Tampa Calling

Jackson Browne settles his copyright case with the Republican Party, which played his 1977 hit, “Running on Empty” without permission in a McCain campaign ad that aired on TV and the Internet.

Pop Matters writer Charles A. Hohman offers a lengthy, media-packed analysis of Born in the U.S.A in honor of its 25th anniversary: “Sex in the U.S.A.: Male Sexuality in Springsteen’s American Dream.”

A new covers album of songs by New Zealand indie great and recent stroke victim Chris Knox features a rather respectable line up — Guided by Voices, the Mountain Goats, Jay Reatard, Yo La Tengo and Lambchop, among many others.

In answer to Animal Collective’s getting the go-ahead from the Grateful Dead for the experimental band to sample the jam grandfathers’ song, Blender offers up “Grateful Dead songs ready for sampling, and the artists that should sample them.”

YouTube and Warner Music still can’t agree about liscensing fees.

Chris Brown (pictured) makes a public apology for the assault on Rihanna last month.

This just in from the Bruce Springsteen newsite: The Boss had added 25 dates to his current U.S. tour, including a stop at Tampa’s Ford Amphitheatre on Sept. 12; tickets go on sale July 24. Here’s the complete details, with the fluffery (gushing quotes from European press) edited out:

Bruce Springsteen & The Legendary E Street Band have added 25 new US concert dates to their 2009 ‘Workin’ On a Dream’ tour. Springsteen has now sold over 1.5 million concert tickets in 2009 alone, with the new dates expected to push that number over the two million mark. (Video of the band performing “The River” at 2009’s Glastonbury and complete schedule of tour dates after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

“I got to play with Bruce. That’s my hero.”

Trey Anastasio said that. After Phish jammed with Springsteen at Bonnaroo. The unlikely pairing joined forces for the R&B classic “Mustang Sally” as well as Springsteen’s “Glory Days” and “Bobby Jean.”

Added Phish bassist Mike Gordon, after witnessing Springsteen’s three-hour set at the festival, his first time: “It’s great to know that it’s not all hype or anything, there’s such a solid musician and songsmith standing there, and then to be so nice and such a gentleman at the same time.

Read a more detailed account.

Check out CL’s main music site.

Ever since the phrase “pull a Radiohead” entered the music blogosphere’s lexicon, we’ve watched as a diverse list of acts such as Nine Inch Nails, Saul Williams, Pennywise, and Portishead explore ways to reinvent the music business wheel. One of the highest-profile free agents is Pearl Jam – a group unafraid to fight corporate giants like Ticketmaster head-on. But Eddie Vedder and company don’t fear partnering up with a big box store either.

Billboard reports:

[Pearl Jam manager Kelly Curtis] confirmed that deals were also finished or in the works with an online retailer, a mobile partner, a gaming company and with a network or possibly networks of indie retail stores. “Target ended up allowing us to have other partners. We’ll be able to take care of all levels of the Pearl Jam fan…We wish we could tell the whole story right now, but all the deals aren’t done. Target was cool enough to realize that little independent record stores are not their competition.”

Pearl Jam will follow in the footsteps of AC/DC, Prince, Guns n’ Roses, The Eagles, Bruce Springsteen, and many other famous names that granted exclusivity deals with big box retailers. But Pearl Jam’s deal with Target is not quite as odious. Details after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the first wave of rock legends has passed that used-to-be retirement age of 65, a new crop of important artists is closing in on 60. Over the last few months, it surprised me to discover just how many prominent rockers were 59. Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Tom Waits, Stevie Wonder, to name a handful.

