“But they wind up wounded, not even dead.”
That’s a last line from Bruce Springsteen’s Jungleland.
This is another line:
“Barefoot girl sitting on the hood of a Dodge
Drinking warm beer in the soft summer rain.”
I used to listen to this record over and over again – in the wee hours.
“Between what's flesh and what's fantasy
…the poets down here
Don't write nothing at all
They just stand back and let it all be.”
The last take of Jungleland took 16 hours to record in midtown, New York. Springsteen sung with eyes closed, asleep, final take, dreaming.
When he awoke, he became the first singer simultaneously on the cover of Time and Newsweek.
* * *
“ I don’t have any reasons, I’ve left them all behind.”
~ Billy Joel, New York State of Mind.
In my FB album, New York State of Mind
(2007)
(2007)
Soulful words came from a four-hour TV special at Madison Square Garden. MSG IV was born two weeks before me. MSG I was built in 1890, the largest building in America, seating 5000 for a circus, a political convention or a horse show. It had a small opera house, ballroom, restaurant and rooftop cabaret.
* * *
“ Chrome wheeled, fuel-injected and steppin’ out over the line
Baby this town rips the bones from your back”
~ Bruce Springsteen, Born To Run
I am always amazed how he can still put everything on the line on stage. His showmanship is not contrived. Stakes are always high with the Boss.
* * *
My brother-in-law, a master photographer, once made a portrait of Patti Smith (ode to Robert Mapplethorpe). In Brooklyn, a friend of mine, once found a book about her on a sidewalk.
“ “If we believe in the night we trust.”
~ Because The Night,
Patti Smith
* * *
I first saw Sweet Jane sung by the Cowboy Junkies at the Commodore in Vancouver. Tonight Lou Reed sung it with Metallica. A friend just saw Lou Reed with Laurie Andersen in a New York City café.
“ “Standing on the corner,
Suitcase in my hand”
~ Sweet Jane,
Lou Reed
me@JFK off airtrain Christmas Eve
Lou never did return to Velvet Underground. After quitting this celebrity band, he earned $40 a week as a typist for his father’s accounting firm. Later in his solo career, to fulfill his label contract once, when he didn’t want to record another album, Lou made a double album of noise called Metal Machine Music. Rolling Stone said it sounded like "the tubular groaning of a galactic refrigerator."
"No one is supposed to be able to do a thing like that and survive," Lou Reed later said. But he did. And this album became an urban legend in music history. Some people say it started Heavy Metal. Some people say it started Punk. Some people say it started Ambient Music. Some people say it started Industrial Music. No one heard the same thing. Lester Bangs, tongue in cheek, called it the "The Greatest Album Ever Made." Billy Altman described it as "ear-wrecking electronic sludge, guaranteed to clear any room of humans in record time."
Escape from Bellevue
(a concert in the Village)
(a concert in the Village)
Lou did return to normal after this, which was not normal to begin with.
* * *
For a U2 concert, Lou appeared on satellite to sing Satellite of Love. This brilliant song didn’t crack the charts in 1972…there were just too many hall of fame songs that year. It’s why Nick Drake’s Pink Moon and his genius open tunings didn’t become successful until 26 years after Nick died. Heath Ledger before he died of a deadly drug mix wanted to portray Nick. Nick only sold 5000 records before he died of a drug overdose. Another musician before signing with Island insisted Nick be kept in print posthumously.
Imagine all the songs not kept.
* * *
When I see San Remo, across Central Park, in New York City, I can’t help but think of Paul Simon. How he defended Madonna in 1985, who wasn’t allowed to buy an apartment. When I see Central Park, I can’t help of think of Simon and Garfunkel concerts…the ghost of music is still there.
San Remo, Central Park
“In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
`I am leaving, I am leaving’
But the fighter still remains.”
~ Paul Simon, The Boxer
Art seems to look, forever without friends, in that Bridge Over Troubled Waters.
“I’ll take your part
When darkness comes”
* * *
It’s hard to believe the Irish poet can still sing.
SoHo gallery. Ron Woods paintings in here.
“It's just a moment
This time will pass”
~ Stuck In A Moment, U2
How The Edge sung like Bono, and how Mick Jagger took lead, I will never forget these three-voice moments.
“Only love can leave such a mark.”
~ Magnificent, U2
It’s hard to believe how this show was structured like a song circle.
