Bruce and Nils
Posted: January 29th, 2009 | Filed under: Bruce | 60 Comments »
This will mostly be about my new musical hero, Nils Lofgren, but first I must give you the update on the Bruce Springsteen press conference here at the Super Bowl. As you probably have heard by now, Springsteen did his first press conference in more than 20 years on Thursday as part of the Super Bowl Halftime Show extravaganza — and as he said, it had to be the first press conference he has ever done with a logo box wrapped around it (it was the NFL logo, of course).
The press conference was scheduled to begin at 2:30, so in anticipation I showed up in the room a little bit before noon. Well, hey, I never said my Springsteen infatuation was healthy. I sat there for a while. It was peaceful — no one else was around. I did some editing for my upcoming book “The Machine†(09/09/09).
“Excuse me,†a security guard said. “You are going to have to leave. This room is not open until 12:30.â€
I looked around the room again and saw (as I suspected) that I was still the only reporter in the room. I do appreciate that authority figures at these big events — security guards, parking lot attendants, ticket takers and such — are only doing their jobs, only doing what they were told, and that in the end they just want to maintain some level of order. But aren’t they entitled to some common sense leeway … I mean, was it REALLY necessary to ask me to leave the room for 20 minutes when NOBODY ELSE was stupid enough to even be there?
But, hey, I didn’t want any fights on this day (and anyway, I’m naturally respectful of all forms of authority, even if it’s just a guy with a walkie talkie), so I did it. I walked out for 20 minutes. I walked back in. I was still the only one in the room.
After another 20 or 25 minutes, a few people started to file in, including people who were, I’m not kidding here, “seat savers.†These are people who sat in the seats for an hour or more until the press conference was about to begin, at which point they gave up the seat to a more famous co-worker. They proudly announced that they were seat savers for people who, frankly, I had never heard of.* But hey, whatever works.
*I have a deal with a friend of mine, set up long ago, that if either of us was ever caught in the backyard, barbecuing burgers while wearing shorts, black socks, tennis shoes and a “Kiss me I’m the cook†apron, then the other friend HAD to call the men with white coats, nets and commitment papers.
Of course, that was a long time ago, and in middle age I can imagine myself on a bad day doing all those thigns. So that deal is off. But I will ask all of you: In the unlikely event that I ever get famous enough to have my own press conference “seat saver,†and I actually decide I’m too big to save my own seat, then, will you please turn me in to the proper authorities?
After a while longer, the room did fill up — and someone walked over and said, “How did you get these seats? Did you camp out?†He laughed but … yeah, I guess that’s what I did. The opening act press conference was for the pregame show and it featured Faith Hill and John Legend, and the questions were precisely what you would expect.* Faith Hill seemed like a lovely woman, and John Legend seemed like a nice guy and a real football fan. though I’m going to be honest with you: I didn’t really get to know them.
*Example question: “What do you eat when you’re in Central Florida?â€
Example answer: “I ate at P.F. Chang’s,†John Legend said.
Example answer 2: “Do you have In and Out Burgers in Florida?†Faith Hill said. “How about Whataburgers. Yeah, that’s what I like.â€
After an extended wait, during which we reporters made every Bruce/Football joke we could possibly think of, Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band took the stage. By this point, the giant hall was completely filled, there wasn’t even room to stand — I would wager it was the best-attended press conference in Super Bowl history. No surprise, really. More or less every sportswriter in America is a huge Springsteen fan. Based on attendance, I would imagine that every major newspaper and most minor newspapers in the country will have a Bruce Springsteen column in the sports pages Friday morning.
Springsteen was great, of course. He made it clear, right up front, that he knows nothing and cares nothing about football.
Someone asked him who will decide what songs he will play. Springsteen gave a great look of disdain. “Who decides? The BOSS decides what we play. People suggest. They cajole. But the Boss decides.â€
At one point, when someone asked him how he planned to pack all of the intensity of a three-hour Bruce show into a 12-minute halftime show, he went into a classic meandering Bruce story. Bruce asked people to imagine You were going to a Springsteen show at the Meadowlands, but then you got lost. So you stopped at a bar, to ask for directions. And right then bar got held up. The police arrived and settled things down. And when you finally were able to get out of the bar, you started driving feverishly, but then you missed the exit, and so you had to drive around New Jersey, looking for you way back. And after finally finding your way back, you pull into the Meadowlands and you rush into the stadium, and you get there after the three hour show had been going on for two hours and 48 minutes.
“THAT,†Bruce said, “is what it will be like.â€
It was beautiful. I only wished he had ended the story with: “I said, ‘They didn’t take me.’ And he said, ‘That’s good.’â€
And, of course, Springsteen was asked why he is doing the Super Bowl now, after saying no so many times. From what I can see, most people are using his mercenary quote to explain it, but I think Bruce gave a three-pronged response.
