NEWS: GASLIGHT/SPRINGSTEEN PHOTOGRAPH IN ROLLING STONE

Yesterday I got a late X-mas gift and a great start to the new year. My photo of The Gaslight Anthem's Brian Fallon and Bruce Springsteen performing at the band's December Convention Hall show ran in Rolling Stone magazine's Random Notes section. It's totally cool to have a photograph in a magazine that I grew up reading and to be one step closer to the Bieber!

Thanks to Ken Weinstein & Big Hassle.

PHOTO: THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM AT ASBURY PARK CONVENTION HALL

Fans of The Gaslight Anthem got an extra special gift this holiday season at the band's annual end of the year show. "Have I not been good enough to you this year? Huh? Well maybe this will make up for it..." singer Brian Fallon teased before calling hometown hero Bruce Springsteen to the stage. As the crowd erupted and a wall of iPhones flickered to life, The Boss and band tore through "American Slang" from the 2010 album of the same name. With Asbury Park's Convention Hall literally decked with holiday cheer, The Gaslight Anthem turned out a fantastic set of old favorites and classic cover songs.

I don't know why but the whole night I had Bob Gruen's photos of The Clash running through my mind.  Similar to that band, Gaslight is a group comprised of four distinct yet complimentary personalities each with a unique visual style. More than once I saw traces of rock & roll's past when framing up the band, most notably bassist Alex Levine, equal parts Paul Simonon and a young Jerry Only.

There's alot more photos than this but Blogger is being finicky so to check out them all out head over to the Flickr gallery below.

PHOTO GALLERY: The Gaslight Anthem at Convention Hall - Asbury Park, NJ 12/9/11

PHOTOS: RECORD STORE DAY 2011 AT GENERATION RECORDS

Miserable weather can't stop us record nerds! Generation Records hosted another great Record Store Day celebration this year with performances by Spa Castles, I Hate Our Freedom, The Jay Vons, and The Obits. I scored some sweet records including the Off! seven inch, The Bouncing Souls acoustic show, some Springsteen and Bob Dylan releases. No pics from the Obits set though as I got pulled to help film a video for them.

Click any of the photos above to check out everything from Record Store Day 2011 or head over to the Flickr gallery direct.

BOSTON 2011: HIGH HOPES & GOOD INTENTIONS CAN'T REPLACE FILM

I had big plans for our annual St. Patty's Day trip to Boston this year. I was super pumped to shoot the Dropkick Murphy's show at the House Of Blues. That fell apart at the last minute and so no dice on that one. Despite my friends complete hatred of having their picture's taken, I figured I'd class things up this year. I brought my Canon AE-1 and a roll of Tri-X along to capture all of our drunken belligerence in gloriously beautiful black & white.

But it might have been a good idea to make sure the film was engaged in the take up before snapping away. Probably would have been less of a shock when the film came back from the lab blank.... So what DO I have to share from my Boston trip? A couple of crappy pics from my phone, a twitter feed of drunken outbursts and a handful of stupidly wonderful stories to pass around the table. Here's a taste:

• Shitfaced by 7:30pm Mike got kicked out of the House Of Blues for vomiting in the trashcan before the Dropkick Show even started. Our first day in Boston ends with a bang or a whimper...

• Drinking starts at 11:00am the next day with microbrews across from Fenway Park where Vinny is chastised by the waitress for tricking her into serving him to 24oz glasses of beer so he can double fist. Jokes on him since the beer tastes like shit.

• Mike and I are graced with Tommy's presence for gluten free dinner at PF Changs. Drunken Zombie Tommy mutters "Someone really needs to ride those dragons..." the whole night in reference to the 15ft tall dragon sculptures outside the restaurant.

• Instead of going for prime rib at Durgin Park, I opt to eat french fries and consume abusive amounts of Magners at The Black Rose.

• Also at the Black Rose, Tommy tears open his hand when he punches a pint glass into a thousand pieces. Instead of kicking us out, they bandage him up with gauze and hand him plastic cups of Guinness the rest of the night. An upgrade from our last visit to the Black Rose which resulted in us getting kicked out for holding a "Who's Cell Phone Breaks Into More Pieces When You Throw It Against The Wall?" contest.

