Let’s get this out of the way: It didn’t top Bruce. It didn’t top Prince. It didn’t top U2. But it did make me cry, just a little. I cried because I love/d them. I cried because they are old. I cried because I am old. I cried because the music of my youth is dying. I cried because Roger can’t go onstage shirtless anymore. I cried because John is dead, because I never got to see Keith, because there is no one else like them, no one who comes close to them.

I know I am not objective. I know I am emotional and irrational and have a stormy history with this band. But they were the first band I loved insanely. I do not have to be objective.

The performance tonight was a rock band – one of THE rock bands – playing onstage. Just playing. In a few years we will all forget what that was like, a band, just playing onstage, without gimmicks or theatrics. There are no more bands like this, who form when they are young and stick together 20, 30, 40 years. Consider that U2 is the only band in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that still has their original members. Think about this. It was not the Who at their best, but this era is not them at their best. They are old. They have aged. Roger’s voice, which he coddled for years, has not held up. At least he has learned to not to try to hit the notes and miss them, he has figured out how to modulate around them and still deliver a solid performance. But it is not power screaming Roger Daltrey, and if you are looking for that, you are better off watching The Kids Are Alright on repeat. You don’t go for that. Or if you do, you’re not very smart.

You go for the emotional heartstrings being played, and they can still do that. I got goosebumps when “Won’t Get Fooled Again” started. I got goosebumps during “Listening To You”. If you didn’t then these aren’t your songs, this isn’t your band, you don’t care about rock and roll and it’s just background music to you. And I get that this might not be relevant to you. But there’s an awful lot of people to whom it was relevant. Those people are also getting old along with Roger and Pete and in a few years you can have Lady Gaga doing the halftime show for you instead.

Pete, Roger, Zak Starkey on drums, Pino Palladino on bass, Rabbit Bundrick on keys. Simon Townshend filling in the gaps (who I have forgiven previous transgressions due to his work with Roger on his solo tour). This is the Who core right now, and it is sad in a way that I was relieved that it was the people I already know and not someone new. I liked the staging, I liked the clear drums with the target cymbals (okay I LOVED the target cymbals), I liked how I was not seeing the camera cut to audience plants who have no idea who this is or have never seen the band before and could mostly care less. The connection with the audience was a big part of what the Who was, but you weren’t going to get it here. The lighting and setup were topnotch.

Zak was remarkably restrained and so was Pete and I think that put a damper on the energy. Not enough guitar, too much keyboard in the mix. When Pete did play, it was fantastic, melodic, compact – which is a freaking challenge in a medley of songs that don’t easily lend themselves to being medley-ized, in a band that was never about brevity (remember Pete in TKAA going on about Kit Lambert giving him a hard time about songs being more than “2 minutes 50″). But the BIGGEST problem, hands down, was the fucking JACKET. For years we have all gotten on his case for his need to wear expensive suits onstage, which he then spends the entire fucking show moving and adjusting and it gets in the way and causes him to miss solos and notes and windmills. WHY ON EARTH DID YOU DECIDE TO WEAR IT TONIGHT? “It’s just not windmill conducive,” to quote a friend texting me after the show.

Roger hit the scream on WGFA and that was all that mattered. The look of relief on his face when it was over showed just how nervous he was.

I haven’t seen them live since the tour when John died, out at the Gorge, when I yelled at the thunder for taking the Ox from us. I wasn’t going to see Roger on the most recent solo outing until a friend gave me a free ticket. I will probably go this time around, because this time will likely be goodbye.

Lou Reed, Mo Tucker and Doug Yule in conversation with David Fricke, Live at the New York Public Library

I keep trying to figure out what it means to be American.
When I look at myself I see Abyssinia, nineteenth-Century France, but I can’t recognize what makes me American. I think about Robert Frank’s photographs – broke down jukeboxes in Gallup, New Mexico, swaying hips and spurs, ponytails and syphilitic cowpokes, hash slinges, the glowing black tarp of US 285 and the Hoboken stars and stripes.

Patti wrote the words above in 1971. I thought about those words as I walked through the new Frank exhibit at the Met. I thought about Bruce Springsteen describing Bob Dylan a few weeks ago – “it was the country I recognized” – and how both of those sentiments describe what it was like being in the same room with “the Hoboken stars and stripes”.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you should. You should go see the exhibit or at least know the work. Maybe I’m a cultural snob. Maybe I’m completely unoriginal, just another pseudo-bohemian claiming the usual cultural touchstones. But it was powerful to be in the same room as those photographs for the first time. They are as much a part of my cultural DNA as anything I have ever read or listened to. They are as much an influence on me as an artist as anything else.

It was the country I recognized.

