reaction to the generally sunny, positive vibes running through the majority of previous album The River. There’s no Sherry Darling or Ramrod here, though I’ve always thought Stolen Car and The Price You Pay could easily be transplanted onto Nebraska. That’s a conversation for another day.

It isn’t just the cover. The running order on Adams’ version mirrors the original too, so the first thing we here is the title track, a first-person narrative sung from the perspective of Charles Starkweather, who went on a killing spree with his teenage girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate in 1958. The story goes that Springsteen was inspired to write it afters seeing the biopic Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek. In fact, he liked the movie so much he’d already nicked the title and used it for a song on his seminal Darkness on the Edge of Town album. Most long-time Boss fans name either that or Born to Run as his career-defining album. Me, I’m in the former camp. Adams makes a good fist of it, and drops in a few subtle chord changes which lift the track slightly above the low-fi original. The album in general benefits from a proper production process. Granted, the original has charm and character in spades, but there’s no escaping the fact that it sounds like the set of demos it was intended to be.

Adams echoes Springsteen’s stark, often plaintive vocal delivery much of the time, but many of the tracks have been revamped or, ahem, reinterpreted to some extent. This can be quite a shock to the system on first listen, but I don’t hate it. What would be the point in faithfully adhering to every chord and nuance? If nothing else, the expression on offer gives this release a sense of identity and makes it its own animal. Johnny 99, one of my favourite tracks on the original release, is given a new breath of life as a rockabilly anthem, while Open All Night receives the opposite treatment, slowed right down with mournful vocal tones layered over the customary acoustic and harmonica accompaniment. The length is extended accordingly from 02:58 to 04:25. My Father’s House handled in a similar way, this version being longer and slower, the composition seemingly given more space to breathe.

State Trooper is perhaps given the most drastic reconstruction, this new version built upon a grungy, driving electric guitar riff which at its climax descends into an orgy of manic howls, distortion and angry reverb reminiscent of the Jesus and Mary Chain. If you only listen to one track off this album, let this be the one. Reason to Believe is another track that has been completely reworked. Gone is that spiky three-chord acoustic riff that carries the original, to be replaced by a minimalist piano. This track is perhaps best suited to RA’s vocal range, and it’s a fitting way to close out the album. Parts of the album reminds me of the way Springsteen himself reinterpreted the tracks on his 2005 Devils & Dust solo tour where he turned multi-instrumentalist and innovator. Strangely, Adams’ version of Atlantic City, one of the tracks you would think offers itself up for reinterpretation more than any other (Springsteen himself has played numerous different versions in concert, more recently with a full band backing), largely adhere to the original.

Critics might call this self-indulgent but I quite like it. Covering a classic song takes balls, covering an entire classic album takes bigger ones, and its difficult to see what Adams can really gain from it. It seems to me he’s on a hiding to nothing. It’s getting something of a mixed response, but I kinda like it. Besides, it’s free, and it’s not often you get something for nothing. Nebraska is available to download free.

Grab it quick while you can.

Beauty School – Happiness (album review)

I caught this Leeds-based 5-piece supporting The Dangerous Summer at Thekla in Bristol recently, and was so impressed I went back to my hotel and downloaded their album that very evening. Beer may have been involved. What I ended up with was this 13-track stonker, their first after a clutch of singles, on the recently re-launched label Slam Dunk Records, which is run by the same people behind the festival so you might have a decent idea of what to expect.

A consistent, solid album of authentic-sounding emo anthems infused with pop punk hooks, Happiness, produced by James Kenosha (Dinosaur Pile-Up / Pulled Apart by Horses) is bookended by two of its strongest tracks, the riotous feelgood sing-along Take it Slow and the soaring, slightly slower-paced and more reflective Junior, a song about paying your dues.

The singles Oak, Nightwalker, Drysocket and Pawn Shop Jewels, a mid-tempo rocker showcasing singer Joe Cabrera’s impressive vocal range, also stand out. It might not have spent 16 weeks at number one (does that even mean anything any more) but almost 45k plays on YouTube alone ina few short months is nothing to be sneezed at. Whoever chose those singles chose well, each one offering a pure, perfect slice of modern alt rock that wouldn’t sound out of place on any playlist. The musicianship is precise and textured, the twin guitars and wistful lyrics, more often than not referencing growing up and working class life, sit proudly atop a surging rhythm section. Also of note is Monster, the jaunty chorus striking a tense duality with the dark, intensely personal subject matter. It’s expertly done, and guaranteed to send a shiver down your spine. Cool video, too.

The members of Beauty School have been fixtures on the northern rock scene for years, playing in different bands with varying levels of success. Consequently, this is the sound of a band with direction, who have done their time, put in the graft, and now have a clear idea about their sound and what they want to achieve as a band. Best of all, they clearly don’t take themselves too seriously, which is refreshing to see. As the marketing bumph says: “Beauty School have interpreted sounds from pop-punk, alt-rock, and indie-rock and forged a record that finds a home in each genre without feeling out of place or over-indulgent.”