1. He’s doing the Super Bowl for the most obvious reason: “We have a new record coming out, dummy!†he shouted. He was plain about it: “We have our mercenary reasons,†he said. “Besides out deep love of football.†His voice dripped irony on that last part.
2. The Super Bowl has become much more respectable in the last few years with U2, Prince and Tom Petty performing the show. Bruce said that for years it seemed “like a novelty.†But now, he feels like, they can go out and do what they do, maybe even inspire a few people along the way.
3. Bruce is very proud of the work the band is doing right now. He’s proud of the band’s last three albums — The Rising, Magic, and the new Working on a Dream album — and he wants people to hear the music. That tells me, by the way, that he might very well do TWO songs from his later work, along with the obvious choice of Born to Run. Maybe “The Rising†and “Working on a Dream.†Some people here at the Super Bowl are predicting a cover song might be mixed in there. Exciting stuff.
It was a fun time — Bruce did not disappoint. He never does live, I guess. And in addition to all that, several members of the E-Street band talked at the press conference including the band’s guitarist and a guy I have now adopted as my musical Duane Kuiper*: Nils Logren.
* Speaking of Duane: I have to say here I was very excited to get this comment from Dannon Kuiper, Duane’s daughter: “Hello! I just wanted to let you know that I showed this to my dad and he couldn’t stop grinning. HE WAS COMPLETELY HONORED. Thank you for this. It’s awesome.†I’m blushing. I mentioned this to a couple of friends, and both said the oddest thing: They said: “Are you sure it’s really her?†Look, I’m as skeptical as the next guy. But I would prefer to believe in a less complicated world where people are not wandering around pretending to be Duane Kuiper’s daughter.**
**I will say this, though: About an hour later, I checked my Facebook page and saw that I was invited to be Curtis Granderson’s friend. Curtis Granderson! And MY first thought was: That cannot be the real Curtis Granderson. I sometimes wonder if that’s the curse of our time, that nothing feels real and authentic at first blush, that we can’t click on an email because there might be a virus, and we can’t believe a story without first checking Snopes (and making sure that it’s the REAL Snopes), and we can’t cheer for a touchdown until after the referee checks with the replay booth. I don’t know. It does appear that it’s the real Curtis Granderson, though. I’m his friend!
* * *
OK, Nils Lofgren. You should know me well enough by now to know that I’m naturally going to drift toward a guy like Nils. Why? I think it’s pretty obvious: Nils is a scrapper. Nils is a battler. Nils is the kind of guy I always admire, the guy who keeps going to work, keeps doing backflips, keeps playing brilliant guitar licks, keeps putting out music for forty years, all this even though, as he says himself, he’s never had a big hit.*
*This question of hits has always led me to ask what I think is the great musical question of our time — and the question is simply this: Hootie and the Blowfish? That’s the whole question. I ask it with all due respect; I have nothing at all against Hootie and the Blowfish, in fact, they all seem like great guys. And their music has hooks. And you have to like the band’s name.
BUT … how did they emerge as this supergroup for a brief time? How did they have all those hits? How did they become briefly but brightly famous. Again, their music is fine, but there have to be a thousand bands that are like Hootie and the Blowfish, right? Every medium-sized city in America will have some band playing this weekend that is roughly the musical equivalent of Hootie and the Blowfish, no? But for a short while there, everything was Hootie and the Blowfish. They had Top 10 hits, they won Grammys, they got sued by Bob Dylan, they were huge.
And then, just as suddenly, they weren’t. It’s like everyone, all at once, realized: “Meh, they’re OK.†I’m utterly fascinated by how something like that happens. I guess this was the general topic that Malcolm Gladwell tackled in “The Tipping Point,†but as much as I loved that book I don’t know that it explained the Hootie Phenomenon.
Anyway, I never tire of that story — the story of people who keep working hard, not for fame or fortune but because it maters. If things had worked out differently, Nils might have had a hit — “Valentine,†just as a starting point, is a great song that could have been a hit. He has plenty of other good songs like “Tears on Ice†and “Shot at You†and “Black Books†and so on … hop on iTunes or Amazon and catch the previews, I think you’ll find them worth your 99 cents.
But none of them changed his life. And still, he keeps playing, keeps working hard, keeps making new music, keeps performing with energy and purpose. Yes, to me, Nils Lofgren is like the musical version of my baseball hero Duane Kuiper. True, he hit more home runs than Duane, and he was part of better teams, but the big point is that he has dedicated his life to music, and he has dived for every ground ball, and he has given everything of himself.
