This one goes over three CDs and its just great. Everybody knows I am a fan of "The Boss" anyway and this is the year he finally became the boss. This is the show he started to know himself. This is the birthday-party in his birthplace to celebrate the fact. This is the point in time when Springsteen finally left all the troubles with his former management behind, the years of distempt, the pain and the strife that lead up to "Born to Run" (and still left him broke and penniless) and found new daylight ahead to look out for. And you can hear how he and the band are celebrating themselves. This is were all the pain and the troubles start to pay off.

This concert was staged right before Bruce Springsteen's birthday and the good spirit and celebration is there in all the songs. Starting with "High School Confidential" (Yeah, the one by Jerry Lee Lewis) and then ripping through songs that would be lifetime achievements by lesser songwriters but come a dime a dozen (or a double album in the years ahead) with Springsteen, such as "independence day", "Darkness on the edge of town", "Point Blank" or "The Promised Land". There are more rarities, such as a rendition of "Sweet Little Sixteen" (yeah, the one by Chuck Berry), "Santa Claus is coming to town" or the last ever life performance of "Kitty's Back" or another life version of Springsteen classics penned for other stars (such as "Fire" or "Because the night"). Anyway, it all culminates in the explosion of emotion and clenched fists pumping the air overhead that is "Born to run" - and an epilogue of "10th avenue freeze out". There are great moments all around this bootleg; e.g. the hard-assed guitar solo starting "Prove it all night", Springsteen's bass voice here and there as well as alternate lyric-versions and early drafts for those Springsteen-academics out there.

The quality is decent for a bootleg. Solo instruments are too loud here and the but overall this one is as great as it could get. If there ever was a Bootleg Series like the one for Bob Dylan, this could be a great place to start off.

He is the wunderkind of songwriting, the messiahlike prophet to all kinds of emo-dudes and the most whining fuckall to rockers worldwide who haven’t gotten in touch with their sensitive sides yet. On the other hand, Conor Oberst has touched the sensitive sides of a good many rockers with his band Bright Eyes. This is him taking a few days off a tour in Europe, a promotional tour, to play a few accoustig gigs, just him, the guitar and some people. And it proofs why he is so powerful life. Forget about the whining voice, forget about the sentimentality and the melancholy – what comes around is the pure force of emotions laid bare for all to see. And the audience takes notice of this brave act and tries to give back what they can. Too bad, I don’t have a track list, but at some songs Oberst falls into a guitar-strumming frenzy and screams and kicks and I can almost see him fall from his stool while bulging the emotions. The best moment, though, is when a woman from the audience demands a song and Oberst retorts that he can’t remember the chords. So he invites her up on stage to play guitar as he sings and together they finally manage to play the song. Not really good, but it is a most intimate moment, anyway. Oberst saying things like “Now A minor…” to her as they sing along. And since this is a radio-broadcast it has best digital quality and an intro spoken by someone

I got this from a good friend. He knows the evangelic priest running the community-centre Engelsby in Flensburg, Germany. This priest is a music-fan, so he invites musicians from all around the world to stop by on their tours and play. Howe Gelb did that and he played a fantastic show. He did the improvisations on guitar and piano, using his CD-player at times, moving from straight songs into new-inventions of old songs, talking about this and that (e.g. Denmark, buying guitars, about blues & jazz festivals) in between songs; starting with "Lying there" over "Felonius" and reaching "Blue Marble Girl" at the end. Actually, the place he played in is a church, and you can hear that in the music, because his songs and singing is all soft and hushed. But his creativity and humour runs amok as always. Howe Gelb is accompanied by Peter "Lebowski" Dombernowski" on very soft and held-back percussions. The record even contains the music played before (Neko Case) and after the show (Miles Davis) as well as the 15 minute break and since the sound quality is really good for a bootleg, you'll feel as if you've actually been there. And it takes two full CDs to complete the evening. It is like going out to the show, only better.

I sure wish I had been there, because - so the story goes - Howe Gelb, the priest and a few other people (among them the person I got this double-CD from) went drinking afterwards and seems as if Howe Gelb is quite good at drinking. One more thought: a priest, who likes cool music and goes boozing? If I attended that church, I guess I wouldn't have left church years ago.