* * *
Not lost on Springsteen and Patti Smith fans, Bono, a medley king, weaved words and melodies from The Promise Land and Because the Night into U2 songs. Who could imagine it in I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.
“See the Bedouin fires at night”
~ Beautiful Day, U2
my friend Nicole Vienneau who disappeared saw Bedouin country
* * *
I have to admit, unexpectedly, Fergie stole the show, singing:
“ “War, Children, It’s Just A Shot Away”“
“Rape, Murder, It’s Just A Shot Away”
~ Rolling Stones, Gimme Shelter
http://www.youtube.com/wat
She did this with U2, Will.I.Am and Mick Jagger on stage. In Montreal, at Time, our table was next to Fergie’s during the F-1.
Time - Fergie was here
(by Bell Centre, Montreal)
(by Bell Centre, Montreal)
People danced on tables next to gigantic Belvedere vodka bottles. They sure know how to dance in Montreal.
* * *
Good ol’ John Fogarty of CCR showed up. He was once sued for sounding like himself.
When he released “The Old Man Down the Road” his former label sued him for sounding like his song “Run Through the Jungle.” Who gets sued for sounding like yourself? Tonight, he sung Fortunate Son.
“ “Some folks are born silver spoon in hand,“
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh.
But when the taxman comes to the door,
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes”
~ Creedence Clearwater Revival
When he was sued, John brought his guitar to court. He defended himself successfully.
* * *
Well, no words can describe Buddy Guy. Suffice to say, he inspired Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin. Jeff Beck used sign language to describe what he heard this night. Buddy walked on, and walked off like a ghost…did this legend just appear?
He returned to the Cross Roads.
* * *
Sting sung Midnight Train To Georgia.
“ L.A. proved too much for the man,
So he's leavin' the life he's come to know,
He said he's goin' back to find
Ooh, what's left of his world,
The world he left behind
Not so long ago.”
I saw Sting at Live Earth with a photographer friend at Giants Stadium.
The next week she saw him at Toronto’s Downward Dog Yoga Studio.
Before long, her best friend saw him Australia.
Boy, does Sting get around.
* **
Tom Morello played the Ghost of Tom Joad.
Families sleepin' in their cars in the southwest
No home no job no peace no rest
The highway is alive tonight
But nobody's kiddin' nobody about where it goes
I'm sittin' down here in the campfire light
Searchin' for the ghost of Tom Joad
A friend of mine knows him. After listening to so many stories, I tried once to see him in New York City. I even bought tickets – four to be exact. Then a friend fell ill on site and I missed Rage Against the Machine.
i even got stamped and sat on grass
Seeing my friends who knew Tom Morello was as close as I got
Tom Joad is a character in John Steinback’s Grapes of Wrath. Before Christmas, I will eat noodles with two friends in Toronto’s Chinatown. Tom was here.
I finally saw him play. Boy, can he play a mean guitar.
* * *
And who could forget that hallowed speech, the Boss gave for U2’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which somehow found its way to Cleveland:
“Uno, dos, tres, catorce.. That translates as one, two, three, fourteen. That is the correct math for a rock and roll band. For in art and love and rock and roll, the whole had better equal much more than the sum of its parts, or else you're just rubbing two sticks together searching for fire. A great rock band searches for the same kind of combustible force that fueled the expansion of the universe after the big bang. You want the earth to shake and spit fire. You want the sky to split apart and for God to pour out.
Bono Vox
It's embarrassing to want so much, and to expect so much from music, except sometimes it happens -- the Sun Sessions, Highway 61, Sgt. Peppers, the Band, Robert Johnson, Exile on Main Street, Born to Run -- whoops, I meant to leave that one out (laughter) -- the Sex Pistols, Aretha Franklin, the Clash, James Brown...the proud and public enemies it takes a nation of millions to hold back. This is music meant to take on not only the powers that be, but on a good day, the universe and God himself -- if he was listening. It's man's accountability, and U2 belongs on this list.
It was the early '80s. I went with Pete Townshend, who always wanted to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us, to a club in London. There they were: A young Bono -- single-handedly pioneering the Irish mullet; (laughter) the Edge -- what kind of name was that?; Adam and Larry. I was listening to the last band of whom I would be able to name all of its members. They had an exciting show and a big, beautiful sound. They lifted the roof.
