Polaroid 600 film, New Orleans, La., Winter 2009.

My new record player has allowed me to reclaim a lot of music formerly trapped on vinyl, like Bruce Springsteen’s under-appreciated Tunnel of Love (if something can be under-appreciated while selling several million copies).

I’ve been focusing more on its heartrending side two, which starts with the title track, the haunting “Two Faces,” “Brilliant Disguise” (for many years now a personal favorite), the loser’s anthem “One Step Up,” and the double-punch of “When You’re Alone” and “Valentine’s Day.” It’s as emotionally and personally bleak as Springsteen has ever gotten, as distinguished from the political or metaphorical bleakness of Nebraska or Tom Joad.

While I don’t always think that every bit of art should be viewed through the lens of an artist’s personal life, it’s almost impossible to distinguish the Boss’ unraveling marriage to Julianne Phillips from the hang-dog feeling that permeates Tunnel of Love. “Two Faces” is a simple mid-tempo rocker, one of dozens in the Springsteen catalog (if burdened by his standard ludicrous 80’s production and synth), but its lyrics are peppered with a very adult regret, and an outright acknowledgment of blowing it for no reason at all: I met a girl and we ran away / I swore I’d make her happy every day / And how I made her cry / Two faces have I.”

There’s lots of rock and roll songs about pining for a girl, or missing her when she’s away, or how much you love ‘em, and this song sounds like those: but “Two Faces” is about knowing that you screwed it all up by your own self. Like Springsteen’s recorded version of “Johnny Bye-Bye,” he plunges his hands into a traditional rock and roll idiom and reworks it for the stresses and problems of adulthood. To me he’s not awesome because of “Quarter to Three,” or even because of “Thunder Road”—which was his attempt to make a teenage symphony to God, anyway—he’s awesome because of work like this.

(Okay, even though I like “Thunder Road” about one million times more than “Two Faces Have I,” but you get what I mean, on this hazy Wednesday afternoon).

Long before indie rockers discovered the patchy beard and the horrifyingly-low-cut V-neck t-shirt, there was Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen. I’ve been really scouring the legendary photographs Eric Meola took for Born to Run, and this one leapt out at me.

First, how delicate he appears: tiny golden ball stitched into his left ear, nose as straight and tender as a piece of Greco-Roman statuary, curls like a 50’s siren. He is, for a lack of a better term, almost pretty, all scruffiness aside.

It strikes me as fundamentally odd that he’s become this macho leading man of rock and roll, when in the early years he so clearly struck the pose of the ragged, sensitive, Byronic poet.

From The Inner Sleeve, a promo-paper bundled in with a thrift-store LP copy of Leonard Cohen’s Live Songs (1973).

1. “The Peanut Vendor”—Dean Martin. I first heard this song at an academic conference a few years back in an interesting paper on the way that the song has been transformed as it has traveled back and forth between the US and Cuba. Martin’s version is pure swing-swaggering cool and sounds exactly right set amidst pool splashing and steak grilling. Yank your cumberbund askew. Tousle your hair. Chill out.

MP3: Dean Martin—“The Peanut Vendor”

2. “Security (Live at Whiskey A-Go-Go)”—Otis Redding. Do you need to have a wall of horns snap your head back every now and then? Well, this will do the trick. I’m thinking this song is the official soundtrack for the summer.

MP3: Otis Redding—“Security (live)”

3. “Postcards from Paradise”—Paul Westerberg. This Flesh for Lulu cover is the hidden track at the end of Westerberg’s 2002 solo album Stereo, and it may be the best thing on it: a raucous, ragged, and joyous tune that wears its heart on its sleeve. Also half a lung and Thursday’s vomit.

MP3: Paul Westerberg—“Postcards from Paradise”

4. “Up the Devil’s Pay”—Old 97’s. This was always one of my favorite songs on Satellite Rides. I heard it last week for the first time in a couple of years, and now it sounds to me like Murry Hammond trying, through sheer force of will, to arrest the band’s gentle slide toward pablumous mediocrity. Drag It Up’s “Won’t Be Home” might be the last great Old 97’s song, but the major part of its appeal is that it sounds like a pastiche of other Old 97’s songs; “Up the Devil’s Pay” seems to be coming from someplace else entirely—someplace where music matters more intensely. I suspect there are production elements in this song that we are not yet sophisticated enough to hear in 3-D space.

