From: owner-luckytown-digest@luckytown.org (LuckyTown Digest) To: luckytown-digest@luckytown.org Subject: LuckyTown Digest V9 #69 Reply-To: luckytown@luckytown.org Sender: owner-luckytown-digest@luckytown.org Errors-To: owner-luckytown-digest@luckytown.org Precedence: bulk LuckyTown Digest Saturday, August 17 2002 Volume 09 : Number 069 NOTE: Sale/trade posts should be emailed to luckytown-ads, *NOT* to luckytown. That includes tix wanted/tix grovels, post them to luckytown-ads, please. Contents: Springsteen Asbury Park Cancellation, 7/30/02 [Gary Dunaier ] Review: 'Springsteen Unwinds' (Derek Simmonse, The Washington Times) [Ba] Vegas Pre Show [Tom Ross ] San Francisco Chronicle review [jsavage@concentric.net (Johnny Saulovich)] Review: 'Lift Every Voice' (Keith Harris, The Village Voice) [Barry Kap] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 16:25:07 -0700 (PDT) From: Gary Dunaier Subject: Springsteen Asbury Park Cancellation, 7/30/02 While browsing through Ebay I found out about a special cancellation, authorized by the U.S. Postal Service, directly relating to the Bruce Springsteen "Today" show broadcast. The Postal Bulletin, an official in-house publication of the USPS, lists upcoming pictorial cancellations but I did not notice this one, and according to the seller it was not listed at all. (At least, it hasn't been listed ~yet~. The next issue comes out, and will be available online, Thursday 8/22 and it may be listed there.) By the time this appears in the Lucky Town Digest the auction will have ended, but if you click this link you'll be able to see what the postmark looks like. http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item‰8689757 Here's the description, as cut-and-pasted from the seller's auction. >>>>> THE QUOTE BEGINS HERE Bruce Springsteen returns to help raise Asbury Park and the Asbury Park Post Office shows it's thanks! You are bidding on the most sought after of all the Asbury Park NJ Post Office commemorative cancellations. The "RISING from Asbury Park" cachet envelope with TODAY'S Rising Station Asbury Park NJ 07712 - July 30, 2002 postmark. This envelope was cancelled with a special, one day only, cancellation issued by the USPS to honor Bruce Springsteen's new The Rising CD's opening day as well as his appearance on The Today Show broadcast live from Asbury Park. These envelopes were sold and cancelled by the USPS at the temporary "Today's Rising Station" which was actually a tent set up at the Stone Pony (yes, THE Stone Pony!) in Asbury Park the day that Bruce was in Asbury Park to kick off the release of his new Rising CD with concerts at Asbury Park's Convention Hall. In keeping with the Rising theme, the stamp featured on the envelope is the special "Heroes" stamps showing the raising of the flag over ground zero in honor of the members of the NYPD and FDNY who were killed or injured at the World Trade Center attack on 9/11. A portion of the proceeds of the sale of the stamp goes to the heroes' families. A must have for any Springsteen collection. This last minute event was not advertised in The Postal Bulletin so this will be a rare collectable for stamp collectors. >>>>> END OF QUOTED MATERIAL Actually, you CAN still get this cancellation by sending away directly to the Asbury Park post office. Postal regulations require that special cancellations such as this one be made available to the public for at least 30 days after the date of the cancellation, so as to prevent the postmark from being available only to a few. So you have until August 28th to send away for it. If you would like to get this cancellation, affix stamps to any envelope (at least 37¢ in postage must be used) or postcard (23¢) of your choice, address the envelope or postcard to yourself or someone else, insert a card of postcard thickness in envelopes for sturdiness, and tuck in the flap. Place the envelope or postcard in a larger envelope and address it to: TODAY'S RISING STATION POSTMASTER PO BOX 9998 ASBURY PARK NJ 07712-9998 You can also send stamped envelopes and postcards without addresses for cancellation, as long as you supply a larger envelope with adequate postage and addressed to yourself or someone else. After applying the pictorial cancellation, the Postal Service returns the items (with or without addresses) under addressed protective cover. Collectors from outside the United States can also send away for this cancellation; however, keep in mind that United States stamps ~must~ be used on the item that is to receive the special cancellation, and enough postage must meet international rates must be used. (To find out the correct rate go to http://pe.usps.gov/text/pub51/51tblb.html#_Toc498745161 and scroll down to "Table 4: Letter-post".) Gary Dunaier ============================="Thank you, if you like the tuning so much I hope you'll enjoy the playing more." - -- Ravi Shankar at the Concert for Bangla Desh __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 17:11:00 -0500 From: "Patricia D. Lydon" Subject: Chicago tickets If you (or anyone you know) were able to get more than one ticket through Ticketmaster for the 100 or 200 levels of the United Center would you kindly email me at pdl@hmltd.com? We have yet to find one person... ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 12 Aug 2002 11:28:21 -0500 From: Barry Kaplovitz Subject: Review: 'Springsteen Unwinds' (Derek Simmonse, The Washington Times) The Washington Times August 12, 2002 Springsteen Unwinds Derek Simmonsen THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/12/2002 In their "glory days," Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band would routinely kick out 3*-hour sets, sometimes longer, with no song or cover off-limits. The show Saturday night at the MCI Center was more of a controlled affair, clocking in at the 2*-hour range, though it mattered little to the ecstatic crowd. The infectious energy pouring off the E Street crew made it seem that the shorter sets are more a courtesy to an aging fan base, than due to a shortage of stamina on the band's part. Eleven songs came from his recent, September 11-influenced work "The Rising," with no tracks lifted from Mr. Springsteen's three albums recorded without the E Street Band. Not that fans were bothered. The traditional shouts of "Bruce," $ which came out more like "booooze" in the packed arena $ started while people were still filing into the MCI Center. Mr. Springsteen arrived on stage wearing bluejeans and a blue flannel shirt, his stubble making him look like he'd just finished a full day at a construction site and was ready to unwind with a little music. The rest of the band came out like conquering heroes, waving warmly to the crowd before launching into "The Rising," the title track from the new album. Though it's only been out for about a week, fans sang along to most of the choruses (and even some verses) with a devotion that shows why the album went to No. 1 on the charts last week. Steven Van Zandt, wearing a black bandana and looking like an escaped swashbuckler from a pirate flick, pushed his face up close to Mr. Springsteen as the two sang the "li, li, li" chorus. Hearing the song live further cements the image of the Boss as the Rev. Bruce, as he admonished his loyal followers to "Come on up for the rising," almost a promise that redemption will come through power chords and soulful sax solos. With four guitarists, including Nils Lofgren and Mr. Springsteen's wife, Patti Scialfa (mostly on acoustic), it sometimes had the feel of the recent Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young shows, with an abundance of talented musicians who don't have a place on every song. Even with the superb duo of Mr. Lofgren and Mr. Van Zandt, the Boss took on a good share of solos, hunching over as video monitors showed his arms and hands glistening with sweat. By the second song it was apparent how integral the E Street Band is to making Mr. Springsteen's songwriting visions come to life. On the second tune, "Lonesome Day," saxophonist Clarence Clemons (who kept time on most songs by shaking a tambourine) was finally able to show off his chops, and joined Mr. Lofgren and Mr. Springsteen up front for a band-wide jam. Of course, like any good preacher, Mr. Springsteen knew his audience could handle only so much "Rising" before it needed some of the old hits to get its energy back up. When Roy Bittan played the opening piano melody to "Prove It All Night," the crowd cheered in grateful recognition. Mr. Springsteen sang with his trademark grimace, his face scrunched up as he shouted "I'll prove it all night," with the E Street Band kicking up the tempo from its slower album pace. Drummer Max Weinberg attacked the skins like he was at a Keith Moon play-alike contest while looking like an accountant fresh from the office in his button-down shirt and vest. Though he wasn't miked, Mr. Weinberg still shouted at the choruses or just screamed out of sheer exuberance most of the night. After playing the more somber "Darkness on the Edge of Town," which sounded boisterous thanks to the crowd's singing support, Mr. Springsteen asked the audience to quiet down for his next two songs. In a heartbeat, the packed arena hushed