We met afterwards and they were nice young men. They were Irish. Irish! Now, this would play an enormous part in their success in the States. For what the English occasionally have the refined sensibilities to overcome, we Irish and Italians have no such problem. We come through the door fists and hearts first. U2, with the dark, chiming sound of heaven at their command -- which, of course, is the sound of unrequited love and longing, their greatest theme -- their search for God intact. This was a band that wanted to lay claim to not only this world but had their eyes on the next one, too.
Now, they're a real band; each member plays a vital part. I believe they actually practice some form of democracy -- toxic poison in a band's head. In Iraq, maybe. In rock, no! Yet they survive. They have harnessed the time bomb that exists in the heart of every great rock and roll band that usually explodes, as we see regularly from this stage. But they seemed to have innately understood the primary rule of rock band job security: "Hey, asshole, the other guy is more important than you think he is!" They are both a step forward and direct descendants of the great bands who believed rock music could shake things up in the world, who dared to have faith in their audience, who believed if they played their best it would bring out the best in you. They believed in pop stardom and the big time. Now this requires foolishness and a calculating mind. It also requires a deeply held faith in the work you're doing and in its powers to transform. U2 hungered for it all, and built a sound, and they wrote the songs that demanded it. They're keepers of some of the most beautiful sonic architecture in rock and roll.
Jenny Holzer installation for Zoo TV Tour
The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. The Edge. (applause) He is a rare and true guitar original and one of the subtlest guitar heroes of all time. He's dedicated to ensemble playing and he subsumes his guitar ego in the group. But do not be fooled. Take Jimi Hendrix, Chuck Berry, Neil Young, Pete Townshend -- guitarists who defined the sound of their band and their times. If you play like them, you sound like them. If you are playing those rhythmic two-note sustained fourths, drenched in echo, you are going to sound like the Edge, my son. Go back to the drawing board and chances are you won't have much luck. There are only a handful of guitar stylists who can create a world with their instruments, and he's one of them. The Edge's guitar playing creates enormous space and vast landscapes. It is a thrilling and a heartbreaking sound that hangs over you like the unsettled sky. In the turf it stakes out, it is inherently spiritual. It is grace and it is a gift.
Now, all of this has to be held down by something. The deep sureness of Adam Clayton's bass and the rhythms of Larry Mullen's elegant drumming hold the band down while propelling it forward. It's in U2's great rhythm section that the band finds its sexuality and its dangerousness. Listen to "Desire," "She Moves in Mysterious Ways," [sic] the pulse of "With or Without You." Together Larry and Adam create the element that suggests the ecstatic possibilities of that other kingdom -- the one below the earth and below the belt -- that no great rock band can lay claim to the title without.
Joshua Tree - San Francisco
(where U2 performed Where the Streets Have No Name in the street)
(where U2 performed Where the Streets Have No Name in the street)
Now Adam always strikes me as the professorial one, the sophisticated member. He creates not only the musical but physical stability on his side of the stage. The tone and depth of his bass playing has allowed the band to move from rock to dance music and beyond. One of the first things I noticed about U2 was that underneath the guitar and the bass, they have these very modern rhythms going on. Rather than a straight 2 and 4, Larry often plays with a lot of syncopation, and that connects the band to modern dance textures. The drums often sounded high and tight and he was swinging down there, and this gave the band a unique profile and allowed their rock textures to soar above on a bed of his rhythm.
Now Larry, of course, besides being an incredible drummer, bears the burden of being the band's requisite "good-looking member," (laughter) something we somehow overlooked in the E Street Band. (laughter) We have to settle for "charismatic." Girls love on Larry Mullen! I have a female assistant that would like to sit on Larry's drum stool. A male one, too. We all have our crosses to bear.
Bono...where do I begin? Jeans designer, soon-to-be World Bank operator, just plain operator, seller of the Brooklyn Bridge -- oh hold up, he played under the Brooklyn Bridge, that's right. Soon-to-be mastermind operator of the Bono burger franchise, where more than one million stories will be told by a crazy Irishman. Now I realize that it's a dirty job and somebody has to do it, but don't quit your day job yet, my friend. You're pretty good at it, and a sound this big needs somebody to ride herd over it.
