Don't cross The Boss

Bruce Springsteen will provide your company email address to the entire frothy, biley Internet. The following pretty much speaks for itself.

(As posted at MySpace)
A Letter to Our Fans:

We know there was much confusion regarding Ticketmaster and TicketsNow during last Monday's on-sale dates. We were as confused as you were, as we were given no advance notice of the major changes in the Ticketmaster-TicketsNow world. (Bear in mind that we are not clients of any ticketing company, and that all those arrangements are between venues and ticketing companies.)

Last Monday, we were informed that Ticketmaster was redirecting your log-in requests for tickets at face value, to their secondary site TicketsNow, which specializes in up-selling tickets at above face value. They did this even when other seats remained available at face value. We condemn this practice.

We perceive this as a pure conflict of interest. Ticketmaster is there to ensure that we have a good, fair sale of our tickets at their face value plus normal ticketing charges. TicketsNow is supposed to be a secondary site where people who already have tickets may exchange, trade, and, unfortunately, speculate with them. We have asked this redirection from Ticketmaster to TicketsNow cease and desist immediately and Ticketmaster has agreed to do so in the future and has removed its unwanted material from their and our site.

We know the many cynical arguments some make in favor of the Ticketmaster system: There are rumors that some artists or managers participate in Ticketmaster charges--we do not. There are rumors that some artists or managers are receiving a percentage of the amount above face value at secondary outlets like TicketsNow--we do not. Some artists or managers may not perceive there to be a conflict between having the distributor of their tickets in effect "scalping" those same tickets through a secondary company like TicketsNow--we do.

While many of you have sent notes to us and your local promoters, you may also send accurate informational letters to Albert Lopez of Ticketmaster [Albert.Lopez@ticketmaster.com] and he will try to address your questions.

A final point for now: the one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing. Several newspapers are reporting on this story right now. If you, like us, oppose that idea, you should make it known to your representatives.

The abuse of our fans and our trust by Ticketmaster has made us as furious as it has made many of you. We will continue to do our utmost now and in the future to make sure that these practices are permanently curtailed on our tours.

Bruce Springsteen, Jon Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team

[I found the animated .gif at Kissing Suzy Kolber, who say they found it at Texas Gal's twitter feed, so I guess maybe that's where it came from. KSK, by the way, had the best post-SuperBowl Springsteen post that I saw. Read that here.]

Springsteen to premier new song on Sunday Night Football

I'm still not sure how I feel about The Boss playing the Superbowl, but it's becoming clear that the NFL had to sweeten the deal a bit before he signed on. Way to make 'em work for it, Bruce.

Are you ready for some football? Well, even if you're not, you'll probably want to tune in to the Cowboys/Redskins Sunday Night Football game on November 16. As NBC's Al Michaels announced last night: "Next week we'll have the world premiere of Springsteen's new song 'Workin' on a Dream' set to NFL highlights at halftime at next week's game." Springsteen performed an acoustic version of the new song last week in Cleveland; this will be the world's first chance to hear the studio recording.

The video above is that performance in Cleveland, which the MySpace Bulletin fails to mention was at a rally for Barack Obama.

Springsteen does Halloween

Head on over to brucespringsteen.net and watch the video and download the free mp3 for "A Night With The Jersey Devil." Not sure how long it'll stay up past Halloween, so grab it while the grabbing's good.

It's a nice touch that the download page encourages, but does not mandate, email submission.

Happy Halloween.

I guess this is a trend? I kinda like it.

To commemorate the 15 year anniversary ATO reissue of the had-been-out-of-print Exile In Guyville, Liz Phair recently announced a second round of shows that will feature a beginning-to-end performance of the album.

In celebration of the 15th year anniversary of the groundbreaking album Exile in Guyville and its reissue by ATO Records, Liz Phair will perform the entire album at three engagements: August 27 at Theater of the Living Arts in Philadelphia; August 28 at 9:30 Club in Washington DC; and August 29 at The Paradise in Boston. Tickets go on sale Wednesday, July 23 via Ticketmaster.

These three additional shows come on the heels of four hugely successful sold out June events - two in New York City and one in each San Francisco and Chicago. Said Jon Pareles of The New York Times in his recent review of one of Phair's Exile in Guyville shows, "After 15 years of other people's indie-rock idiosyncrasies, "Exile" still holds up in all its conflicting impulses: its determination to be 'adamantly free' and its longing for someone to trust, its swagger and its pain." A modern classic, Pitchfork recently gave the album a 9.6 rating while both Rolling Stone and Blender gave Exile in Guyville a perfect score of five stars ("*****").