I don’t doubt that Nils would have loved to make had a hit or two … musicians, generally, want to be heard, want to be loved, who doesn’t? But, as he says, there are blessings to the musical life he has led. Because he’s never had the smash record, he has been free to travel all around the world and play with the E-Street Band, play with the Ringo Starr All-Stars, play with Neil Young. He has been a character in a Clive Cussler book, and he wrote the theme song to “Hunter,†and he has made some good rock and roll.
Because he has never become a international sensation, he has been able to do other cool projects that he has loved:
He did the music for the “All Madden Team.†More on this in a minute.
He wrote this cool song about Yankee Stadium, which you can download for free right here.
He got to play basketball with the Larry Bird-Kevin McHale-Robert Parish Boston Celtics.
Sunday, he will get to play at halftime of the Super Bowl. The bleepin’ Super Bowl.
And so on.
“I’m a team player,†he says. “I’m comfortable being a band leader, if you need one. I’ve spent a lot of time leading my own bands, and I’m happy doing that. But I discovered early on that I love being a part of a team, I love being a role player too. Because I play my own music a lot, I love taking a break. It’s really refreshing, after being a band leader, to just be in a great band. And I’ve been in really great bands.â€
* * *
We have a few Nils Lofgren sport stories. We should say here that Nils Lofgren is a CONSUMED sports fan. And I think everyone here understands what I mean by that … there are a lot of famous people who claim to be sports fans, who are sports fans, but only on the periphery. They might like to watch the games. They might know the names of some of the players. They might be able to talk about their teams for a short while, but after that they get bored, or they run out of things to say.
Nils Lofgren is not like that. He’s the kind of guy who — well, put it this way: At the Super Bowl press conference, they asked Lofgren how he got to be an Arizona Cardinals fan. And you could see Lofgren grimace. He is not a Cardinals fans. He’s a Washington Redskins fan and has been since he was a young boy who went to school at Walter Johnson High School (“He was a great pitcher for the Washington Senators, the Big Train,†Nils says). Nils HAS lived in Arizona the last 13 years, and he was able to answer the question without embarrassing anyone. But the question bugged him. He likes the Cardinals. But he’s not a Cardinals fan. Unlike most celebrity sports fans, he knows the difference.
“The Super Bowl is a a great meeting of some great chapters in my life,†Nils says. He began playing football in his neighborhood in the 1960s, and he says: “It’s like, we were the Beatles, and we would play against the against the greasers. … We all had this long hair, and they would call us wimps and all that. And they were vicious games, we had no equipment, there was blood and broken bones and all that. It was a cool thing. We beat them probably more than they beat us.â€
He thinks about those games a lot. When he was approached to write and perform the music for the All-Madden Team (see Tuff Stuff on Nils’ Web site), he remembers he would go to the basement, watch the highlights video of the players they had sent him, and he would just jam on the guitar. “I didn’t want to overthink it,†he says. “It was wide open for me, I just wanted to do rough, searing rock and roll.â€
He had to stay athletic. He ran a lot. He played racquetball on the road with Bruce. He played playground basketball all the time — “I’m 5-foot-3, a point guard, a nasty defensive pest,†he says. He talked a lot with athletes, and he has spent a lot of time thinking about where sports and music connect. He was struck when he got John Madden to a Springsteen show, which was not an easy thing to do. Madden watched Springsteen prepare for the show, and he said it was a lot like the way a quarterback prepared for a big game. “I have never forgotten that,†Nils says.
Finally, he has a classic Boston Celtics story. You have probably heard the story about how Boston Globe sportswriter Dan Shaughnessy was talking about Bruce Springsteen, and Larry Bird said: “Who’s he?â€
“Who’s he?†Shaughnessy asked. And then, in an inspired response, he said: “Larry, he’s the you of rock and roll.*â€
*I’m telling you: Sportswriters LOVE Bruce Springsteen.
