Who would have thought that DownTown Mystic would be on the cutting edge with the release of Soul’d Out just prior to Adele’s Hello? Who would have thought that an overly emotional, heart wrenching song is just what the world wanted to hear? Aside from a few million in sales, Soul’d Out was right in sync. 🙂

For DownTown Mystic, 2015 was a year to get down to work in a very methodical manner…something DownTown Mystic is not known for! There was a new album to get ready despite living in a musical age where the album is considered to be obsolete. But faced with that obstacle, we took it as an opportunity to find a way to promote a new project by taking a more long term view. To that end, the Turn Around and Go Digital Single was released in the spring, followed by the DownTown Mystic on E Street EP in the summer, leading to the Soul’d Out Single in the fall.

All of these releases are leading to the Rock’n’Roll Romantic album. It’s the most collaborative of all DownTown Mystic’s releases to date. There are 17 musicians who contributed their talents on it, plus it features the most co-written songs on a DownTown Mystic album to date. What makes this album different from the previous ones is the concept behind Rock’n’Roll Romantic. As the title implies it’s about rock’n’roll romance, with songs about personal relationships and emotional breakups, but it’s also about the romance with rock’n’roll—the music and the recording of the music.

Soul’d Out is one of those songs, with lyrics by Martin Samuel. The song contributes significantly to the concept of Rock’n’Roll Romantic. Martin was born in South Africa but grew up in England and is quite a character. Besides writing songs, he’s been a successful game creator and is an expert seaman, having been hired to sail ships over the open seas. He’s also a drummer who played with bands like The Searchers in the UK. When I met him in LA close to 25 years ago, he was wearing a jacket with planets and stars on it. Being cosmically-conscious, I couldn’t help but walk over and talk to him about it. During our chat he told me he mainly wrote lyrics, which was cool since I always had songs that needed lyrics. I told him to send me some lyrics and we would see what would happen. Little did I know how prolific Martin was until I opened a package that he would send me—a stack of songs with nothing but lyrics!

Martin H. Samuel

Elton John was particularly adept at putting Bernie Taupin’s lyrics to music, but I never found that to be an easy way to write a song. I generally liked to give people my music to write lyrics to, not the other way around. It just so happened that I had a piece of music I had been working on for some time. It had a very different feel and melody to it and I was having trouble with finding an arrangement for it.

When Martin’s package arrived I had a look to see if there were any lyrics that would fit the structure of this music. Finding nothing in that batch, I called him and told him that for this particular music I needed longer verses. As it would turn out, Martin was moving to NYC.  Not only that, but he was getting married. Being Martin, this was a pre-arranged marriage so that his bride could get legal status in the US. At any rate, when Martin moved to NYC I went to visit him and played him the music so that he could get an idea for the length of the verse and chorus.

Martin Samuel

Many months passed, maybe a year, and one day there was another batch of songs in the mail from Martin. This time however, one of the songs caught my eye. It was called Soul’d Out. I thought this was a great title. Not only that, but the lyrics for the most part, fit my melody perfectly! The only thing I added were the last couple of lines of the chorus to pull it all together. I called him and asked Martin how he had come to write something like Soul’d Out, and he told me he had been dumped by his wife! Now that she was a legal resident, their arrangement was over and he was getting divorced. Poor Martin, a true Rock’n’Roll Romantic! 🙂

The recording of Soul’d Out, like the song, has its own story to tell. The original way that I wrote the music and played it on guitar, made it sound upbeat. Once I had Martin’s lyrics it was obvious that I needed to make it more serious sounding. I did a 4-track demo and simplified the arrangement keeping the bass pulsing on quarter notes. It totally changed the “feel” of the song and I knew I was onto something. I went into the studio and cut a basic track but something wasn’t right. So I called up Steve Brown and PJ Farley of Trixter to come down to the studio and lend a hand. I’d been working with them and thought they could help out on a few songs that needed some work…the 1^st one being Soul’d Out.