The event at the Met today – as Patti put it, “This year’s event” – was to celebrate that. It was songs and readings that tied back into “what it means to be American”. She relayed some stories about Robert Frank (who was supposed to have been there but was unable to be at the last minute). She read Walt Whitman and EB White and sang “Southern Cross” for Jim Carroll. She read Burroughs and Lenny sang Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” Patti sitting cross-legged on the stage watching him. She read Carl Sandburg and sang Sons of the Pioneers, read Emma Lazarus and sang Gogi Grant. Patti talked about what she remembered, what she thought she remembered, what she wanted to remember. The songs were supposed to be songs Robert and his family could have heard while driving around the country taking the photos that became The Americans.

Jesse and her boyfriend (and at this point I should have his name, and I’m sure someone will come on here and chide me for not remembering it) provided instrumental accompaniment to the readings. Patti noted that the music was composed by the two of them. It provided a pleasant background.

They finished with “Ghost Dance” and “People Have The Power,” and then Patti came back out, pulled out what I recognized in row O as the Pocket Poets volume of Howl (Patti noting that this particular book was usually kept in a box as she had it with her as she sat in vigil at Ginsburg’s bedside), and proceeded to read “Footnote to Howl,” which was, to me, the most astonishing part of the performance. Part of it was because it came at the end and the audience wasn’t interacting with it in any kind of traditional way, it caught them off guard, there was no polite, confused applause at the end of it. At first I thought it was an afterthought, but then realized that of course it was not, that it tied all of it together, all of the influences and backstory of the work.

I have to go back, and see it again, and think about it harder. I first saw these photos when I was 17 and they still make me think. Patti noted that Robert still teaches her. I understand, I think, at least a little.

Until the one came through listing as follows:

APRIL 15
Bill Clinton

APRIL 16
Lou Reed

We had a baseball game Tuesday night and in any event, in our house, the latter will always be more important. I sent off an email and to my utter shock we were confirmed.

What I didn’t even stop to think about was – what is the format? What is the ethos of this show? It wasn’t until I was sitting in Studio 8-H (yes, *that* Studio 8-H) at 30 Rockefeller Plaza that I remembered when David Letterman was out due to his heart surgery and Mr. McManus was one of a list of rotating hosts. And that he was so completely perfect for the role everyone wondered why he hadn’t done this before.

Studio 8-H is TINY to begin with, and they were only using about half of it for the taping of Spectacle. The audience was very small, with us peons relegated upstairs and the beautiful and famous downstairs. (Only suspect identified: Jesse Malin, who snuck out with his entourage before the final musical number.)

The show opened with Elvis, backed by Dylan’s backing band and Steve Nieve, singing “Beginning To See The Light” – which was enough of a shock, except it was then followed by what can only be described as a Cajun version of “Femme Fatale”. I know that sounds really terrible on paper, but it’s not like the Seeger Sessions band got ahold of it or anything like that. You either have to play that number all raw and unkempt (see: Michael Stipe) or you have to do something else with it. It worked.

Then, with a dramatic piano-domained melody of “Waiting For The Man” playing in the background, Mr. Reed was introduced. Lou looks awesome. Lou looks even more awesome given that he’s 66. Lou looks even more awesome than that if you consider all the abuse his body has gone through. I haven’t been this close to Lou in a long, long time and it makes me want to take up tai chi again.

All kidding aside, this is probably the only Lou Reed interview I’ve seen (and I’ve seen/read/heard *a lot*) where Lou wasn’t acting like a total dick. While I am fully cognizant of the fact that acting like a total dick is to a certain extent synonymous with being Lou Reed, and that most of the people he sneers at deserve it, he was still able to be Lou, but yet open up and answer questions he probably would never tolerate from anyone else.

Elvis took his role as host so sweetly and seriously, down to the index cards (which he never referred to that I saw). He didn’t have to – he is a fan, and a musicologist, and a historian, and can riff on anything from Gershwin to Gang of Four effortlessly. That’s the kind of person who gets respect from Lou Reed, and that is exactly what happened. The two of them dug into a million things, starting from how they both originally got into music (not dissimilarly, talking about doo wop and Dion) and finally getting to the point where they are sharing thoughts on the creative process and writer’s block and where does it come from and how do they approach writing, and in the process, we got Lou on the Brooklyn Dodgers and Doc Pomus and how he’s always wanted to write a good New York City detective story (OMG) and how he almost recorded “Soul Man” with Sam Moore and how excited he was that that was going to happen, and how sometimes he hears something on the radio and wonders why I don’t remember writing it, but it sounds so much like me [me: "Julian Casablancas called, desperately seeking approval"], and a loving mention of Bono and how U2 fans think that Bono wrote “Satellite of Love” and how New York has changed, but if you walk around at 5 in the morning, well… and you just KNOW that Lou Reed *is* out there walking around New York at 5 in the morning, probably because he can’t sleep or the writer’s block is getting to him or he’s looking for the vestiges of the New York he remembers and that inspired him.