Well, it turns out that the Celtics did have an interest in Springsteen and the E-Street band, and Nils got to know Kevin McHale well. And McHale invited Nils to come practice with the Celtics. Nils was beyond excited. That day he went to the McHale’s house for, poetically enough, a Super Bowl party. A bunch of the players were there, and they started to drink, you know, as people will at Super Bowl parties. Well, Nils did not want to drink. He kept saying: “No, I’m practicing tomorrow.â€
But: “They were laughing at me,†Nils says. “And I succumbed to peer pressure. One drink leads to two. Two leads to six …â€
At 8 a.m. the next morning, someone banged on Nils Lofgren’s door. He barely heard it. He was barely alive. He looked out the window — it was Kevin McHale, and he was shouting: “Come on, we’re going to practice.†It was 4 degrees outside. Halfway to the practice facility, Nils needed to stop and find a snowdrift to get sick in. “It was one of the worst hangovers I’ve ever had in my entire life,†he says. When I laugh, Nils says: “I was DEVASTATED.â€
When they got to the practice facility, all he could do was lie on the bench and try not to move — any movement would have caused all sorts of bodily havoc that he did not want to think about. And all of a sudden, he looked up: And there was Larry Bird. And Larry Bird said: “Come on Nils. You’re on my team.â€
“I’m afraid to move,†Nils says. “I know I’m just going to get sick. But this is LARRY BIRD. So I go out there, it was like a three-pointer drill. And I’m just shot-putting the ball. I’m humiliating myself. I’m making a laughingstock out of myself. It was a humiliating, hilarious experience.â€
Now, I’m going to give you the final reason that I love Nils Lofgren: That’s pretty much where the story ends. If someone else was telling the same story, he would have give it a happy turn. Maybe the storyteller hits a key shot to win the practice game. Maybe he sobers up and makes a perfect pass to Robert Parish for the famed stand-under-the-basket-one-handed dunk. But no, Nils’ story pretty much ends here, with him making a laughingstock out of himself because he caved in to peer pressure and because just loves sports.
And, without trying to make it all seem too grand, there’s just something cool about it all. Nils Lofgren keeps going out, making music, having a blast. In a way, you can understand what keeps Bruce Springsteen going. He’s the star. He’s the Boss. But come Sunday, halftime, take a moment and appreciate Nils Lofgren, who doesn’t have any pretensions of being the star or the Boss, who won’t get a lot of television time, who isn’t going to gain worldwide fame out of this. No, he’s in this for the fun, for the music, for the cheers and for the experience. That’s life, right?
“I’m just going to rock out, you know?†he says. “But I’ll take a look around too. I’ll enjoy it.â€
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Nils is a great artist in his own right, with a terrific album under his belt. I am glad Joe found him to be as nice as a fan would hope he is.
Joe: Right on! Good on you for camping out, and thanks for given Lofgren the praise he deserves.
I first heard Lofgren play (piano) and sing backup on Neil Young’s “After the Gold Rush,” although he already had something of a rep as a guitar player (he was, after all, an old man of, er, 18). (In some ways, the same sort of a “what?” experience as hearing Al Kooper play organ on “Highway 61 Revisited.”) What a voice. And what a player. I’m glad he seems to enjoy life as much as he does. I’ve received much joy from listening to him play.
God, I still get chills thinking about Prince’s halftime show. Like everyone in America, I was only about half paying attention, despite my appreciation of Prince, during the first song. But then somewhere in the second number, things clicked, and suddenly Prince had taken a moment that, in its corporate soullessness, should have been unrockable, and he’d rocked the hell out of it. I swear, when he winked at the camera at the end of the Foo Fighters cover, it was as if he’d just slept with everyone in America. Wow.
If the Boss can manage even half that vibe, he’ll have achieved something impressive.
Thanks Joe. As always a great read.
Question: How do you send 65,000 people to the bathroom at once?
Answer: “Thank you… and now we’d like to play a few songs from the ‘Nebraska’ album”
This isn’t a first post, and I never care about being first.
But as I linked to this essay, and read it, I got to the bottom and there were NO comments yet. I’m sure there are by now — there always are.
But dang, I’m tellin’ ya, it’s weird, WEIRD seeing a JoeP post without comments at the bottom.
Come on, man, give up the names of the people who had seat savers. If you can’t call out semi-famous people for being pompous asses why does the internet exist at all?
Sportswriters loving Bruce is becoming a real cliche. Today the Sports Business Journal did a profile of an SI writer (Gary Smith maybe?) and they asked him what his favorite piece of music was.
In that split second that exists between reading the question and answer in an interview I thought: guaranteed this will be Springsteen. He picked Thunder Road.
Revised set list guess: BTR, 10th avenue, Rising, Dancing in the Dark
If you’ve seen Bruce in the last couple years you know that Dancing in the Dark rocks live now.
I remember Nils Lofgren being touted as one of the up and coming rock heroes in the late seventies, maybe in Tiger Beat (I swear it belonged to my sister…it wasn’t mine!) If I recall correctly, a couple of the other greats-to-be were BeBop Deluxe and the Rubinoos. I’m glad Nils has overcome the Tiger Beat curse.
The Hootie question has always haunted me. It’s not surprising that a band will shoot to the top. That happens all the time. I can’t understand how they disappeared so quickly. They even were featured in the plot of a Friends episode (there is no greater apex of the mid-90’s than the episode of Friends where they go to the Hootie concert).
