Dylan, Springsteen And Neil Young: The Coming Fall Trifecta From Rock's Holy Trinity

 

The upcoming fall new music release calendar just got a lot more interesting with announcements made this week within just days of each other of new albums from three of rock's most iconic, legendary figures.

Although new albums from Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young might not have music retailers seeing big dollar signs the same way that a (likely on the way) new Kings Of Leon or (not so likely) Coldplay record would, it's still a positive sign that the record labels are showing more of a willingness to roll out the big guns this Christmas season.

While nobody can realistically expect these three albums to do anything resembling humongous numbers, what they will do is provide as good a reason as any in recent years to get the still viable baby boomer demographic out of their cubbyholes and back into the record stores this fall. Still, this rarely seen sixty-day window of new albums by what many regard as the holy trinity of rock's greatest living songwriters doesn't come without at least a few caveats.

For one thing, not all of these albums are exactly new.

Of the three packages, only Neil Young's Le Noise (due September 28) is a brand new studio album consisting entirely of music recorded earlier this year (with producer Daniel Lanois). The Dylan and Springsteen packages however, are both retrospectives drawing from the past work of each artist, while also containing rare and previously unreleased material.

Dylan's The Witmark Demos (in stores on October 19) is the ninth volume of his Bootleg Series, and focuses on rare demo recordings made between 1962-1964, including early versions of some of Dylan's most famous songs like "The Times They Are A Changin'" and "Blowin' In The Wind," as well as much rarer, never before heard material.

Springsteen's The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story (which arrives November 16) is an ambitious deluxe re-imagining of his 1978 classic Darkness On The Edge Of Town album. It comes in a deluxe boxed set housing 3 CDs, 3 DVDs (or Blu-ray discs) packed with such extras as live concert footage and rarely heard outtakes. There's even a previously unheard (if somewhat manufactured specifically for this set) "lost album" called The Promise.

What follows is a quick preview of each of these albums, including our thoughts on this "trifecta" from rock's holy trinity, and just how we rate their chances at music retail this fall.

Neil Young - Le Noise

In a lot of ways, this could be seen as merely the latest in a long line of experimental albums from Neil Young — if only the songs we've heard so far didn't sound so damn good.

But on paper, everything about Le Noise from the title on down screams classic Neil Young weirdness. From what we know, this is a mostly solo record (although we have also heard that Young is accompanied on at least some of the songs by the late Ben Keith), but is also not your usual folkie Harvest type acoustic outing.

Here instead, Neil is mostly cranking up the electric guitar — aided by the "sonics" of producer Daniel Lanois. But before you run like hell thinking this could be another 40 minutes of feedback noise a la' the infamous Arc disc of Neil's live Arc-Weld with Crazy Horse, most of these songs have been previewed on Neil Young's current Twisted Road tour and both audiences and critics alike have been near unanimous in their praise. Songs like the autobiographical "Hitchhiker" and "Love And War" also find Neil Young reflecting on issues like his own mortality like no other album since Prairie Wind. This is also a nice warm up for the next round of Neil's Archives discs, which will include the first official appearances of the "lost albums" Homegrown, Chrome Dreams, Toast and Oceanside, Countryside.

Verdict: This won't be a huge commercial hit, but should do solid business with Neil Young's core fanbase. It should also do much better than 2009's Fork In The Road did with the critics, and will very likely make a few year-end "Best Of 2010" lists. This could be one of this years bigger sleepers.

Le Noise Songlist:
01. Walk With Me
02. Sign Of Love
03. Someone’s Gonna Rescue You
04. Love And War
05. Angry World
06. Hitchhiker
07. Peaceful Valley Boulevard
08. Rumblin

Bob Dylan - The Bootleg Series Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962-1964

Like Neil Young's Archives, Dylan's Bootleg Series has proven to be a treasure-trove for Dylanologists and other collectors, and in many ways The Witmark Demos is the most intriguing entry yet — at least from a historical perspective.

Comprised of some of Dylan's earliest demos (the album is apparently named for one of his first publishers, M. Witmark And Sons), it features early recordings of Dylan standards like "Masters of War," "Mr. Tambourine Man" and "Blowin' In The Wind." But more intriguing is the inclusion of never before heard songs from the same period with titles like “Guess I’m Doing Fine,” “Long Ago, Far Away” and “Ballad for a Friend.”

