| Stan Goldstein |
A great Sunday afternoon/early evening spent with Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Jon Stewart, Steve Buscemi, Jon Landau, Nona Hendryx, surprise guest Richie Sambora and Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie at Asbury Lanes in Asbury Park to celebrate Steve's book "Unrequited Infatuations." The event started at 3 p.m. with cocktails for an hour. Adam Weiner from Low Cut Connie played for about a half hour starting at 4 p.m. Bruce and Steve came on about 5:52 p.m. and were done about 7:10 p.m. There were 254 people in attendance for this benefit for Teachrock.org. The whole event was filmed and Steve said on Twitter it will be available to be viewed in a month or two. Bruce may have summed it up best at the end, after completing an hour-plus interview with Steve, he said: "To share this friendship for 50 years is one of God's greatest gifts."
I'll start with the details of Bruce interviewing Steve first, that was the finale for the evening. A lot of the interview for about the first 30 minutes was about the same as the internet interview from a few weeks ago. Bruce talked about meeting Steve at the Hullabaloo Club in Middletown, New Jersey. Bruce asked Steve about seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan on Feb. 9, 1964 and Steve said not only that, but the Rolling Stones came along four months later. Bruce said how the Stones were on Dean Martin's show and Dean crucified them. "As much as I like Dino, I can't forgive him for that," Bruce said, followed up by Steve saying, "Keith still hasn't." "The Beatles revealed this world to us and the Rolling Stones invited us in," Steve said. Bruce then said had it was Elvis who he had his first epiphany. Bruce mentioned the Dawes song "All Your Favorite Bands" and the lyric, "And may all your favorite bands stay together," and then saying, "Steve and I are together 50 years after we started, and that's amazing. Here there's no retreat, no surrender, no compromise and no plan B. At the Middletown Hullabaloo something was irreversible forever at that moment." They talked about going to the Cafe Wha in New York City and Bruce mentioned how the took his kids there and it still looks exactly how it did in the 1960s. Steve talked about how Bruce was "writing songs and was way ahead of me. It didn't occur to me to do that."Bruce talked about how "Miami" Steve came about, that Steve showed up one day in a Hawaiian shirt and "was christened Miami Steve because he actually had been to Miami. Steve still doesn't like the cold, you go in his room now and it's fucking 90 degrees," Bruce said. They mentioned Steve being on the oldies circuit with the Dovells and how when that started in the 1970s, the oldies bands were only in their 30s at the time. How a TV show like "Happy Days" and the movie, "American Graffiti" helped popularize 50s music. The subject shifted to the Stone Pony and how Steve put together a horn sections for Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes. That Steve, Bruce and Southside saw Sam and Dave perform at a club in New Jersey and Steve said, "we were going to be the white Sam and Dave and have a horn section." Bruce said how his first two records were bombs, "but they were great music," Steve interjected. Bruce said "'Born to Run' was a make-or-break record for him and if I failed I would have been back in Asbury Park." And Steve then said, "You would have become a Juke" to laughter from the crowd. That led to Bruce talking about how the song "Born to Run" took him six months to finish and he then picked up an acoustic guitar and talked about the minor rift in the song (the same he did on the internet interview) and how Steve helped him recognize that it was wrong. Then one of the most fun parts of the interview was when they talked about Steve's contributions to "Tenth Avenue Freeze-out" and how Bruce sent him to tell some of the greatest horn players in history to play on the song. "It sounded just fucking terrible," Steve said. "Bruce wanted Sam & Dave." "We wanted the Stax sound," said Bruce. Bruce became very animated talking about it and it reminded me of the Bruce on Broadway. It would have been a great addition to the show as he told a funny story all through and he was playing the guitar a bit, but that was it for the guitar playing. Steve said how it was great that "Here was this shy guy who didn't say two words who became the world's greatest entertainer, next to me! Here's my friend walking on tables at the Bottom Line knocking people food all over. And how the look of the band on the first two albums was t-shirts and shorts and they looked like Jimmy Buffett's crew. After the look of Bruce's first two albums when 'Born to Run' came out, here are Clarence and I in pimp suits!" he said. Bruce mentioned how 30 people each auditioned for Max and Roy's spot in the band and they wanted both to be singers too and "they have never sang again," he said jokingly. Bruce said how they finally tasted some success and Steve said, "Yeah my father started talking to me." Bruce told the story how when he was on the cover of both Time and Newsweek in the same week, that they were staying at the Sunset Marquis in Los Angeles. Steve came by with 20 copies of the magazine and was giving them out, but Bruce said he just wanted to hide in his room. The conversation shifted to Little Steven and Bruce crossing over Checkpoint Charlies into East Berlin during the original River tour and how that was a life changer for Steve (it's all in the book). Bruce talked about Steve leaving the band and "I don't think Steve would have the fullness of his identity if he hadn't left the band." Bruce realized they already had talked for about an hour and said they would take the next 20 minutes for questions. However there was no one with a microphone so people shouted questions. The first one was: "Bruce did you write Bobby Jean for Steve?" and Bruce responded "I will never tell." There were only two other questions and I don't really remember what they were. One was from a winner of a Backstreets contest. Bruce said that "We'll be out in the world next year, we hope. And if you bring your kids, your parents, your grandparents, they will see the band at its peak."
The doors for the event were at 3 p.m. and there was a cocktail reception from 3 to 4 p.m. Adam Weiner from Low Cut Connie came on stage around 4 p.m. and played about eight songs on the piano including a nice, "I Don't Want to Go Home." Next up was the panel discussion which wasn't really a discussion, but more of different people reading portions of the book. Before introducing the panel of Steve Buscemi, Jon Landau, Nona Hendryx and the afternoon's surprise guest Richie Sambora, Jon Stewart said, "When I think of these literary events, I think of a Jersey bowling alley. And yes, I know what I look like right now. This is what happens when you leave Jews outside, we age like avocados." Richie Sambora spoke first, and the people at my table and later when I went out afterward with some friends, all thought that he was drunk. He just seemed out of it. Richie talked about sneaking into the Stone Pony when he was 16 1/2 and going up to Steve Van Zandt and gave Steve a cassette of his music. Steve gave him feedback. "He's was always gracious to a little kid and he taught me lessons," Sambora said. "Steve became my mentors, he told me the truth." Jon Stewart talked about seeing the Bruce cover band Backstreets (now the B Street Band) at the Stone Pony and how they were cool to see except their Clarence was a skinny white kid. Nona Hendryx read a chapter and then Jon Landau came up. He talked about he and Steve and Bruce producing Bruce's records fto the mid 80s and they had some heated discussions but "we all came out alive. Steve was always pushing Bruce on songs he thought were great. The goal was to aim for greatness." Landau said how recently he got a text from Bruce that read, "Steve's book! Fantastic!! You got to read it!!!" and how he then got the book from Steve and read it in a day and a half. "I come up in the book a few times and Steve, if you're listening (he wasn't on stage yet), that's not enough times," he joked. Landau said he would read the part of the book where he's relevant. "Jon Landau, King of Rock Journalist. Excellent!" he said. He continued how Steve loved "No Surrender" but hated "Dancing in the Dark" and told Bruce it "was a piece of shit." But Bruce loved it and we kept it in. Steve Buscemi read the part of the book about "The Sopranos."
Overall a great time. Really thrilled to have been able to witness this. Everyone got two copies of the book, one signed and some other souvenirs including a Little Steven cookie.
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