I asked my cousin who works in the music industry and he said they were a band who had worked clubs for a long time perfecting the songs that went into Cracked Rear View (Hootie fans can feel free to correct this info)–that they had basically shot their wad. I just don’t understand why the record label song wizards didn’t throw them some bones for their next album. My cousin went on about how labels see a decreasing share of the pie with each subsequent album and I get all that, but it seems like they should have had a little second wind (even Alanis had that “Thank You” song after Jagged Little Pill).
It’s not like there was a huge Hootie backlash. Like Joe says there was just a collective “Meh.” Any ideas?
Let’s not forget Nils’ wonderful “Bullets Fever”
As a journalist, I try not to get star-struck, and I’ve succeeded mostly. I’ve interviewed governors, senators, Medal of Honor recipients, Hall of Famers and all kinds of people.
But if I was in a room with Bruce Springsteen, I’m pretty sure I’d just start bowing and saying, “I’m not worthy,” a la Wayne’s World.
Thanks Joe. I’ve been listening to The River non-stop for the last three days. And this line left me in stitches…
“It was beautiful. I only wished he had ended the story with: “I said, ‘They didn’t take me.’ And he said, ‘That’s good.’—
(Harmonica)
(cheers)
I come from down in the valley
where mister when you’re young
They bring you up to do like your daddy done
Me and Mary we met in high school
when she was just seventeen
We’d ride out of this valley down to where the fields were green
Nice job Joe.
I say no BTR:
The Rising–for the political tinge of it
Promised Land–b/c he always plays it
Cadillac Ranch–so he and Steve can be at the mike together
Ramrod not BTR–just a hunch
Good Eye from the new album could work, I think.
Many years ago, after noticing that I didn’t think highly of a particular dance instructor, I decided to work my way through the problem of finding three things that I thought he did well.
“Larry, he’s the you of rock and roll.*â€
I don’t think too highly of Shank. But that’s one….
If he doesn’t play stuff us non-fans know, or at least have heard before, he’s gonna lose us pretty quick.
Aaron M. #16,
I think you’d be surprised. Knowing the songs will not matter. You’ll want to know them if you don’t already.
So, Joe…what question(s) did you ask the Bruce? I think you should have challenged him on your preferred lyrics for “The Wrestler” (http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/01/15/ok-one-more-thought/) and demanded that he change them.
Wow – a Dan Shaughnessy anecdote where he doesn’t come across as a complete jerk. I didn’t know such a thing existed.
“It was beautiful. I only wished he had ended the story with: “I said, ‘They didn’t take me.’ And he said, ‘That’s good.’â€â€
The best lead in to a song I have ever heard.
Its not just the story, its the way the harmonica weeps in, carrying all the sadness and weariness of the world with it.
“Hootie and the Blowfish?”
Huey Lewis and the News?
“Huey Lewis and the News?”
It was the ’80s.
If you want to hear a great Nils Lofgren song, check out “No Mercy,” about a boxer on the ropes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVnbbK4SisQ.
Don’t over analyze Hootie, Joe. Hootie was popular because they had 3 fun singalong songs on the “Cracked Rear View” cd like “Hold My Hand”. I recall that a lot of people like the other songs a lot, too. They didn’t come up with anything remotely close to that on their other cds.
My two-pronged Hootie theory: They came along just when listeners to American pop radio/viewers of MTV wanted to hear something like that. And the hook in the chorus of “Hold My Hand” is undeniable, even to a hater like me. I question whether anything else was any good. I think the rest of Hootie’s popularity was America trying to convince itself it wasn’t wrong (“Only Want To Be With You? Yeah, that one’s not so bad …”). Wikipedia says these people bumped the third album up to fourth on the U.S. chart, but after that, they wouldn’t get fooled again. Although their two albums after that made the top 50 …
If I ever get famous enough to have a seat saver, I’m either going to hire the “Dude, You’re Getting A Dell” guy, or the Encyclopedia Britannica guy from the 90’s…
…or Shamwow Vince: “I’m just saving this seat for the next 20 minutes, ’cause you know I can’t do this all day…”
Cool story.
Your absolute love of Bruce has affected me Joe. I was always a bit of a fan and my dad loves him, I think the first CD present I ever bought for him was Springsteen’s Greatest Hits. But the devotion he inspires in so many people was completly unnoticed by me until I started reading your blog way back during ‘The Soul of Baseball’ days. Since then if I ever talk about him I see people react. He is a hero to loads of people I never would have expected.
For this reason (mainly) I just bought 4 tickets to his show in Dublin, Ireland which went on sale this morning. I dont think I’ll be disappointed.
For the record my favorite blog layout was the one where entire columns were on the front page with very few graphics. This meant I could load one page up on my phone and read them all on my 45 min Tube journey to work!
Great work Joe, I think I have read them all.