And more.

Then Julian Schnabel came out and tried to talk about how they put the recent performance of Berlin together, but he was probably as overwhelmed as the rest of us were. Then Julian recited the lyrics to “The Rock Minuet” (maybe it was off the prompter a little, but I want to believe that Julian Schnabel really could recite the lyrics to that song at the drop of a hat).

And then Lou and Elvis came back out. On the prompter are the lyrics to “Set The Twilight Reeling”. Fine choice from an overlooked album.

Except they came back out with two grand pianos and two pianists and two microphones and from the first piano note I literally go into as much of the fetal position I can sitting in a theater chair in a television studio, because what they have chosen to do instead is “Perfect Day,” and when anyone who is worth a damn sings “Perfect Day” you would have to be a robot to not crack open your hardened heart or crusty exterior just a little and take in some of the light projected by the performance of this song. And I think about Transformer and how that record will mean 14th Street until the day I die, except it’s the 14th Street I remember in the 80s, full of dollar stores and cheap merchandise on the street and the Palladium hovering over the corner of Union Square, that I can walk into a bar in Chicago or London or Amsterdam or Munich and hear “Vicious” and know that I have found the right place.

And Elvis does that little thing he often does, if you have seen him live enough times, where he drops back from the mic and so if you are close or the room is small you are hearing his voice without amplification, and his voice is strong enough to carry without amplification, and Lou is there alongside him and it is absolutely sublime.

Not much more matters after that.

Spectacle will be on Sundance in September.

–
p.s. To my utter shock, I’m getting a gazillion hits to this thing but no referrers, so I don’t know how you got here.. Comments or email letting me know how you found this would be most welcomed.

[thanx]

[RECOMMENDATION: Watch with volume down so you do not have to hear inane announcer explain Why The Clash Were Important]

The Clash Live: Revolution Rock aka “Don Letts Finally Opens The Vaults”. Coming to PBS next month!

[EDITOR'S NOTE: Let's hope this is followed by something called "Bob Gruen Opens The Vaults On All That Kickass New York Dolls Footage We Used To See Him Show At The Rockages Record Conventions In the 80s"]

via

Not that I want to suddenly be YouTube girl or anything, but I ran into this recently (courtesy lamestain, via Real Low Vibe) – and right after I watched an anemic and sad Chris Cornell accompanied by Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron wannabes on the Henry Rollins show.

KIM COME HOME, ALL IS FORGIVEN

This was big and meaningful in a magnitude I did not anticipate or expect. It’s also bittersweet because this was my last chance to actually get inside the damn thing, because there’s no one left I care about enough that I physically need to see them reach this achievement.

Oh, just to have been in a staircase outside the Grand Ballroom last night during “Be My Baby” or “Gardening At Night”. Just to have been in the building to feel those vibrations. It would have been life-changing.

More later.

It was very, very early.

You can wax rhapsodic about the beauty of the early morning hours, and the tiny slim silver crescent moon that hung over the ocean as I drove south on the Garden State Parkway was beautiful, but it was ridiculously EARLY. I left Brooklyn at 4:00 am.

You don’t go to these things for the performance aspect. Not just because of the television factor, of course, but mostly because what true rock and roll icon is a morning person? No, you go for sights like the one we were treated to, Bruce shuffling onto the stage about three seconds after he arrived, that sleepy reluctant foot-dragging walk you may have witnessed your children or young relatives performing, *major* pillow hair, big sunglasses he probably swiped from Bono. Every bit of his body language indicated that when he opened his mouth, it would probably be to yawn into the mic. The audience cheers loudly.

“This is awesome,” he says.
We cheer again.
“I salute you early risers.”
I cheer again, but I am already starting to get tired. It is just after 7 a.m. I am quite sure he just rolled out of bed, into his car, and drove down the road. I had been awake since 3 a.m.
“I must REALLY wanna sell records,” he giggled sleepily. He mumbles something about putting on his stage clothes (which he did… not that I noticed any kind of major difference) and stumbles off the stage.

The off-camera moments were the priceless ones, of course. Bruce joking with the horn section, stage directions: “We need a shorter version, due to the gods of television” (in reference to “Jacob’s Ladder”) and promising the horns, “And I will remember the outro” (which had obviously been forgotten at a previous performance). (Hey, there’s a reason the current APCH shows are referred to as rehearsal shows.)