I got curious if this was a particularly good age for rockers. Rather than telling you how many rock artists are 59 at this very moment, I did a search and unearthed which ones were born in 1950, the height of the post-WWII baby boom. Quite a few, as it turns out. Here’s a chronological list of pop artists born in 1950. A pretty good year. The list is extensive but not all-inclusive:

January 9, 1950, David Johanson (New York Dolls, Buster Poindexter)
January 5, 1950, Chris Stein, (Blondie)
January 21, 1950, Billy Ocean
January 23, 1950, Danny Federici (E Street Band)

January 23, 1950, Pat Simmons (Doobie Brothers)

February 6, 1950, Natalie Cole
February 12, 1950, Steve Hackett (Genesis)
February 20, 1950, Walter Becker (Steely Dan)
March 2, 1950, Karen Carpenter (The Carpenters)
March 4, 1950, Billy Gibbons (ZZ Top)
March 21, 1950, Roger Hodgson (Supertramp)
March 26, 1950, Teddy Pendergrass
March 27, 1950, Tony Banks (Genesis) Read the rest of this entry »

A dear friend of mine is in the midst of the arduous, exhilerating, terrifying and liberating process of coming out. She recently wrote to me about the central role certain music has played in helping her to interpret and cope with her whirlwind emotions. I’ve combined her suggestions with a few of my own favorites to create a soundtrack that is guaranteed to make anyone’s coming out possible, bearable and even totally awesome.

Prince, Cream: I’ve chosen this raunchy classic primarily for the obvious reason, but also for its subtext of affirmation and empowerment: “Do your dance / Why should you wait any longer? / Take your chance / It can only make you stronger.” So true.

Bruce Springsteen, Rosalita (Come Out Tonight): I don’t think Bruce knew he was writing the following lines for me and gay people everywhere, but we should still thank him for them: “Closets are for hangers. Winners use the door / So use it, Rosie, that’s what its there for!” Although set in a fairly cliche heterosexual context, this song is all about sexual defiance, transgression and freedom. It resonates with queer audiences in a profound way.

Ani DiFranco, Shameless: This spunky jam about a clandestine same-sex love affair was critical in my own coming out journey. Ani communicates the experience of being closeted in characteristically clunky couplets like “We’re in a room without a door and I am sure without a doubt / They’re gonna wanna know how we got in here and they’re gonna wanna know how we plan to get out.” Check out a rousing performance (complete with a full-throttle audience sing-along) after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

This Saturday marks the second annual Record Store Day, a national salute to the more than 700 indie music stores located across the country and the positive impact they make on their communities. In honor of the event, several Bay area stores are offerings specials and carrying limited edition, exclusive Record Store Day releases.

Daddy Kool gives 10 percent off all new albums and 20 percent off all used inventory, and hosts some yet-to-be-announced activities.

Other area stores, like Sound Exchange, Mojo Books & Music and Vinyl Fever, have stocked up on an array of exclusive Record Store Day releases available only at indie stores. Amid the offerings are an array of split 7”-ers, including a double 7” of live tracks from Atlanta and Edinburgh by Tom Waits and Lucinda Williams, and a split 7” featuring covers of songs from Warner Bros.’ back catalog – Flaming Lips with Stardeath and White Dwarfs performing Madonna’s “Borderline,” and The Black Keys doing Captain Beefheart’s “Her Eyes Are a Blue Million Miles.” Guided By Voices re-releases its Hold On Hope LP with three bonus tracks, My Morning Jacket offers a limited run CD and double 10″ vinyl release recorded live in Louisville at Ear X-tacy record store, and Wilco makes its forthcoming concert DVD, Ashes of American Flags, available solely to indie stores and on its website on Record Store Day. Other exclusive RSD vinyl releases come from Bruce Springsteen, Leonard Cohen, Mastodon, Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Jane’s Addiction, The Stooges, Modest Mouse, Slayer, The Decemberists and Black Kids, among many others. Read the rest of this entry »

At straight-up 3 p.m., the appointed hour, a man on the other end of the line announces himself: “Heyyyyy, it’s Southside!”

