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Kaleidoscopic
In this week's Kaleidoscope, I wrote about Bruce Springsteen's London's Hammersmith Odeon '75 concert DVD (which you can buy on the 30th anniversary edition of Born to Run)/CD. Here's what I said:
Last week's Springsteen show at the Spectrum ranked high among my Boss encounters, but I would give my right kidney to have seen him play London's Hammersmith Odeon '75, available on DVD and CD. Bruce had blown up in the U.S., but London concertgoers were skeptical. The E Streeters don't sweat it, blazing through Born to Run, along with reworked choice cuts like "Rosalita" and "Kitty's Back." It's at this show that the Jersey wharf rat became king.
Here's what I didn't say: I watched this with my best friend in life and all things Springsteen during a Boss-related marathon, were we essentially just Netflixed anything that had Bruce Springsteen in it (probably our best marathon, although Jean-Claude Van Damme and Clint Eastwood were also stellar). We saw a lot of crap ' unauthorized documentaries, the worst fuckin' MTV Unplugged ever (ugh, the Other Band? Gross). But then we found Hammersmith. And it was glorious. In Redemption Song: The Ballad of Joe Strummer, Chris Saliewicz writes about immensely influential this concert was on a young Joe Strummer who, while still in the 101ers, upped his own on-stage histrionics because of the Boss (who in turn was influenced by Van Morrison's stage act). If this show could knock Joe Strummer's socks off, it's atl east got to get you a little hot and bothered.
Watch it all and read my comments after the jump or go here for the entire YouTube playlist.
Thunder Road
Word on the street is that they used to do the solo version in concert because the band couldn't play the song live yet. Awwww! Cute!
10th Avenue Freeze Out
When the Big Man joined the band. How pimp is Clarence Clemons? So pimp.
Spirit in the Night
This is the most indicative of how Springsteen plays a show: At about 4:40, he gets super self-serious. Then he starts crawling on the floor. I remember watching this for the first time and being a little embarrassed for him. But then, at about 5:00, he crawls in between a space in the stage and continues to sing with his little wool-capped head just poking out. It was the "You guys thought I was serious? Come on, this is rock 'n' roll!" moment.
Lost in the Flood
My friends and I often discuss how funny we think it is when Springsteen curses. In this, he sings "gunning that bitch," which always makes me giggle a little bit.
She's the One
Yes, yes I am.
Born to Run
E Street Shuffle, Pt. 1
Best comment on this post:
Thezealotsguitarist: 3:00- Bruce invents the robot
E Street Shuffle, Pt. 2
So good it had to be split in two.
Saint in the City
This song's got swagger. Check out the Bowie version too, which I just heard for the first time the other day and is characteristically awesome.
Backstreets
Kitty's Back, Pts. 1 & 2
Listen for a little "Moondance" by Van Morrison
Jungleland
The most epic of all.
Rosalita
My fave performance out of the whole shebang.
4th of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)
How much do I want to be Sandy? A lot.
Detroit Medley
"Good Golly Miss Molly" ' and then I start to hyperventilate.
For You
Quarter to Three
Closing with a cover? Bold move, Bruce, bold move.
In this week's Kaleidoscope, Pat Rapa wrote about Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens. Here's what he said:
This'll be a fun test for the wide-open-mind hipsters and the spiritual-not-religious tourists who'll come to the Keswick on Wednesday to bask in the secular-ish glory of Sharon Jones. Because opening act Naomi Shelton & the Gospel Queens is the righteous real deal. She's an Alabama church singer who uses her magnificent pipes to praise God with every breath. Will there be shoutin' in the amen corner? Will the kids skip her set for a 45-minute smoke break? Or will they testify?
Take a listen Shelton and her ladies sing "What Have you Done?"
Here, Shelton and her bandleader, Cliff Driver, discuss their new album, What Have you Done, My Brother? (out May 26 on Daptone Records):
'And just in case you don't think Ms. Shelton can own it live (extra points for the AMAZING outfit)'
With Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Wed., May 8, 8 p.m., $25-30, Keswick Theatre, 291 N. Keswick Ave., Glenside, PA, 19038, 215-572-7650, keswicktheatre.com.