I wonder, why VH1 never released this one themselves, as they did with the Willie Nelson / Johnny Cash-concert. Anyway, you can download it from the internet now including a few outtakes. The Storyteller-concerts are organised by the music-channel VH1. An artist is invited to play a concert but between the songs he should tell stories about the songs or anything that comes to his mind. The selection of artists centers mainly around artists, who are songwriters and tell stories in their songs a lot and since it is VH1 the selection also aims at an adult audience. Tom Waits is a prime choice, because in his live-concerts he likes to tell stories, sometimes real ones sometimes made up from the top of his head, at other times just a hilarious collection of factoids and memories. These parts are always highlights of his concerts. If you have seen the movie Big Time, you'll know what I mean. During this concert, you'll get a story to every song! The collection of songs ranges from early classics ("Ol' 55", "I can't wait to get off work" or even "Jersey Girl") to his Weil/Raindogs-period ("Strange Weather" or "Hang down your head") to his late period until the great "Mule Variations"  from which he plays "Chocolate Jesus", "House where nobody lives", "Get behind the mule" and "Jesus gonna be here". Some more favorites of mine include "Hold on", "A little rain" and "Black wings" from the great "Bone Machine"-album. Well, if you wanted me to name my favourite Waits-song, I would give you a list of about three dozen songs and then add to it some more. Let me put it this way - "Tom Traubert's Blues" is not on here and it is not missing. This is so much, it only fits on two CDs.

Tom Waits is accompanied by his regular live-crew off late, including Larry Taylor and Smokey Hormel. These people definitely know how to drive a song with only very minor and minimal equipment, but give it a lot of variation and dynamics. Waits himself changes from piano to guitar, from whispering to screaming and some more styles inbetween. If you, like me, like his old-timer-growl, you'll also love this one. Since I own every album by Tom Waits (all bought regularly!) it was only a matter of time until I came to own a bootleg.

I once started a fanzine because of Shellac and Zeni Geva and there was a time I would call Steve Albini a god and bought every record that had his name on it somewhere. Thank goodness, that time is over now. Still, I am a big fan of Shellac and Steve Albini. So I was happy when I got this little CD, which covers a whole concert of Shellac (a rare occasion) in Austria (an even more obscure event) in clear and crispy quality. Don't ask me, where I got this from, because I am not allowed to tell you, so I won't anyway. Suffice it to say, that this CD gives you an impression why Shellac is such a legendary band and how they managed to become so influential with only three albums, a few singles and little touring. Well, of course Albini's history (Big Black, Rapeman, as a recording-engineer) makes up a part of their influence, but their musical abilities go an even longer way. Shellac is a machine of groove and rhythm. To some, their style of rock is to mathematical and structured, but in a live setting this will suddenly make a lot more sense, because the riffs and drums will grab you and start to shake you around like a tiny bit of wood on a sea-wave, only in a very strict rhythm. Fortunately, this CD captures the live-set in great quality, so you'll get the whole feeling of it.

There are no song-titles note in this CD or the cover, and I never got round to it, but it includes all the songs from the last album "1000 Hurts" and some of the songs from the other two albums "At Action Park" and "Terraform". The cover-art of this bootleg even imitates the cover of "1000 Hurts".

This has to be the bootleg with the best sound-quality ever, because this is one of the rare occasions in which a bootleg was mastered (in London!) and in which digital errors on the DAT were removed using sonic trickery on the computer. On the other hand, that is only deserved, when recording and bootlegging the best band in the world ever: the Melvins. It is the only way to capture the mightiness and power of this band, to be able to enjoy the weirdness and creativity of this band and to be able to measure the greatness and genius of them. If you have seen them live, I guess, you are still wondering, on how only three people are able to do what these three people are doing. This great CD captures the whole concert, which starts with "Colossus of Destiny" and ends with a nine-minute version of "Youth Of America" (the Wipers-Cover). I know that nothing can top the genius weirdness of the Melvins and that it is actually impossible to follow all of their frolics - from the Kiss-hommage-EPs to releasing eight seven inches in a row - but if you are a Melvins-fan you surely are looking for a good bootleg to boost your collection.

One of the joys of bootlegs is the mystery the cloud themselves in sometimes. For instance, this one has no date, no liner-notes, no songs, nothing on it, yet a cool title. Though with Melt Banana it is never clear at how many songs we are looking at for real. So the title only refers to 19 breaks between songs, all else is left to the imagination. I guess, that only a handful of people on this planet are able to tell one song by Melt Banana from another, and that includes the band. But this is a great treat anyway. For fifty full minutes your room will be filled with squeaky, screechy, dirty, hyper-fast noise-rock and you see these four Japanese gumballs jumping up and down and around before your inner eye. The sound quality might even be better than on some of their records, or at least more transparent, because in a live-setting there are no over-dubs, no digital trickery, nothing but the abilities of the musicians. And Melt Banana are able to do two dozen fast sprints in under an hour. The question is, if you can stand it. Moreover, the sound of this CD will enable you to discover, that Yasuko, the singer of Melt Banana, actually sings all the words to the songs. (The hard time she has talking to the audience is a completely different thing.) You can also marvel at the sonic trickery and effects used by the guitarist, because next to bass, drums and vocals, all the noises you'll hear are done by him. And they are a lot. Remember: Melt Banana is  like an overdose of energy-drinks formed into music.