And so begins a spirited 40-minute conversation with one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most undervalued artists, Southside Johnny Lyon, who has fronted a horn-heavy R&B band called the Asbury Jukes for more than three decades. After his first troika of LPs, released in the latter ‘70s on Columbia, fell short of commercial expectations — especially in light of the concurrent rise of his Jersey shore compadre Bruce Springsteen — Southside and company focused mostly on touring.

They don’t do the road-dog slog of the old days, when 250 dates a year was the norm, but the Jukes still cover plenty of turf. And they try their level best not to let performing get stale. “I’ve never wanted to just go out and play the songs,” Southside says. “I need to find that nugget in the middle of the night, where the audience clicks and is really there, and we’re all in that night, in that moment.”

With an eight-piece backing band (including four horns), Southside, 60, shouts and wails and dances and sweats and jokes his way through sets that put a premium on spontaneity ­— sometimes taken to extremes. “I was drivin’ to a gig one time and I heard ‘Walk Away Renee’ on the radio, the Four Tops version,” Southside recalls. “So on stage that night I just started singing it.  [Guitarist] Bobby [Bandiera] started playing it and we did it as a duet. A couple nights later, the drums and bass came in — they’d gone over it a little bit — and we added it to the set; ended up putting it on a record. When it works, it really works — but it doesn’t always work.”

Southside Johnny is a gifted singer, with a natural soul moan, an extra gear that brings out the grit, and a knack for calibrating his voice to fit the song, be it a jazzy ballad, a Stax-styled stomper like “Talk to Me” or Sam Cooke’s good-times anthem “Having a Party.”

For those other than his devoted cult of fans, Southside is perhaps best known as the guy who got left in Springsteen’s dust.

Read the rest of this entry »

I was a bit less enamored with Bruce Springsteen’s Super Bowl halftime performance than the rest of the world, but I’ll give the man his props: He understood the situation and delivered a rousing, crowd-pleasing 12-minute set. No time to ease into the show, no room for subtlety — this had to be bang-bang, here we go!.

I would never have guessed that Springsteen and his DeMille-ian cast of musicians known as the E-Street Band would start with “Tenth Avenue Freeze-out,” but I was glad they did. The R&B stomper is one of those simple tunes that gets the adrenaline pumping. The house party I attended — baby boomers all, except for their kids — was up, happy and moving.

Holding the mic sans guitar, Springsteen, pushing 60, dusted off one of his stage moves of old when he ran and slid on his knees into the camera. Ultimately, it was a crotch shot, however brief, and when Springsteen then stood and grinned into the camera, he seemed to understand how silly it was. (I’m wondering if there were parents in the Bible Belt who tsk-tsk’ed at the inappropriateness of such a spectacle.)

After the Boss’ trademark count-off, the band moved into “Born to Run,” another song that always gets the juices flowing. The tune’s theme of post-adolescent alienation mattered not. Several times Springsteen’s vocals darted patently out of tune, but that’s OK, it was pandemonium up there.

Read the rest of this entry »

Pitchfork recently ran a comprehensive guide to releases coming up in 2009. I’ve scaled it down to the highlights (no box sets, re-issues, vinyl, 7″ or overseas releases) and added a few as well. Click here to see Pitchfork’s complete guide.

JANUARY

06
*The Brighton Port Authority, I Think We’re Gonna Need a Bigger Boat (Southern Fried)
Glasvegas, Glasvegas (Columbia)
The Gourds, Haymaker! (Yep Roc)

13
Late of the Pier, Fantasy Black Channel (Astralwerks)
Lymbyc System, Carved by Glaciers (Magic Bullet)
My Dear Disco, Dancethink (Dancethink)
Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Greatest Hits (Columbia Wal-Mart exclusive)
This Will Destroy You & Lymbyc System, Field Studies (Magic Bullet)
*Derek Trucks Band, Already Free (Sony Legacy)