Dylan continues to tour non-stop (he'll be headlining Seattle's annual Bumbershoot Festival over Labor Day weekend). But with no followup to 2009's Together Through Life on the horizon in the immediate future, this 48-song, two-disc collection should tide Dylan fans over quite nicely.

Verdict: Dylan's Bootleg Series always does solid numbers among fans — with many of the hardcores preferring the rarities to his newer material. Interest could be even higher here, because of the period, and the vintage of the songs involved.

Witmark Demos Songlist:
Disc: 1
1. Man On The Street (Fragment)
2. Hard Times In New York Town
3. Poor Boy Blues
4. Ballad For A Friend
5. Rambling, Gambling Willie
6. Talking Bear Mountain Picnic Massacre Blues
7. Standing On The Highway
8. Man On The Street
9. Blowin’ In The Wind
10. Long Ago, Far Away
11. A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall
12. Tomorrow Is A Long Time
13. The Death of Emmett Till
14. Let Me Die In My Footsteps
15. Ballad Of Hollis Brown
16. Quit Your Low Down Ways
17. Baby, I’m In The Mood For You
18. Bound To Lose, Bound To Win
19. All Over You
20. I’d Hate To Be You On That Dreadful Day
21. Long Time Gone
22. Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues
23. Masters Of War
24. Oxford Town
25. Farewell

Disc 2
1. Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right
2. Walkin’ Down The Line
3. I Shall Be Free
4. Bob Dylan’s Blues
5. Bob Dylan’s Dream
6. Boots Of Spanish Leather
7. Walls of Red Wing
8. Girl From The North Country
9. Seven Curses
10. Hero Blues
11. Whatcha Gonna Do?
12. Gypsy Lou
13. Ain’t Gonna Grieve
14. John Brown
15. Only A Hobo
16. When The Ship Comes In
17. The Times They Are A-Changin’
18. Paths Of Victory
19. Guess I’m Doing Fine
20. Baby Let Me Follow You Down
21. Mama, You Been On My Mind
22. Mr. Tambourine Man
23. I’ll Keep It With Mine

Bruce Springsteen - The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story

Springsteen fans have been salivating for this one for a couple of years now (it was originally supposed to come out as a 30th anniversary box back in 2008), but they will be more than happy for the wait. The Darkness box doubles the three discs of 2005's Born To Run remastered deluxe set, and fully more than three quarters of it is comprised of previously unreleased, or otherwise never before seen or heard material.
The biggest news here is the two CDs of studio outtakes from the original Darkness sessions, which have been compiled into a manufactured "lost album" called The Promise.
These include such widely bootlegged songs as "The Promise" (presumably we finally get the first official release of the full E Street Band version here), "Because The Night" and "Spanish Eyes."

But there also some titles which will be new even to hardcore Springsteen collectors with interesting titles like "The Brokenhearted" and "(Someday) We'll Be Together" (which I'm assuming isn't a Diana Ross cover).
The live DVD material also looks pretty amazing. In addition to a full 1978 concert from Houston (said to consist of footage taken from the overhead screens), there is live "Thrill Hill Vault" footage  from 1976-1978, and the complete 2009 performance of Darkness taken from the Paramount Theater in Asbury Park, NJ.

Rather than run down the entire track listing, I'll point you towards Josh Hathaway's preview elsewhere on Blogcritics. But man, I'm licking my chops for this one!

Verdict: It's a six-disc boxed set, and it's likely to be pricey. But for Bruce fans, this is a long sought after holy grail of sorts. Expect them to respond accordingly.

This article was first published at Blogcritics Magazine as Dylan, Springsteen And Neil Young: The Coming Fall Trifecta From Rock's Holy Trinity

American Tyler? Say It Aint' So, Steve

So this is what Steven meant by "Brand Tyler," then?

Look, I can forgive Aerosmith for participating in the Bee Gees' legendarily rancid remake of Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band back in 1978...well okay, almost. Aerosmith's version of "Come Together" was actually one of the few highlights of that soundtrack (along with Earth Wind & Fire doing "Got To Get You Into My Life").

I'm also willing to give American Idol all due props for making the world a slightly better place by introducing us to the likes of Carrie Underwood and "Pants On The Ground" guy. Clay Aiken and Adam Lambert on the other hand, maybe not so much.