And ride herd over it he does. His voice, big-hearted and open, thoroughly decent no matter how hard he tries. Now he's a great frontman. Against the odds, he is not your mom's standard skinny, ex-junkie archetype. He has the physique of a rugby player...well, an ex-rugby player. Shaman, shyster, one of the greatest and most endearingly naked messianic complexes in rock and roll. (laughter) God bless you, man! It takes one to know one, of course.
One
You see, every good Irish and Italian-Irish front man knows that before James Brown there was Jesus. So hold the McDonald arches on the stage set, boys, we are not ironists. We are creations of the heart and of the earth and of the stations of the cross -- there's no getting out of it. He is gifted with an operatic voice and a beautiful falsetto rare among strong rock singers. But most important, his is a voice shot through with self-doubt. That's what makes that big sound work. It is this element of Bono's talent -- along with his beautiful lyric writing -- that gives the often-celestial music of U2 its fragility and its realness. It is the questioning, the constant questioning in Bono's voice, where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us.
Now Bono's voice often sounds like it's shouting not over top of the band but from deep within it. "Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image." He delivers all of this with great drama and an occasional smirk that says, "Kiss me, I'm Irish." He's one of the great front men of the past twenty years. He is also one of the only musicians to devote his personal faith and the ideals of his band into the real world in a way that remains true to rock's earliest implications of freedom and connection and the possibility of something better.
So close so far away
Now the band's beautiful songwriting -- "Pride (In The Name of Love)," "Sunday Bloody Sunday," "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," "One," "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Beautiful Day" -- reminds us of the stakes that the band always plays for. It's an incredible songbook. In their music you hear the spirituality as home and as quest. How do you find God unless he's in your heart? In your desire? In your feet? I believe this is a big part of what's kept their band together all of these years.
See, bands get formed by accident, but they don't survive by accident. It takes will, intent, a sense of shared purpose, and a tolerance for your friends' fallibilities...and they of yours. And that only evens the odds. U2 has not only evened the odds but they've beaten them by continuing to do their finest work and remaining at the top of their game and the charts for 25 years. I feel a great affinity for these guys as people as well as musicians.
Well...there I was sitting down on the couch in my pajamas with my eldest son. He was watching TV. I was doing one of my favorite things -- I was tallying up all the money I passed up in endorsements over the years (laughter) and thinking of all the fun I could have had with it. Suddenly I hear "Uno, dos, tres, catorce!" I look up. But instead of the silhouettes of the hippie wannabes bouncing around in the iPod commercial, I see my boys!
Oh, my God! They sold out!
Now...what I know about the iPod is this: It is a device that plays music. Of course their new song sounded great, my guys are doing great, but methinks I hear the footsteps of my old tape operator Jimmy Iovine somewhere. Wily. Smart. Now, personally, I live an insanely expensive lifestyle that my wife barely tolerates. I burn money, and that calls for huge amounts of cash flow. But I also have a ludicrous image of myself that keeps me from truly cashing in. (laughter) You can see my problem. Woe is me.
So the next morning, I call up Jon Landau -- or as I refer to him, "the American Paul McGuinness" -- and I say, "Did you see that iPod thing?" And he says, "Yes." And he says, "And I hear they didn't take any money." And I said, "They didn't take any money?!" And he says, "No." I said, "Smart, wily Irish guys." (laughter) Anybody...anybody...can do an ad and take the money. But to do the ad and not take the money...that's smart. That's wily. I say, "Jon, I want you to call up Bill Gates or whoever is behind this thing and float this: A red, white, and blue iPod signed by Bruce "the Boss" Springsteen. Now remember, no matter how much money he offers, don't take it!" (laughter)
At any rate...at any rate, after that evening, for the next month or so, I hear emanating from my lovely 14-year-old son's room, day after day, down the hall calling out in a voice that has recently dropped very low: Uno, dos, tres, catorce. The correct math for rock and roll. Thank you, boys.
(applause)
This band...this band has carried their faith in the great inspirational and resurrective power of rock and roll. It never faltered, only a little bit. They believed in themselves, but more importantly, they believed in "you, too." Thank you Bono, the Edge, Adam, and Larry. Please welcome U2 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
* * *
In the house, were Stevie, Smokey, Aretha, and the original Soul Man.
God
I missed Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Friends, James Taylor, Smokey Robinson, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Little Richard. But I’ll be sure to catch ‘em next time. I am sure they taught their children well.