A few notes:

1. I never knew Exile In Guyville was written as a song-by-song response to Exile on Main St. before. I guess there really are things to be learned from press releases after all.
2. I'm sure he wasn't the first to do it, but the first guy I recall recently doing full-album performance of records that weren't by Pink Floyd was Ben Kweller a while back. This could be an ATO thing, then? Or maybe just coincidence. What am I, motivated to do research? If it were an ATO thing, though, It'd be rad to see Mike Doughty do all of Skittish.
   
3. Here are 5 other records I'd like to see performed in full (off the top of my head):

• Bruce Springsteen - Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.
  
• Idlewild - The Remote Part
• The Format - Dog Problems
• The Decemberists - Castaways & Cutouts
• Stone Temple Pilots - Tiny Music...Songs From The Vatican Gift Shop (Quiet, you.)
• *BONUS SIXTH* Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
  

Note: this is not just an excuse to post a bunch of Amazon links in fact The Format's link is to Amie Street, this is a prompt for discussion.

Someone who loves Springsteen more than I do

...stabbed her boyfriend to death when he objected to her playing a Springsteen CD. I gotta be honest with you, I only started writing this post because I thought that I'd be able to come up with some snappy punchline about it, and now I'm drawing blank. It happened in Australia. Maybe something like "That's not a knife -- That's a knife?"

Hah. Hysterical.

Download Springsteen's "Radio Nowhere" (legally) for free

"Is there anybody alive out there?"

Springsteen asked this question in concert long ago, immortalized on the first disc of the Live/1975-85 set. 30-some-odd years later, he's still wondering.

Go here. Scroll down. Not sure how much longer this promotion lasts, but while it does, it's a 128kbit .mp3 with no DRM. However, (because nobody can ever get anything 100% right) you're going to have to add the metadata yourself if you want to scrobble the shit.

**Update: Apparently it's also available for free on iTunes, although I don't know why you'd prefer that format to .mp3.

Bruce Springsteen - Radio Nowhere

I saw the post on Stereogum, listened to the song (shitty quality rip, but it rocks), and went to lunch, with the intention to write a post of my own when I got back. Turns out in the 30 mins or so I was gone, the big bad wolf knocked on the 'gum's door. If you're resourceful, you can still find a way to listen to Magic's opening track "Radio Nowhere" (for now), but I'm not going to bother linking you to it directly. This house is only made of straw.

I really like it. The lyrics are nothing to write home about, but it rocks harder and sweeter than anything off The Rising, the highlights of which were all the slow, contemplative tracks. I had been afraid The E Street Band had grown too old to properly rock. "Radio Nowhere" proves my fears unwarranted.

Tracklist for Magic here.

New Springsteen record: Magic

Bruce Springsteen (& The E Street Band) will release Magic on October 2, 2007.

The tracklisting (according to Wikipedia):

1. "Radio Nowhere"
2. "You'll Be Comin' Down"
3. "Livin' in the Future"
4. "Your Own Worst Enemy"
5. "Gypsy Biker"
6. "Girls in Their Summer Clothes"
7. "I'll Work for Your Love"
8. "Magic"
9. "Last to Die"
10. "Long Walk Home"
11. "Devil's Arcade"

Sources who work in a place that makes me think they probably know tell me a tour with the full band will accompany this release.

So this is what this guy was talking about. I still stand by my doubts that such a release will do anything to save Columbia records, but I'm absolutely pumped anyway.

Jesse Malin - Broken Radio video

I'm not going to lie to you. I'm posting this because it features Bruce Springsteen, and not because I'm a huge Jesse Malin fan. I've spent more time in the photo booth at the bar he owns than I have listening to his music. This song is pretty ok though.

[As seen on Stereogum]

Everything dies baby

Roger Friedman over at FOXNews.com (yeah, I know) writes that an impending new Springsteen release (very likely E Street Band, not side project Bruce) might bail some water out of the sinking ship that is Columbia Records.

I don't mention it often on this blog, but I was almost NAMED after Bruce Springsteen, and from an early age I've been indoctrinated into the Boss's church. I know every record by heart, and I cherish his contribution to rock and roll. That said, there's no way Columbia is ever going to see black ink again with Sprinsteen after the 100 million contract they gave him to continue to record for them. That kind of money simply doesn't happen in the record business anymore. The touring business? Sure, maybe. The record business? No way. Not anymore.