Bruuuuuuuuuuuce

Last night I saw Bruce Springsteen and the Seeger Sessions Band at Pine Knob. It was an outstanding show, lasting nearly three hours. Give me the E Street Band any day, but the Seeger Sessions Band sure can play. It was pretty amazing to watch Bruce flawlessly work an awful crowd of Oakland County fucks who are totally unfamiliar with the music he's playing. There's no doubt in my mind that he's the greatest performer in the history of rock. The problem is that most people my age are only familiar with him because their parents listened to Born in the USA when they were in college or something. Consequently, they think he sucks and lump him in with other awful acts that ruled the charts circa 1984. Now, I like Born in the USA just fine, but I didn't appreciate it until I had gone back and immersed myself in his 70s work. The Wild, the Innocent, and the E Street Shuffle and Born to Run are two of the greatest albums ever made.

I went to the Vote for Change tour show at Cobo Arena in Detroit back in 2004 to see R.E.M. and to "tolerate" the Boss. It was really the other way around – R.E.M. proved that they're over the hill and Bruce pretty much changed my life. I'll never pass up another opportunity to see him.

Now I just have to hope that Radiohead can put on equally awe-inspiring performances this week. I can't wait.

Neil Young – Living With War (continued)

First of all, you can download the entire album here.

Of all the artists that dominated the 60s and 70s, Neil Young is arguably the only one that has managed to remain relevant throughout nearly his entire career. Perhaps not popular, but never treading water. A lot of his albums from the 80s and 90s are average at best, but he's always had a knack for maintaining a sense of artistic integrity that eludes peers like Bob Dylan (Victoria's Secret, anyone?). Some of his latter-day triumphs like Freedom, Ragged Glory, and Greendale deserve to be spoken of in the same sentence as the best of his 70s work.

For the last, oh, thirty or so years, he has bounced back and forth between using 1972's Harvest and 1975's Tonight's the Night as jumping off points for his next musical tangent. I don't necessarily mean in terms of style, although the albums that recall Harvest are numerous, but in terms of attitude. There's Neil the elder country statesman, and there's Neil the crotchety, eccentric old man. And let's face it, he's always seemed kind of old, even when rocking the fuck out with Crazy Horse.

I'm sure this exercise in Neilology has been done many times before, but the take-home point is that he's still awesome, and he has two modes of awesome. Last year's Prairie Wind was the work of "Harvest Neil". It was sufficiently affable, but I think we can all agree that "Tonight's the Night Neil" is the Neil of legend, and for every Harvest Moon, I expect a Greendale.

I just never expected one so soon.

Less than a year after Prairie Wind, he announces this album, Living With War, a protest album about President Bush, the war in Iraq, and the state of America. Needless to say, many were skeptical. Although when I heard it described as "a brilliant electric assault", I must admit that my fears were at least partially assuaged. The feverish pace of it all was also a reason for optimism. The album was made available to steam over the internet yesterday, but it was recorded just weeks ago. Clearly Neil had a message that he considered urgent, and even if we all knew what it was going to be, it was refreshing to see him so energized after coming off as so erudite on Prairie Wind and its companion film Heart of Gold.

And now that I've lived with the album for a good 36 hours and 10+ listens, I can tell you that it surpasses any conceivable expectations. It's great, it's the best album he's made since Tonight's the Night, it's likely to be the best album of 2006, and it ought to be a clarion call for America to wake up and stop embracing the Team America approach to evaluating political activism. Living With War is a masterpiece.

As a self-proclaimed Neil Young obsessive, I reached that conclusion right about when the drums on "After the Garden" kick in. The track is reminiscent of "Country Home", the first track of Ragged Glory; a craggy rocker with a soaring, sublime melody. He makes his intentions clear with the first line: "Don't need no shadow man runnin' the government". The rest of the lyrics are more ambiguous, but the song is nothing if not upbeat. This is exactly the song that I've been wanting to hear from Neil for years.

The choir that was just barely audible in "After the Garden" is more prominent on the reflective, gorgeous title track. Throughout the album, the use of the choir is always tasteful, and it always adds to the song. In fact, it's one of the things that really propels to Living With War to great heights. Neil's idiosyncratic use of the choir is charming on "The Restless Consumer", where the choir dominates the verses, only to disappear as Neil's voice cracks (as only his can) and dies in the first chorus.

The propulsive "Shock and Awe" co-opts the Bush Administration's slogan in the album's most angry track. He decries the tragedy of the war. We all know the story, but what's striking about this song (apart from how perfectly it brings the rock) is how he avoids placing direct blame for the war, instead approaching it as a tragedy. He doesn't overlook the key observation that there was a clear majority of Americans who supported the war, and it is not just Bush's mess, but our mess.

And that insight is the key to the albums success. It deftly avoids sinking into partisan cheese by presenting a vision of America that is shameful, but entirely optimistic. It doesn't appeal to a hatred of President Bush, it appeals to a love for America and what our nation stands for. He appeals to the strength of the American family on "Families", one of the most moving tracks on the album, despite its brevity. Instead of dwelling on how bad our situation is, he tries to remind of us how much better we could make it.

And, you know, that's that one song that everyone's dying to hear, the ostentatiously titled "Let's Impeach the President". When the lyrics first appeared a couple weeks ago, reactions ranged from "Holy shit, this is bad" to "Well, they might sound better than they read". Here's a snippet:

 

Let's impeach the president for lying

And leading our country into war

Abusing all the power that we gave him

And shipping all our money out the door

You see what I mean? I think Neil fans everywhere let out a sigh of relief when they discovered that the song is, in fact, utterly amazing. It's as anthemic as anything Neil has ever written, and the man has written some anthems. It's angry, it's uplifting, it's unifying, and it's actually kind of hilarious. Midway through the song he juxtaposes soundbytes of President Bush contradicting himself with Neil yelping "FLIP…….FLOP" in his best angry grandpa voice. It couldn't be more effective. I suppose it's too much to ask that this song might be a hit single or something, but I won't give up hope.

