Bruce is forgiven

Never a Springsteen fan, not even a little bit. Some combination of the lyrics, the fist-pumping, the bandanna just don’t do it for me. The music on the old stuff did, I will admit, rock. But it just wasn’t for me. But I have now officially forgiven Bruce for all his references to Wendy, for “strap your hands ‘cross my engine,” even for that abominable “Born in the USA” (parodied so well by John Candy in “Canadian Bacon,” singing the only part anyone knew, that stupid refrain, and fumbling to find any of the words in between). But I am willing to forgive all that for his incredible guitar work on Zevon’s “Disorder in the House.” He nails that song to the wall and gives it the edge that Warren’s voice couldn’t quite work up to.

In other music news, just got a new disc by Karen Savoca, Pete Heitzman, Greg Brown and Garnet Rogers. What I was able to listen to last night was excellent, but the point here is more the site I got it from, cdbaby.com, whose enthusiastic e-mail indicating that all of Portland, Oregon had turned out to wave bon voyage to my disc was refreshing. So was their offer to take my phone calls if I ever just needed to unload on someone. They serve the indie market, and break their genres up into useful subgenres. For folks, the subgenres include “angry,” “like Ani,” “like Joni,” and other highly useful descriptors. Give ’em a whirl.