• For the first time in eight years I successfully order a drink by myself at LIR ending for now their entire waitstaff's boycott of me which have arose from belligerently yelling for more Guinness and then falling asleep on the bar, or so I'm told.

• Mike helps me get totally annihilated on gluten free beer at The Otherside Cafe, before bowing out and sending Vinny over as a replacement. We meet up with Mike again at McDonald's where I try to steal and eat some fries. 

• I order and eat a B Good burger combo on the way back to the hotel before passing out on the floor with no rememberance of ever doing so when I awake the next morning. I'm told it was on a gluten free bun.

With my phone in hand the whole time, one button now allows me to embarrass myself on multiple platforms so most of this was documented on twitter and facebook in real time, fantastic. It was an interesting conversation at work on Monday.

While the shows have changed greatly from years past, The Dropkick Murphys are always a good time. It was nice to see how much they take care of their fans as their stage manager had bottles of water passed out by security multiple times to all the kids in the pit. Plus got to see Against Me! for the second time in one week, good deal.

I have no love in my heart for the House Of Blues venue chain however. When it was still The Avalon, the second floor mezzanine was a free area that anyone could gather in and get some air, be it for picking up merch, grabbing a drink at the bar, or watching the show from one of the limited views near the balcony. Since then House Of Blues has made the second floor mezzanine a paid ticket area. If your ticket is for that area you cannot move anywhere else, leaving some poor souls a showlong view of the third mezz overhang or the back of the heads of people lucky enough to hug the railing. Sure it gets another 500 people in the door but they don't actually get to see the show. Gotta get that money don't ya HOB.

Our Boston trips are more or less four days of alcohol fueled shenanigans but it always good times with good people. I don't get to see my Jersey family as much as I would like but when I do nothing has changed. We'll see what next year brings.

Also, Vinnie and Jeff missed Bruce Springsteen sitting in with the Dropkick Murphys because "we didn't need to stay for the encore."

MUSIC NEWS: The Dropkick Murphys, Brian Fallon, & The Bouncing Souls

Every year my friends and I head up to Boston for St. Patties day. It is a three day shitshow of drunken revelry. Aside from consuming obnoxious amounts of Guinness, the main reason for the trip is to attend one or many of the Dropkick Murphys annual St. Patties day performances. Looks like this year we will have a little more to be excited for.

On March 1st, The Dropkick Murphys will release Going Out In Style, their first record in four years.

From kikaxemusic.com:

For Going Out In Style, Dropkick Murphys even enlisted the vocal talents of the legendary Bruce Springsteen — whom they first met at a DKM gig in New York and later collaborated with onstage at one of Springsteen's Boston shows. Springsteen swaps verses with [Ken] Casey for a spirited take on the old standard "Peg O' My Heart."  "It has a classic old fifties rock and roll feel," says Casey. "Both of my grandmothers are named Peg. One grandmother, Peg Casey, is always saying, 'When are you going to do that song? Your grandfather always sang it to me!' The time signature changed, so hopefully they still appreciate it when they hear it."

The collaboration is a perfect intergenerational bridge for fans and band alike. Dropkick Murphys have always strongly resonated with audiences young and old due to their working class ethos and cathartic sonic revelry.  "It links two generations," says Casey. "We're spanning a lot of years of music here, yet our songs share similar themes, stories, and values."

Rolling Stone interviewed bassist Ken Casey about the new album and his band's collaboration with the Boss:

"All we said was 'we thought it would be great to trade off on verses,'" Casey says. "You don't really give the Boss instructions."

Rolling Stone also has a preview of the new DKM track "Memorial Day."

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The Bouncing Souls have teamed up with Side One Dummy Records and screenprint designer El Jefe to release a 19x25 limited edition Misfit's inspired poster as part of the new "Artist On Artist Poster Series."

Future bands to be featured in the series include The Gaslight Anthem and Flogging Molly.

Side One Dummy will also feature The Bouncing Souls as part of it's Complete Control Sessions record release series. Each 10" record will feature a sleeve custom designed by El Jefe and exclusive recordings from the bands.

The El Jefe designed El Jefe print is available for pre-order now at the Side One Dummy Records store and El Jefe Design.com. Stay tuned here for more info on the Complete Control Sessions record release series.