But one-time rock god Steven Tyler judging the world's greatest karaoke contest each week on national TV? You've got to be kidding, right?

Well, let's be honest here. Tyler's own once mighty rock-cred has been in jeopardy for some time now. Theme parks and SuperBowl appearances alongside Justin Timberlake and Britney Spears aside, Aerosmith's once mightily rolling train probably left the station for good back in the mid-eighties around the time they traded the cock-rock anthems like "Lord Of The Thighs" in for all of those horrid power ballads...and I'm not referring to "Dream On" either.

Speaking of "Dream On," let's talk about Tyler as a singer for a minute. Just how many decades has it been since he was able to hit those high-pitched screams on the aforementioned "Dream On" onstage anyway? That sarcastic giggle you hear is Simon Cowell laughing his ass off the first time Tyler has the stones to call one of his Idol hopefuls a little "pitchy."

Speaking of Simon, whatever happened to all the talk of bringing Howard Stern on board to fill his chair? Whether you love him or hate him, there's no doubt that Stern's caustic personality would have made a better fit. Stern would have also added some much needed humor to the mix, at exactly the time this once unstoppable, now precariously teetering franchise could most use it.

As for American Ty-dol? Sorry Dawg, Not buying it. There, I Said It!

This article was first published as American Tyler? at Blogcritics Magazine.

Three Sides Of Nils Lofgren Live At Rockpalast

Music DVD Review: Nils Lofgren - Cry Tough


Although not exactly a household name, Nils Lofgren has had one of the more amazing careers in rock and roll history.

Not many guitarists can make the claim of playing with both Neil Young and Bruce Springsteen on their resume. Nils Lofgren can.

Legend also has it that Lofgren was taught how to play the guitar by his neighbor, blues legend Roy Buchanan. Beat that if you think you can.

Asked as a mere teenager to join the sessions for Neil Young's After The Gold Rush album (by none other than Young himself), Nils was later tapped again by Neil for a number of tours — including the legendary shows premiering the songs from Tonight's The Night, and the infamous Trans shows of the early eighties.

Just a year after completing the Trans tour with Young, Lofgren would go on to fill Little Steven's considerable shoes in the E Street Band on the eve of Bruce Springsteen's star-making Born In The U.S.A. stadium tour.

What's less known though, is that Lofgren has had an equally impressive — if somewhat more sporadic — run as a solo artist.

Beginning with the four, now highly regarded albums he recorded with his first group Grin, and continuing on with albums like Cry Tough, I Came To Dance and the legendary "official bootleg" Back It Up, Nils Lofgren has also proven himself to be every bit as formidable a songwriter as he is a guitarist.

With songs ranging from beautiful ballads like "Valentine" to his rocking ode to Keith Richards "Keith, Don't Go," you can actually call Nils Lofgren a bit of a rock and roll renaissance man.

Many of these songs, including "Keith, Don't Go," "Back It Up," and "Cry Tough" show up as many as three times over the course of the four hour plus(!) running time of Eagle Rock's great new double-disc compilation of live performances taken from the German television rock concert showcase series Rockpalast.

Spread out over two DVD discs, Cry Tough (the title is taken from Lofgren's 1976 album of the same name), brings together Nils Lofgren's complete Rockpalast performances from three distinct periods of his career — from the years 1976, 1979, and 1991.

Of the three, it is perhaps the 1991 concert — which takes up all of disc one — that offers up the best overall picture of Lofgren's considerable prowess as a virtuoso guitarist.

Coming off of Springsteen's stadium tour for Born In The U.S.A., Lofgren nonetheless seems quite comfortable in the much smaller setting captured here, effortlessly switching from a tasteful acoustic reading of "Keith, Don't Go," to a full-on electric raveup of the song after being joined by the rest of his band halfway through.

From there, Nils turns in some burning slide guitar work on "Cry Tough." By the time of "Gun And Run," he's playing behind his back and with his teeth Hendrix style.

It should also be noted here that Lofgren's band for this show — including guitarist and veteran Neil Young sideman Larry Cragg — is nothing short of top-notch.

The 1976 Rockpalast show which opens the second disc finds Lofgren doing a much rawer, funkier take on "Cry Tough."