Steve brought his 12-string acoustic for the song and once he started playing, the sound of the guitar immediately changed the song for me in a very good way. PJ was up next and I gave him instructions on how I wanted the bass to stay on the pulse of quarter notes. I kind of regret not allowing him to do one pass on his own to see what he would come up with, but I was so focused on creating this tight simple groove. I only allowed him to get creative on the passing notes between the pulse of quarter notes and he played some very restrained and tasteful parts.

Once the basic track was finished I got this vibe of The Beatles A Day In The Life playing in my head. I decided to add the maracas as a nod to it. I had already cut the vocals by the time Steve and PJ had arrived and when they heard the playback, PJ turned to Steve and mentioned that I sounded like Paul Stanley of Kiss on the last part of the chorus at the end of the song. I could hear what he meant and I found it kind of amusing since the only songs by Kiss I ever heard were the occasional ones played on the radio. But PJ was right on because many reviewers have said the same thing. 🙂

The last part to the track was adding the piano along with the electric guitar. The piano helps to give the slow buildup, especially on the chorus. I put in the sustained low guitar notes on the chorus to mimic a brass horn part like the one on Leon Russell’s A Song For You. We kept bringing them up in the mix as the song builds to increase the tension and I think it worked great. Of course the main focus of the song is on the vocals and everything else is there to support them. If the listener’s attention isn’t on the vocals, especially when the last chorus hits, then I’ve failed as a producer. Luckily it all came together and works really well. It’s probably the best vocal I’ve ever done on a ballad, which is not my forte.

The only thing I worried about on Soul’d Out was Martin’s lyrics. When Steve heard them he just shook his head and said “wow, that’s cold”. So deciding to release it as a single, especially following And You Know Why off of the E Street EP gave me some pause. Were the lyrics too direct in the picture being painted by them? I guess I made the right call to release Soul’d Out as a single because just a few weeks later Adele came to the rescue with her album full of downers. Who knew that emotion and heartache would be back in vogue? Only a true Rock’n’Roll Romantic! 🙂

It was a great summer. The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP took up all of my time, and now as autumn comes rolling in, the EP has taken on a life of its own. I had intended on releasing the next DownTown Mystic Album, Rock’n’Roll Romantic, before the end of the year, but I can see now that it will have to be put off until early 2016. Just goes to show that you never know what the Universe has in mind. 🙂

In the meantime, it gives me a chance to catch up on some things of a business nature. There’s so much going on these days. Of course, the big discussion that’s been taking place in the music biz is the current state of affairs with Streaming and fair compensation for the Artists. It’s one of the things I’ve been reading about all summer, mainly from the emails I receive from Bob Lefsetz and The Lefsetz Letter.

For those of you not in the music biz and not familiar with Bob, he writes a music industry blog/newsletter that is very well read. I think it would be fair to call him a bit of a “curmudgeon”. He usually has an interesting POV and I find myself agreeing with him a good deal of the time. I believe Bob works as a paid consultant from time to time, but I’m not exactly sure if he is or if he makes that information known. Lately, he’s really been pushing the Streaming agenda, saying it’s the future so get used to it.

The more I read the more I think he’s shilling for Spotify.  Especially since he seems to prefer Spotify to Pandora and the new Apple Music Service, and he does like to tell Indie Artists to quit crying about streaming royalties. He tells them to get more popular so that they can make more money from Streaming. I’m not positive, but I think these comments might be aimed at people like Blake Morgan, who started the #irespectmusic campaign. Blake’s basic feeling is “that artists should be compensated for the use of their music on all radio and digital sources.” If you’re not familiar with #irespectmusic, then check out this article that just came out today: #IRESPECTMUSIC: A Grassroots Initiative to Give Musicians Their Due 

In the article, the writer Kathy Stockbridge writes: “The laws in place currently allowed the music moguls such as Pandora, Spotify, and so many internet radio stations across the nation to continuously use music without paying the artists. No other business model in our nation works this way. You create a product, you sell the product, you are compensated for the product, and the purchaser enjoys the product. No where else is a product created and lent out for use without compensation, under a pretense of giving it more visibility for future sales. What? If that model worked no one would get paid. We would all advertise products for free.”