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The Gaslight Anthem's frontman Brian Fallon revealed his new side project The Horrible Crowes on his personal blog, Cassettes In The Mailbox.

"Anyway, so here's the deal... the "night time music" is myself and Mr. Ian Perkins, and what we're doing is writing songs and making demos at the very moment. We hope to put out a full length record sometime this year, before it gets cold again, I don't know with whom, or when exactly it will come out. But the point is, it's coming out. We're calling ourselves The Horrible Crowes...

... Now how's this going to work with Gaslight, well it's easy, see, every time I write a creepy Tom Waits, Nick Cave, Mark Laneghan type song, I get an idea for a ripper which goes straight to Gaslight. So we're writing for both now, but Gaslight isn't planning on recording until the fall, for a 2012 release. Now I can't sit still so I'm doing this for fun, nothing more. We might do a few shows with the Crowes, maybe select cities in the US, Can, and Europe/UK, but not major touring like Gaslight does. This is my "for me" record, Gaslight is my baby, no mistake...

... I always said I never would do a "solo" record so that's why I found a partner in crime in Ian. So it's not going to be the acoustic Brian Fallon road show. There's organs, pianos, even (gasp) strings!!! There's drums, everything. So don't expect a folk record. Here's a good description, if Tom Waits, the National, the Afghan Whigs, Bon Iver, and Nick Cave made a band with Percy Sledge that'd be called The Horrible Crowes." 

You can keep up with The Horrible Crowes by checking out their blog and Facebook page.

PHOTO CREDIT: All images included in this post belong to their rightful photographer but I don't know who you are. If any of these are your photo, please contact me and I will credit you or remove the image should you want.

MOVIE REVIEW: Darkness - Asbury Park 2009 Performance World Premiere

As part of DOC NYC's Documentary Film Festival, last night I got a chance to check out the world premiere of Bruce Springsteen & E-Street Band's 2009 performance of Darkness On The Edge Of Town from the upcoming Darkness boxset.

The film documents the band's 2009 performance at Asbury Park's Paramount Theatre. In an effort to "best capture the starkness of the original album" the performance was done without a live audience present. The result is an in your face, warts and all live rendering of the now classic 1978 album.

Director Thom Zimny, DOC NYC's Creative Director Thom Powers, and drummer Max Weinberg were on hand to talk about how the film and subsequent screening came about. For Zimny, the project spawned from an accidental moment in which the director found himself caught onstage during a band rehearsal. The intimacy and energy he felt on that stage sparked an idea for capturing the band up close, with the cameras onstage and among the performers. The typical Springsteen arena concert with a large audience would require the director to shoot from long distances with telephoto lenses. When Zimny approached Springsteen with his idea and his concerns in bringing it to light, it seems the musician was one step ahead and suggested performing the concert sans audience.

DOC NYC's Thom Powers, who also helped organize the Toronto International Film Festival, spoke of what led to last night's screening at NYC's historic Zeigfeld Theatre. After the Toronto premiere of Zimny's other Springsteen film, documenting the recording of the original Darkness album, the Springsteen camp invited a few people to see some additional footage featured in the upcoming boxset. One clip was from the 2009 Asbury Park performance. Powers was convinced that the 2009 performance needed a larger exhibition than just DVD, if even for one night. Much like Zimny, Powers approached the Springsteen camp with his idea and they quickly agreed.

Springsteen's live shows have well been known for the connection between the artist and his audience. The lack of an audience reveals, as Max Weinberg put it "even in rehearsal, this is no off switch with Bruce." Zimny's camera documents the raw power of Springsteen and his band. We see Max Weinberg read slight visual queues from Springsteen leading the way through the song, we see Clarence Clemons cheering Springsteen on through a guitar solo and we see Steven Van Zandt looking for just the right moment to pull off a soulful fill on his guitar.

As fantastic as the movie is, something must be said for the audio. It is amazing. And loud, very loud. Everything is captured in brilliant clarity, bringing the experience to an even higher level.

It's certainly not unusual to sing along to a live concert. And it's not unusual to sing along to a concert video in your home. But a movie theater has a different decorum. It provides the viewer an opportunity to just watch. While much of the Springsteen experience is participatory, just watching the band provides a different perspective, one Weinberg commented "I've never seen before, and one I think I need to see again. Most in the audience held their applause for the short pauses between each song but more than a few could not suppress the urge for a "Bruuuuce."