MP3: Old 97’s—“Up the Devil’s Pay”

5. “Tollund Man (live)”—The Mountain Goats. Yes, it’s the obligatory Mountain Goats pick. Someone on a Goats forum posted this live version of one of the best songs from Sweden a while back and I’ve been fascinated by it ever since. It’s a solid live take on this deceptively simple song on its own, but then at the end John Darnielle begins incorporating, off-mic at first, verses from the hymn “This Is My Father’s World”. The hymn finds solace in nature’s revelation of God’s grace—a perfect complement to the aching wistfulness of a doomed narrator who spends his final moments fondly regarding the nature he is about to rejoin. (Another, similarly excellent off-mic addition borrows from John Berryman’s poem “The Poet’s Final Instructions,” but I think this one is a shade better.)

MP3: The Mountain Goats—“Tollund Man (My Father’s World)”

6. “Sweet Life”—Varnaline. I’ve written of my affection for Varnaline’s Songs in a Northern Key—one of my three favorite albums of all time, no question. The other Varnaline album to get if you’re only going to own two is surely Man of Sin, the 1996 debut, which nearly matches Northern Key for melodic lushness and drum-smashing urgency despite its minimalist four-track origins. I’ve always been less enthusiastic about the middle two albums. The self titled record from 1997 veers too often toward generic 90s rock, and Sweet Life has never quite gelled for me—it starts strong, with “Gulf of Mexico” and “Northern Lights,” but then it too slides, with some exceptions, into a kind of forgettable genericism. Lately though I’ve been listening to the album-closing title track over and over, and it’s been growing on me, despite its occasional bombast: Atmospheric and spacey but chunky and grounded all at the same time, it’s an indication of the beautiful things to come on Northern Key and a beautiful thing in its own right.

MP3: Varnaline—“Sweet Life” (ripped at a pretty crummy bit rate to get it to a manageable size, so if it sounds less than transcendent, won’t you please give Mr. Anders Parker of Varnaline 99 of your American cents at the iTunes or Amazon store?)

7. “She’s the One”—Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. As everyone has heard by now, Bo Diddley passed away earlier this week. I can only imagine what it must be like to create something so fundamental as the Bo Diddley Beat. If it’s not quite the wheel, it’s at least the light bulb. It may be the wheel. Here’s one of my favorite appropriations of that beat, in a live video from the miraculously well documented Hammersmith Odeon show in 1975. This video is, by the way, the coolest thing you’re going to see all day, so adjust your expectations accordingly as the clock ticks toward midnight:

It looks like my summer is going to get kind of emo toward the end there, but only briefly.

And since I’ve got meme fever, I’ll tag Darren, Dave Ashes, Conversely, Jaman, Gischler, Mr. Quiet Bubble, and Geoff.

Verdict: Perfume advertisement crafted circa 1996. Also: student work.

At least the E-Street Band got a lot of face time! Please judge for yourself.

I would have paid for the coffee, which I think is very big of me.

2. The folks over at CSBG dig Khari Evans pencilling over Barry Kitson layouts in this week’s issue of The Order, the best comic that Marvel is publishing right now that I can think of off the top of my head. I’m not sure I agree with their assessment. I like Evans just fine, I hope he keeps getting work, and there’s nothing wrong with the art here on a purely technical level. But Kitson’s charming, almost retro style contrasted nicely with the grimmer or just generally more contemporary aspects of the book’s setting. Imagine that DC and Marvel stop publishing superhero comics in the late 60s and then someone decides to experiment with the genre again in 2007—without the burden of Watchmen or The Dark Knight Returns or, hell, Identity Crisis: that’s what the first four issues of The Order feel like to me, and I mean that as high praise.