Bob’s also been fairly dismissive of the old school music biz. Here’s what Bob said in his latest rant last night entitled “The Sisario Article”: “The sales paradigm is history. In 24 months it’ll be de minimis, inconsequential. And when we go to the streaming metrics a whole bunch of artists are gonna get a whole lot poorer, and the readers of this newsletter who are attached to the ancient paradigm of yore are gonna tear their hair out. You know, rock bands who write their own material and release it as one long album…KAPUT! Actually, that formula got murdered by disco, after it got long in the tooth as corporate rock. But then MTV rescued the rock business until hair bands softened the sound, made us all queasy, and it became all about hip-hop and pop. And that’s where we are today.I’m not saying you can’t make your old music in the old way, I’m just saying don’t expect anybody to listen to it, don’t expect to get rich. We’re in the middle of the great transition. The baby boomers are about to emit their last gasp. Everybody but the titans has already been eliminated. Unless you’re running the operation, you’re gone. And there are some Gen X’ers with power, mostly in the live sphere, but we’re getting ready to skip generations and hand the baton to the millennials, who have no allegiance to classic rock, radio or the rest of the b.s. we hold so near and dear.”

That’s just a taste of what Bob’s been going on about all summer long. I like the way he managed to minimize about 20-30 years of Rock. Bob does have a way with words. 🙂

You can imagine how he’s been dissing the new release by Keith Richards. Bob doesn’t have good things to say about it and the way it’s been promoted. I doubt that Keith gives a crap, but it’s been interesting reading the way Bob goes out of his way to dis it. He’s also dissed Tom Petty’s record, but I don’t think that Bob is dissing the music as much as how it was promoted by the label in the old school way and then died after being released.

All this has me interested because I have an old school record that I want to release in the modern way. Bob tends to lose me when he starts raving about the new Justin Bieber or how many songs The Weekend has streaming. I don’t really care how many times little girls are playing them. If that’s going to be the new model, so be it. But to use it as the argument for artists getting more streaming royalties makes me think he’s more of a lobbyist trying to put the company’s POV across for them. 🙂

As an Indie Artist, I feel like I’m being pulled from one side to the other. I happen to like Streaming because I get played a lot. I see it as a great promotional tool. I just reached 1.8 million spins on one site and I’ve been # 1 on 4 different Global and US Charts. But this airplay is all free because I’m doing it for promotion. Now when it comes to commercial sites like Spotify and Radio, I think they need to boost the rates because it looks ridiculous seeing a $.01 royalty on your PRO Royalty Statement. It’s like them throwing a penny at you and saying, “here ya go, don’t spend it all in one place”. A penny…wtf?? What year is this?? 🙂

I like the passion that Bob puts into his Streaming articles, but there’s still something that bothers me about them. If sales don’t matter and only streaming does, then how exactly is there enough money to be made by artists and companies alike, given the current rates? I think people like Blake Morgan and his #irespectmusic campaign might have the better argument.

So if you are on Spotify’s payroll Bob, I hope for your sake they pay you a better rate than they do artists. 🙂

The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP has been out since the start of summer in late June and the reviews are in. Obviously, if the reviews were bad, I wouldn’t be talking about them in this blog. As you can imagine, the reviews have been good—really good, and in some cases, outright phenomenal! We’re going to re-post the 2 best reviews in their entirety and give you a taste of some of the others who have been so kind to us. 🙂

The average review gets between 10-20 tweets on Twitter. This review has gotten over 2600 tweets!! It’s a killer review with many thanks to Rick from JamSphere:

DownTown Mystic: “On E STREET” – a beautiful organic rock n’ roll groove!