The influences aren’t hard to spot. The Wonder Years, Neck Deep, and A Day to Remember shine through, and there are tuneful touches of Funeral for a Friend, Feeder and even vintage New Found Glory. Hearing this album for the first time was like listening to the result of all my favourite bands getting together for an impromptu jamming session. I’ve spunked money on many worse things when drunk.

I wasn’t the only one who was impressed, Beauty School have been making a lot of friends recently and picked up a bit of airplay. Beauty School are out on tour again this month supporting The Wonder Years, another great band. See you down the front.

Gig review – The Dangerous Summer @ Thekla, Bristol, 29/09/2022

A year in China, Covid restrictions, and being old as fuck meant I hadn’t seen any live music for almost four years. That’s a long time, and it was always going to take something special to get me off my ass and down the front again. That ‘something special’ turned out to be a UK tour by The Dangerous Summer, one of my favourite bands of the past decade.

First, a word about the venue, Thekla. I love spaces with character, and being a converted cargo ship moored in Bristol’s Floating Harbour, Thekla has plenty of that. Built in Germany in 1958, it carried various cargoes between European ports until running aground off the coast of Northern England. And there it stayed, for seven years, until being bought, patched up, and sailed to Bristol by American novelist Ki Longfellow-Stanshall (who died earlier this year), her husband Vivian, and a small crew of volunteers, where it has played host to gigs, shows, and club nights since 1984. What a story.

TDS have to be one of the most underrated bands there is. I’ve been a fan since the Absolute Punk days (if you know, you know) and I reviewed both their 2019 album Mother Nature and their 2020 EP All That is Left of the Blue Sky right here on this blog. For all intents and purposes they are the definition of a cult band, and no doubt they’ll maintain that status long after they’ve gone. People will still be discovering them in 50 years time. Their fans know this. Musically, if you imagine a cross between Jimmy Eat World and Joshua Tree-era U2, with maybe a touch of My Chemical Romance or Alkaline Trio, you’d be half way there. Rather than try to make sense of my inadequate description it’s probably easier to just look them up on YouTube.

But first the support, Beauty School. I must admit I knew nothing about these guys. One of the joys of going to gigs, especially on the club circuit, is the opportunity to be blown away by bands you’d never heard of before. Granted, it doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it is a thing of beauty (school).

As I watched the Leeds-based five-piece plug in and tune up I must have looked like a curious spectator examining an especially interesting museum exhibit. They went about everything with gusto, and just seemed happy to be there. While most bands are preoccupied with image, one of these guys looked like Eddie the Eagle wearing a Leeds United shirt. I was curious to see what kind of noise a two-guitar set up would make, yet intensely wary of getting earfucked by a bunch of talentless northern reprobates. The tiny stage barely seemed big enough, especially when a man mountain with blue hair came bounding into sight holding a mic. I had barely finished asking myself who the fuck this might be when I realized it was the lead singer. Although a new band who have just released their first album, appropriately called Happiness, singer Joe Cabrera confessed mid-set that all the members were veterans of other bands and had presumably been on the circuit for years. This shines through in their playing, which is smooth, polished and full of energy. The highlight for me was Take it Slow and set closer Junior. They were so good I even forgave them for the Leeds United shirt.

I won’t waste time going over the history of a band with a lot of history. Let’s just say Maryland band TDS are out in support of their latest album, Coming Home. It’s been a long road. Soon after forming in 2006, they signed to Hopeless Records and put out a steady stream of quality material until 2013 when they took a 5-year hiatus. Since regrouping, you get the feeling they’re trying to make up for lost time. Long-time members AJ Perdomo (vocals and bass) and Matt Kennedy (guitars) have been supplemented by ex-Every Avenue guitarist Josh Withenshaw and demon drummer Christian Zawacki, who hits those things like a man possessed. The band’s entire chemistry is a thing to behold. They look like they’ve been playing together all their lives, and have no trouble replicating their studio sound in a live environment. If anything, the songs carry more weight, the musicianship even more impressively precise, and the lyrics even more impactful and emotive.

They start their set with Prologue from the aforementioned Mother Nature album, which isn’t a song at all but an intro fashioned from a genuine voice mail Perdomo received from a friend which became ‘It’s own piece of art’. This builds then segues effortlessly into Blind Ambition and the soaring title track from the new album, which judging by the reaction it received is already a crowd favourite. It can be tricky working new material into a set, but there were no such problems here. A lot of thought had gone into what was played when, and the newer material like Someday, which took its time to grow on me but now ranks in my top five, slotted in neatly with the more established crowd pleasers.