as some fans took their seats for the first time, to hear a two-song interlude of "Empty Sky" and "You're Missing." Mr. Springsteen stripped down the opening of "Empty Sky," playing only harmonica and acoustic guitar to accompany himself, making the track sound like it could have come off his stark folk album "Nebraska." It was one of several times when the sound of the music mirrored the words, as Mr. Springsteen sang "I woke up this morning to an empty sky" without the backing of his full band. Soozie Tyrell added depth to "You're Missing," as her violin and Mr. Lofgren's slide guitar paralleled the melody. Mr. Springsteen put down his guitar for the song and sang to the audience like it was his beloved spouse gone forever. Some fans have said they are put off by new songs like "Worlds Apart," which uses a Sufi chorus to highlight words like "'Neath Allah's blessed rain, we remain worlds apart." Although Mr. Springsteen has always had a knack for writing from the point of view of others, the cooler reception seemed to show that he had crossed a line for some in the crowd. Almost as if he sensed this tension, Mr. Springsteen and crew followed it up with "Badlands," which brought the arena back to its feet, fists pumping at the chorus, as Mr. Van Zandt and Mr. Clemons traded off fiery solos. The protest song "American Skin (41 Shots)" was one of the more interesting choices of the night but fit into the evening's somber subject matter, with Garry Tallent's bass finally making it front and center. The first set ended with "Into the Fire," a song that begins with a widow mourning her husband's death before Mr. Springsteen begins a mantra of prayer $ "may your strength give us strength" $ with his head bowed, then summoning the might of the E Street Band. The encores (there were two) put aside "The Rising" and kicked off with an energetic rendition of "Thunder Road" and "Glory Days," a tune that hasn't been on the band's regular set lists for some time. The house lights came up for "Born to Run" as fans hugged each other in joy and sang loudly with every word. This tour could be marked as when Mr. Springsteen finally takes back his signature tune "Born in the USA." Coming in the second encore, Mr. Springsteen introduced the song by urging the crowd to be careful of the "rollback of our civil rights," adding that vigilance comes "with being born in the USA." Though politicians of every persuasion and cause have used the song as a personal anthem, Mr. Springsteen slipped back into the point of view of a disillusioned Vietnam vet to scream the song's mock-celebratory chorus. It was a reminder that "The Rising" isn't the first time the Boss has tackled a national crisis, only the most recent. Copyright 2002 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved. Article At: http://www.washingtontimes.com/entertainment/20020812-41235676.htm ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 13:56:18 -0400 From: Tom Ross Subject: Vegas Pre Show Just a reminder to everyone coming to the show in Las Vegas this weekend come to the pre show Sunday afternoon Moose McGillycuddys 4770 Maryland Parkway 798-8337 If you have any questions, or need any help e-mail me. Looking forward to meeting a lot of you. FYI - happy hour starts at 4, all drinks and appetizers are 1/2 price, $1.15 for domestic draft beer, and $1.75 for import how is that for cold beer at a reasonable price? Tom In Vegas ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 19:58:34 -0700 From: jsavage@concentric.net (Johnny Saulovich) Subject: San Francisco Chronicle review The San Francisco Chronicle gave The Rising a very good review: Born to heal Bruce Springsteen's new CD 'Rising' offers hope and salve to post-Sept. 11 world Neva Chonin, Chronicle Pop Music Critic Tuesday, July 30, 2002 2002 San Francisco Chronicle. URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/07/30/DD63087.DTL For more than a quarter century, Bruce Springsteen has used music to ponder the meaning of the runaway American dream and the lives of those chasing it. His anthems sound big, but they deal with little folk and their specific hopes, dreams and disappointments. More than any other rock performer, Springsteen has used pop as a path to populism. The blinding success of 1984's "Born in the U.S.A." turned Springsteen's observant eye inward to explore more personal acoustic landscapes. His E Street Band's 1999-2000 reunion tour drew him out again. Today, with the U.S. release of "The Rising," Springsteen returns to his E Street roots with a passionate and cathartic look at life in a post-Sept. 11 world. There's