My fav Nils – Cry Tough
I’ve always felt about Harry Potter the same way Joe describes Hootie and the Blowfish. Seems to me there are a large number of roughly equivalent fantasy books out there; why did Harry Potter become such a hit?
BTW, Joe, you made at least one other paper’s Springsteen column, albeit anonymously:
http://www.nj.com/sports/index.ssf/2009/01/twelve_minutes_not_enough_when.html#more
One colleague arrived at noon to get a good seat. The presser started at 2:30 p.m.
My guess for those twelve minutes:
Prove It All Night
The Rising
Born To Run
Cause there’s no way Bruce can fit four songs into twelve minutes.
What a great post! Nils is such a nice, gracious, down-to-earth person, and I’m glad he’s getting so much attention this week. I met him at a Sam Goody once when he was promoting his Damaged Goods album. He did an in-store solo acoustic concert. Not only were his guitar solos mesmerizing, but he was so wonderful with the crowd. When Nils tuned his guitar between songs, a little 5-year-old boy started asking him what he was doing. Nils explained why he had to tune his guitar, walked over to the kid, and let him play with the strings. All through the show, the kid asked questions and Nils patiently answered them, and it was just great to see. Afterwards, Nils chatted at length with every fan, even the ones who asked annoying Bruce and Neil questions, signed every autograph, and made everyone feel like they were his friends.
I’d definitely recommend that people check out one of Nils’ “Best Of” compilations, because he truly has written some gems, and he has a unique and wonderful voice. His regular albums can be inconsistent, but a number of them are quite good (especially Grin’s 1+1, Nils Lofgren, and Nils). It’s also fun to watch Nils’ videos on YouTube, not only for the music, but also because he looks a lot like Bruce in some of them. They could’ve passed for brothers in the ’70s.
I’m a huge Bruce fan from way, way back — I actually was one of the 12 people in America who bought “Greetings From Asbury Park” when it came out; I’d never heard of him, but I bought it based on the lyrics that were printed on the back cover.
Having said that, I’m just a wee bit disappointed that he referred to himself as “the Boss.” Has he finally become Rickey Henderson? I hope he winked when he said it.
True story, as quoted from my own blog (sorry about that):
I’ve met people who’ve subsequently become known… [but] My near-misses are funnier, such as the time I watched as seemingly every clerk in Borders came up to breathlessly ask if they could help a shortish, scruffy, jeans-and-work-booted guy who already was lugging a stack of material a foot high. “What’s with these people bugging this guy?” I asked my Ladybug. “Besides, he looks kind of suspicious to me.” She just gaped. “Um… that’s BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN.” Oh.
I did, however, get to see Glenn Tilbrook of Squeeze do a solo acoustic set on the steps of the Ocean County Library in Toms River, NJ. (By “set” I mean that I saw two minutes of “Black Coffee in Bed.”)
I’m not so good at this music star stuff.
FYI on Hootie, Darius Rucker now has a country CD with a #1 country single and a current #12.
I agree with Mikey, it’s time for accountability and the seat savers should be named.
Maybe these guys were better than Hootie but I have never quite gotten the appeal of the Dave Matthews Band. Decent songs, sure, but for a while they were at an extremely high level of fame. Maybe they just came along when nothing else was happening?
First time, long time
Those who want to see Nils’ sports prowess in action should check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jw-QCE3Xps&feature=related
Nils — all 5′3″ of him — challenged Howard Stern — who is 6′6″ — to a basketball game. And destroyed him.
Highlights included Nils wearing a McHale jersey (totally makes sense now) and the game refereed by Walt “Clyde” Frazier.
Anyone who, like me, consumed way too much early MTV, will remember Nils backflipping his way through “Across the Tracks”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8XX7GkU-5s
Yeh, Hootie is now making ‘Country” music – or at least he’s somehow on the Country charts…
I first saw Nils Lofgren in 1973 at a Neil Young concert in Mershon Hall at Ohio State. (Not yet, THE OSU!) It was/is a nice, small concert hall and it was great. The concert started at midnight as I recall and went to about 3am. Neil liked it that way at the time as he explained those hours were when he did his best work. I had never heard of Nils before the show but do remember how much energy he displayed. I also remember how small he was…
Anyway, glad to be reminded of those college days. Thanks, Joe and Nils!
Go Picksburg Stillers!!
On Hootie:
There will always be a market for lightweight music that helps frat boys get laid.
I sort of expected to read of Tim Russert with regard to Springsteen @ The SBowl.
About Hootie: Their music seemed, for whatever reason, to become instantly nostalgic. I hear Europe’s Final Countdown now, and because of Arrested Development, and the memories of high school it evokes, I smile–even though I HATED that song when it first came out. Hootie songs gave me that same feeling after a week, as if they never existed at all in the present, but had always been cheesy bar-band songs of the past. Sheryl Crow is the same way–her songs were instantly classic rock.
