The Fabled Automatic

Great news from E Street this week.  Bruce and The E Street Band will indeed be hitting the road behind a new album in summer 2012.  What the lineup will look like and how the horn 'section' will be filled remains to be seen.  After The Big Man's passing, both Bruce and Steve emphasized that the band would still make music together, because 'that's really all we know how to do'.  I for one am glad. www.backstreets.com Another interesting note on Backstreets.com this week... Thanksgiving Day 2011 is the 35th anniversary of perhaps the greatest concert (and without a doubt the greatest rock movie) of all time ,  The Band's legendary farewell performance, The Last Waltz. I knew it was my favorite holiday for a reason.... Little Steven (the coolest guy in the world, post on that coming soon) is honoring the occasion with Robbie Robertson week on The Underground Garage.  If you have never checked out his radio show, you really should.  It is one of the best

…or maybe not.   There are people who you’ve never met that, because of their art, you know and know you.   They understand what is going on in your head.   For me, Stephen King is one of those people.   Larry Munson was another. Even if your blood doesn’t run Red and Black, it was impossible to listen to Larry call a Bulldog game and not get fired up.   His broadcasts were poetry in its rawest and most visceral form.   In all my years of listening to sports I’ve never heard anyone communicate the passion, the naked emotion of what it meant to be a fan the way Munson did. A great heart has beat its last; the wonderful gravelly voice has gone silent.   We shan’t hear its like again. Thanks, Larry.   You enriched our lives more than you’ll ever know.

For me, discoveries of a new band for my collection are usually an exercise in critical mass over time. I come across an act thorough too many independent sources not to check them out. Two recent unearthings that fit firmly in this category are Death Cab for Cutie and John Hiatt.     How I missed these two for so long when they fit so nicely into my soundtrack is beyond me.     This model can be bad if you tend to get obsessed with artists. Is the one record enough, or must you own everything? All of a sudden there may be 3 or 5 or 10 albums to buy and digest. What if you happened upon their best work, and the rest is either no good or repetitive? On this, Pandora is such a double edge sword. On one hand it often answers some of these questions and gives you free (legal) access to a lot of a bands’ music. On the other hand in an hour, it could send you down even more rabbit holes fraught with the same peril! (In the course of writing this I bookmarked 2 other artists on the D