trouble in the heartland, and nothing inspires Springsteen like the pain of common people. Few express it as eloquently as he does on "The Rising, " the first album by a major artist to fully address the emotional fallout of the September attacks. Both a paean to personal loss and a universal call for survival, it balances death and regeneration, hope and desolation. On "The Rising," Springsteen deals in people, not patriotic abstracts. Throughout its 15 tracks, large-scale tragedy translates into individual sorrow and inner lives mime external chaos. The blues song "Into the Fire," for instance, celebrates rescue workers who died in the twin towers by narrowing the focus to a single soul, addressed in a spare and loving hymn. The album has its share of despair. From its opening drum pulse to its floating harmonica, "Empty Sky" conveys a sense of displacement as it juxtaposes New York's post-September skyline with "an empty impression/ In the bed where you used to be." The narrator's private and public landscapes have irrevocably changed, and they're irrevocably linked in loss. In "Nothing Man," music and lyrics mirror each other to convey profound lonesomeness. Springsteen's quiet rasp floats across a wave of lone horns and strings as it sits with a survivor -- a soldier, firefighter or anyone who has lived through a cataclysm -- who contemplates death even as the local paper declares him a hero. His experience has left him emotionally isolated in a town where "everybody acts the same -- everybody acts like nothing's changed." But the album's somber moments are outweighed by its passionate optimism. In the upbeat opening anthem, "Lonesome Day," a narrator abandoned by his lover vows, "Let kingdom come, I'm gonna find my way/ Through this lonesome day." "Mary's Place" is an buoyant, classic E Street rocker that revels in the face of gathering darkness: "Let it rain," Springsteen roars. "We're gonna have a party." Though it articulates a distinctly American grief, "The Rising" also transcends national boundaries with songs that use love between men and women as metaphors for cultural understanding. With Pakistani singer Asif Ali Khan and his group supplying a devotional Qwalli backdrop and guitars screaming like jets, the majestic "Worlds Apart" travels to a war zone where lovers from opposing sides meet " 'neath Allah's blessed rain" to "let blood build a bridge" between them. The struggle to forge love among the ruins reappears in "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)." The title and some of the sentiments in this midtempo soft- rock number smack of corn ("The time has come to let the past be history/ Yeah, if we could just start talkin' "). But Springsteen, who has no patience for irony, is supremely gifted when it comes to making Hallmark sentiments sound fresh, and "Let's Be Friends" manages to be moving and sexy in spite of itself. The album's theme of enduring in the face of sorrow crystallizes in the haunting "Paradise," delivered as an intimate duet between Springsteen and his guitar. Opening with a foreboding synthesized pulse, the song views tragic death from three distinct yet interlaced perspectives: First through the eyes of a suicide bomber ("I hold my breath and close my eyes/ And I wait for paradise"); then from the view of a bombing victim; and finally via a loved one who has been left behind. This survivor attempts suicide in a river, hits bottom -- and then pushes upward toward life. If "The Rising" marks Springsteen's return to both the E Street Band and the euphoric rock of his heyday, it's also a turning point in his studio technique. "The Rising" features his first new producer in decades, Brendan O'Brien (Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Korn, Rage Against the Machine), and his influence permeates the album, giving the E Street Band a contemporary bent (see the drum loop on "The Fuse") without gutting its essential sound. Roy Bittan and Danny Federici's distinctive piano and organ and Clarence Clemons' saxophone can still be heard in the intricately layered mixes, but guitars -- played by Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt and Nils Lofgren -- are the CD's dominant force. At times backup harmonies reach choral proportions (additional gospel and R&B singers feature in several songs); string and horn sections add complexity. These extra flourishes convey spiritual mood shifts in inspirational rock numbers like the title track, whose sad, echoing verses explode into lavish, revival-tent calls for survivors everywhere to accept, then abandon death and "come on up for the