Favorite Nils quote, regarding how he came to give up drinking: “Alcohol makes me breakout in handcuffs”.
I agree with the comparing of the Hootie to Dave Matthews Band. However, DMB seems to havae acquired somewhat of a cult following. People who travel to and brag about how many DMB shows theyve been to. I think a more relevant comparison would be 311. Meteoric rise to the top with a few hits with catchy hooks, but then…….nada. Dave Matthews Band could be the Duane Kuiper of music. Ants marching is the equivalent to Duane’s homer off of steve stone, his/their crowning acheivement but then fading into obscurity.
Two things:
1. Hootie rocks. I mean, they had a video filled with Sportscenter anchors. They had two great albums; and I have no idea where they went. Someone please get them back together. I am begging you.
2. If I become famous enough to have a “seat saver”, I am going to get Darius Rucker from Hootie and the Blowfish. He appears to be free.
Not a fan of Hootie and the Blowfish. Like most folks, I have limited tolerance to learn to enjoy music I’ve heard for the first time after I turned 35; it takes roughly seven exposures to get familiar with it (boy, have I learned some weird stuff as a computer game designer). So a couple of my daughter’s favorite songs, the occasional song on Saturday Night Live or perhaps something new from an older performer I buy, some stuff I’ve had to perform (in the Sierra Chamber Singers or the Fresno Grand Opera) and mostly leitmotif driven sound tracks (because the major themes will be played repeatedly, especially in superhero movies, leading to my undying love of Danny Elfman soundtracks). I doubt I could pick Hootie or the Blowfish out of an audio lineup. For that matter, I don’t think I’d get any Huey Lewis and the News songs either, except I think they did the theme for one of the “Back to the Future” movies, and Weird Al covered another of their songs (without my knowing it). More than once I’ve learned to enjoy a song thanks to Al without having heard the original, and then later on realize what he was filking.
But as a setup for one of my all time favorite jokes, I am glad we had “Hootie and the Blowfish”. It was Letterman’s Top Ten, just after “Waterworld” had come out (and bombed) and the category was the top ten things if Waterworld were true (funny how a movie nobody saw still got into the collective unconscious enough so that everybody could get jokes about it; the power of advertising). And about number four on that list, Dave said, “It would be The Blowfish and Hootie, my friend.”
As far as I’m concerned, whoever wrote that joke earned his pay for the week.
I think the Hootie phenomenon came about because of what had preceded it. For a couple of years, the rock charts were dominated by grunge, and music tends to swing a bit like a pendulum, with one movement coming in response to – and moving away from – whatever the previous one brought with it. I think a lot of people needed to move away from the darker stuff that was on every rock station at the time.
The time was right for something poppy and inoffensive (and, I would argue, pretty bland) to replace the harder, angrier music that had altered the entire rock landscape. Whether it was the older grunge fans out-aging the grunge phenomenon that led to the rise of the adult alternative scene or fans of other rock and pseudo-rock genres, there was a definite shift in the mid-90s that gave rise to Hootie, Dave Matthews, the Wallflowers, the Rembrandts, the Gin Blossoms, Counting Crows, Sheryl Crow, Third Eye Blind, Tonic, Matchbox Twenty and so on and so forth.
Of course, because the music wasn’t particularly innovative or transformative, it didn’t really have much variation or staying power. The scene was flooded with similar artists, all doing basically the same thing, so for the most part, it petered out pretty quickly as everything those artists released had a sort of “yeah, I’ve heard this before” quality to it. Plus, when it wasn’t a de facto reaction to the grunge movement, when it was distanced from that, maybe some started realizing what it was: nothing terribly special. Not bad, necessarily, but not the kind of music where you tend to think “I’d really like to listen to some Hootie right now.”
I also sincerely doubt Hootie would have had anywhere near the success they had if they’d been named “The Darius Rucker Band” or something like that.
And that’s as much as I care to reflect on Hootie and the Blowfish forever and ever and ever.
Perry expressed just what I was thinking. In my little world where I feel like I know people based only on the creative expressions they carefully craft and choose to share, Bruce Springsteen does not refer to himself in the third person. Ever. (Kudos, too, Perry as “Ricky can’t score from first!” was the quote that went through my mind when I read that.)
So I just listened to “Born to Run” on Youtube. It didn’t sound familiar to me at all. I think that should count as -1 vote in the poll. But FWIW, I would only listen to maybe 5 of those songs in the poll of my own volition.
The E Street Band is as good as it gets and one of the reasons they are is because of Nils – he is a class act.