“Throw that fiddle solo back in the middle — that’s why we got – confused – last night,” Bruce mutters, as the 17 piece ensemble (this band needs a name. more on this later.) gets ready to perform “O Mary Don’t You Weep,” just what suburban housewives want to be watching as they get their kids off to school. Or maybe they do. What was fun to watch was Bruce turning from bruce, when the cameras were off, into BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, once the cameras were on. There was nothing artificial or inauthentic about it — that’s why they call it performing, after all — but it’s rare that we get to see it happen in front of us.

He had no internal monologue this morning, either. Holding up two plastic cups, he informs us: “I drank into one of these, and spit into the other.”
Pause, regards the cups, tilts them into the light, clearly attempting to discern which is which. Not calling for another cup from Kevin. Not keeping this information to himself.
“There should have been a red cup and a blue cup.” He squints into the cups again, makes a choice, swallows.
“I should have picked the other one.”

After watching two versions of “When The Saints Go Marching In” (I preferred the one you didn’t get to see, the more plaintive, unadorned one), he looks at the crowd.
“So what are your plans for the rest of the day?”
People yell various nonsense.
“I’m going back to bed.” Pause. “I actually have my pj’s on under these pants–” and then proceeds to inform us that this is something he usually does, when he takes the kids to school, just pulls on his pants over his pj’s and then climbs back into bed when he gets home.
His wife is attempting to ignore most of this exchange.

The stage manager strolls over and tells Bruce he has about two minutes. Bruce looks around, realizes they can’t play another song in two minutes, so he starts whistling aimlessly.
“WHen they come back, I’m gonna do that. 3 minutes of whistling.”
He whistles again.
“I like that. They’ll call me – The Whistler.”
More whistling.
“The Whistler’s coming to town.”
Pause.
“The Whistler played last night.”
Pause.
“I like that, it sounds — mysterious.”
Patti rolls her eyes.
“Patti is complaining about me just out of earshot.”
Giggle.

So that was about it. Three songs, four songs, most repeated at least twice, not as much as I’d hoped to hear, but it was free, and it was cool as hell, and I’d do it again tomorrow, um, afternoon.

Oh, wait.

Which is when you will get your full report on what I think of THE SEEGER SESSIONS.

UPDATE: Grab a mp3 of “Jacob’s Ladder” from this morning here. http://ickmusic.com/index.php/2006/04/25/bruce-live-on-gma/ [from ickmusic.com, via Scatter o' Light]

[And in case you are going to ask, "Why aren't there any photos of the performance?" you clearly have never been to a Bruce Springsteen concert before. When they say "no cameras" it isn't a suggestion.]

The thing is, this year sucked the least, in my opinion, and Pareles at the NY Times captured why best: because this year focused on musical performances. Not that many awards were broadcast at all. There were actual performances, whether I wanted to see Mariah or not, it wasn’t just a video for the record. There were production values. Aside from the annoying piped-in crowd noise, it was good music on tv for a change. It wasn’t even that annoying ADD-type camerawork that we are used to from anything that MTV films.

I thought Madonna was underwhelming; I wish Bruce had delivered a stronger performance; I was reminded how much I like “Vertigo” and that I was probably unnecessarily harsh on U2 earlier in this record’s release (and the only loss there was mine); Kelly Clarkson needs some serious coaching but how high are your standards, really, for the pop song category; and finally, am I the only person out there (besides Bono) who genuinely *likes* Kanye West? Did I miss that hipper-than-thou memo? I keep reading shit like “well, unfortunately, Kanye West won something” and I am trying hard to think of another Grammy spectacular that was that energetic or amusing or just enjoyable? I’ve been listening to “Golddigger” on repeat since last night.

Yes. It sucked that the New Orleans tribute wasn’t at the center of the broadcast but it was structured as finale material, and my only complaint was that they ran the credits over it. Should it have been longer and should there have been more? Maybe, but this is the Grammy broadcast. 10 minutes in prime time on a major network is a lot.

And when people are giving thank you speeches, they are thanking people, and I don’t expect them to turn it into some kind of political platform. Would I like it if they did? Sure. But I’m not going to skewer them if they didn’t, especially in the case of Green Day, who already went out on that political limb with the fucking song in the first place, or Springsteen, who continues to happily attempt to alienate the more obtuse part of his fanbase (not obtuse because they have differing opinions, obtuse because they act like they’re surprised that he feels this way). Do these artists need to stand there with a large neon sign reading “REMEMBER: THIS SONG IS POLITICAL” while they accept their award? I mean, jesus, doesn’t Bono get shit for putting his money where his mouth is and sticking his nose into political issues all over the world on a daily basis – he had to do it here, too?

End rant.
Some real writing coming back to this space soon.