Another thing that made the book feel so distinct was the way that Matt Fraction’s scripts and Kitson’s art combined to make every issue saturated but never soggy with information—there is a whole lot of story in each of those early issues, but they are nonetheless instantly comprehensible on first read. Despite the fact that Kitson provides layouts on the new issue, some of that density of story is lost. Even though Evans has a fairly distinctive style, his art in this most recent issue has a darkness and weight to it that makes it feel more like a generic contemporary Marvel book. Someone in comments at CSBG suggested that the colors seemed off, which may be part of it, and not Evans’ responsibility; on the other hand, paging through the book again, I’m struck by how much more amply endowed the female characters look—Kitson’s gift for doing sexy but not over-sexualized female forms well suits the retro-futuristic feel of the book. Matt Fraction’s scripts, however, continue to shine—he’s as adept at juggling complex character interactions as he is at zinging one-liners (“Apparently Tim Burton sponsors a women’s golf team” made me grin).

In any case, you should still be buying The Order. (Late update and later update: Greg Burgas and Geoff Klock have similar reactions to Evans’s art.)

3. Now just try to resist this:

PS: I probably would have been totally stoked to hear “Cadillac Ranch.”

I don’t agree—but it ain’t half bad. You can stream the whole album via Q 104.3 and decide for yourself. One thing’s for sure—there’s some pretty dang good stuff on there. “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” made my spine tingle—there’s a relaxed tone to it, a bittersweet fond reminisce—I can’t quite ascertain who it reminds me of yet. But I like it!

And for you gypsy lovers out there: Bruce now has nine total songs mentioning that paragon of restlessness. The man knows a lot of gypsies, and is often going to visit them. New Jersey must be weird as all get out.

BRILLIANT DISGUISE
“the gypsy swore our future was right
Well maybe baby the gypsy lied”

SOUL DRIVER
“I’ll be your gypsy joker your shotgun rider”

OVER THE RISE
“I walk along the levee to see the gypsy man”

MY LOVER MAN
“Was it a gypsy’s curse or a hex sign”

SPIRIT IN THE NIGHT
“We’ll pick up Hazy Davy and Killer Joe and I’ll take you all out to where the gypsy angels go
So we closed our eyes and said goodbye to gypsy angel row, felt so right”

LUCKY MAN
“I went to see the gypsy the other night”

BETTER DAYS
“Now my ass was draggin’ when from a passin’ gypsy wagon”

LOCAL HERO
“I woke to a gypsy girl sayin’ ‘Drink this’”

All joking aside, “Long Walk Home” is awesome.

How many eight year olds knew that he meant “Last Son of Krypton”? At that age, I likely would have: many wouldn’t, but I love that they slid it in there. As a dramatic moment, it has nothing on the last episode I watched: an extremely dramatic retelling of the Sun-Eater Saga. It’s a story I’ve loved for fifteen years, where the Legion faces the destruction of their galaxy, and one of their own gives his life in order to stop the threat. It’s dramatic in comic form, but in the cartoon, it was devastating. Ferro Lad, seconds away from the action that will destroy the Sun-Eater but cost him his life, proudly yells “Long Live the Legion!”

Awesome. But I’m not here to celebrate the future-adventures of dozens of teen superheroes (although that’s reason enough!): it’s gameday, Prettyfakers! And, like Dave Ashes, I’ve been waiting on this for months. Car troubles have derailed me with what I wanted to do—drive in to Birmingham and watch the Bama-Western Carolina opener with Pop Gorjus—but that’s not going to stop me from watching a day full of college football.

First up: Ole Miss at Memphis, starting at 2:30. I hope the Tigers beat their eyes in. I’ll probably watch Tech play Notre Dame a bit at the same time, mainly because I have to admit I’m excited to see if the Irish QB Jimmy Clausen can live up to his stretch Hummer rep (prediction: I think he’s going to make a killing. The flashy passer could have headed to USC if he wanted, but that opening slot at a legendary program was hard to pass up for riding the bench for two years).

I’ll likely check in on Oklahoma State and Georgia, just to see how the SEC boys shape up in their opener. Then, the main dish: Western Carolina and Alabama, at six o’clock. At the same time, La.-Lafayette playing The Hated Enemy’s South Carolina. But right now: Tesla playing “That’s the Way It Is” on Vh1!