I’m in this pic if you look closely

Way Down was every bit as powerful as you might expect, the crowd noise regularly drowning out Perdomo’s vocals, and Where I Want to Be, the first track from their 2009 debut album, almost brought the house down. For Bring me Back to Life Perdomo left his bass behind and got in the crowd. These kinds of antics usually come across as contrived, but on this occasion the sentiments seemed genuine. These are big songs, not just in stature, but scope and sheer presence. The only issue was the set having to be cut short because of an imminent club night, which smacks of either bad planning or simple greed, but was no fault of the band’s. They didn’t play my favourite song, either, but you can’t have everything. By the time we arrived at a euphoric closing one-two of Fuck Them All (which is nowhere near as aggressive as it sounds) and signature tune The Permanent Rain. I actually met a guy from Cardiff who said he’d named his own band after that song. There can be few greater compliments.

By the end of the set I felt like I’d been on a journey. I wasn’t quite the same person I’d been at the start. TDS have a back catalogue that puts most of their contemporaries to shame, and as they embark on this new chapter in their career having left Hopeless, gone indie, and then signed to Rude Records all in the space of a couple of years, they are destined to go from strength to strength. Don’t let them pass you by, or you’ll live to regret it. Come back soon, guys.

Where’s my F***ing Sweatband?

I really like Dire Straits. You could say they are my guilty pleasure. I don’t think they are as respected or as widely known these days as they probably should be. Most of the people who do know them are left with that eighties caricature image of Mark Knopfler in the Money for Nothing video, wearing a jacket with shoulder pads and the sleeves rolled up, and a fucking neon headband. That’s more a representation of the eighties as a whole than the band.

The first DS record I ever bought was Brothers in Arms, which I sought out largely as a consequence of the copious amounts of TV advertising that went into promoting it. I mean, when it was £5.99 in Woolworths (which would probably amount to around £15 in ‘today’s money.’) you fucking knew about it. I only found out years later that most of the songs had been horribly edited down to fit on the vinyl.

Released over 35 years ago, Brothers in Arms, their fourth and most successful studio album, was a bit of a double-edged sword for Dire Straits. It was their Born in the USA. Actually, a lot of parallels can be drawn between Dire Straits (essentially singer/songwriter/lead guitarist Mark Knopfler with some other blokes) and The Boss, not least that both have working class roots and traded off the same kind of ‘everyman’ image. Of the two, Knopfler is without the doubt the better guitarist. He has a distinctive style, as do many of the greats from Jimmy Page to Brian May, in this case developed through ‘picking’ at the strings with his fingertips rather than using a plectrum. You wouldn’t even have to know the song to know who was playing guitar on it. On the flipside, The Boss is by far the better showman and probably the more consistent (and prolific) songwriter.

Another common denominator is that in effect, the Born in the USA and Brothers in Arms juggernauts alienated huge swathes of the respective artists’ existing audiences and attracted the ‘pop crowd.’ In the eighties, much like today, the Pop Crowd brought money, but no loyalty. They weren’t going to stick around. You’d be lucky to keep them interested for two albums, after that they’ll be into Fergal Sharkey or the Blow Monkeys for six months. The vast majority of bands don’t even get that two albums worth of grace.

It’s not enough to have talent and great songs. To attract the Pop Crowd and plug into the mainstream you need something else, some X Factor. In the case of Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms arrived within the eye of a perfect storm. It was released just as ground-breaking new tech was emerging in the form of CDs and CGI graphics, and MTV was just taking off. It soon became one of the bestselling albums of the era.

Dire Straits ended up paying a price for that success. By the time grunge hit a few years later they were typecast as a bunch of try-hard dad rockers and became a virtual laughing stock. Grunge, well, mostly Nirvana who spearheaded the whole thing, had a seismic effect on rock and metal. It almost killed off hair metal on its own, like a nuclear blast. Overnight, bands like Poison, Ratt, Cinderella, Motley Crue, Warrant, and approximately seven million others, all became irrelevant and then turned into shocked-looking parodies of themselves as they were reduced to playing 250-capacity rock clubs again instead of 20,000-capacity arenas they’d been used to. Def Leppard tried to fit in by recording Slang, for fuck’s sake. It was ugly.

Most of the artists who were left retreated into themselves. To use Springsteen as a yardstick again, he fired the E Street Band and released the limp one-two punch of Human Touch and the only-marginally better Lucky Town on the same day, just to try to stay relevant, and in 1991 Dire Straits put out On Every Street, their last studio offering. It’s not a bad album, just a bit tired-sounding in places. At best it was comfy and warm, at worst vapid and unrewarding. It was the sound of Dire Straits desperately trying to tread that middle ground between being true to themselves and pleasing their new legion of fans. The result was a big long sigh. Afterwards, the band fell into live archive releases and odd compilation territory and Mark Knopfler went solo.