The elegiac "Roger and Me" is an achingly beautiful story of a man losing his childhood friend to war. It's as good of a song as he's ever written. I'm hesitant to call it the highlight of the album, because every song is absolutely flawless, but I haven't been so moved by a song in a long time.

Roger and out, good buddy

I feel you in the air today

I know you gave for your country

I feel you in the air today

Simple lyrics, but drenched in that mournful, highway-at-sunset distortion that Neil practically invented, they are crushing. And to follow it up with a rousing rendition of "America the Beautiful" is a masterstroke.

I can honestly say that this is the most moving album I have ever heard. I've never heard music that appealed to my patriotism so genuinely. Lately I've felt a deep sense of despair at the direction the country is headed, but with one fell swoop, Neil Young has turned it around and made me proud to be an American (let's not get into the perversion that arises when you consider that Neil is Canadian by birth). He's going to be denounced by the right-wing and blasted as being un-American, and that's a crime. Living With War is the Great American Album.

Update: Download link updated

Neil Young – Living With War

So I think Neil heard me when I said, "You know, this Prairie Wind and Heart of Gold stuff is pretty cute, but you need to kick some ass again."

Following the release of Heart of Gold in theaters (which is great, by the way), Neil went into the studio and recorded a protest album about President Bush and the war, conveniently titled Living With War. He recorded it in an absurdly short period of time and promised that it would rock. And we're talking a span of weeks here. I, a Neil obsessive, only heard about this a few weeks ago.

Today the entire album was made available to stream from Neil's website. AND IT IS AWESOME. It's a return to the pure noise and distortion of Ragged Glory. Yeah, the lyrics are a little corny, but these days you have to judge his output on how badass it sounds, and this is a perfect 10.0.

And as much as people want to crack jokes about it, pretty much everything he's singing about it right…

Listen to it here.

Silver Jews – Ann Arbor 3/25

Setlist:

Pet Politics
Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You
Slow Education
Animal Shapes
The Poor, the Fair, and the Good
Horseleg Swastikas
Trains Across the Sea
Inside the Golden Days of Missing You
Random Rules
How Can I Love You if You Won't Lie Down?
Dallas
Sleeping is the Only Love
Smith and Jones Forever
There is a Place
Black and Brown Blues
Punks in the Beerlight
Buckingham Rabbit
Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed

I can safely say that this was my favorite concert ever. Not the best, to be sure, but my favorite. In the weeks leading up to the tour, I was deeply concerned that even if the tour got off the ground without some sort of David Berman meltdown, the band was going to sound unrehearsed and sloppy. The tapes of the first two shows alleviated some of those fears – they actually sounded pretty solid. But the difference between the band that people in Athens and Atlanta saw and the band I saw last night is just huge. They sounded great. And it seems like DCB is getting more and more comfortable with playing shows. I love how he surrounded himself with his wife Cassie and old friends Bob Nostanovich and Steve West from Pavement. The whole concept of this tour is uplifiting. He's coming off some of the darkest years of his life, battling hard drugs and suicide, pulls himself out of it, records a great album, and hits the road with his loved ones to try to get his life back on track. It was really special to be a part of that, and the mood of the crowd reflected that. Nearly everyone was a devoted fan and knew every song. I got to the Blind Pig around 9, 30 minutes before doors opened, and there were easily over a hundred people already waiting in line.

The energy in the room leading up to the show was palpable, and after two solid opening songs, it just exploded during "Slow Education", which was the highlight of the show for me. It's a great song in any context, but the band just fucking nailed it last night, slide guitar and all. And given that "uplifting" atmosphere I was talking about, to have them play one of their most uplifting and reassuring songs early on was amazing. I'm pleased that they've been playing "Animal Shapes" lately, too. I think it's one of the strongest songs on Tanglewood Numbers. "Smith and Jones Forever" lived up to all of its potential to be a singalong anthem. "Black and Brown Blues", which is quickly becoming one of my favorite songs, was good to hear, even if DCB strangely chose to mumble incoherently rather than sing the last verse.

Only complaint: no "Rebel Jew", despite my screaming for it. I know they haven't been playing it, but a guy can hope, right?

After the show, we hit the merchandise table where I was faced with the choice of a small or XL red shirt, as opposed to the pink medium I wanted. I went with the small, which may have been a mistake, but such is life. The venue booted us after a few minutes of hanging around waiting to meet DCB. We moved outside, and after a while, Bob Nostanovich came out and started to talk to us. It was pretty amazing to talk about Pavement with him. Of note, he absolutely guaranteed that Pavement would be back together in 2-3 years. I guess Malk just had a kid and is about to get married and wants to take some time off. He also said that the Joos are going to keep touring indefinitely. There was a guy from Toronto talking with us and Bob assured him that there will be a Toronto show in a few months. He even asked the guy what venue they should play; he suggested the Horseshoe Tavern. We also learned that there will be occasional shows with Malkmus in the future, but that he will never join the tour. "It's like battle of the biggest egos when Malkmus and David are in the same room". Then he got distracted and started talking about the Kentucky Derby…

Finally, after about an hour, DCB came out. He was actually trying to figure out what the fuck Bob was doing, and luckily there were only a few diehard fans to accost him. I managed to get a picture with him.

Lofty expectations: fulfilled.