rising." The album ends with a similar beckoning to "come on, rise up!" in "My City of Ruins." The song, which Springsteen performed at the September "Tribute to Heroes" telethon, addresses the collapse of Asbury Park, N.J. But it works just as well when applied to New York's devastation -- or Kabul's, for that matter - -- with a closing mantra that prays for love and strength in a disintegrating world. "The Rising" isn't the best album Springsteen ever made, but it might be the most important. It supplies a needed alternative to the simplistic post- September platitudes that sell well but offer little in the way of emotional healing. With "The Rising," all the Boss offers is hope. It's a romantic ideal. But then, Springsteen has always been a romantic. Would that there were more like him. E-mail Neva Chonin at nchonin@sfchronicle.com. 2002 San Francisco Chronicle. Page D - 1 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 15 Aug 2002 23:41:27 -0500 From: Barry Kaplovitz Subject: Review: 'Lift Every Voice' (Keith Harris, The Village Voice) The Village Voice August 5th, 2002 Lift Every Voice By Keith Harris September 11 affected us all in different ways, and the way it affected Bruce Springsteen was this: as the second tower toppled from the sky, he was plunged into a world of eternal vagueness. You can wander through The Rising for countless stanzas without tripping over a single concrete object. Plenty of strength, hope, faith, all those unquantifiable qualities that won't fill your belly or get you laid on Saturday night. But nothing you could conceivably hold in your hands, stick in your back pocket, trade in for cash money. Even deceptively familiar nouns fade into indistinct images on this 73-minute offering. Blood isn't really blood, guns aren't really guns, roads aren't really roads. A kiss is not a kiss, a sigh is not a sigh. Then, just as gut-souring weightlessness overwhelms me, Springsteen lets slip a homely detail: "Furniture's on the front porch," say. Man, I've never been so happy to see a patio table in all my sorry life. I want to run my tongue along its polyurethane-treated imitation wood grain. I want to dance on it with a wild stagger, with a giddy grin, with Courteney Cox. I want to kick it, like Samuel Johnson, thus empirically refuting the notion that the world is merely an illusion. OK, so Springsteen has always had a weakness for archetypal shorthand, for rivers and darkness and solemnly misquoted Bible passages. But I do expect some minimum standards from the man who taught me all the wrong things to say to girls, who encouraged me to trip over my own feet in public, who mapped out my earliest escape route from Jersey. (It's as easy as quitting smoking: I've left four times in 15 years.) And one of those expectations is that he not rhyme "Waitin' on a sunny day" with "Gonna chase the clouds away," especially not in a chorus. I mean, can you tell him how to get, how to get to Sesame Street already? Contrast Bruce's lyrical vacancy with the precision with which Brendan O'Brien has produced the hallowed E Street Band. Bruce's Monmouth mafia has never sounded grander or suppler. O'Brien articulates hooks left implicit in days of E Street past, with newcomer Soozy Tyrell's violin, more John Mellencamp than Dave Matthews, a mnemonic standout. O'Brien's earned his rep as a grunge barber, trimming hard rock's woolly edges. Under his tutelage, Springsteen finally achieves the guitar equivalent of the wall of sound, enormous but not washed out, that he's been aching after ever since he overdubbed "She's the One" into aural mudsplatter back in 1975. And Max Weinberg's unnaturally punctual backbeat fits as snugly and squarely back into his Boss's A-A-B-A as a new sweater vest. But while the music swells like Sunday morning coming down, Springsteen's preaching can be as hard on your ass as a wooden pew. Even worse, his church isn't the kind that makes you handle snakes, but the kind that makes you miss kickoff. The few rousing uptempo moments here are self-conscious meta-rockers like "Mary's Place," a post-traumatic attempt to learn how to party through your sadness that asks, "Tell me how do we get this started?" Um, just a suggestion, but maybe an opening blurt like "I got seven pictures of Buddha/The prophet's on my tongue/Eleven angels of mercy/Sighin' over that black hole in the sun" ain't the way. C'mon, Bruce: dontcha know when Dylan mumbles shit like that, he's putting us on? Now more than ever, Springsteen longs for a world out of time, where matters of honor can be settled without the TV blaring in the other room. He