Bloated and overlong, On Every Street was made for the CD market and it may be no accident that my top two Dire Straits studio albums, 1980’s Making Movies and 1982’s Love Over Gold would both fit on a single CD with room to spare. Although for the most part typically restrained (only Industrial Disease, Expresso Love and Solid Rock attempt to lift the mood a bit), those albums are focused and precise, a lot of the music dark and brooding yet filled with restrained passion. The musicianship is exemplary. I must have played those albums thousands of times. Earlier albums 1978’s self-titled and the following year’s Communique both had their moments, there were just fewer of them. Probably my favourite DS track of all time is Telegraph Road. At over 14-minutes long, it’s a stroke of genius. It takes a lot to keep me interested in anything for that long. I’ve had shorter relationships. I prefer the version found on Alchemy Live. I love the narrative, and how the song builds from little more than an understated whimper to a furious scream. Those power chords.

Alchemy, recorded at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1983 on the Love Over Gold tour, is pretty much the perfect live album if you can overlook the weak opening. Once Upon a time in the West to open a show when you have ready-made firecrackers like Tunnel of Love in your repertoire? Really?

Dire Straits are the consummate live band. But more the kind of band you’d like to see in a smoky club, or at a push, a theatre. They were a bit lost in those stadiums. the bigger the venue, the bigger the entourage and when you have a touring band numbering in double figures, it all gets a bit dramatic. If you’re interested, and you should be, there are also a few excellent bootleg recordings floating around. Koln ’79 is recommended (notable because they play Sultans of Swing twice having fucked the first one up), as is On Location – Live in Wiesbaden 1981 and Live in Sydney 1985. Recorded on the Brothers in Arms tour, that one is worth seeking out if only to hear the band wowing audiences at their commercial peak. For a while there, nowhere was safe from the Knopfler shoulder pads and sweatband.

If you enjoyed reading this, you might also enjoy my recent tribute to London Calling or one of my several Springsteen posts.  I’ve also written about my personal musical odyssey and various other related shit.

Bruce Blogs #3 – My Top 10 Live Recordings

Any Springsteen aficionado will tell you that his official studio output only tells half the story. The Boss has been touring for over 45 years and played many thousands of shows, most of which have been meticulously logged and recorded by his fervent fanbase. Make no mistake, venturing into Springsteen live recording land is a daunting prospect, and no place for the faint-hearted. For that reason, I’ve decided to make this list to help you navigate. This isn’t supposed to be a definitive list of the best Springsteen live recordings available, because I haven’t heard them all. Instead, think of it as my personal Top 10. Like any list, it’s subjective, but hopefully it will give you a starting point.

Five or six years ago, this would’ve been a list of bootlegs. But then The Boss, or more likely one of his management team, saw a huge opportunity and started selling professionally-produced and packaged live concert recordings on a variety of formats virtually as and when they happen. This had the simultaneous effect of virtually wiping out the bootleggers overnight and creating another considerable revenue stream in one fell swoop. They are even opening up the archives and releasing classic concerts remastered and, where necessary, restored. Genius. It’s a winner for me, because now I instantly download bunches of MP3 files which cost less than £8 for over three hours of music instead of paying £60-plus for a bootleg which sounded like it had been recorded in the back of a van and took seven months to arrive by post. You can check out the existing archive of live recordings HERE.

10. Brooklyn, New York, April 25^th 2016

Let’s start proceedings with a show from The 2016 River tour, and I think the first I ever acquired from the (then) new-fangled Springsteen Live Archive site when it first went up. Having listened to so many sketchy boots over the years I was dubious at first, but blown away by the sound and overall production quality. During this leg of the tour, Bruce and the E Street band were playing the seminal River album (which Bruce refers to here as his ‘coming of age’ record) in its entirety from start to finish, with a few hits and deep cuts tacked onto the end. A bit predictable perhaps, even though many of the tracks are arranged differently and extended far beyond their studio limitations, and Bruce himself evidently soon got bored and started mixing things up. This show is notable for being the last with that rigid format. Oh, and a primo Prince tribute in the form of a storming version of Purple Rain.

9. The Schottenstein Centre, Ohio, 31^st July 2005

One from leftfield. Devils & Dust was a weird tour. The stripped-down album had a lot in common with its predecessors Nebraska and The Ghost of Tom Joad, but the tour, mostly played in intimate theatres, was something else entirely. It was virtually a one-man show, apart from a few guest appearances, with Bruce re-imagining songs from his expansive backlist and playing every instrument needed to bring them to life. Some were almost changed beyond recognition (Reason to Believe) while other interpretations veered off into experimental territory. As a spectacle, it was okay. I understand the need to shake things up from time to time. But as a document, the Devils & Dust tour is little more than a WTF side-note. When the distortion fed into the recordings that surfaced afterwards, it was sometimes difficult to tell what was deliberate and what wasn’t. Still, this effort, with its rarities in the form of Lift me Up (never played before) Cynthia, and a trio of Tunnel of Love tracks (One Step Up, When You’re Alone and Valentine’s Day) is well worth looking up.

