HEAVEN on E Street

Thanks to Patrick Millikin at The Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Arizona for sending along this photo of E Street Band member, guitar great (and crime fiction fan) Nils Lofgren at the store. Hoping to see Nils, Bruce and the rest of the band on stage again in the not-too-distant future.

Where dreams are found and lost

This album came out 40 years ago today. I bought it that day on the way to a high school graduation party in Lincroft, N.J. Immediately put it on the turntable in my friend’s finished basement, and played it all the way through twice.
When I left for college a few months later, it was the the record I brought with me to remind myself of home. My life was changing quickly, and these songs of loss and anger and triumph were the perfect companion. They still are. I don’t think I could articulate what they’ve meant to me over the years, personally, artistically and emotionally.

A tribute from the Boss

Bruce Springsteen celebrates my hometown of Long Branch, N.J., in his new autobiography BORN TO RUN (click above to enlarge). Harsh, but not inaccurate.
(I loved the book.)

See also: "My Dinner with the Boys"

"Born to Run" at 40

It's hard to explain what it was like - 40 years ago - to first hear the songs from Bruce Springsteen's "Born to Run" on the radio (WNEW-FM!) while growing up in Long Branch, N.J., next to Asbury Park. Those songs invested the places I knew so well - Palace Amusements, The Circuit and more - with an almost mystical presence, and elevated them from the prosaic to the poetic. Forty years - and more than 100 shows - later, I'm still along for the ride.

Here's one of my favorite outtakes from the album, an early acoustic version of "Thunder Road."

Shore music essay in INSIDE JERSEY magazine

Here's a preview of my essay on the Shore music scene in the May "Down the Shore 2015" issue of INSIDE JERSEY magazine, on the stands next week. (And yes, that is my own personal copy of Clarence Clemons' rare single "Summer on Signal Hill.")

Forty years at The Stony Pony

For their summer issue, INSIDE JERSEY magazine asked me to write something about the 40th anniversary of Asbury Park's legendary nightclub The Stone Pony, where I spent more time and money (not to mention hearing and brain cells) over the years than I care to admit. It's now available on-line here.

Above: Steve Van Zandt and Bruce Springsteen make an impromptu appearance at The Stone Pony in 1977.

"On my blood-stream, I will carry you ..."

"Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,
Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;
And without any feet can go to you;
And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.
Break off my arms, I shall take hold of you
And grasp you with my heart as with a hand;
Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;
And if you set this brain of mine afire,
Then on my blood-stream I will carry you."
– Rainer Maria Rilke

Remembering the Big Man

Before she worked for Ted Turner & CNN and became a celebrated environmental activist, Barbara Pyle was a music fan who shot lots of candid photos of Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band circa 1975. Most have never been published. She used some of them to put together this tribute to Clarence Clemons, who passed away two years ago today:



Salon asked me to write an essay about Clemons the night he died. You can find it here.

Coming this August to The Showroom Theatre in Asbury Park. I'll be hosting, with special guests. Film titles to be announced soon.

Where nothing is forgotten or forgiven

(The following is an abridged and edited version of an essay I wrote in 2009, reprinted here in advance of this weekend's Asbury Park Bookfest, where Dennis Tafoya and I will host a screening of the classic 1945 film noir DETOUR.)


It may seem a stretch to equate noir master Cornell Woolrich's doom-laden novels and stories with the music of Bruce Springsteen, but they share a lot of common ground.


Woolrich was, as his biographer termed him, "The Poe of the 20th century and the poet of its shadows." The dozens of novels and short stories he wrote over four decades, many of which were filmed, were almost always set in urban nightscapes, and shared a pervasive feeling of dread. His characters were often pursued for crimes of passion they didn't commit – or maybe they did. The titles alone set the mood – NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES, THE BRIDE WORE BLACK, WALTZ INTO DARKNESS, RENDEZVOUS IN BLACK, all evocative of the noirest of noir sensibilities. Woolrich's protagonists were haunted and hunted, tripped by fate and trapped by the night.


