duggup

Basement Records (god bless ‘em) rang on Friday, the new Springsteen CD that I ordered last week had arrived from the states. Not bad, released Tuesday, in our grubby paws three days later.

So shall we put the release of this album into a bit of context. Back in 1973 I was living in a shared house in Fitzroy, my main passion was music (nothing much has changed) and after seeing bands at the pubs on Friday, Saturday and then whipping into a folk session on Sunday, Mondays would find us all a bit, well, broke. But the ABC (Australia’s National Broadcaster) would invest one whole hour on a Monday night and let Chris Winter put to air a show called “Room To Move”. You knew you were in for a good time because the John Mayall track was the theme. The show was great, he played whole of Jethro Tull albums, the whole of Pink Floyd albums and somewhere in late ’73 he played “Greetings From Asbury Park” and that was the end of that.

Here was this song with a maniac stream of words and these great guitars. It took me totally by surprise and I might add it took me years to find the album on import. Ironically I found it not too long before “Born To Run” was released and by then the whole world had heard of Bruce Springsteen.

“Born To Run” and Jools are inextricably linked, we met just after the album was released. Some couples have a song, we have an album (typical over achievers).

So there is a a lot of high expectation when you discover that after six(?) years (this is the first album that Bruce and the E-Street Band have done since the 2001′s “Live in New York City”. Bit of a shock that ) Bruce has got the band back together for a quick once round the block.

Let’s get the boring bits out of the way. This is possibly the best album since “Born To Run”, yes I know… strong words, it’s only been around for 5 minutes and time will tell whether or not this is as long lasting as “Born To Run”.

“No No Thatch tell us what you really think” I hear you say. Well you know the argument about how MP3′s sound so crap that people buy the CD and then rip themselves a decent copy…. it’s true. Anyway despite the crappy sound, this really is the best thing he has done for years.

Technically it has issues, the album is normalised, that’s a technical term that means – make the best rock band in the world sound squashed to within an inch of it’s life, it really sucks. I couldn’t actually figure it out until I played it through the MP3 player and my earbuds. It all suddenly made sense. The bastards did a mix that is just perfect for the iPod and and sucks otherwise. “Born To Run” you could play in a car, you could play through a stereo, you could play through a P.A. stack (seriously cool that one) and it sounded brilliant. This doesn’t sound any where near as good.

You know how the Stones released “Exile” and everyone wanted to remix it, great songs, it just didn’t sound that good. That’s how I feel about this. Great songs, crap mix. My only hope is that they will release the audio equivalent of a directors cut.

The first track off the album, Radio Nowhere is like a wall falling on you, there are guitars and guitars and guitars and then just to round it off they squashed in a few more guitars. By the end of the first eight bars you know that this isn’t “Nebraska”, this is powered by the BAND. As an aside, I can no longer tell the difference between Springsteen, Miami Steve or Nils, it is like they have al morphed into this huge meta guitar. Clarence has become even more economical with notes and Roy Bittan still has those huge octave clusters of notes bouncing up and down the keyboard (why do the down runs sound better?).

The rest of the songs are an amazing collection and some make you want to take the roof of your car and head out on the road driving off with the volume on 11. In the New York Times interview by A. O. SCOTT, Bruce talks about “Girls in Their Summer Clothes”

“I wanted one thing on the record that was the perfect pop universe,” Mr. Springsteen said, “You know, that day when it’s all right there; it’s the world that only exists in pop songs, and once in a while you stumble on it.”

Back in April 1985, Jools and I went to the Showgrounds and saw both shows, we saw Springsteen and E-Street Band play their bums off. For about a week after we were living that perfect pop moment. Seriously, folks this is the best rock band in the world. This album resurrects the buzz for me. And if the band are touring Australia, look for us down the front some where.

At the end of Radio Nowhere Bruce asks “Is there anybody alive out there?” Well the answer is YES Bruce we are still out here, and we are still alive which is more than we can say for the mix on this album. Do consider a remix.

Highly Recommended… I think we will give this one an 11 (oh look the same as the volume to play it at).

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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