8. First Union Centre, Philadelphia, September 20^th 1999

I could’ve picked any show from the Reunion tour, especially the first half, as most were epic and the setlists didn’t alter much. The E Streeters were just glad to be back, and the crowds fed off the energy. I settled on this one, released on bootleg as Backstreets of Philadelphia (Polar Bear Records) for the simple reason that I was in the crowd that night, so it has a special kind of resonance with me. It’s a long way from south Wales to Philadelphia. Plus, the Boss opened with Candy’s Room, which he doesn’t do often, if ever. In fact, the entire set was heavily reliant on material from Darkness on the Edge of Town, with five of the first dozen tracks lifted from that album, which I personally consider his best. On this tour, the newly-reformed and re-focused E Street Band were at the top of their game and they absolutely kille dit every night.

7. Olympic Stadium, Helsinki, Finland, 31^st July 2012. Released on Vigorous Records as The Finnish Finish

Lauded as the night ‘the myth became reality’ this show is included not only on the basis that it is Bruce’s longest gig to date (well over four hours, not including the five-track mini acoustic set he performed in the afternoon) but because the set-list fucking rocks. Kicking off with a cover of Rockin’ all Over the World, we are treated to a riotous opening section culminating with the ’78 intro version of Prove it all Night. Deep cuts like Be True, Loose Ends and Back in Your Arms also make rare appearances, sitting well alongside material from then then-current Wrecking Ball album. There was just something special about that night, which Bruce himself alludes to before We Are Alive. That’s one of the truly great things about Bruce gigs; the spontaneity. Literaly anything can happen, at any time. No disrespect to Helsinki, but if this was contrived at all, he would have undoubtedly chosen to play his longest ever show at a more prestigious venue, maybe in London, Milan or New York. That’s worthy of another tip of the hat.

6. Berlin Night, 19^th April 1996

The Boss didn’t tour the Nebraska album. The closest he came was performing nightly mini-acoustic sets as part of the main show on 1984-85 Born in the USA tour. Taking the stage alone must be a daunting experience, especially for an artist so accustomed to having a full backing band behind him, but Bruce rose to the occasion. Of course he did. This show, partially broadcast on the radio in some countries before being released in its entirety by famed bootleg label Crystal Cat, is perhaps the pick of the Tom Joad shows. Less experimental and more folksy than the Devils & Dust recordings, as you would expect, the setlist is dominated by tracks from the ‘solo acoustic’ albums. However, Bruce still manages to throw a few spanners in the works, as he always does, stripping down Murder Incorporated, Bobby Jean and Adam Raised a Cain, to name but a few. He also deserves some kudos for trying to speak German.

5. The Spectrum, Philadelphia, September 17^th 1984

This might be sacrilegious to some fans, but the Born in the USA tour is probably my least favourite. Most of his concerts are timeless. You could listen to one from 1976 and another from 2016 and have difficulty telling which is which. But the Born in the USA shows (like the album) are instantly recognisable as a product of their era. All elevated keyboards swirling around vast stadiums and tinny production values, they couldn’t be more eighties if you wedged them into a pastel-coloured tank top with shoulder pads . It doesn’t help that not much quality material emerged from that tour, with most examples being audience recordings taken on those old cassette recorders. This show, the penultimate night of a mammoth six-date residency at the Spectrum, is a rare exception. It was released on bootleg as Tramps Like Us, and then in a remixed form as Perfection At Last. It’s not quite perfect, but it’s not far off. Opener Born in the USA segueing into Out in the Streets is simply breathtaking.

4. Hammersmith Odeon ‘75

And now we’re going back. Way back. The Hammersmith Odeon now goes by the less auspicious name the Eventim Apollo, but this still stands as one of Springsteen’s legendary gigs. This is the sound of a band captured just as they are hitting their stride. After a low-key Thunder Road, you can feel the bristling intensity during the intro to Tenth Avenue Freeze Out. Shows from this era were generally shorter, barely scraping the two-hour mark, because more often than not the band would play two a night. Boasting definitive versions of It’s Backstreets and Jungleland along with a killer 17-minute rendition of Kitty’s Back (featuring an improv section and a few bars of Van Morrison’s Moondance) this gig was so good it became one of the few to be granted a long-overdue official release.