A short Q&A session followed with Zimny and Weinberg, in which the drummer revealed he fully intends to tour with the E-Street Band on the "sooner side of sooner or later," and that he usually gets Springsteen a "good book for Christmas." The drummer also spoke of the perspective the film gave him and how while in the midst of performance it's rare to hear the song as a whole. The film allowed Weinberg to watch he and his bandmates perform from the perspective of their audience and in nearly forty years of music it seems to be a rare treat for him.

DOC NYC is being presented in partnership with NYU-SCPS. For the past few months my friends Mark Parsia - who I owe an extra special thanks for an invite to the screening - and Mary Domowitz have been working hard to pull the festival's inaugural running together. The festival runs from Nov. 3-9 and features many wonderful films, panels and events throughout. For a full schedule check out DOC NYC. And also check out NYU-SCPS' Department of Film, Video, and Broadcasting - they have a great selection of courses!

ART NEWS: Bruce Springsteen - From Darkness To A Dream

On a rainy evening last Thursday night, the new exhibit "Bruce Springsteen - From Darkness To A Dream: The Photographs of Frank Stefanko and Danny Clinch" opened to a packed house at The Morrison Hotel's SoHo Gallery in NYC.

The Bruce-nerds were out in force, each wondering if the Boss himself would show up. But Springsteen is an artist with class and left the attention to the real stars of the exhibit, photographers Frank Stefanko and Danny Clinch.

"From Darkness To A Dream" presents an intimate and revealing photographic look at Bruce Springsteen over the course of forty years. Stefanko's images cover from 1978-1985 and Clinch's from 2001 - present. If you've ever dreamed of seeing Bruce Springsteen ala Darkness On The Edge of Town album cover in near life-like size, now is your chance.

Also in attendance opening night were famed rock photographers Eric Meola and Bob Gruen as well as legendary rocker Patti Smith.

Morrison Hotel - SoHo Gallery
124 Prince Street
New York, NY 10012
212-941-8770
212-941-8815 fax

The exhibit runs through mid November.


Photos courtesy of Backstreets Magazine.

LISTEN/DOWNLOAD: Bruce Springsteen's Piece De Resistance

Bruce Springsteen - Lawrence Kirsch ©.

A little while back, Bruce Springsteen's Darkness On The Edge Of Town reissue was officially announced.  With more rare Springsteen than the average person could handle, it would seem that the new box set is the complete document of Darkness. But it's not.

Maybe it's because of the full length concert film but unlike the Born To Run re-issue, it does not contain a standalone audio concert. Maybe two more discs would be overkill. Or maybe it's because of the abundance of high quality bootlegs from the Darkness tour.

The 1978 Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour is considered by many fans and critics as one of the greatest concert tours of all time. Tangled up in legal battles with ex-manager Mike Appel, Springsteen was banned from the recording studio for nearly a year, until 1977 when sessions for the Born To Run followup could begin. Springsteen emerged from the studio in 1978, with a new sound, a new writing style and hunger for live performance.

While "Born To Run" was a romantic densely layered masterpiece of hope and dreams, Darkness was a stripped down album about when dreams don't come true and in some cases, hope runs out. From the first night of the tour it was clear things had changed. Already known for his captivating live performances, Springsteen was playing harder and longer than ever. Concerts stretched to three hours plus, a Springsteen standard that until recently would remain for decades. This was a guitar driven album.  The live versions of "Badlands" would feature power chords drenched in reverbed distortion and blistering extended guitar solos for "Prove It All Night". It would seem that Springsteen was out for blood.



With lessons learned from the media frenzy following the Born To Run album, Springsteen granted fewer interviews than ever before. Instead numerous concerts throughout the tour would be broadcast in full over FM radio stations, for free. Springsteen would let the music do the talking and any doubters could draw their own conclusions.

While the Houston show was chosen for inclusion in the box set, there is good reason to believe many other legendary shows from the Darkness tour remain sealed in the vaults. Yet, through the magic of bootlegging many of those incendiary performances survive to this day, in amazing quality and available now.