By: Rick Jamm Posted date: August 03, 2015

DownTown Mystic started as the alter ego of Sha-La Music President, Robert Allen, and then morphed into a group project, combining forces with a stellar cast of musicians. On the self-titled DownTown Mystic album, Robert was joined by a talented group of musicians, including drummer extraordinaire Steve Holley (Paul McCartney/Wings/Elton John/Ian Hunter) and urban legend Paul Page (Dion/Ian Hunter) on bass, as well as one of the greatest rhythm sections in the history of American Rock ‘n’ Roll – Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band.

A few months ago DownTown Mystic released their 4-track Ep, entitled “On E STREET” currently available on Amazon and other download stores. The writing, the musicianship, and most importantly, the groove – it all comes together right here on this recording. From the rollicking opening of “Hard Enough” to the closing notes of the intensely rocking, “Sometimes Wrong”, this Ep is filled with exceptional music. Just a few listens and you’ll be singing along with every inspired lyric and in awe of a truly amazing band at the height of its musical powers.

Very few new albums feel like classics these days, one reason is most are too long! Artists have to try to make something out of tracks that really would be better on the cutting room floor. On the contrary, every moment on this gem is precise and to the point. It has a beautiful organic rock n’ roll groove, powerfully forged on “Way To Know” as well as a melodic country-rock sound on “And You Know Why”, all stirred into a beautifully played and sung set.

This music is so rich it oozes out of the speakers and spreads all over your inner core! If this was a vinyl recording, I would have worn out the grooves on the Ep’s best two songs – “Hard Enough” and “Way To Know” – by now! Some things just get better with age and DownTown Mystic is one of those things. Their blend of rock will get your head bobbing, and you humming along uncontrollably, until you feel like your soul will burst in some fantastic way.

To those of you that are interested in serious rock n’ roll but have not yet dived, head first into the DownTown Mystic catalog, I’d suggest “On E STREET” as your gateway into the band’s infectious unmistakable vibe, wrapped up with ace musicianship, topped with great songwriting, and delivered with powerful, heartfelt vocals. This is the place to start for timeless rock n’ roll!

Now this next review from the UK is one of those that remind me of the reviews I was getting in Europe 3 years ago for Standing Still. For some reason, the Press over there really likes to put it on the line with comparisons to Springsteen. I don’t know why, but I get it. If you’re going to put “E Street” in the title, you have to be ready for what could follow. You’re asking for it, right? Of course it’s very flattering to have your music compared to a great artist like Bruce Springsteen. I’m lucky that they like it and usually have some keen insights into the music.

The truth is, as an artist and a musician; you want your music and playing to be taken seriously. So when I see a review that compares me to a Rock Icon like Bruce, I really feel that the writer took me seriously and is giving me some “RnR Cred”, and that is truly gratifying. Otherwise, IMHO, it’s a bit over the top. I really don’t see why Bruce should be brought in because his rhythm section is playing with me. It’s only rock’n’roll people…no need to get carried away! 🙂

Having said all that, thanks to Erick for this very kind review in Bearded Magazine:

Downtown Mystic: On E Street (Sha-La Music)

Americana meets classic rock on Springsteen inspired set

By Erick Mertz Posted Date: Aug 19th, 2015

Breaking off Downtown Mystic’s album On E Street reminds me of that old cereal conundrum. Does box cover actually match the product? 

Because, you know, there’s nothing worse than being promised marshmallow fun and games, rainbows and elves, for something that turns out to be little more than a heap of sweetened cardboard. The cover of On E Street promises The Boss’s magic, not just in the allusion to his famous band, but with a couple of key names, Garry W Tallent and the venerable Max Weinberg. 

Gotta crack open the box though. Turns out, Downtown Mystic is as sweet as promised. It’s a steady set of hard rocking adult contemporary rock that is as timeless as the sad clown motif. “Hard Enough” and “Way To Know” are jukebox blues numbers but the star of them all is (of course) the single, “And You Know Why” which bounces around, self assured, playful and tinged with a little of that silver streaked bravado.

There aren’t any rainbows or elves. There sure aren’t any marshmallows either. That wasn’t what was promised though, was it? A little Bruce. A little E Street. It’s all right here, sweet as hoped for.