3. Coliseum Night (29 December 1980)

Before the pomp and extravagance of the Born in the USA tour, many would argue that Bruce & the E Street Band peaked on the 1980/81 River tour. The shows in general were more geared toward blasting out a succession of 3-minute crowd pleasers (as was the album) than the more indulgent focus of past tours. No 17-minute versions of Kitty’s Back here. Of those currently in circulation, most people would probably choose the famous NYE bootleg, recorded a couple of nights later at the same venue (these shows collectively make up a significant proportion of the Live 1975/85 box set), but a combination of the quality of recording and a slightly superior set-list takes this one for me. Over the span of a 37-song performance Bruce expertly moves the audience through the gears, from openers Night and Out in the Street to the sombre Factory and Independence Day a few songs later. It’s like being on an emotional rollercoaster.

2. Washington, 26^th September 2016

Despite the band missing some big hitters in Clarence Clemons and Danny Federici, the second half of the River tour of 2016 is probably my favourite run of Bruce shows ever. I love the way the band sounds, and the quality of the recordings on these later sets is incredible. Listening to them is like having Bruce and the E Street Band perform in your living room. Most stateside shows kicked off with a jaw-dropping 13-minute orchestral version of New York City Serenade and generally favoured older material, mostly taken from the first two albums, giving the whole thing a glorious retro summer vibe. Some of those tracks, in particular Kitty’s Back and Does This Bus Stop at 82^nd Street? feature a lot of lyrics and chord changes. They must be a nightmare to play live, which would explain Bruce’s apparent reluctance to do so over the years. Why set yourself up for failure? The 34 track set list performed here also borrows heavily from Born in the USA (six tracks), and throws up the odd surprise like Because the Night, Trapped and Secret Garden. Sublime.

1. Capitol Theatre, Passaic, NJ

The one and only. Released on various bootlegs, most famously as Piece de Resistance, this is a near-perfect recording of the second in a trilogy of triumphant shows running from 19-21 September at the Capitol Theatre, New Jersey, again on the Darkness tour. For many years, this was considered the king of bootlegs. The show has recently been given the archive treatment so it’s now available in better sound quality. During my ‘research’ for this articles, I listened seven or eight Darkness shows virtually back-to-back, and apart from varying sound quality (dependent on sources) there is very little to choose between them. I very nearly went for perennial favourite Winterland recorded in San Francisco a few months later, but this one takes top spot firstly due to the near-mythical status it has deservedly earned in the intervening years, and on the strength of a scorching Incident on 57^th Street, which surprisingly enough wasn’t played too often on this tour. It comes at the expense of Streets of Fire, but everything has a price. The only thing I dislike about this show is the inclusion of Santa Claus is Coming to Town. Why. WTF? It was September.

If you enjoyed reading this, you might appreciate my previous Boss blogs about my experiences following the Boss around the world and a more detailed account of my first Bruce gig.

The Dangerous Summer – All That is Left of the Blue Sky EP (Review)

It’s been a difficult year for most of us. In fact, 2020 has been a total fucking washout. It’s been a time of change and upheaval, uncertainty and angst, and with their sweeping melodies and emotive lyrics The Dangerous Summer make the perfect soundtrack to it all.

Earlier this year, they left Hopeless Records when their contract expired and, despite being offered new terms, took the opportunity to turn officially ‘indie’. As lead singer and lyricist AJ Perdomo explains, “It got to a point where I was getting all of these calls and having these conversations and I just felt miserable. I hate talking about this sort of shit. This is what makes me fucking hate music. So out of anger I just said, ‘Let’s release this stuff ourselves. Screw all this shit’. Then we can go at our pace, release things whenever we want and do whatever the fuck we want. I just didn’t want to be owned any more.”

You can read my review of their last album for Hopeless, Mother Nature, here. The Dangerous Summer’s first independent release was the soaring single, Fuck them All, which sounds as if it might be a not-so-subtle message to the music industry as a whole. These lyrics speak for themselves.

Fuck them all
They want me like a light bulb
Blurred out with the sun
Swept under the rug again
Am I insane?
I think this is my moment
Yeah, nothing’s standing here in my way

Fuck them All kicks off this six-track EP in style before things are brought down a notch, a touch prematurely you could argue, for the piano-based slow-burner Come Down. Latest single I’m Alive follows, which sounds less like a departure and more like a cut from the aforementioned Mother Nature album. That’s not a criticism, by the way. As much as you have to admire any artist having the courage to branch out, try new things and develop their sound, all this has to be anchored in something tangible, solid and relatable. There has to be a thread of familiarity running through anybody’s body of work to tie it all together. Take Prince, for example. He would jump from hip-hop to dance to r n’ b to glam rock, often over the space of six tracks on the same album, but everything he did was still unmistakably Prince. That’s very much the case with TDS, who over the years have matured and fleshed out their signature sound while remaining true to their roots, flying their own flag and resisting the temptation to chase fashions or fads.

