Banner ads are the digital equivalent of 8x10 flyers stuck beneath windshield wipers. Much effort, nil impact. Our brains are conditioned to ignore them, which is why advertisers indidiously scurry them across body copy like lava swallowing hillside villages. A recent visit to the NY Times' site presented a nostalgic exception. Just above the masthead was an image (left) as indelible to my childhood as my first baseball glove (Willie Stargell Rawlings), car (1976 Mercury Bobcat V6), or girlfriend (Tina Trezza). The ad promoted an upcoming November reissue of Bruce Springsteen's 1978 masterpiece in a massive box-set called The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story (below).
The 'Deluxe Package' of the set will include a documentary of Bruce and the E Street Band circa '76-78, over 4 hours of concert footage (including a much-bootlegged Houston concert near the end of the 'Darkness' tour and a recent performance of the album in its entirety at the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park), and 21 previously unreleased songs from the Darkness recording sessions.'Previously unreleased'. A term only a record company executive could apply to the 1976-78 stuudio recordings of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band -- recordings that have resonated with fans for decades and helped me cement a friendship that long ago crossed over to brotherhood.
I am a child of NJ. Grew up in quiet, Caucasian suburbs crisscrossed by interstates. Played little league baseball and high school basketball. Decorated the walls of my wood-paneled room with Rangers, Yankees, Giants, Knicks, girls in bikinis and an evolving roster of musicians and bands. Shared with my brother a drumkit that our dad mysteriously dragged home from Leo's Tavern one night. Underachieved in school. Wore bad haircuts and zipper shirts bought from Just Shirts at the Willowbrook Mall. Went into the City for trouble. And passed through every stage of adolescence listening to the music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
One afternoon in 1977 or '78 neighbor and friend Vin Fiorito came by with a copy of Born to Run and put it on my turntable. I held the gatefolded album while 'Thunder Road' played and instantly had to know more about the scruffy guitarist and monstrous sax player pictured on its front and back.
The Beatles, Pink Floyd and Boston (yes, Boston) dominated my tastes at the time, but Springsteen's appeal was visceral, like the smell of hot grease in an auto repair shop. At the conclusion of 8th grade a friend named Frank Alfieri invited me and a few others to his family's shore house in Seaside Park for a junior high school graduation weekend. One of Frank's sisters supplied buckets of beer but I vividly recall a boardwalk awash with Springsteen, Led Zep and Jim Morrisson t-shirts. Bruce's world domination via the Born In the USA juggernaut was several years away but in Seaside Park in the summer of 1980 he was the undisputed Boss.Junior high also featured a one-and-only exposure to Springsteen lyrics as learning material. A petite, peroxide-blonde English teacher named Ms O'Neill handed out Xerox'd copies of the lyric sheet inserted inside the Darkness on the Edge of Town album and led a class discussion. Whether she examined the blue collar heroism of Springsteen's characters or the preponderance of cars in his songs I have not a clue. I only remember floating near the ceiling until the class bell rang.
The River was my freshman-year companion in the back of buses traveling to and from away basketball games. This was pre-iPod ... pre-Walkman, too. I carried a battered boom box and cheap cassette copies of 'The River' or listened to it in my bedroom via cheap, puffy headphones. Like manilla paper markers in an old library card catalog, each subsequent Springsteen album sonically delineated periods in my life. Unlike the glut of multi-media materials available in our digital age, the early '80s were a dry time for Springsteen fans. Bruce was a notorious perfectionist in the studio and was loyal to organic album themes -- even if it meant jettisoning songs with commercial appeal like 'Because the Night' and 'Fire' (which were turned into hits by Patti Smith and the Pointer Sisters, respectively). He was also involved in a protracted lawsuit with manager Mike Appel over song rights and was unable to release new music, a struggle that resulted in lyrics like this from 'The Promise':
Well I built that Challenger by myselfBootlegs filled the long gaps between official releases. And this, ladies and gentlemen, brings us to a young man named Jeff Stefanick.
But I needed money and so I sold it.
I lived a secret I should have kept to myself
But I got drunk one night and I told it.
