Categories
News

Bruce Springsteen Night One at Giants Stadium

Never in a million years would I imagine I’d be covering U2 and Bruce Springsteen within one week, and at the same venue nonetheless. But, as they say in “Almost Famous” — “It’s all happening.”

Heading over to Giants Stadium in a few to cover the first night of Springsteen’s five nights of concerts and the last at the Stadium. Feel free to follow my updates on Twitter. Full report tomorrow.

Categories
News

Preview New Bruce Springsteen Album!

Although it’s not due to hit stores until next Tuesday, you can preview all the tracks on Bruce Springsteen‘s upcoming album, Working On A Dream on his Web site. Click here to listen to the audio snippets. The much anticipated 2009 release will be the Jersey rocker’s 24th album. If you like what you hear, be sure to pick up a copy next week! Track listing for Working On A Dream below.


1. Outlaw Pete

2. My Lucky Day

3. Working on a Dream

4. Queen of the Supermarket

5. What Love Can Do

6. This Life

7. Good Eye

8. Tomorrow Never Knows

9. Life Itself

10. Kingdom of Days

11. Surprise, Surprise

12. The Last Carnival

Bonus track:

The Wrestler



Categories
Features

Your Favorite Holiday Songs

I received an overwhelming response from everyone on their favorite holiday tunes from my post last week, so I decided to include some today. Hope you all have a great holiday and you’re spending the season with your loved ones and eating lots of tasty holiday treats. I can’t wait to eat all the cookies I’ve been making as well as my Mom’s amazing fudge! Still have a few Christmas gifts to wrap myself so I’ll definitely be listening to some of your music suggestions while I’m doing that! 🙂

The classic Charlie Brown Christmas song, “Christmas Time Is Here.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRm5qofw5vs]

Vintage Bruce Springsteen. Watch as the Boss and his band play “Santa Clause Is Coming to Town” live from a 1978 performance at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yErhglOXIxM]

N’Sync’s beautiful a cappella version of “Oh Holy Night.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXzJqRXLI08]

Definitely not your “traditional” holiday song by any means, but a fun one at that. Check out No Doubt’s quirky punk take on “Oi To The World.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDsEMO55yQE]

Quite possibly the most beautiful rendition of “Silent Night” I’ve ever heard. Watch below for Enya’s performance of it in Gaelic.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy6ba_M6zww]

Lastly, try not to give yourself too much of a headache while watching this video of a house Christmas light display as The Waitressess’ “Christmas Wrapping” plays in the background.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDwWXpju77Q]

Did I leave out any of your favorites? Let me know! Merry Christmas 🙂

Categories
Band of the Week

Band of the Week: The Gaslight Anthem

It’s one of those moments you never imagine happening. You open up Rolling Stone and see someone’s band you know being featured within the pages of the magazine. So surreal. That’s what happened to me last week when I was flipping through the October 2nd issue of Rolling Stone. I turned to the “Breaking” section and did a double take. Low and behold, there was Benny from Targum (the former night pro manager of Rutgers University’s daily newspaper, The Daily Targum).

It’s funny, actually, from the countless hours I spent night editing during my four years working at the newspaper, I knew he was in a band, but didn’t know the name of it or that he played the drums. But, I couldn’t be happier turning the page and reading the raving review of their latest album, The ’59 Sound. This is what Rolling Stone contributing editor, Christian Hoard had to say about the album:

The ’59 Sound [is] the New Jersey quartet’s excellent second album, a collection of tuneful, passionately sung stories about working-class folks and young romance . . . Though the Gaslight Anthem are signed to the SoCal punk label SideOneDummy and they regularly open for mohawked acts, their sound is only sort of punk: It’s more like a supercharged version of early Bruce records or a no-frills take on the Replacements.”

Many reviews have been comparing the Jersey-based band to fellow Jersey native, Bruce Springsteen. While I definitely hear the influence of The Boss, there’s something more. Their music is catchy and you can listen to each story within every song while rocking out to the solid drum beat and guitar accompaniment. Like Hoard wrote, it has that punk feel to it, but also a mix of that classic Springsteen sound. In fact, it’s hard to pin the Gaslight Anthem down to one genre, which for a band is often a good thing. Watch their video below for “The ’59 Sound” and see for yourself.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOBb13yDnzo]

If you like what you heard, be sure to check them out on MySpace and let me know what you think!
For more of the Rolling Stone feature and video on the Gaslight Anthem, click here.