Update 12:33: I haven’t seen a Slaughter video in years, but I have to say—after thousands of concerts and shows, they are still the loudest band I’ve ever seen. They and Jackyl opened up for Damn Yankees at Boutwell Auditorium in ‘93. So loud the bass made my jeans move to the beat. And trust me: those stonewashed, ripped-at-the-knee babies was tight.

Listening to a little John Prine as I work around the house. Got to see him, with Iris Dement opening up, last Friday night at Thalia Mara. What a fine show. I was never a huge fan—”Angel from Montgomery” notwithstanding—but after that show he just makes me grin (I suppose that’s my “Illegal Smile”). Lula and I went with her dear friend Ferd Moyse, of the nigh-legendary Hackensaw Boys, and we passed a little bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth as he rambled through “Sam Stone” and my favorite, “Dear Abby.” I’d never heard “You Got Gold,” from The Missing Years, but it dang near brought tears to my ears as it sang it. Maybe it was the whiskey or maybe it was just the stark beauty of it, but there’s no mistaking true wonder when you hear it. During the show I got a text from Dave Ashes, who was watching Patterson Hood over in Birmingham. I had a bit of envy but settled back in my seat content and quiet.

I’d snuck out at the end of Iris’ set to score some drinks for us and Pat and M.E., and got the lowdown on the new Kat’s. You can see that fine vertical neon up and down Fortification Street and the new Belhaven Basil’s is going in right next to the Jitney 14. It’s going to be quite a fine year.

Update 1:20: Wow, UAB is getting whipped by Michigan State. I saw Memphis give them a run for the money last year at Legion Field. Pretty dang fun game. And, Todd at Roll Bama Roll is liveblogging Saturday, since Nico and OTS are at the game.

Update 1:26: You gotta listen to this.

Update 2:19: Having just now listened to “Radio Nowhere,” I just e-mailed Professor Fury and asked: “Is it any good? Is it wholly generic? Does it have shades of “Living on the Edge of the World“? The answers, of course, are all “yes.” I can’t stand the radio fade-out—blame Brenden O’Brien—but I do love the horns. Still, “this is radio nowhere/is there anybody alive out there/I just want to hear some rhythm . . . I want a thousand guitars,” has nothing on:

Radio, radio, hear my tale of heartbreak
New Jersey in the morning like a lunar landscape
Got a counter girl at the Exit 24 HoJo
Down past the refinery towers where the great black river flows
OI’m living on the edge of the world
Tryin’ to get a message through
I gotta make a connection, girl
Because I’m living on the edge of the world

The difference? Middle-aged fatigue versus teenaged exultation and adoration. The lament of boredom in “Radio Nowhere” (and, similarly, “57 Channels”) got nothing on the lust of “Living on the Edge of Nowhere” or “Candy’s Room,” or even the mature desire of “Maria’s Bed.”

Only ten minutes until Ole Miss gets beat!

Update 3:40: Ole Miss is squeaking by Memphis, but this game is a trainwreck. Tons of turnovers and sloppiness. I have no idea what’s going on with this game.

Update 3:55: Amazing 99 yard run-back after an INT by Ole Miss DB Dustin Mouzon. Gotta give him credit for that.

Update 5:39: Watching the Ole Miss/Memphis game flounder all over the place, listening to Jason Isbell, who’s playing at Hal & Mal’s September 14. It’s going to be an amazing show. “Dress Blues” is the best song of the dang year. It just about broke my heart when I first heard the lines about bombs in the sand.

Twenty more minutes until Alabama!

Update 5:52: Memphis is threatening to beat Ole Miss. OMG OMG worlds will live! Worlds will die!

Update 6:21: OMG OMG COMCAST WILL NOT LET ME PURCHASE THE GAME
I AM GOING TO SCREAM
PLEASE BABY JESUS LET ME HAVE THE GAME
WHY WILL IT NOT LET ME MASH THE MAGIC BUTTON AND BUY IT WHY WHY

Last update 7:15: Bama is doing fine. I hate Comcast.