Robert & 1976 Les Paul

All in all, that’s a cool review. Here are excerpts from some other cool reviews, which don’t think Springsteen is an influence:

Mike Olinger got it all started with the Premiere of the Single on The Vinyl District: “We have the pleasure of exclusively premiering the band’s newest single “And You Know Why” which spins the classic rock vibes of yesteryear into a tight blend of nostalgic Americana. If the bittersweet opening slide guitar phrases don’t capture your attention, wait for the soaring chorus at :40 which glides out of the speakers in pristine 3 part harmony.”

Adam Jones on The Music Farmer: “DOWNTOWN MYSTIC is a brand new artist on the rise with classic roots made of gold. The first thought that comes to my mind – this is AWESOME! The music is very reminiscent of vintage rock n’ roll while keeping one foot in the place of modern day music production.”

Sahar on Blog Critics wrote: “Allen’s passion for old school rock and roll comes through in all four of these tracks, although it’s hard to pinpoint a specific influence to each one. There are hints of so many different artists and rock and roll styles that it creates a sound both very familiar but fresh, not original but still engaging…While all four tracks definitely have a strong retro feel, mostly in the way they are stripped of modern day production fanfare, they are not outdated and would make for a solid addition to rock lovers’ music libraries.”

Will Lyewin wrote some seriously cool stuff on HipLanta: “Downtown Mystic’s new album asks a simple question, “What happened to rock n roll being fun?”. When I stared to think about this the first thing that popped into my mind was Guns n Roses. Downtown Mystic sounds nothing like Guns N Roses, but GnR represents the last band of an era, before music found itself at a turning point…Allen proves he is a man who has not forgotten that. It would be easy to dismiss it as retro, but I don’t get the impression that this is someone consciously trying to recapture the sound of a certain era…there is some smart songwriting going on here…Overall this album is a lot of fun. If you want to do some deep thinking then go listen to Bon Iver, but if you want something to take you back to a more carefree time when rock rocked and auto-tune did not exist then here is one for you.” 

Besides the reviews, there’s also a really cool article from Avenue 1 that was written by Nick Christophers, who when not freelancing as a music journo is the editor of Mob Candy Magazine.  So there you have it. Again, my sincerest thanks to all of those writers. There’s really nothing else I can say after those incredible reviews. I’m done! 🙂

https://soundcloud.com/shalaman/sets/downtown-mystic-on-e-street

In the last installment of this blog, I wrote about releasing the DownTown Mystic on E Street EP, which at the time was less than a month away. I was a bit apprehensive about doing the release but I figured if not now, then when? Anytime you’ve got a project with musicians like Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg, there’s going to be some anxiety about creating a build-up to the release.

The 1^st thing I wanted to do was get out the word to my contacts at Radio on AirPlay Direct, the digital downloading platform for Radio stations to get new music. I highly recommend AirPlay Direct to any artist out there that’s looking for a good inexpensive way to get their music to Radio. They have nearly 10,000 radio stations from around the world as members, so there’s an international presence, which is very cool. Over the years AirPlay Direct has proven to be an invaluable tool for me, and once again, it did the job I needed to get done.

When I released the Turn Around and Go Digital Single at AirPlay Direct in March, I knew it was more Rock than Americana, so I made the decision to promote it that way and landed at #12 on the APD Top 50 Rock Albums Chart for March. I was off to a good start. The APD Global Indicator Charts are sorted by different musical genres, each with an Albums and a Singles chart. The charts are totally determined by the amount of downloads a release receives and not by airplay, so the playing field is as even as you can get for indie artists.

I also decided to go into the Rock genre because, quite frankly, it’s a genre in need of some new blood. Call my music “retro”, call it “old school”, I really don’t care because I know there’s really nothing quite like DownTown Mystic out there on the airwaves. And it seems that more and more Radio Programmers are agreeing with my assessment too. So I was going to put it to the test with the release of DownTown Mystic on E Street.