sympathizes with his "Nothing Man," a local hero who returns from a life-changing ordeal of some unspecified sort to find his everyday routine both dull and surreal. (Note the topical sleight of hand: the lyrics could be 9-11-derived, or maybe not.) But if you want to evoke the sense of someone yanked out of the ordinary, it helps to evoke some sense of, you know, the ordinary. There's no TRL in Bruce's world, no Dodge Neons or PlayStations, no "Hot in Herre" or Olive Garden or John Ashcroft. While an element of anachronistic cluelessness has always been integral to Bruce's appeal, he now seems vacuum-sealed from the actual present day, as if he was cryogenically frozen at the end of American Graffiti. White America, he could be one of your dads. September 11 affected us all in different ways, but you'd never know that from The Rising, which speaks in one soothing voice. It's enough to give a fella nasty thoughts. Listening to the conciliatory brotherhood sway "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)," for instance, I wondered, what if the dude pontificating "There's a lot of walls need tearing down/Together we could take them down one by one" was some asshole scamming for terror sex in a Park Slope bar a week after the towers fell? You know, "The world is such a lonely place. Let's fuck." Just my imagination, running away with me. Still, The Rising would only be the testament to human endurance it pretends to be if it captured actual humans actually enduring, idiosyncratic individuals responding in their idiosyncratic ways. Of course, that might also be unsettling, because those voices might disagree. And The Rising argues, implicitly but unmistakably, that in a time of crisis we should shrug off our individual concerns in the interest of "healing." Sound familiar? That's not to equate the heartfelt pieties of one of rock's most decent millionaires with the demands for unanimity launched by those gutting the Fourth Amendment. I mean, I like Bruce. I trust him. If you see Sting panting after you in the rearview mirror of your ambulance, don't slow down for the amber light. At least Bruce pursues his causes with justice in mind, not a hefty cash settlement. If he offers up The Rising to heal his city in ruins, that's because he believes rock and roll has the power to unify. But has pop culture ever suffered a shortage of vague, uplifting promises? Certainly not now. Puritans blather about selling your soul to the corporation, but the satanic bargain megapop offers is much subtler. You can feel as deeply as you like, just don't think too much, mister. Springsteen's commitment remains, but his message is as attenuated as any random Democratic Party platform, and for similar reasons. He sounds as genuinely hurt and confused as any of us, but if he's gained any insight into that hurt or confusion, he's not about to express it. Might alienate somebody. In 1992, Springsteen seemed irrelevant because he was outflanked by both rhythm and noise, by PE on the left and Nirvana on the white. If only The Rising seemed that irrelevant today. Because his vision of rock and roll is so grand, Springsteen requires a popular consensus as surely as any invasion of Iraq. And as we've learned yet again, nothing sparks phony consensus like national cataclysm. Maybe that's why, for the past few days, a nagging thought has burrowed into my brain that I wish was merely the snide aphorism I initially took it for: If there hadn't been a September 11, Bruce Springsteen would have had to invent one. ------------------------------ End of LuckyTown Digest V9 #69 ****************************** ********************************************************************* ** LuckyTown WWW URL ** The LuckyTown FAQ, back issues, web-based subscription/unsubscription, and many other things can be found on the LuckyTown WWW Page: http://www.luckytown.org ** LuckyTown mailing list addresses ** You can send email to go into the next LuckyTown Digest to: luckytown@luckytown.org You can send email to go into the next LuckyTown-Ads Digest to: luckytown-ads@luckytown.org Any questions for the list admin should be emailed to: owner-luckytown@luckytown.org To unsubscribe, send email to majordomo@luckytown.org with message body: unsubscribe luckytown-digest To get further information on how to subscribe/unsubscribe/change your subscription address, as well as the other available commands, send email to majordomo@luckytown.org with message body: help ********************************************************************* The contents of this digest are not necessarily approved by the list admin.