Whether it be at the Englishtown flea market or a vinyl record shop off the Morristown Green owned by a chain-smoking divorcee named Mal, nobody had a nose for finding studio outtakes like Jeff. They were the prize. Alternate takes of released songs with different lyrics, instrumentals with familiar passages and 'new' songs left off official releases.
We laughed at the musings of Backstreets magazine founder Charlie Cross as he pleaded with Springsteen to release 'Roulette' and studied the back of Dave Marsh's Born To Run: The Bruce Springsteen Story for the origins of unreleased songs. Live bootlegs were common, especially after Springsteen performed radio-simulcasted concerts in 1975 at the Bottom Line (released on bootleg as 'The Great White Boss' an allusion to the first bootleg ever, 'The Great White Hope' of early Dylan demos) and two concerts in 1978 -- one at the legendary Capitol Theater in Passaic released on bootleg as 'Piece de Resistance' (above), the other at Winterland in San Francisco bootlegged as 'Live in the Promised Land' (right). 
My first vinyl bootleg was one of many to use 'The Jersey Devil' as its title, forgettable but for clean live versions of The Drifters' 'Up on the Roof' and Chuck Berry's 'You Never Can Tell'. That was the nature of early boots -- there were no online reviews to consult or labels that guaranteed quality, as would arise with the advent of bootleg CDs. We were in thrall to the thrill of discovering a studio outtakes boot offering something -- anything -- we hadn't heard before. Truth be told, there was more to '76-78 studio outtakes than the lure of the chase. A disaffected Springsteen sang songs like 'Outside Looking In', 'Candy's Boy' and 'Spanish Eyes' with the tired desperation of a hostage reading a manifesto written by his captors 'Outside Looking In', with its Buddy Holly beat and Byrds jangling 12-string guitars, at first sounded like a rough one-off with the band but on subsequent listens revealed a pain never heard before on a Springsteen record:
My life's the same storyEven a jarring background vocal by Clarence Clemons couldn't dilute the power of a song this heartfelt and raw, which was the nature of outtakes of this period. They were non-mastered mana for Jeff and I as we drove the state and county roadways of Morris County in a variety of crap cars, stopping for post-midnight Whoppers at Burger Kings along Rt 46, dumping tales of romantic angst on each other, wondering where the literal and figurative roads of our lives were taking us.
Beginning to end
Beginning to end
I'm on the outside .... lookin' in.
This photo of Jeff and I (below) was taken in Albany, NY, where a dozen or so of us traveled to see Bruce and the E Street Band during their reunion tour in November 1999. Over the years he and I saw more shows together up and down the East Coast than I could possibly remember.
We'd often be in the same building if not in adjoining seats, and if I was at a show that he wasn't I'd wonder what he'd think of that night's setlist or special guest. Still, there was something pure about the nights spent driving aimlessly together, listening to 'Darkness' era outtakes, a couple of tortured souls lucky to have crossed paths in 7th grade science class. Nearly 30 years down switchbacks and straightaways neither one of us ever saw coming and the only downside to The Promise: The Darkness on the Edge of Town Story being released this November is that I won't be able to listen to it with Jeff beside me, a full tank of gas to burn, and miles and miles of stories to share.
3 comments:
Part 1 comment
Talk about painting the definitive picture of what these "outtakes" meant to us- Joe, you did it well here.
To finally have these songs, what we all have considered "our" songs- you know-like you had to be in the "Crazed-Obsessed" category to even know about these songs- in perfect quality will be great.
But, let me also mention, that I will never lose the interest for the "originals". We are going to get overdubs, some new vocals-such as on the first preview song from the set, Save My Love- the well known, scratchy, sometimes wrong speed, copy of a copy- will still hold the same appeal.
My wish for the set is that NO overdubs or finishing was done to them. Hence, these same incredibly bad albums, 45's and early boot CD's will still have their place, albeit-relagated to the back shelf-as since the Tracks release, alot of the River outtakes have been sort of officially released now, at least the good ones!
Joe, you nailed it too- these songs delinated periods of our life, and the 78 era outtakes were Springsteen at his furious best-still pissed off enough and worried about the trappings of his success- that he was still singing for "us". Which he does still, "in some fashion", haha.
Going to find these songs was really my adrenaline rush. I often could not wait to put on the record at home and then record it, or bring it over to your house- like, I GOTTA have Joe hear this.
