daveb
First Class Scout
Posts: 136
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Post by daveb on Jan 15, 2014 16:51:34 GMT -5
This is near the end of an interview The Boss did for his new album... Springsteen: Slim Dunlap, Slim Dunlap is fantastic. He was a part of The Replacements and he made two fabulous rock records that were just really, deeply soulful and beautiful. Interviewer: I think he had a stroke not long ago. Springsteen: Yeah I don't know what his health condition is at the moment but I know some folks were cutting some things of his. I hope I get a chance to cut one of his songs because he's, it's just, this stuff, check out the two Slim Dunlap records because they're just so beautiful, they're just beautiful rock 'n' roll records. I found them to be deeply touching and emotional. www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2014/01/14/262485987/a-long-road-to-high-hopes-an-interview-with-bruce-springsteen |
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Post by jess on Jan 15, 2014 21:08:39 GMT -5
Thanks for finding this. It warmed my heart to read! Now there needs to be a second wave of Songs for Slim, if only just so Springsteen could partake.  |
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Post by Hagbard on Jan 15, 2014 21:44:13 GMT -5
Saw this earlier on Facebook. Really cool.
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Post by anarkissed on Jan 15, 2014 23:03:17 GMT -5
You can not be a fan of his music, or his politics, but he's a hard guy not to kinda like...He really seems to have a wide breadth of artistic interest...I'm really impressed that he was familiar with Slim...I'd like to hear what he thought of the Replacements...
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Post by FreeRider on Jan 16, 2014 10:40:33 GMT -5
awesome stuff. That's cool that Springsteen digs Slim's work, I hope Slim is getting a big kick out of that!
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Post by timtoast on Jan 17, 2014 17:29:20 GMT -5
What was the question that led to the answer "Slim Dunlap"?
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daveb
First Class Scout
Posts: 136
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Post by daveb on Jan 17, 2014 19:42:36 GMT -5
timtoast, it was part of a conversation about favorite records.
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Post by melbmatsfan on Jan 18, 2014 6:03:10 GMT -5
You can not be a fan of his music, or his politics, but he's a hard guy not to kinda like...He really seems to have a wide breadth of artistic interest...I'm really impressed that he was familiar with Slim...I'd like to hear what he thought of the Replacements... I absolutely can't stand him. He ain't my boss. He can keep his shitty stadium rock. That aside it's cool that he gives Slim props, and he's right on the money about those two albums. |
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Post by monkeytot on Jan 18, 2014 7:07:02 GMT -5
That is so cool. Judging by High Hopes I think Springsteen is setting us (and by us, I exclude melbmatsfan) up for a covers lp. How cool would it be if he covered Slim/mats?? Once again, cool for everyone but melbmatsfan.Insert smiley emoticon.
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Post by raccoon on Jan 18, 2014 18:46:55 GMT -5
Dose of Thunder Road? First Avenue Freeze-out?? Sorry - was born to pun!
Really cool to see this article. There are some covers on Bruce's new cd but it doesn't look like Slim/Mats are there. Bet Bruce could take a nice swing at 'Take it on the Chin'.
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Post by monkeytot on Jan 19, 2014 10:10:00 GMT -5
Dose of Thunder Road? First Avenue Freeze-out?? Sorry - was born to pun! Really cool to see this article. There are some covers on Bruce's new cd but it doesn't look like Slim/Mats are there. Bet Bruce could take a nice swing at 'Take it on the Chin'. Brilliant puns!!
I don't know what song I'd like to hear Bruce do, might have to think about it.
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Post by brianlux on Jan 19, 2014 15:56:43 GMT -5
Very cool article. Thanks for posting it DaveB!
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Chris
First Class Scout
Posts: 156
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Post by Chris on Jan 19, 2014 16:06:47 GMT -5
Dose of Thunder Road? First Avenue Freeze-out?? Sorry - was born to pun! Really cool to see this article. There are some covers on Bruce's new cd but it doesn't look like Slim/Mats are there. Bet Bruce could take a nice swing at 'Take it on the Chin'. Brilliant puns!!
I don't know what song I'd like to hear Bruce do, might have to think about it.
Early Springsteen solo sound could fit "Hate This Town" quite well.... |
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Post by heisenberg on Jan 20, 2014 0:34:53 GMT -5
While other kids in high school were buying flannel and raving over stuff like Nirvana, STP and pretty much anything that had fuzzy sounding guitars, I was discovering Springsteen. As far as I was concerned, they could have their 3 minute slop-fests--I preferred listening to 10 minute story-telling masterpieces like "Jungleland".
A few years later I would discover The Replacements and they would eventually replace Bruce atop my personal faves list. Though the quality of the material he releases has been spotty since Lucky Town/Human Touch, and his heart on the sleeve politics disgusts me at times , I still respect what he's done as an artist. It's really uber cool that Brucie would give props to anyone associated with my all time favorite band.
