It’s Steve Van Zandt’s 59th birthday today.
So which Steve Van Zandt do you like best?
The guitar player?
As “Miami Steve”, Van Zandt has served for a couple of decades, with a break from 1984 through the mid-nineties, as Bruce Springsteen’s onstage foil – sort of the quiet anti-Clarence-Clemons of the band. And while a lot of Bruuuuce fans have an awful lot of great memories locked into the E Street Band’s, Van-Zandt-less incarnations – Nils Lofgren is no slouch, and the ’84 and ’88 tours were pretty amazing experiences – the Miami years had a chemistry and interplay that changed into something else – not better, not worse, but different – on later years. Something I missed:
Van Zandt had a knack for raw, on-the-sleeve background vocals that set off Springsteen’s throat-scraping roar, and a sloppy, leaky style on the Strat that, on a good night, sent songs like “Jungleland” into orbit.
Van Zandt the singer?
Men Without Women, 1982
Van Zandt’s solo debut, “Men Without Women”, was one of the ten best albums in the history of rock and roll. Van Zandt gathered a bunch of rock’s greatest journeymen – Max Weinberg and Dino Danelli on drums, the Plasmatics’ bassist Jean Bouvoir, Felix Cavaliere, Roy Bittan and Danny Federici on keyboards, and La Bamba’s Mambomen – better known today as most of “The Max Weinberg Seven’s horn section” – into a studio for a couple of frantic days, and ended up with an album that combined the raw emotion of Exile on Main Street, the style of the best Stax/Volt rock and soul, and the immediacy of a bunch of guys running on raw inspiration; most of the album was is first takes, all of it recorded “live” direct to tape (Van Zandt overdubbed only a few guitar parts; the rest of the album was recorded almost like a live album, with the band gathered in a big circle in the studio).
And what an album it was.
“Forever” was the song that intoduced me to the whole raw, passion-drenched world of Stax/Volt soul:
There wasn’t a weak cut on the album:
The album came and went pretty quickly in the eighties – although big chunks of it turned up in the first two seasons of “The Sopranos”.
He released four more albums – swerving through garage metal, dance music, worldbeat and fairly conventional rock, each louder and a little shriller and much more political; it seemed to me that he only had so many ideas that got more and more tapped out with repetition. But when they were all brand new? Men Without Women was one amazing album.
Steve the producer? Van Zandt was the brains behind the first several classic albums by Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. You could see the Jukes as one of the great bar band in history…:
…or as a prototype for Men Without Women:
He also producer another of my favorite records of all time – the Iron City Houserockers’ Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive), along with Ian Hunter and Mick Ronson.
Which is not to say he was King Midas. He also presided over the decline and fall of the magnificent Lone Justice, producing Shelter, perhaps the slumpiest sophomore effort of the eighties. Which isn’t to say it didn’t have redeeming value…
Steve the actor? Well, it’s been pretty much The Sopranos so far. But I thought he was a pretty convincing sleazeball cub owner/consiglieri.
The disc jockey? That may be his great contribution these days; Little Steven’s Underground Garage is the absolute last bastion of genuine cool rock and roll anywhere in radio today.
Anyway – happy birthday, Steve Van Zandt!
No JFK remembrence?
Thanks for the prompt. They finally added Underground Garage to the XM lineup.
Kennedy belonged to the Democrat Party, Ben.
Not the actor. He played an interesting character in the Sopranos, but mostly because he was a rocker. First and foremost, he will be considered a member of of the E-street band.
Ben, thanks for the reminder. I surfed the Sunday moring news shows and didn’t hear a word. The date should be remembered.
Clown-F*ck, the Libune ran a story today http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/congress/70838627.html?page=1&c=y
“WASHINGTON – Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will be a tough act to follow, even for the Kennedys. His death, coupled with the decision by family members not to seek the seat he held for nearly five decades, has prompted predictions that the family’s long-running political dynasty is over.” …
Lots of talk about dead Ted, and the living cousins – not so much about JFK or his assassination. (I did notice PBS has been running some LBJ stuff)
I didn’t write about the anniversary of the Kennedy Assassination because I didn’t have anything to say, really, that hasn’t been said better elsewhere.
I will, one of these years – probably in 2013, God willing.
Miami Steve’s presence and the Boss’s politics have always been my least favorite things about Springsteen. SVZ’s on-stage posturing, Tourette’s faces and over-emoting, especially in stark contrast to the ever-professional and collected Lofgren, just turns me off. Every time I see him mouth half the microphone he’s sharing with Bruce I physically flinch; I just know his breath has got to be more garlicky than an afternoon at old Mayslack’s.
Mmmm. Garlic at Mayslack’s!
Suddenly I’m craving one of their old roast beef on a kaiser sandwiches…
Lone Justice. Now there’s a loss to mourn. I feel that whirling dervish, spaz-infused is Maria McKee at her best. Ah, that voice….
Juanito,
That first Lone Justice album never, ever gets old for me. And her voice could weld rebar.
Night,
I’ll meet you halfway; I think since he came back to the band, Steve’s role has gotten almost as ritualized as Clemons’. Now, I never got to see Bruce until ’84, so I never got to see the band live on any of their tours from The River or before. From what I’ve seen and heard, he was a little different back then. I could be wrong.
As to his overemoting, though – it did make his second through fifth solo albums a bit monochromatic. Or a lot, actually.
And the politics starting with Voice Or America made listening a bit trying, and made his last three solo albums almost unlistenable. I can handle cognitive dissent – I thrive on it, in fact – but it was like hammerblows to the forehead.
SVZ’s persona turned me off from really investigating his musical abilities or capabilities (aside from his on-stage microphone humping my only other memory of him is his execrable “Sun City” video). The question I always wanted to ask him is, “You get to be on stage, playing guitar with Bruce Springsteen: why are you so ANGRY?”.
Too bad you didn’t see any of the shows until ’84. I saw him twice on the “Darkness” tour and once for “River” and “Born in the USA”. I think these contributed a great deal to my tinnitus (though most of this damage was likely done sitting in the second row directly in front of the speakers for The Tubes “What Do You Want From Life” show in KC, ’78.)
Night,
Yeah, Steve’s mugging for the camera got a little old after about ’80 – that thing where he’d always duck his head and glare at the camera, like on the cover of his album. And there’s no need to investigate his last three solo albums. Voice of America was…OK.
But Men Without Women?> I kid you not. Totally worth it. Seriously – not just on my top ten, but near the top of it.
My first show was the second night of the Born In The USA tour at the old St. Paul Civic. Pretty fantastic in its own right, spoiled only slightly by my pals assuring me how much better the Darkness tour was…
I’ll check out Men Without Women…but keep my eyes closed!
Night Writter:
(though most of this damage was likely done sitting in the second row directly in front of the speakers for The Tubes “What Do You Want From Life” show in KC, ‘78.)
A baby’s arm holding an apple?
Why do I like The Tubes? I dunno, I just, do.
Most of my hearing loss was initiated hearing Ted Nugent at the Sacramento Memorial Auditorium where he was rumored to have cracked the ceiling due to volume, and was never asked to return. It was all downhill hearing healthwise after that.
Pingback: Shot in the Dark » Blog Archive » W