I think it is important to understand how he integrates into this band and as he pointed out in the news conference, he and Patti are the new kids and have only been in the band for the past 25 years.
He has a very strong sense of knowing when to be in the front and when to be in the shadow. Stevie and Bruce obviously have a ‘goumba’ thing going on, they go back a long long way, and Stevie gets a lot of mic time with Bruce.
But when it comes time to shine, Nils steps up big time. His solo’s on Because the Night in this past Magic Tour shows were astounding. Epic. He just tears it up, but as the article points out, this guy is not in this for face time, he loves being there as all of these guys are in shear awe of Bruce, and rightly so – the guy is a musical genius.
Both he and the band know how lucky they are to be able to do this together and that they are all still going full steam is totally amazing. Hell the guy just had double hip replacement a few weeks back and this is his first gig – that is Cry Tough stuff right there!
Great story about Nils. I grew up in the DC area and Nils played there a lot (or in Baltimore). I loved his stuff with Grin and then his early solo stuff like Cry Tough (CLASSIC!) and the double live album…… Seeing him do flips (the title track to another solo album, Flip) was amazing. He can wail on the guitar and he has a great rock and roll voice. He too is one of my heroes and shows his character in this interview of what a team guy he can be in an industry full of egomaniacs and asswipes.
Thanks Joe, for the trip down memory lane for me. I’m off now, to throw some Nils in the CD player…
Re Nils-around ‘75 or so he did a song called “Keith Don’t Go”, a tribute/plea to a certain rock guitarist who seemed to be bent on self-destruction-34 years later, they’re both still going strong; one more reason why rock and roll is less likely to let you down than sports are…
Joe..First of all love your work..great piece on Nils..I was recently of WDFN radio in Detroit..Did a show with Bob Wojnowski for 14 years(Stoney and Wojo) until we were fired with almost 1900 other Clear Channel employees…Anyway I was the dork who asked the first question in Tampa on the Detroit and Cleveland thing plus the who how do you decide what songs are played.his answer was great but he did not hear me say the how part…anyway if you read the story below you can click on the part about Nils doing a song on the 1978 champion Washington Bullets called Bullets Fever..I was in school in DC at the time..it was a great song..he also did a great song about boxing called No Mercy….but as a fan of both Nils and Bruce you probably heard both already…
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2009/01/30/bruce-springsteen-doesnt-do-sports-real-well-but-nils-lofgren-does/
take care
Mike Stone
Joe, wonderful piece, as they always are. But, one caveat – Nils Lofgren ‘played with Neil Young’? That’s like saying Babe Ruth spent some time in New York. Nils played on Tonight’s The Night, the greatest rock n roll album ever made, and a couple others beside.
My Nils story goes like this. The last time I saw Bruce, which was in St. Louis last year (the show before Joe saw him in Kansas City) and Bruce played “Because the Night Belongs to Lovers”. I have never seen this song performed live out of four concerts I have went to and it was awesome. The awesome part was the Nils solo. So awesome in fact, the older gentleman in a robin egg blue suit behind me on the floor, passed out during the solo. Nils’ amazing guitar solo robbed this man of his consciousness. Well the solo and the 6 24oz beers I saw him suck down in the half hour before and the hour during the show. Nils is the man
[...] by unknown on Wed, 28 Jan 2009 16:00:00 -0800 Blog : http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/ Url : http://joeposnanski.com/JoeBlog/2009/01/29/bruce-and-nils/ (Ranked #23)SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “Bruce and Nils » Joe Posnanski”, url: [...]
I’m a little late on my readings but couldn’t by-pass this opportunity for a comment.(even if i’m the only one to read it!) loved the article on Nils..long-time fan of Bruce and E-Street. Like many others, was very excited in 84 to see Nils join the band since I was familiar with his work. I had the very distinct pleasure to sit next to Nils on a plane this past May, was the day after they played the Basie Theater and their tackling of btr and darkness cover to cover. Nils, and his sweet wife Amy were overly gracious talking to me.They were both just down to earth, full of some fun stories and seemed genuinley interested to talking with a tongue-tied fan.I will forever remember that plane ride. You sometimes wonder if the people you so admire and respect are who you think they are. Nils and Amy are and then some….
[...] bookmarks tagged hootie and the blowfish Bruce and Nils saved by 1 others FrequentlyFried bookmarked on 02/10/09 | [...]
[...] you probably already know Nils is my musical hero. This is a great song, perfect for this week of course, and Bruce Springsteen is on backup [...]
hello! my mom stubbled upon this and noticed my name so i felt the need to mention that yes that was duane kuiper daughter! : ) and i did show it to my dad. HE LOVED it : ) go giants!!!