LA in a Cop Car keeps things ticking over in much the same vein, calling to mind classic Yellowcard or Something Corporate. TDS often get tagged with the pop-punk label, which isn’t a bad thing, but not entirely warranted. They may have the energy and vitality so prevalent in pop-punk, especially during it’s early-naughties climax, but for me that’s where the similarities end. This music is much more textured, and the lyrics have more of a soul-searching emo vibe. The EP is rounded off with Come Along, another epic-sounding chunk of polished power pop featuring Aaron Gillespie who now plays drums with TDS, having made his name with Paramore and Underoath.

In summary, All That is Left of the Blue Sky is bold and fearless, the sound of a band finding their feet after finally being set free. The songwriting and musicianship is, as always, immaculate, and the layered production adds a sheen. TDS are one of the artists eager to capitalize on an ever-evolving music industry and seem very well-placed to do so. They can only move forward from here and I can’t wait to see how it pans out.

You can listen to this modern masterpiece here.

Bouncing Souls – Vol II (review)

One of the few bright spots in this shittest of years is provided by Bouncing Souls, who never disappoint. They may be mellowing slightly as the New Jersey punks advance in years, but the spark is still there. Volume II comes hot on the heels of last year’s stonking Crucial Moments EP, rather than coming hot on the heels of Volume I. In fact, there is no Volume I. There’s a 20^th Anniversary Series of EPs which ran to four volumes, but that’s a different thing entirely.

So what do we ave ‘ere, then?

Ten re-imagined and re-recorded classics and one new track, that’s what.

On some level, it does resemble the greatest hits compilation the BS catalogue is lacking in that some of their best songs like Ghosts on the Boardwalk, Kids and Heroes, Simple Man and Hopeless Romantic are included, alongside some deeper cuts like Highway Kings and Say Anything. But as I alluded to before, they may be here, just not as you know them. It seems to be in-vogue now for artists to go back and revisit their back catalogue. While not strictly a fan of the approach, I’m not against it either. Mike Peters of the Alarm does it to great effect.

I think one reason why it’s become so popular, apart from becoming an ideal way to resolve various contract disputes, is the rate at which technology is developing. When some of these tracks were originally recorded they sounded like they’d been bashed out in someone’s garage, which was kinda the point. But now, we have orchestras, drum machines (not as horrible it sounds) and the kind of polished production values that would make Def Leppard jealous making this largely minimalistic set essential listening.

As guitarist Pete Steinkopf said in a recent interview, “We initially wanted to recreate some of the stripped-down vibe of the acoustic sets, but if anything, these versions are much more involved than the original versions. The first day we got to the studio Will said something like ‘we’re not gonna just make an acoustic record, right guys?’ We were like ‘hell no’ and then we were off to the races.”

I must admit, I was a bit wary of hearing the new version of Gone. It’s one of my favourite songs of all time, and I didn’t want my memories tainted by some jazzed-up abomination. Happily, my fears were unfounded. Sure, Gone is the driving riff to be replaced with understated acoustics reminiscent in places, bizarrely enough, of mid-period Cure. Quite a few of these tracks have that feeling, harking back to a much simpler time. Another example is the only new song here, World on Fire, which was released as a single earlier this year and sees the band exploring their lighter, janglier side.

While this may not be a definitive work, or even properly representative of BS as a band, it rounds out their body of work nicely and adds another dimension to some great tunes. If I have one criticism, it’s that they could’ve gone bigger. Volume II only features eleven tracks from a repertoire of hundreds and has a running time of around 36 minutes. But the BS ethos has always been ‘less is more,’ and I guess this paves the way nicely for Volume I.

Volume II is out now on Pure Noise records.

The Facebook Album Cover Challenge

I usually try to avoid these things. They are a drain on my time and resources, and more often than not completely pointless. This challenge, though, caught my attention. So much so, that I want to share it here. My Facebook page is a shit show. Things get buried and I often delete stuff without warning – usually when two or more of my acquaintances start arguing on one of my threads about Bigfoot or something. But this is my permanent record. It’s where things are kept for posterity, which is why you will find a near-complete record of everything I’ve ever had published here.

I was nominated by Douglas Sutherland (a madcap Canadian I first met when I worked at Southampton FC a lifetime ago – we later became house mates) to share one album per day for 10 consecutive days that influenced my taste in music – no explanations, no reviews, only the covers. It was pretty hard not to explain myself sometimes. I found the first few albums came easily, but the less choices I had left the harder it became and by day 10 there were five or six albums vying for a mention. 

So here they are for your perusal, in the order I posted them (which wasn’t in order of preference).