20
*Andrew Bird, Noble Beast (Fat Possum)
*Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion (Domino)
Antony and the Johnsons, The Crying Light (Secretly Canadian)
*Bon Iver, Blood Bank EP (Jagjaguwar)
Calexico, Live From Austin, TX (New West DVD)
John Frusciante, The Empyrean (Adrenaline Music)
Ice-T, Live in Montreux 1995 (MVD DVD)
Matt and Kim, Grand (FADER)
*The Modern Skirts, All of Us in Our Night (Modern Skirts Recordings)
A.C. Newman, Get Guilty (Matador)
Ben Nichols, The Last Pale Light in the West (The Rebel Group)
Or, The Whale, Light Poles and Pines (Seany)
Public Enemy, Revolverlution Tour 2003 (MVD DVD)
*Squarepusher, Numbers Lucent EP (Warp)
*Umphrey’s McGee, Mantis (Sci Fidelity)

27
*The Bird and the Bee, Ray Guns Are Not the Future (Blue Note)
Brian Wilson, That Lucky Old Sun (Capitol DVD)
Circlesquare, Songs About Dancing and Drugs (!K7)
*Cotton Jones, Paranoid Cocoon (Suicide Squeeze)
*Dan Deacon/Adventure, Split 12″ (Carpark)
*Franz Ferdinand, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand (Domino/Epic)
Hot Chip With Robert Wyatt and Geese EP (Astralwerks)
Kylie Minogue, Boombox: The Remix Album (Parlophone)
of Montreal, Jon Brion Remix EP (Polyvinyl)
Owen, (the ep) (Polyvinyl)
Rush, Retrospective 3 (Atlantic CD/DVD)
*RZA, Afro Samurai: The Resurrection (Wu Music Group)
Duncan Sheik, Whisper House (Victor)
Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream (Columbia)
*The Sway Machinery, Hidden Melodies Revealed (JDub) Read the rest of this entry »

The Boss is back with the title-track to the highly anticipated new film The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke in what’s being touted as an Oscar-worthy, comeback performance.

The song doesn’t have much of a hook, and the lyrics are riddled with cliches, but the lived-in passion of the vocal makes the song a mandatory listen for all Sprinsteen fans. Listen to complete song, watch trailer after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bruce Springsteen and Danny Federici performing Nov. 14, 2007, Pittsburgh, Pa., Photo by Guy Aceto/Backstreets.

Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band’s longtime friend and bandmate, organist/keyboard player Danny Federici, died Thursday afternoon, April 17, after losing a three-year battle with melanoma. In respecting his death, Springsteen postponed Florida shows, including the one scheduled for Mon., April 21, at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, which will take place Tuesday, April 22 at same venue. Here’s the official statement from The Forum:

All Florida dates for the Bruce Springsteen Tour have now been rescheduled. The new date for the Tampa show, originally scheduled for Monday, April 21 at the St. Pete Times Forum is now Tuesday, April 22^nd. Additionally, shows initially postponed in Orlando and Ft. Lauderdale have been rescheduled as follows: the new date for the Orlando Show at the Amway Arena is Wednesday, April 23^rd; and the new date for the Ft. Lauderdale show at the BankAtlantic Center is Friday, May 2^nd. The dates were rescheduled in respect for the untimely death of original E-Street Band keyboardist, Danny Federici. More information will be available at www.brucespringsteen.net.

Tickets originally purchased for Monday night’s concert will be honored at the show on Tuesday.

Tickets: Tickets for this event are on sale now at the MCDONALD’S BOX OFFICE at the St. Pete Times Forum and all Ticketmaster Outlets including Spec’s Music and FYE. To order tickets by phone, call Ticketmaster at 813.287.8844 or 727.898.2100. Tickets are priced at $67.75 and $97.75. Prices do not include service charges. For more information please call 813.301.2500 or visit www.stpetetimesforum.com.

Here’s Springsteen’s official statement, issued via his publicity company, regarding Federici:

Danny Federici, for 40 years the E Street Band’s organist and keyboard player, died Thursday afternoon, April 17, 2008, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City after a three year battle with melanoma.