In this week's Kaleidoscope, I wrote about Jason Bateman's role in the recently released State of Play. Here's what I said:
It could have been a throwaway part played by some no-name. But Jason Bateman takes his role as the slicked-back hack in State of Play (see Sam Adams' review) and runs with it, showing up three Oscar winners in the process. Bateman brings humor and humanity to the sleazoid Dominic Foy, and inserts some much-needed levity into the oh-so-intense third act. Bateman's main fault in the film? He's not in it nearly enough.
Sam Adams, who reviewed the film, agreed:
The most satisfying characters are those we don't expect depth from: Helen Mirren's salty editor or Jason Bateman as a PR agent whose oiled-back hair suggests a species of burrowing rodent. Director Kevin Macdonald relies on his actors' charisma to fill in the gaps, a strategy that works for the length of the film if it doesn't leave much to mull over afterward.
Because Bateman has an important part in the film's third act, no clips would do him justice without completely spoiling the movie. For the same reasons, he's not in the trailer much. But here is is anyway:
But these vids don't really prove Bateman's inherent genius as a character actor. So here is the best scene of Teen Wolf Too:
In this week's Kaleidoscope, I wrote about the band Death, who I had heard rumblings of in hushed music geeks tones, but never really knew what they were about until an excellent New York Times article. Here's what I said:
Eschewing R&B after seeing Alice Cooper, the Hackney brothers formed Death in 1974, bridging the gap between the driving garage of the MC5 and loudfasthard punk. And then they faded into obscurity. Why? Because it would be impossible to market an all-black rock band from Detroit? Because they walked out on record man Clive Davis when he said they had to change their name? It's not the music. Drag City has collected it for the first time on ... For the Whole World to See. It's about time.
Afropunk was kind enough to post some videos.
"You're a Prisoner"
"Freaking Out"
"Politicians in my Eyes"
In this week's Kaleidoscope, Pat Rapa gives props to Francis Ford Coppola's Latin American edition of Zoetrope: All-Story. Here's what he had to say:
Francis Ford Coppola's quarterly literary magazine Zoetrope: All-Story is usually a good bet for smart, ambitious short stories, but this spring's Latin American Issue is especially excellent. Pieces by Carolina San'n, Ronaldo Men'ndez and Daniel Alarc'n ' not to mention the beautifugly sketches of guest designer Guillermo del Toro ' make this one a keeper.
Ronaldo Men'dez's "Insular Menu" was a particular favorite of Pat's and, will you look at that? Zoetrope's has an excerpt on their site:
The hot March morning they officially announced, after imperious rumors that never succumbed to sentimentality or fear, that bread and eggs were to be rationed, I noticed the shops had updated their advertised specials with signs that stated emphatically BREAD AND EGGS, ONLY WITH RATION BOOKLETS. This fact pained me, because I understood that the fading socialist sphere was abandoning us, and that this change would be the first in an infinite series. The socialist sphere will change, I thought with a forlorn vanity, but I won't. I confess my enthusiastic devotion had, from time to time, exasperated my skeptical colleagues. With socialism dead, I could dedicate myself to evaluating it, without hope, but also without exasperation. I decided to follow what, from that point forward, would be our Insular Menu. I considered that Sunday, March 10, was my daughter's birthday, and a visit to the Twenty-Sixth Street Zoo would be an irreproachable, perhaps unavoidable paternal act. That would be the last time we'd see, in his unwarranted, caged felicity,
Pancho
the ostrich at the zoo. He tended to be so docile that each morning at the same time he would stretch his periscope neck outside the cage until he reached the director's pepetually open window. The director would offer him crusts of stale bread and plantain peels. Ah, Pancho! Never had such an ugly bird been the pretty pride of a zoo director. But one day the ostrich disappeared without a trace. After some inquisitorial sleuthing, chance hit unerringly upon its answer: At school one of the neighborhood girls remarked, completely off topic, that there was nothing to eat at her house, and then her father cooked a chicken leg like this for dinner. With this last comment, she opened her arms as wide as she could. The teacher pressed further, and the proud girl confessed that the chicken's neck was also like this, and the heart and the wings were like this. And so it was discovered that the zoo director had fattened Pancho and served him on his familial table, as the girl just happened to be the director's daughter. The bad example proliferated, and little by little the community of crocodiles was decimated, as were the collections of certain species of monkeys, all the birds, a few camelids, and other herbivores. In the end the zoo was reduced to hyenas and wolves, which tried to eat each other since there was no food for them.
You have to buy the issue to read the rest of "Insular Menu," which you can do right here.
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