Bruce Springsteen: Live Nebraska

As a the final chapter in MRML's Nebraska trilogy (and a tribute to all our great Springsteen commnenters!) here's a bootleg compilation of live performances of songs from that mighty album. There is one more Springsteen post to come but I'm gonna save it for just the right day - which is coming up very soon...

1. Nebraska 11/16/84 Ames, Iowa
2. Atlantic City 11/16/84 Ames, Iowa
3. Mansion on the Hill 10/13/86 Mountain View, CA
4. Johnny 99 11/16/84 Ames, Iowa
5. Highway Patrolman 9/22/94 Pittsburgh, PA
6. State Trooper 9/22/94 Pittsburgh, PA
7. Used Cars East 7/13/84 Troy, Wisconsin
8. Open All Night 8/26/84 Largo, MD
9. My Father's House 10/31/84 LA, CA
10. Reason to Believe 11/16/84 Ames, Iowa
11. Man at the Top 8/5/85 Washington DC
12. Shut out the Light 10/26/84 LA, CA
13. Sugarland 11/16/84 Ames, Iowa


Live Nebraska link is in the comments

Speaking of COMMENTS, let us know what you think of this bootleg.

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Bruce Springsteen: How Nebraska Was Born (Two CD Set with booklet)

The sudden rush of sharp, insightful comments on yesterday's Springsteen post heavily favoured Nebraska as one of his greatest accomplishments. This surprised me. It always felt odd that Nebraska was the only Springsteen album I own. I'm usually the guy who likes the rockers on an album and is tempted to skip the ballads but with Springsteen it's the opposite. For instance, when Lucky Town came out, "If I Should Fall Behind" was the track that stuck with me most. While I respect almost everything in the man's oeuvre, it's those songs where the drama isn't turned up to eleven that I return to the most.


Nebraska stripped away most of the soul and R&B fripperies Springsteen had grown famous for and substituted a whisper. Which leaves me a bit curious whether the fans who relate to that Springsteen view Nebraska as an aberration or an apex.


Certainly the number of lavish bootlegs of this era do prove that Springsteen aficionados are anything but indifferent to this aspect of the man.


The How Nebraska Was Born bootleg includes just about every song from this era (including multiple alternate takes), a lavish booklet and a seemingly endless supply of album covers. There's much to love here but as Bruce says, "Love is a dangerous thing".


How Nebraska Was Born (Two CD Set with booklet) is in the comments.

Speaking of comments, they are what keeps this (and many, many other blogs) alive - so please leave a Springsteen-related observation, review, story or even just a simple thank you, if that's your way.

Vilstef added this link to the section of Dave Marsh's Glory Days that covers Nebraska.

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Fighting Leeching

I love fighting to find rare songs, pictures, videos and history to post but fuck do I hate constantly having to fight to get people to share a few words in return.

Bruce Springsteen: Alone in Colts Neck

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Link was taken down due to leeching - three comments, 53 downloads - and then restored thanks to some good souls who left some words behind rather than just taking.

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Interviewer: If push come to shove, what's the best album of all time?

Margo Timmins (Cowboy Junkies): There's no push, there's no shove - it's Bruce Springsteen's Nebraska.

While determining the canon of rock n' roll involves a lot more push and shove, Nebraska belongs on that list of great works. Nebraska was a fatal blow to the critical theory that bands must develop by adopting an ever-more-bloated sound (a.k.a. The Sgt Pepper Imperative), it's middle-finger to the music industry's ideal of each album selling more than the last plus it's one of the bleakest critiques of American exceptionalism ever put to tape. In short, it's a sorta like a punk rock album disguised as a set of folk songs. If you've played the damn thing as many time as I have, you'll revel in this bootleg of tracks recorded in and around the same time and place. Some tracks are fragments, other were re-recorded for later albums but all have the spooky intensity that makes Nebraska both a push and a shove.

Note: this version of "Alone in Colts Neck" contains no songs from the album, Nebraska, even "unvarnished ones".

Alone in Colt's Neck link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, please leave one about Nebraska, it's the decent thing to do.

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New Model Army: Masters of War (Radio Radio)

So many rocker dream of executing a perfect Dylan cover. And so many fail. But there's such electricity in the words, such elasticity in the melodies that often even the imperfect attempts (at least those not done merely to curry favour with Rolling Stone) can bear witness to the performer's own gifts. In 2003, in the aftermath of the invasion of Iraq, New Model Army's Justin Sullivan threw out a take on Dylan's "Masters of War" which showed off of his razor-edged voice and his almost Manson-esque intensity.

Radio Radio, the bootleg on which this cover appears, is billed as Justin Sullivan but seeing as he is the lead singer, guitarist, song-writer and sole permanent member of New Model Army (whose songs he performs in this set) it's not a distinction most fans need be overly concerned about. Perhaps that concern should be saved for the realization that Sullivan and NMA last exhumed the radical side of the sixties with Tom Jones (yes, that Tom Jones, pussycats) doing a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter"...(hold onto your jaws ladies and gentleman, the real action starts about two minutes in...)

For further cover madness, no more Dylan alas, don't miss this shaky-cam version of Ramones' "Sheena is a Punk Rocker" NMA did after Joey died and, to make matters weirder, check out Sepultura's (yes that Sepultura, bangers) version of NMA's "The Hunt".

Radio Radio link is in the comments

Speaking of comments, what do you make of these NMA cover songs?


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