So, we would crank up your Panasonic stereo, of mid 70's vintage-yeah, it had a turntable AND cassette- hell, you could actually RECORD the ALBUM!!
Of course, the River era and Born in the USA era outtakes brought other memories, who can forget listening to "This Hard Land" for the first time on that stereo, or even that song "Cindy", which we both know what is up with that.
Going to Englishtown Flea Mkt was always sort of special. They didnt hide the bootlegs there, they were out in the open, unlike Pellet Records, where you had to "know" Malcom, and basically do the wink and nod and he would bring the latest stash from NYC up from under the counter. God-the hours I spent in Morristown in that stinky, wonderful store, talking to Mal(as he smoked a pack at least of cigs), about Beatles boots and Springsteen boots. Always loved his references to the Swinging Pig label, that would crack me up.
But, back to Englishtown- man, you were in ENGLISHTOWN, you know, the same Englishtown from Zero and Blind Terry, the Bruce outtake from the early days. And, ROUTE 9 was right there. We all know Route 9(hell Joe, I still have the sign in my back yard proudly displayed in the CF portion of my Wiffleball field)!
You were closer to the Gods in Englishtown, so it was fitting that one, if not my first boot, The Great White Boss, was purchased there. I mean, at the time, I was like, "what is with this title, is this a play on Springsteen being white and somehow he is Clarences boss?".
Duh, eventually, I figured out what the title meant- and was introduced to Live Springsteen, 1975, Bottom Line style.
Go to Part 2 for the rest
Part 2 Comment
Say no more, that is all it took. Then, the 1978 radio concert boots and all hell broke loose!
As you said, the down time between records stunk. Hell, even Bruce sound alikes like Beaver Brown were even in my listening rotation- at least he SOUNDED like Bruce and had something new out, haha.
But, to fill in the gap of no record product, the Outtakes became a fascination- as you know. From the early crap of poorly sounding, slow running cassette copy of copies I purchased at Englishtown, to the 20 CD set called the "Lost Masters"- I bought whatever I could find, wherever I could find it.
How the hell I got the money to afford it- with the crap jobs I was working, I dont even know, but they were all obtained.
Now, with the internet, I have not purchased a bootleg in probably ten years, yet have access to more shows and outtakes than I could have ever dreamed of, or even want to listen to!
My God, the "old days", we could have never thought this would happen. Bootlegs, FREE? Nah, couldnt be.
Well, it is. And, I admit readily, I relished in becoming "Springsteen Jeff", to our little group. The cache that it carried was pretty cool-
But, lets get back to the present now- this set is going to be awesome, if only for the Houston concert, and my personal interest, the studio dialogue. On the BTR reissue, back in 2005, the studio filming they had on the DVD, Making of Born to Run, was just fascinating. Darkness will be even better, if the Sherry Darling clip from the official Springsteen website is any indication.
Joe, we went many roads and many miles, the soundtrack was varied, but the themes were often the same- who are we- where do we fit- how the hell is this all going to work out?
We both made it, as you say, down many paths and through twists and turns. Nov 16th, when your listening, you know we will have the same thoughts -"God damn, why the hell did they remove Clarence's vocal from Outside Looking In!?" haha
And, BTW- the drum kit rescued from Leo's is ready for our bastardized version of Darkness on the Edge of Town, down in my basement!!
Great post-as always!
The Rhyme Animal- JS
Thanks so much for this post. As I read it, a ton of memories came floating back.
I found the post while doing a search for Malcolm, the guy who ran Pellet Records in Morristown. I can't believe it, but the record shop seem to have disappeared from history-- at least from the internet.
My buddy Mike and I had the same relationship with Mal that you did in those days; I'm pretty sure, too, that we were in the store together as Mal smoked his Marlboro Reds.
I was "Beatle Dave," as you were the "Bruce Guys." It was high school for me, and my first trips alone with a car were to Mal's. We'd even cut school some days, go get gyros and bullshit for hours and listen to tunes.
I could go on an on about it for hours-- but your post basically did that, just with different boots.
The record shop is gone, but as I'm writing this, I did manage to find his home number. Let me know if you'd like it. I'd love to ring him up and thank him for the memories.
Cheers,
Beatle Dave
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