For "Going Back," Lofgren gets behind the keyboard and proves to be every bit the house of fire that he is on the guitar (legend has it that Lofgren only learned the keys after Neil Young forced his hand for the sessions on After The Gold Rush).

Lofgren sounds absolutely amazing on the keys here, channeling the best barroom soul of a Faces-era Ian McLagan. Of the three complete concerts captured on this collection, the 1976 set is by far the rawest and most rocking, (and in the best Small Faces, Exile-era Stones sort of way).

For the 1979 performance which closes out the second disc, we find Nils Lofgren at the halfway point, performing before a much larger festival-sized crowd with a band whose look already seems to be anticipating the MTV eighties. Regardless, they still sound great.

Lofgren also rises here to the challenge of his impending rock stardom like a true champ — although of the three versions of "Keith, Don't Go" on this set, this is by far the most anemic — paling particularly in comparison to the rawer 1976 version.

Once again, he also turns in some amazing slide guitar work for the third performance on this set of "Cry Tough" — this time mugging like a true rock star before the TV cameras.

Oh yeah, and he also does a backflip off the trampoline too (during "Back It Up").

Can you say "awesome"?

Rodney Bingenheimer, The Runaways, And The Cult Of Personality

As a rock and roll kid growing up in the seventies, I was never a big fan of the Runaways. But I was still keenly enough aware of them — thanks to the constant hype they got through rock magazines like Creem, Circus and Rock Scene. I religiously devoured all of them from cover-to-cover each month as a sixteen year old rock fan.

Why exactly the Runaways slipped past my radar growing up as a teenage glam-rocker I couldn't really tell you. I was certainly into all the other seventies glam bands from Alice and Bowie to T.Rex and Mott The Hoople. But despite my own wildly raging hormones, the whole teenage jail-bait schtick of the all-girl Runaways just never did it for me.

Even so, I recognize and respect their influence enough today — paving the way for all-girl bands like the Go-Gos, the Bangles and The Donnas as they did — that I was probably as excited as anyone else to see their story get the Hollywood treatment with this year's rock-biopic The Runaways.

For those who missed The Runaways in theaters, I can't recommend at least renting the DVD highly enough. But I am also going to make an additional recommendation.

If you can find it, and if you have an entire night to devote to it, watch The Runaways back-to-back with the DVD Mayor Of The Sunset Strip as I did this week. For a complete picture of the seventies glam-rock scene that spawned the Runaways (among others), as well as how it was seen through the first-hand eyes of one of its primary scene-makers, Rodney Bingenheimer, you simply won't find a better twofer.



Bingenheimer's character appears only briefly in The Runaways film, in a pivotal scene that takes place outside Bingenheimer's English Disco club in L.A., as Joan Jett has her fateful encounter with future Runaways promoter Kim Fowley.

Surprisingly, given the enormous influence that both Bingenheimer and his English Disco club wielded in the seventies L.A. glam-rock scene back then, his character doesn't even get any lines. Bingenheimer was absolutely a major player in the development of seventies glam-rock, but you wouldn't know it watching The Runaways.

This, along with the fact that The Runaways focuses on Joan Jett and Cherie Currie to the near total exclusion of the other members, are probably the two most glaring omissions of this otherwise historically very accurate film. Even as the credits make mention of Jett's subsequent success as a punk-rocker, guitarist Lita Ford's own post-Runaways career as a heavy metal babe is simply ignored altogether. Go, figure.

Otherwise, the film mostly tells its story well, and the performances are all pretty great.

Kristen Stewart in particular nails Joan Jett — the tough-as-nails teen-queen whose heart bleeds rock and roll. Michael Shannon is also deliciously disgusting as the vampiric, bloodsucking scumbag Kim Fowley, and delivers what is arguably the best line of the entire film in "Jail Fucking Bait, Jack Fucking Pot." It's a little weird seeing former child-actor Dakota Fanning all slutted-up in garters and lace as sexpot singer Cherie Currie. But to her credit she pulls the role off quite convincingly.

However, where The Runaways succeeds in telling the story of how these five impressionable, and quite underage teenage girls were seduced by rock and roll — and subsequently criminally exploited by two-bit music biz hustlers like Fowley — there's also one big chunk of this story that's missing.

