Boss-ted

Okay, enough lies! No more lies from you Mr. Springsteen!

Ever since Bruce's latest CD, "The Rising", came out, the following statement has been repeated in almost every article about him: "Springsteen's first album of new songs recorded with the E Street Band since 1984..." That would be since the "Born In The USA" album. This information is WRONG WRONG WRONG!! Springsteen recorded "Tunnel Of Love" in 1987. With the E Street Band! (btw, "Tunnel Of Love" is a very underrated album, containing some of Bruce's most personal writing, foreshadowing the disintegration of his first marriage. Makes for a fine breakup album, a purpose it dutifully served for me back in the day.)

Anyway, the thing is, this info is originating from his own record label, Sony/Columbia, and from his very own web page! I got so frustrated with this, today I happened to be on the Sony Music web page at work, and I decided to send them an email message, bringing this misinformation to their attention. This is the initial response I got:

From: SonyMusicCanada@sonymusic.com
Date: Mon Sep 16, 2002 04:32:27 PM America/Montreal
To: jim_kelly@sympatico.ca
Subject: Thanks for your question.

Thank you for your letter and interest in Sony Music Canada
and our artists. We are following up on your question and
will e-mail you with a personal response shortly.

But there's more than just my rock-nerd cred at stake here. Sony is running a contest to win Springsteen tickets, and guess what the trivia question is?

What is the name of the last album released by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band?
A) Born To Run
B) Born In The U.S.A.
C) The Ghost Of Tom Joad

Now that's even further screwed up because officially there are only 2 albums "released by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band", i.e., credited to him and the band, and those are the two live albums, the "1975-1985" boxed set, and the "Live In New York" CD from a couple years ago (last year?). Check the spines of all his CDs if you don't believe me. Other than the live albums, they're all credited to "Bruce Springsteen" alone. It's something to do with the fact that when John Hammond Sr. signed Bruce to Columbia back in '72 or whenever, he signed him as a solo artist. Then Bruce went into the studio and brought all his E Street buddies with him. So even without the "Tunnel Of Love" oversight, their trivia question is already flawed, since none of the albums listed were "released by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band".

I'll be interested to see how they respond, and then maybe I'll spring that info on them. Maybe they'll give me free tickets to shut me up?!

What is the deal with those tickets anyway? There are supposed to be 2 price levels for the show here in Toronto on Dec. 5 ñ $69.50 and $115. The House Of Blues web site says that, but when I log onto Ticketmaster.ca, they only have the $115 tickets for sale. And then it says something about a random draw on the day of the show, but there's no further info explaining what that entails. I tried calling Ticketbastard tonight, but I was put on hold for about 10 minutes, so I hung up.

As Vincent Vega says, "to be continued..."