Along with their fondness for nocturnal imagery, the best of Springsteen's earlier songs often shared that haunted – and haunting – quality found in Woolrich's work. The narrator of Springsteen's "Stolen Car" (from 1980's "The River") is an archetypal Woolrich character, mourning a lost love while driving a stolen car "through a pitch-black night," wracked by guilt and fear that "in this darkness, I will disappear."


Many Springsteen songs could easily have been Woolrich titles – "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "Downbound Train," "Point Blank" "Because the Night," "New York City Serenade" (Woolrich had his own "Manhattan Love Song"). And years before Springsteen came along, Woolrich found his own muse in Asbury Park, setting several stories in that once-glamorous but forever-fading seaside resort. The best-known of these is probably 1935's "Boy With Body," which was reprinted as "The Corpse and the Kid" in the 1988 Woolrich collection DARKNESS AT DAWN.


One of the most Woolrich-esque Springsteen titles is "Something in the Night," from his 1978 album "Darkness on the Edge of Town." It's one of the great but lesser-known Springsteen songs, filled with evocative lyrics and existential angst. It's also one of his most geographically specific songs, set on Asbury Park's Kingsley Street, which at one time formed a oval with Ocean Avenue known as "The Circuit," where aimless teenagers cruised on hot summer nights. The Circuit is also mentioned in that other Springsteen song with a quintessentially noir title, "Night," from 1975's "Born to Run."


While listening to some archival Springsteen shows, I came upon the first-ever version of "Something in the Night," from a concert at the Monmouth Arts Center (now the Count Basie Theatre) in Red Bank, N.J., on Aug. 1, 1976. Springsteen and his E Street Band were performing a six-night stretch there, debuting new material while an ongoing lawsuit kept them from recording (other songs premiered that week included the equally haunting "The Promise.")


This earliest version of "Something in the Night" is even starker than the one on the album. Slowed down, with only a simple keyboard accompaniment, the Red Bank version is radically different from what was released, with bleak impressionistic lyrics and references to a night when the devil "will walk these streets like a man."


Springsteen refined the song further through the years, leading up to the "Darkness" version, which is the one he currently performs, albeit infrequently. The various live versions also offer an insight into his songwriting process, as he gradually reshaped both the lyrics and mood of the song. By the time of a widely-bootlegged performance at New York's Palladium in November 1976, Springsteen had added a mournful trumpet to the arrangement, along with a new final verse. The album track lyrics can be found here. The Aug. 1, 1976 Red Bank version follows.


Well, I'm riding down Kingsley figuring I'll get a drink
I turn the radio way up loud so I don't have to think
And I ease down on the gas, looking for a moment when the world seems right
And I go tearing into the heart of something in the night

I picked this chick up hitch-hiking, she just hung her head out the window and she screamed
Said she was looking for someplace to go, to die or be redeemed
Well, you can ride this road 'til dawn, without another human being in sight
'Cause baby, everybody's gone looking for something in the night

And me I gotta stop running, I gotta stop my fooling around
Well, I got this stuff running around my head, I can't live with or live down
She wants me to push this machine until the whole world disappears out of sight
And just me and you baby, we'll surrender to the kindness of something in the night

Now tonight no sins are forgotten, no sins are forgiven
And when I look out on these streets sometimes I can't tell the dead from the living
Just winners and losers, mumbling about some vague wrong and right
And kids like us, rumbling over something in the night

And now you people out on the island, lock your doors and take your children by the hand
Put on your black dress, baby, because tonight the devil will walk these streets like a man
I don't know about you, but I'm gonna bring along my switchblade, in case that fool wants to fight
If he wants me I'll be running down the highway, chasing something in the night.


Audio of the Palladium version below.

(TOP: Artist Larry Schwinger's cover painting for the 1982 Ballantine Books edition of Cornell Woolrich's THE BLACK CURTAIN.)


Below: Singer-songwriter Matthew Ryan's version:

LOVERS IN THE COLD on Kindle, Nook

My Christmas-set, Springsteen-inspired short story "Lovers in the Cold," is again available for download via Kindle and Nook.