For one thing, what the hell were a couple of minors like Jett and Currie doing hanging out in a glam-rock sleaze-pit like Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco in the first place? Mayor Of The Sunset Strip not only fills in those holes, but in doing so, also tells the unexpectedly tragic story of Bingenheimer himself.

Reading about the decadence and debauchery that went on at Bingenheimer's club as a teenager, I would have never pegged him as a sympathetic character at all.

In fact, based on the stories and pictures in rock-rags like Creem back then, I'd have probably put him in the same morally bankrupt category as a sleazeball like Fowley. What I found instead in Rodney was what not only what seems to be a very likable, if clearly lonely guy, but a story which strangely moved and lingered with me quite deeply for several days afterward.



While its true that Bingenheimer was probably no angel back then — and the scenes of the seventies-era Bingenheimer groping topless teens at his club in Mayor Of The Sunset Strip certainly bears witness to this — a picture begins to emerge which contrasts sharply with a lot of the wilder stories.

Scenes from the glory days of the English Disco may show young, half-naked girls alongside glam-rock stars like Iggy Pop and David Johansen of the New York Dolls. Still, you can't help but think that some of the stories might have been rather exaggerated when it comes to Rodney himself.

Even as Fowley brags of Bingenheimer's sexual prowess — claiming he got more girls than even a seventies rock-god like Robert Plant — it's a picture that just doesn't quite add up. Sitting alongside Fowley, Bingenheimer cuts a diminutive, almost painfully shy figure that comes across as the polar opposite of Fowley's slimeball huckster.

The fact is, you get the distinct impression of Rodney as a guy who couldn't get laid in a brothel flashing a fistful of hundreds. These couldn't be two more different people.

In reality, the Rodney Bingenheimer seen in Mayor Of The Sunset Strip comes across as something more like a man out of time. He clearly still loves rock and roll passionately. But more than that, he seems to have become trapped by the same cult of personality that so many of those in Hollywood who've dedicated their lives to celebrity have before him. At times, Bingenheimer seems more like a ghost.

With his once trailblazing KROQ radio show Rodney On The ROQ now relegated to the graveyard shift on Sunday nights, Rodney still fights the good fight. But the position appears to be a largely ceremonial one. In one scene, a fellow KROQ DJ sums it up by saying that KROQ's target 18 to 24 year old audience isn't interested in hearing Sonny & Cher or The Beach Boys.

More often, Rodney is seen in private moments haunting a window booth at L.A.'s infamous "Rock And Roll Denny's" or at Canter's Deli (who have even dedicated a seat to him). He is also seen at his small apartment, tripping over the sea of rock memorabilia that make up this shrine to an era which all too sadly seems to have left him behind.

Still wearing his trademark spiked pageboy bowl-cut, Rodney seems more than anything like a figure tragically trapped by own his rock and roll past. His closest friends include a burned out space-cadet (complete with spacesuit), would-be rock star who sings songs about Jennifer Love Hewitt to the tune of old Moody Blues' hits (which Rodney dutifully plays on his radio show).

There's also a semi-girlfriend named Camille who clearly doesn't return Rodney's romantic intentions (as seen in one of this film's sadder scenes), but rather seems to be using him to satisfy her own hunger to get close to celebrities. Although Rodney is still acknowledged by some of the superstars whose careers he once helped shape like David Bowie, here again the debt appears to be one more of gratitude than anything more genuine.

In one of the more telling scenes from The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip, Rodney Bingenheimer is shown in a heated backstage exchange with Chris Carter, a former member of Dramarama (who got their first break from Bingenheimer) over the latter starting his own competing radio show. Carter is also one of the producers of this film.

Even more heartbreaking is a scene of Rodney scattering the ashes of his deceased mother in England, as the song "Good Souls" by StarSailor (another of the many bands Bingenheimer helped break in America) plays poignantly in the background.

Like The Runaways before him, Rodney Bingenheimer's story as told in Mayor Of The Sunset Strip is proof that the rock and roll business often eats its own, particularly in Hollywood. Taken together, The Runaways and The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip offer two opposing, yet strangely complimentary sides of the same story. In Hollywood, and in rock and roll, there are victims and there are also those who survive.

Watch them together in one sitting if you can. You won't be disappointed.

This article was first published as Rodney Bingenheimer, The Runaways, And The Cult Of Personality at Blogcritics Magazine.