Robert & 1976 Les Paul

I started putting the word out on June 1^st and by the end of the day E Street was #1 on the APD Rock Charts—for Albums and Singles. By the middle of June DownTown Mystic stayed at #1 on the APD Rock Albums Chart and owned the first 15 places on the APD Rock Singles Chart, and the official release was still a week away! Incredibly, and I use the word “incredibly”, because it’s incredible to me that E Street stayed #1 for the entire month of June on the APD Rock Albums Chart!! That had never happened to one of my releases before and I THANK every programmer and DJ that downloaded the tracks! 🙂

The DownTown Mystic on E Street EP has 4 tracks—the retro rocker Hard Enough, which I went into detail about in the last blog post. It’s an up-tempo number that owes a great deal to the great New Wave band Rockpile, which featured guitarist Dave Edmunds and bassist Nick Lowe. I think when Bruce Springsteen released his Tracks box set it reminded people just how busy he was writing and recording during the New Wave period. It was kind of a renaissance for Rock’n’Roll and Rockpile quickly became one of the main influencers during the period. Bruce even wrote the song From Small Things (Big Things One day Come) with Dave Edmunds, so he and The E Street Band were well versed in Rockpile.

The 2^nd track, And You Know Why, is the single from the EP and it got a great Exclusive Premiere on The Vinyl District website the week of the EP’s release. It features a very economical bass line from Garry and one of the most restrained drum tracks from Max that I think he’s ever played. And You Know Why has a great deal of meaning to me personally. It’s a song that came to me at a time when I was burnt out on writing and playing music. I was seriously thinking about giving up music altogether and this little tune would not let me quit. Then to have the good fortune of getting to record it with the E Street rhythm section is really quite a blessing.

The 3^rd track, Way to Know, was previously released on the self-titled DownTown Mystic cd. Including it on the EP is kind of like playing with the house money because it was already successful at Radio worldwide and went to #1 on the Roots Music Report. The original demo that I recorded for the song was a bit more mid-tempo and much sparser in the arrangement. It also featured a piano part. Garry was the one who really changed the tempo and the arrangement, so I have to blame him for this recorded version. 🙂

The thing that I was really going for on Way to Know was writing the song like 2 people were talking to each other one on one, but it could also be taken from the perspective of the singer making a commentary on the world at large. Particularly in the view of what’s happening here and around the world today, the song seems very perceptive and in the moment. It’s ironic that it probably has more meaning now than when it was written. As I’ve stated previously, the funniest thing I remember about cutting the track was hearing Garry tell Max to “play like Charlie Watts”. 🙂

The last track Sometimes Wrong (Demo) was an idea that I had to rock up the song from the way I originally wrote it. Garry and Max gave it their best shot but I don’t think it really quite meshed the way I had envisioned it. I finally decided to go back to the original version when I recorded the track with Steve Holley and Paul Page for the Standing Still cd and it worked much better. But I did keep most of the guitar parts from this version for the one on Standing Still. Plus, the guitar solo I play on the end of the song is one of the best off the cuff solos I’ve ever put down on tape. It was a one shot live take that I was able to pull off. I just wish I could mute the incessant vocal track singing “sometimes wrong” on the fade out! 🙂

All in all, DownTown Mystic on E Street has been a very cool project to put together and an experience that I’ll never forget. My sincerest gratitude to Garry and Max for truly making a dream come true. Now if I’d only taken some photos. 🙂

I was reading the Wikipedia entry for The E Street Band the other day and it mentioned the phrase “courtesy of The E Street Band” that would be given on an album to credit a member of the band for playing on that album. Way back in the 2^nd blog post that I did I wrote about The E Street Band being inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame and how I came to meet the rhythm section—Garry W. Tallent & Max Weinberg, the bass player and drummer, who also happened to be playing on DownTown Mystic’s Way to Know single.