• John Vanderslice is playing the Spanish Moon next month, and so I figured the timing was right to revisit my ambivalent relationship with his music. I picked up Cellar Door when it came out a few years ago on the strength of good reviews and his Mountain Goats connections; I wanted to love it but couldn’t, quite. With a few exceptions—notably “White Plains,” a song which inspires me to periodic ravening repeat-listenings—I couldn’t really find a way in to the album’s world. The songs sounded great, to be sure—produced with great attention to detail but without seeming fussy or mannered. Lyrically, though, they seemed distant, cold—like formal exercises. I’ve got no patience with the authenticity-is-everything school of singer-songwriter idolatry, but I do want the songs to feel lived in, the performances to be convincing. (Unless detached and unconvincing is what you’re going for, which I don’t think is the case with Cellar Door).

When follow-up Pixel Revolt came out a few years ago, I didn’t pay much attention to it except for the mp3s of the militiaman’s lament “Exodus Damage” floating around the internet. It’s a great song, but I feared it would be an island in a sea of interesting but uninspiring tunes. Now that I’ve spent some time with the album, I wish I’d been listening to it for years. Vanderslice’s lyrics seem to have taken a moon-leap forward, thanks no doubt in part to the writerly contributions of John Darnielle but also to JVS’ having found his subject: 9/11 and its discordances. The just-released Emerald City doesn’t feature Darnielle contributions but does continue his exploration of the literal and psychic fallout of 9/11—to the annoyance of this Pitchfork reviewer, who lumps Vanderslice in (in effect if not intention) with “political hopefuls and pundits” whose repeated invocations of “9/11” have reduced it to the lightest and loftiest of floating signifiers.

In fact, though, I think Vanderslice is as sick of that as anyone else; this isn’t an album of songs about 9/11 so much as it is an album of songs about people talking about 9/11—about the ways in which chatter about conspiracies and terrorism and spectacular violence and mourning and war have become part of the background noise of everyday conversation, and about the feeling of disorientation when a fragment of that chatter lurches into the foreground and disrupts even the most placid and pastoral scene. And if I were in the mood to be provocative, I’d say that “Time to Go” is a far better treatment of the relationship between the violence of America’s nineteenth-century westward expansion and its imperial complacency than Blood Meridian, but I’ll just limit myself to saying that it’s shorter and more musical.

• Some of you may recall that a while back I wrote a whole long post about how I didn’t like Okkervil River and why. I would like to note that Black Sheep Boy and new album The Stage Names are exempt from my disapprobation on account of their being kind of awesome. I haven’t changed my mind about the early stuff, which I had occasion to revisit recently—there’s some good songwriting but a lot of tuneless maundering, and “Westfall” still gets on my nerves. I don’t think Will Sheff has changed the way he writes songs on the recent albums; they’re still rambling, seldom be-chorused narratives. But at some point along the way Okkervil River became a pretty good rock band—limber but never limp, capable of shifting genres and styles without losing their own sound. Instead of the lackadaisical strumming and loose arrangements of the early records, the country/rock/pop tunes on The Stage Names propel and embellish Sheff’s lyrics, lending a sense of urgency and depth to the songs.

Nothing on The Stage Names has squeezed my brain in quite the way that BSB’s “Black” did the first time I heard it, but it’s a more consistent album all around—even the quiet, atmospheric tracks avoid lapsing into the tedious formlessness that afflicted the early records. “Plus Ones” is mere millimeters away from being a novelty song and yet I haven’t quite managed to stop listening to it. Chocking a song full of references to other songs is a risky move, but Sheff pulls it off by playing it very, very straight, and any lingering doubts I might have are put to bed with cookie and whiskey-milk by the other instances of pop culture detritus reclaimed that speckle the album.

• “Radio Nowhere,” the awesomely titled first single from the forthcoming Springsteen record, is now available as a free download here or from iTunes. It’s worth a listen. I’ve spun it a few times now, and I like it better every time. But I can’t quite get past the feeling that it’s a bit generic; it puts me in mind of the last disc of Tracks, the one that includes outtakes from his 90s work. Now, that disc is a whole lot better than Human Touch, for instance, but it’s not exactly awe-inspiring. Anyway, “Nowhere Radio” is a fun, diverting listen that neither aggravates nor alleviates my apprehensions about Magic—apprehensions which are routine whenever there’s a new Bruce release on the way. Especially one with a song called “Gypsy Biker.” (Probable line fragment in “Gypsy Biker”: “chasing that caravan through the night.”) In any case, it’ll be fun to hear live—and indeed, his recent interview with Backstreets suggests that the purpose of the album is largely to give the band something fun to perform on tour. Now, if we could just gets some dates south of the Mason-Dixon line . . .