An earlier version of the story first appeared in Jessica Kaye and Richard Brewer's 2005 anthology "MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER: Stories Inspired by the Haunting Bruce Springsteen Song." Kaye and Brewer asked a number of crime novelists, including C.J. Box, Eddie Muller and David Corbett, to submit short stories using the song, which appears on Springsteen's 1975 album "Born to Run," as a springboard. The New York Times wrote about the collection in 2005, and Publishers Weekly reviewed the audio edition.

"Lovers" is set in Bradley Beach, N.J., and N.Y.C. in 1974, and finds two Jersey Shore guys caught between friendship and fate, and in way over the heads in the city across the river. The title comes from an early Springsteen song recorded for "Born to Run" but never released.

Lovers in the Cold on Nook

My short story "Lovers in the Cold" is now available for Nook as well. This is another of the songs that inspired it, an unreleased outtake from Bruce Springsteen's 1975 "Born to Run" album that forms sort of a sequel to his "Meeting Across the River". Musically, the song eventually morphed in "Thunder Road."

Lovers in the Cold

My holiday-themed, Springsteen-inspired short story LOVERS IN THE COLD is now available for the first time on Kindle. An earlier version of it appeared in the now-out-of-print 2005 anthology MEETING ACROSS THE RIVER: Stories Inspired by the Haunting Bruce Springsteen Song." The editors of that anthology asked a number of crime novelists to submit short stories in some way connected to the song. which appears on Springsteen's 1975 album "Born to Run." The New York Times wrote about the collection in 2005.

Clarence Clemons: 1942-2011

Talking about Clarence Clemons today, over at Salon.com.

From the vaults, new old Bruce

And speaking of "Darkness on the Edge of Town" outtakes. Here's one, just previewed today, that's not only unreleased and unheard, but never even rumored about up until now. It's one of 21 outtakes on the new Darkness box set out in Nov., which will also include the original recordings of "Fire" and "Because the Night."

Elvis - The Way It Might Have Been

Two songs that would have revitalized Elvis Presley's career - and probably saved his life - if he had recorded them.

Springsteen reportedly did try to get a demo of "Fire" to Elvis's people, but nothing came of it (it was originally written for his "Darkness on the Edge of Town" sessions, but left off that album, as was "Because the Night," later covered by Patti Smith.) Neo-rockabilly singer Robert Gordon recorded "Fire" in 1978 for his album "Fresh Fish Special" (another Elvis reference) and the Pointer Sisters had a huge hit single with it later that same year.

Stone Pony, Asbury Park 7/23/10

One of the great things about summer at the Shore.

Saturday night in Asbury

Chasing "Something in the Night"

And speaking of Cornell Woolrich ...

It may seem a stretch to equate noir master Woolrich's doom-laden novels and stories with the music of Bruce Springsteen, but they actually share a lot of common ground. Along with their fondness for nocturnal imagery, the best of Springsteen's earlier songs often had that haunted - and haunting - quality found in Woolrich's work. The narrator of Springsteen's "Stolen Car" (from 1980's "The River") is an archetypal Woolrich character, mourning a lost love while driving a stolen car "through a pitch-black night," wracked by guilt and fear that "in this darkness, I will disappear."

And just look at some of those other song titles - "Darkness on the Edge of Town," "Downbound Train," "Point Blank" "Because the Night," "New York City Serenade" (Woolrich had his own "Manhattan Love Song"). And years before Springsteen came along, Woolrich found his own muse in Asbury Park, setting several stories in that once-glamorous but forever-fading seaside resort. The best-known of these is probably 1935's "Boy With Body," which was reprinted as "The Corpse and the Kid" in the 1988 Woolrich collection DARKNESS AT DAWN. Woolrich always had a fondness for citing popular song lyrics in his stories as well. If he were alive and writing today, he'd probably be quoting Springsteen.

Probably the most Woolrichesque of all Springsteen titles is "Something in the Night," from his 1978 album "Darkness on the Edge of Town." It's one of the great but lesser-known Springsteen songs, filled with evocative lyrics and existential angst. It's also one of his most geographically specific songs, set on Asbury Park's Kingsley Street, which at one time formed a oval with Ocean Avenue known as "The Circuit," where aimless teenagers cruised on hot summer nights. The Circuit is also mentioned in that other Springsteen song with a quintessentially Woolrichesque title, "Night," from 1975's "Born to Run." At the south end of The Circuit was Palace Amusements, the ramshackle beachfront arcade immortalized in that album's title song.