Roxy Night, Oh Boy, Agora Night, and Winterland, all bootlegs well known and cherished by traders for decades. But one stands above the rest. Considered by many to be the greatest Springsteen live performance ever, Piece De Resistance captures the full performance from New Jersey's Capitol Theater on September 19, 1978. Pulled from WNEW's FM broadcast, not much else really needs to be said. Listen for your self.

DOWNLOAD:
Discs 1 & 2 - Piece De Resistance: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78
DOWNLOAD:
Disc 3 - Piece De Resistance: Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78

Another version surfaced about 5 years ago that presents the Capitol Theater performance as it was broadcast by WNEW on that warm Septmember night in 1978 complete with introductions, DJ interviews, and station breaks. Sound Quality is a little lower than Piece De Resistance but absolutely worthy of multiple listens.

FULL DOWNLOAD:
The Way It Was - Bruce Springsteen & The E-Street Band at the Capitol Theater - Passaic, NJ 9/19/78 Un-Edited WNEW Broadcast.

PHOTO CREDIT: The header image is from photographer Lawrence Kirsch's excellent book The Light In Darkness which chronicles Bruce Springsteen's 1978 Darkness On The Edge of Town tour. It is a must for any Springsteen fan. Please check it out: http://thelightindarkness.com/home/

MUSIC NEWS: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Deluxe Re-Issue

From the moment "Born To Run" was released as a deluxe re-issue back in November 2005, fans were foaming at the mouths and speculating what "Darkness" material may be stored away in the Springsteen vaults.

This fall, five years and one day from the "Born to Run" re-issue release, November 16th brings us the long awaited "Darkness" re-issue box set. Let's just say the wait was worth it. 3 CDs and 3 DVDs or Bluray, all packaged in an 80 page "notebook" including recording notes, alternate lyrics, and unreleased photos compiled from Springsteen's original personal journals.


Here's how The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story deluxe box set breaks down:

• CD 1: Remastered "Darkness On The Edge Of Town - the complete original album digitally    remastered.

• CD 2 & 3: The Promise Unreleased Tracks - 21 previously unreleased tracks from the recording sessions including a rock version of "Racing In The Streets," studio versions of "Because The Night" & "Rendevous", and eighteen other tracks that bootlegger nerds like me already knew about but are thrilled at official releases.

• DVD/Bluray 1: The Promise - feature length documentary chronicling the making of Darkness On The Edge Of Town.

• DVD/Bluray 2: Darkness On The Edge Of Town (Paramount Theater - Asbury Park, NJ 2009) & The Thrill Hill Vault - the complete album performed live without an audience in it's original sequence and twelve vintage video clips of various "Darkness" material.

• DVD/Bluray 3: Houston '78 Bootleg House Cut - a complete live concert film from the legendary 1978 Darkness On The Edge Of Town tour.

Holy shit. I might pass out. Well I know what I'll be doing November 17th, sitting in my underwear nerding the fuck out. Should I tell my boss now or later I'm using a vacation day?

Click the header pic to check out the full press release with complete track listings.

Check out a clip from the doc and a preview of the unreleased track "Save My Love" streaming at brucespringsteen.net 

And for proof that the making of doc is more than just fan-nerd filler, "The Promise: The Making Of Darkness On The Edge Of Town" premieres at this years Toronto International Film Festival.

BRUCE!!! CLINCH!!!!!

Caught two nights at Springsteen's Giant's Stadium close-out. One with my friends, one with my sis. I don't even know how many shows this makes for me.


















Springsteen showed up for the closing of Danny Clinch's "Be True" show in Asbury Park.

Oh to be in that room.

--Both pics from Backstreets.com

Danny Clinch

Danny Clinch is one of my favorite photographers. He has photographed just about every person I could ever dream of shooting and he's done it beautifully. His style and attitude towards photography influences my own shooting every time I pick up a camera.

There are artists that serve as a catalyst, an initial spark of inspiration that can fade away as you grow. Then there are artists whose work influences you throughout your entire career. For me, Danny Clinch is one of the latter.

I was lucky enough to meet Danny at his show "Be True" this weekend. Unreleased Springsteen photos and a chat with one of your favorite artists, I'd say that's a pretty good day in Asbury.

To check out Danny Clinch's stuff click the pic above.