Which brings me to the record that inspired these ruminations: Cold Colors, the recent EP from Saturday Looks Good to Me. SLGTM is beloved in the Fury household for their witty, infectious, lo-fi take on 1960s pop and soul. You could argue that it’s a limited formula, and maybe you’d be right—the dirty secret of perfect pop songs is that you can only listen to (and, I assume, make) so many before their cathartic spikes start to flatline. Eating a whole pack of Twizzlers sounds like a good idea when you open the bag, but you know it’s a mistake before you’re halfway done. (However, biting both ends off a twizzler and then using it as a straw to drink your coke is always brilliant.) But SLGTM has always cut the sweet with enough bitter to prevent that sugar crash. And in fact, I’m a little reluctant to call the new EP a “new direction” at all, since their albums are speckled with the occasional noodly jam or atmospheric noise piece. Those tracks work like static, so that the well turned hooks they threaten to submerge burst forth like a station coming in clearly for the first time. It’s an approach I love, nostalgic appreciator of static that I am. Here, though, with the exception of a minute or so of “Idiots,” all we have is noodles and atmosphere—aimless experiments, long vacations in blind alleys, droning dirges.

There’s nothing wrong with any of it, really, if that’s your thing. The problem here isn’t that Cold Colors is terrible, it’s just not what I listen to SLGTM for. Maybe fans of contemporary tuneless indie-folk, a genre which has its adherents and acolytes, will think it amazing. I suppose I’m discouraged because while there are plenty of bands who sound like Cold Colors, there aren’t too many who sound like the best of Sound on Sound. On the other hand, I’m encouraged that their website describes the EP as the “weird little brother” of their forthcoming LP —perhaps with this out of their system, SLGTM will return to the sound that they do best (or that best fits my idea of what they do best, anyway). Or maybe not—maybe this is the new direction, and I’ll have to content myself with feeling like Alan Lomax. I’ve got a lot of plaid shirts, so I think I’m set.

Comics: Booster Gold #1. I was torn when the solicits for this series hit the internet: on one hand, I love Booster Gold. On the other hand, I really can’t stand Geoff Johns’ action-figure writing or Dan Jurgens’ recent art style, all awkward poses. But to my surprise—and perhaps because of co-writer Jeff Katz and finisher Norm Rapmund—this issue was a pure delight, one of the most fun superhero comics I’ve read in a while. (Well, maybe only since the “stupid jetpack Hitler” issue of Atom a couple weeks back.) This is a well done first issue, giving new readers everything they need to know about the lead and his status quo while also plunging right into the main plot. There are a few bum notes—Booster’s Max Lord/Wonder Woman crack on page 7 smacks of Johnsian heavy-handedness—but in general the characterization is well handled; when the Meltzer League confronts Booster about his gloryhound antics, the newer members are suspicious of him, but Superman and Batman give him the benefit of the doubt, etc. (And in a nice touch, when the JLA arrives, everyone but Superman is grimacing.)

The real genius of the title is that the meta-plot works so perfectly with Booster’s defining characteristic, his longing to be recognized, respected, and maybe worshiped a little. As the only character who can help Rip Hunter prevent further damage to the timestream in the wake of 52 and Infinite Crisis and all that, Booster has to travel through history performing feats of heroism on the sly, sometimes even doing things that in the moment seem cowardly and moronic. Or, as Rip Hunter nicely sums it up, “You’ll go down in history as an ineffectual and incompetent fraud when in reality you’ll be the greatest hero history has ever known.” Sold! I’m with the series until the first severed limb, at least, so, given that this is a Geoff Johns comic—and that he’s already made a missing-arm joke in the first issue—I reckon I’ll be around for 6 issues or so for sure.

BREAKING NEWS! I just got an e-mail from the Bruce Springsteen folks announcing the October 2 release of Magic, his new album with the E Street band. Hooray! I think? Except: the tracklist gives cause for pause. “Gypsy Biker.” I worry.