While listening recently to some archival Springsteen shows, I came upon the first-ever version of "Something in the Night," from a concert at the Monmouth Arts Center (now the Count Basie Theatre) in Red Bank, N.J., on Aug. 1, 1976. Springsteen and his E Street Band were performing a six-night stretch there, debuting new material while an ongoing lawsuit kept them from recording (other songs premiered that week included the equally haunting "The Promise." )

This earliest version of "Something in the Night" is even more Woolrichian than the one on the album. Slowed down, with only a simple keyboard accompaniment, the Red Bank version is radically different from what was released, with bleak impressionistic lyrics and references to a night when the devil "will walk these streets like a man."

Springsteen refined the song further through the years, leading up to the "Darkness" version, which is the one he currently performs, albeit infrequently. The various live versions also offer an insight into his songwriting process, as he gradually reshaped both the lyrics and mood of the song. By the time of a widely-bootlegged performance at New York's Palladium in November 1976, Springsteen had added a mournful trumpet to the arrangement, along with a new final verse. The album track lyrics can be found here. The Aug. 1, 1976 Red Bank version follows (all lyrics are copyright Bruce Springsteen, of course).

Well, I'm riding down Kingsley figuring I'll get a drink
I turn the radio way up loud so I don't have to think
And I ease down on the gas, looking for a moment when the world seems right
And I go tearing into the heart of something in the night

I picked this chick up hitch-hiking, she just hung her head out the window and she screamed
Said she was looking for someplace to go, to die or be redeemed
Well, you can ride this road 'til dawn, without another human being in sight
'Cause baby, everybody's gone looking for something in the night

And me I gotta stop running, I gotta stop my fooling around
Well, I got this stuff running around my head, I can't live with or live down
She wants me to push this machine until the whole world disappears out of sight
And just me and you baby, we'll surrender to the kindness of something in the night

Now tonight no sins are forgotten, no sins are forgiven
And when I look out on these streets sometimes I can't tell the dead from the living
Just winners and losers, mumbling about some vague wrong and right
And kids like us, rumbling over something in the night

And now you people out on the island, lock your doors and take your children by the hand
Put on your black dress, baby, because tonight the devil will walk these streets like a man
I don't know about you, but I'm gonna bring along my switchblade, in case that fool wants to fight
If he wants me I'll be running down the highway, chasing something in the night.

An audio version of the Palladium version can be found below.

****
Above, an Asbury Park Press ad promoting the Red Bank shows, and a ticket from the Aug. 1, 1976 performance.

Somewhere in the swamps of Jersey

 A dark day in the newsroom this week, but I'm not going to dwell on that. Some additional thoughts on it from Editor & Publisher here.

This week also brought three Springsteen shows at Giants Stadium, two of which I got to attend. They'll likely be the last ones at the venue as well, since it's scheduled to be demolished in 2010. Rumor is the Meadowlands arena - currently dubbed the Izod Center - is on the hit list as well.

Thursday's show was delayed for an hour by what, in retrospect, was a very Jersey event - a propane tanker overturned that afternoon on the N.J. Turnpike, on the exit ramp that led to the Meadowlands. Traffic was backed up for miles and diverted to neighboring roads which also quickly backed up as well. The concert started at 9:30 and ended at an amazing 12:40 a.m., non-stop with no intermission.

A great show, with some real surprises ("Light of Day," Pretty Flamingo"), but the Ledger's Jay Lustig sums it all up better than I. You can find his reviews here, as well as interviews he did with various E Street Band members here.

Even better are these videos from NJ.com, which came directly from the concert video feed Thursday:





More can be found here.

And in case you've ever wondered why so many of the best seats to in-demand shows never make it to the public but end up on StubHub and eBay at 5 to 10 times their face value, some clues can be found here. But hey, it's Jersey, folks.