 

The Alarm – Stream (Hurricane of Change) (review)

The Alarm were bothering the charts long before the triumphant one-two combination of Equals and Sigma. Between 1987 and 1989 they released a trio of seminal albums beginning with Eye of the Hurricane and ending with Change, with the live mini-album Electric Folklore sandwiched in between. The late eighties were turbulent times, not just for the band, who despite arguably being at their commercial and creative peak were beginning to be torn apart by internal politics and squabbling, but also in a wider social context. This was the aftermath of the Miner’s strikes, and when the Berlin Wall fell shortly afterwards it catapulted Europe and the rest of the world into a period of seismic change. While all this was going on, lead singer Mike Peters travelled extensively through his homeland of Wales in a bid to rediscover his roots. During that period of intense retrospection he wrote extensively, many of the lyrics eventually being incorporated into the songs which appeared on the original albums while others fell by the wayside and still others remained unfinished or in some cases even unwritten.

Though it was their third official release (fourth if you count the debut EP) the original Eye of the Hurricane was the first Alarm record I ever bought, and I soon busied myself filling out my collection. The fact that I ended up with some of that collection on vinyl, some on cassette, and some on CD was perhaps indicative of the uncertainty of the times. The thing that resonated with me most wasn’t the anthemic, fist-pumping choruses or impassioned musicianship, though those things definitely played a part, but more the lyrics. In a landscape consisting mostly of Bon Jovi and Guns N Roses clones, it was refreshing to hear someone singing about the place where I was from, and about the things that mattered to me, especially at that stage in my life. I was 13 or 14, and things are especially confusing then. You begin to ask questions and seek meaning, and it wouldn’t be too much of a stretch to say that the Alarm’s music helped me find answers to some of those questions.

Thirty years later, Peters has revisited that period and put all the material in a modern context, recently commenting:

“I have always thought of these three albums as an Alarm trilogy. A lot happened to the band and the world, during the writing and recording sessions from 1987-1990. As one decade bled into another, the themes of response and resolve to contend with uncertain times are running through the core of each and every album. Played together, these songs tell their own story and, with the tumultuous times Europe and the USA can expect to face in the coming months and years, are still as relevant today as when they were first written.”

The original tracks have been re-recorded or even re-imagined, those unfinished or unwritten songs have finally been laid down, and the whole thing adapted into a sprawling double album called Hurricane of Change tied together with segments of poetry and spoken-word narratives. Mike Peters has adopted a similar approach in recent years with re-recordings of earlier Alarm albums Declaration and Strength which, though critically and commercially well received, split much of the fanbase with some appreciating the new interpretations and others maintaining that the original recordings should be left as they are. My stance has always been firmly in the former camp. I enjoy hearing different versions of my favourite songs. Always have. Remixes, remasters, covers, demos, acoustic or live versions, bring them on. Music, like life, is always progressing and evolving whether we like it or not. If your favourite flavour ice cream is strawberry, it doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy the occasional scoop of mint choc chip as well. Besides, the hardcore traditionalists will always have the original recordings by the original line-up. It’s not like anyone is forcing them to surrender their record collection at gunpoint.

This is an ambitious project, told in chronological order with the emotive autobiographical spoken-word parts delivered by Peters, with a supporting cast of members including his wife Jules, and other members of the band, all adding depth and a theatrical quality that was missing from the originals. Most of the re-imagined songs, slower-paced and piano-heavy, bear little relation to the original versions. Rain in the Summertime and Rescue Me, two of the band’s biggest hits, are virtually unrecognisable. Of the new songs, for me Ghosts of Rebecca and The Ballad of Randolph Turpin stand out both lyrically and sonically dealing, as they do, with folk heroes and uprisings, and really do sound at home in this setting. The first disc (dubbed Downstream) presents the Eye of the Hurricane album, where the new songs serve as missing pieces. The second disc (Upstream) is comprised of tracks originally found on the Change album, including Where a Town Once Stood which I tactfully re-purposed as the title of one of my stories recently, as well as a few b-sides recorded around the same time and another new song, A New Day. The whole package makes a worthy addition to any Alarm fan’s collection, serving to put the original albums in context and take the songs down a different, lyrically-focused route where there is more of an impetus on mood, atmosphere, and storytelling rather than eighties radio-friendly pomp.

Watch the official trailer for Hurricane of Change HERE.

Peters describes the recording process thus:

“By looking at the lyrics afresh, I have now been able to fully realise what I was grasping for as a songwriter and lyricist in 1987-1989. Back then, my confidence had been blunted by a difficult creative process, and I had always privately felt that there was a lot more left to be discovered within the original body of music. With these new recordings, I have been able to realise a torrent of new possibilities and emotions and, in turn, draw them out of the very same songs. By recording Hurricane of Change in this new way, I feel that I have been able to liberate my original lyrical vision and re-present the music in a way that I believe, is just as relevant, if not more vital than ever before.”

Go HERE for merchandise, tickets, and Alarm/Mike Peters recordings.