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Post by hootenanny58 on Jan 20, 2014 22:53:57 GMT -5
I remember about 4 or 5 years ago, an interview with Springsteen where they asked him to provide a list of what was on his iPOD. Slim's "Hate This Town" was on there.
I don't doubt there are a lot more musicians out there - even the lucky ones who make more money in a week's gigs than Slim did in his whole career - who picked up and played the heck out of Old New Me and Times Like This. A strong case can be made for Slim Dunlap that he's the rarest of troubadours: a "musician's musician"; the roots of roots music. Someone who other musicians gravitate to for authenticity.
Slim might not have earned millions, but maybe he knows that he's got the respect of anyone who ever picked up a guitar, wrote (or tried to write) songs and used his tunes for inspiration. Slim Dunlap has a rare gift for divining magic from simplicity.
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Post by monkeytot on Jan 21, 2014 9:40:40 GMT -5
Nice posts hootenany58. When I was in high school (Class of 87). Bruce hit big with Born in the USA. I hated the jock kids and popular kids who were into It,so I didn't give Bruce a chance. I HATED Springsteen in high school. So I rebelled by listening to REM, Black Flag, Circle jerks, Husker Du and The Replacements. I was in my "if its popular its shit" phase. I changed my mind about Springsteen once he "liberalled-out" in the 90s and I started listening to him. So today I like The Bossmats/Replacesteen just fine. Funny, h58 how your story and my story are kind of opposites, but also kind of not.
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Post by hootenanny58 on Jan 21, 2014 12:35:07 GMT -5
I dunno. Springsteen's Nebraska fits nicely beside Paul's Stereo. Nebraska was pretty punk in its day IMHO. Darkness was as deep as it got in '78; the mega-boxset retrospective put out a few years back put one of my favourite records under the microscope. No shirkers there, that's for sure. I guess you had to be there in the late 70's: Punk just getting up on its hind legs, the shock of London Calling a year or two away, amidst the worst of the worst (disco, white funk, hollywood folk, rhinestone cowboys - jayzus croist!). It was a bit of work getting Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf LP's - alternative music to me at the time - shipped up to a northern town where the record store was also the applicance/furniture dealer. (I recall unwelcome comments about "that big black feller" when I'd go to pick these things up.) So when Bruce put out Darkness, I was a little more than relieved. (For the record, I didn't like Born In the USA much; Tom Joad on the other hand ... killer stuff.)
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Post by holeinthedrapes on Jan 21, 2014 13:20:37 GMT -5
Neat to see Springsteen having something nice to say about Slim. Springsteen and Westerbeegwould be at the top of my list for listening to. Very different approaches. I would bet that Springsteen wishes he could write a song like Within Your Reach or Bastards of Young. Just not his style.
For those saying they don't like any of his newer stuff, I would suggest giving Magic a repeated listen. In my opinion, it's his best album since Darkness.
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Post by monkeytot on Jan 21, 2014 14:02:33 GMT -5
Magic is def. my favorite of the post 2000s stuff.
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Post by wiser's deluxe on Jan 22, 2014 4:00:46 GMT -5
how interesting that Bruce would recognize the 'Mats when Strummer pled ignorance when their name came up during an interview, if i recall this correctly. seems that the 'Mats resonated more on this side of the Atlantic, which isn't an altogether bad thing.
the U.S. brand of "alternative" was far more accessible to displaced North American youths than, perhaps, the "Guns of Brixton" et al.
i'm a fan of Bruce and i'm a fan of Paul and the 'Mats, and Steve Earle, and The Clash and Costello's earlier years. but god knows i'm far more familiar with a "Bastards of Young" and "Tommy Gets his Tonsils Out" and "Seen Your Video" and "Run It," than the fall of London or the visceral hate directed at Margaret Thatcher, because i didn't grow up with that.
doesn't make Strummer ignorant or Springsteen a wise guy. it's a matter of perspective, i think.
all that said, i take comfort in knowing that "The Boss" had his ear on the pulse of what was jingle-jangling outside his own comfort zone. then again, it shouldn't really surprise anyone that Springsteen leaned toward the sparseness of alienation that became the 'Mats well-driven rut.
Patterson Hood gravitated toward them in the same way, and yet produced songs that have reflected his own surroundings.
i recently and finally picked up "Tusk," and discovered that Lindsay Buckingham was mining the same vein that Paul eventually discovered as a solo artist. it's a great and "under-rated," if i can call it that, Fleetwood Mac album that, in my opinion, was just as compelling and important to "north american" music as "Exile on Main Street" was to music altogether.
don't know where i'm headed with this, but there's a provincial quality to music in which substance and intuition is inspired by what's familiar over foreign. that Bruce saw the importance of Slim and The Replacements groove is more than consoling: it's refreshing.
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