Given the fact that Way to Know was so successful at Radio worldwide and went to #1 on an important Indie Radio chart, as well as sync licensed on NBC TV’s The Voice, it occurred to me that I should celebrate the recording sessions that I did with these guys. Outside of Ian Hunter, after he left Mott The Hoople, and one or two other artists…having Garry & Max play together with me in the studio is something they’ve only done with Bruce Springsteen. This is something I find to be very cool! I mean, both Garry & Max have played with a good many other artists in their respective careers, but only a handful of times have they been some artist’s rhythm section other than Bruce. You have to admit that’s some very select company to be included with and well worth celebrating. 🙂

So to celebrate the sessions, the DownTown Mystic on E Street EP was created and will be released on June 22.  That date was chosen because of the Summer Solstice, which occurs the day before. For me and most natives of New Jersey, summertime is celebrated by going to the Jersey shore. And being that E Street is in Asbury Park, there’s no better symbol for summer at the Jersey shore. The EP release will have 4 tracks that I recorded with Garry & Max, including Way to Know. The 1^st track Hard Enough was originally released on Standing Still in Europe and was not on the US version, and I explain why in that earlier blog post.

The interesting thing about cutting this particular song with Max on drums is that we went to the same high school and knew some of the same people. So while setting up in the studio before recording Hard Enough, we were reminiscing about our alma mater—Columbia High School in Maplewood, NJ. While mentioning various names of people we had in common, at one point Max stopped and asked me, “Do you remember this girl”—and was about to say her name, when I looked at him and we both said her name together, which really got Max going, “YES, you remember her??!!” 🙂

Garry had been slightly paying attention to our conversation, but when Max and I both roared about this girl (who I will not name to save her any embarrassment), he had to know about her. Garry asked us, “Who is this girl? I want to meet her!” Max began to tell Garry about the hottest girl in our HS, and how every red-blooded male in that school would drool over her. I added that she was like a Playboy Centerfold at 17, but looked like 25. The irony was that the song we were about to record was probably written using her, from my subconscious, as the model for the girl in the song! Crazy, right?

Like any good classic RnR song, there’s a double meaning that’s sexual in nature. However I must confess that the double entendre of “it gets hard enough to love her” was more by accident than plan. The only reason I wrote hard enough was because “it gets difficult to love her” didn’t fit or sound right. The whole song is about how difficult this girl makes this guy’s life, but she’s too hot for him to say no to. Garry had a good laugh about me and Max still being able to rave about this girl so many years later. How could this song not be about her? I’m telling you she was hot!! 🙂

Garry Tallent & Max Weinberg

We cut 2 tracks in that session—Hard Enough and Sometimes Wrong. Hard Enough was the keeper. You can hear the muscular drumming of Max. There’s something about playing with a drummer who’s solid like that. The track just feels right playing rhythm guitar to it. It’s so in the pocket. The other thing I love is Garry’s bass line. It reminds me a bit of the bass line he played on Springsteen’s Ramrod, which is a fave of mine, although twice as fast. 🙂

The next session we cut And You Know Why and Way to Know. Max wrote a book called The Big Beat where he interviewed great drummers like Ringo, Charlie Watts, Levon Helm and Hal Blaine to name a few. Everyone knows “Mighty” Max and how bombastic he could be live during a Springsteen show (you can hear examples of it on Sometimes Wrong). But I think he really took to heart what some of these great drummers told him so he could become a better-rounded drummer. On And You Know Why he put that knowledge to good use. It might just be the least “Mighty” Max you’ll ever hear on a song he plays on, but he’s still solid keeping the groove against Garry’s economical bass line.

There’s an aura of mystery that surrounds The E Street Band. It’s a very exclusive group of individuals who have a private code among themselves. They backup “The Boss” every night on stage, but they are a separate entity from him. Here’s something not many people know—they  agreed to never endorse anything as The E Street Band. Individually they can have endorsements but you will never see any product endorsed by the band itself, which I think is really unusual and speaks volumes to who they are.

DownTown Mystic on E Street is my brush with 2 of those individuals. I feel very honored and lucky to have had the opportunity to play with one of the greatest rhythm sections in the history of Rock—Garry W. Tallent and “Mighty” Max Weinberg, courtesy of The E Street Band.  🙂