A permanent website has been established at www.federicimelanomafund.com. (The site will be active on Friday April 18.) The Federici family and the E Street family request that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made at the website to the Danny Federici Melanoma Fund.

“Danny and I worked together for forty years. He was the most wonderfully fluid keyboard player and a pure, natural musician. I loved him very much. We grew up together.” — Bruce Springsteen

Here’s what I have running in this week’s Creative Loafing:

• Have Gun, Will Travel emerges as area’s top alt-country act. The Bradenton band has its CD release party for the excellent Casting Shadows Tall As Giants tonight at Crowbar, Ybor City, 9 p.m. Highly recommended. Look for my review of the concert posted here on Saturday.

• Green at the gills: A contrarian’s view of going green.

• Bar Tab: Dumping ground … A rube learns the ropes at Bern’s Winefest.

• Bruce Springsteen gets Boss-y at the Forum. Another show I can’t miss. Look for a review of it by Senior Editor Eric Snider or me — or both of us — posted here on Tuesday; we’ll be attending the concert together.

• Panic at the Disco to groove at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

• The Matches and All Time Low rep AP Tour.

• Review of New CDs from R.E.M., The Raconteurs (by ES) and Robert Walter (ES). We debated on giving R.E.M.’s latest 4 1/2 (out of 5) stars but I wussed out at the last minute and stuck with 4. It’s a great disc and maybe deserved the higher rating. Then again, I don’t think I’ve given 4 1/2 stars to a new release in the past year. Thoughts?

• Avril Lavigne, Car Bomb Driver and more in Music Week. I got a bit wordy on the Lavigne entry but thought her pilfering ways needed to be revealed.

• Also, an expanded version of my blog post Top 10: Bob Dylan lyrics is running this week in CL’s Sarasota edition under the headline: Bob Dylan, Pulitzer-Prize winner.

A slew of the big names are headed this way. Alicia Keys (pictured) at the St. Pete Times Forum on May 24. Sheryl Crow at Ruth Eckerd Hall on April 29. The Boss. Petty. Kanye. Radiohead. They’ve all announced dates around Tampa Bay. But which ones are priorities?

Top 10: Upcoming shows (Feb. 28-July 30, 2008)

1. Radiohead at Ford Amphitheatre on May 6: Been far too long time since the world’s top art rockers have performed ’round here.

2. Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band at St. Pete Times Forum on April 21: Memories of seeing him at Jazz Fest still give me chills. Plus, he’s touring behind his strongest album in years.

3. Kanye West at Ford Amphitheatre on May 5: His gripping performance at the Grammys completely sold me.

4. Alicia Keys at St. Pete Times Forum on May 24: Her MTV Unplugged performance from ‘05 completely sold me. Dig her new album, too.

5. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers at St. Pete Times Forum on July 16: Somehow I’ve managed to go my whole life without ever seeing Petty. This needs to change.

6. WMNF’s Tropical Heatwave w/Sonny Landreth/Del Castillo/Soul Rebels/Scissors for Lefty (others) at the Cuban Club on May 17: The best annual fest in the area. Tex Mex masters Del Castillo impressed me last year when they played the Orpheum, Landreth’s one of the best guitarists alive and the Soul Rebels’ blend of Big Easy brass and hip-hop have made them one of my New Orleans faves ever since seeing them play until sunrise one night at Le Bon Temps Roule.

7-8. They Might Be Giants at Jannus Landing on March 11; Ani DiFranco at Tampa Theatre on March 11: This is a tough one. I’ll probably go with DiFranco since she did such a fine job of thoroughly charming me during our recent interview, which will run in the Creative Loafing that hits newsstands March 6.

9. Caribou at Crowbar on April 6: Interviewed Caribou’s Dan Snaith last year but missed the electronica-pop whiz’s show. Not gonna let it slip by this time.

10. The Roots at Jannus Landing on March 9: The best rap band around. Another act I’ve been meaning to see for a long time.