Again, general agreement here. The Tempe DVD/Blu-ray is excellent, they should have included everything from the concert though even if that meant a blank screen or photographs instead of live video. It's called a 1 disc "The River" album not "The Ties That Bind" I think, it is ok. In the new outtakes Stray Bullet is an amazing track though.
The Tempe DVD is astoundingly good. There are times when I am in a Springsteen mood that I will just go on YouTube and play "Ramrod." That video - the whole DVD really - encapsulates everything I love about Bruce and the band as it then was as live performers. So, so good. I guess sales has something to do with it, but I wished they had released a separate audio of the entire show. I have it (thanks to the kindness of a member of this Board), but that really ought to have been released. I am so so on everything else. I guess the biggest disappointment for me was the version of "Night Fire," pales to the version I have from one of the Past Masters (I think that's the title) CD's. I had tickets to see the "River" Tour behind this set in Greensboro and was really excited about the fact he was playing the entire record. Of course that show never happened. After the cancellation (it cancelled on either Thursday or Friday before the weekend's show), I sort of had the feeling that "that was it," that I would not see him on stage again. It was a weird feeling but I was kind of at peace with it.
I saw The River played in it’s entirety in 2009 and 2015, both times at MSG. The 2009 show was thrilling due to the novelty of it; the 2015 show was probably better musically. 2015 was the only time I have ever been front row center for a Springsteen show. I literally had the best seat in the house.
He definitely took/takes some good photos and has a terrific smile. Always loved to see that on stage as he had a look of pure joy and that spilled over in to his audience. It's remarkable how many artists seem to get box sets wrong according to fans. I'd like to know his thinking behind why he waits so long and why the inclusion of some and exclusion of others. Wonder if he's heard much of what his fan base thinks.
My feelings about The Ties That Bind: The River Collection are similar to those regarding the Darkness box. Some fantastic stuff here, some compromised stuff, and some frustrating omissions. The modern vocals on some tracks are again distracting ("Meet Me In The City" hitting us right away), but it was great to get several original vocals on other outtakes. Of course, many outtakes were disappointingly missing, including "Chevrolet Deluxe" and the rock version of "Point Blank". I also would have liked to hear the long version of "Stolen Car" that was sort of the bridge between the early TTTB arrangement and the final album version. For me, "Night Fire" is the great new addition to the official catalog, despite the awful modern vocals. I also like "Party Lights" and "Stray Bullet", the latter in particular is really a top notch track. A couple of the inclusions are odd - we get an acoustic home demo of "Mr. Outside", which strays from their established template of only presenting completed studio masters. Also, "Paradise By The C" doesn't really fit. Including most of the previously released River session outtakes was odd, but I think it makes sense in order to provide an overall perspective on the period - it's too bad that that decision wasn't taken on the Darkness set. It's also great to have the original proposed TTTB "album" here, with the original versions and mixes as delivered in late 1979. I still have doubts as to whether this was ever seriously considered as the next Bruce Springsteen album and I don't think it hangs together very well, but most of the songs are, of course, brilliant. This is the definitive version of "The Price You Pay". Given that the original album had recently been remastered and reissued as part of the albums box set, giving it its first good-sounding CD release, including that same remaster here was a poor choice. They should have remixed the album and presented it in that new alternate mix here. That alone would have considerably increased the value of this box. The Tempe concert video was outstanding, although I agree that the music for the missing songs should have been included here. At least we eventually got them on a Nugs release. The documentary was hampered by the small amount of vintage footage they had available so it was always going to be less essential than the ones for the previous two box set album reissues. I assume the same will be true for future Nebraska/BIUSA box(es). Still, I'm glad they put it together and included it.
Aside from the seat location, I had the same experience. 2009 was magical; 2015 was better musically.
Saw them on the original River tour, had a ticket for the re-run in Rochester, but couldn't make it and by the time I caught the show he was no longer doing it. Mixed feelings for me as I only really wanted to hear about half the album live, as it stands I have only heard 13 of the 20 tracks live. Have seen all the tracks from the preceding albums live in full except missing Streets of Fire from Darkness and Wild Billy's Circus Story from WIESS.
The first two CDs contain the remastered The River album exactly as it appeared on The Album Collection Volume 1 box set released the previous year. While I don’t think either CD release beats the original vinyl, I’ve decided I do prefer the 2014 mastering when listening via compact disc. I agree with robcar and Dr. Zoom that this would have been a good opportunity to issue a remix of the album instead of repeating the remaster we already owned. The third CD is an official release of Springsteen’s aborted 1979 album, which I've always known as The Ties That Bind (now labeled The River: Single Album). An impossibly terrific sounding bootleg release of this very same album had circulated since the mid ‘90s (I purchased it when I was a college student). Thankfully, the official release is identical to the bootleg (i.e. no remixing a la Tracks, and no modern overdubs). Despite the fact that most of these songs ultimately appeared on The River just over a year later, many of these tracks appear in different form than what we’re accustomed to from listening to The River. Some of the changes are fairly radical such as the completely different arrangements for “Stolen Car” and “You Can Look,” while others are more subtle: “Hungry Heart” isn’t sped up, “The River” is more stark without the background vocals, and “The Price You Pay” features the alternate third verse that Springsteen performed on the tour. “Be True” and “Loose Ends” appear in different mixes here than they did on Tracks (with The Ties That Bind mix of “Loose Ends” being the superior mix). And this is the first official release anywhere of “Cindy,” which was one of the many pop confections left floundering in the vault for decades. If Springsteen himself is to be believed, The Ties That Bind album was mixed by Bob Clearmountain. As we know, except for “Hungry Heart,” the remaining 19 tracks on The River were mixed by Toby Scott and Chuck Plotkin. The fourth CD compiles most of the rest of The River outtakes that had been previously released on Tracks and The Essential Bruce Springsteen. Not included on Disc 4 are “Be True,” “Stolen Car” and “Loose Ends” (because alternate mixes of those outtakes already appeared on Disc 3), and, inexplicably, “Bring on the Night,” which does appear on Tracks. In addition, an LP’s worth of mostly previously unheard outtakes is included on Disc 4. Some of the tracks appear to be completely vintage such as “Party Lights” and “The Man Who Got Away,” while others feature jarringly obvious new lead vocals like “White Town,” “Night Fire,” and “Meet Me in the City.” New musical embellishments are typically more challenging to discern but certainly the end coda to “Stray Bullet” sounds a bit Neil Young-esque and very unlike anything else Springsteen ever recorded, which makes me wonder if that portion of the song was newly recorded. While discussing The Promise, I stated my opinion that archival sets should be exclusively that and not Frankenstein-like hybrids of vintage material with modern embellishments. But I do not wish to beat a dead horse, so I’ll simply note that the modern embellishments are substantially less pervasive on this set on than they were on The Promise. As an aside, as I mentioned when we were discussing The Essential Bruce Springsteen (which featured a low fidelity live recording of “Held Up Without a Gun” in lieu of the studio B-side), it sounds like “Held Up Without a Gun” is a needle drop here, which suggests they may have misplaced the master recording. As for the video content, the Tempe ’80 home video is the main attraction of this set, as it features a professionally filmed 2-hour and 40-minute “excerpt” from the November 5, 1980 concert, which was recorded the night after Ronald Reagan won the US presidency with a landslide victory. Springsteen’s comments before “Badlands,” which were excluded from the release of that track on Live 1975-85, do appear here (if I recall correctly). As much as I love ‘70s Springsteen, if I had to pick only one officially released Springsteen concert video to keep in my collection, Tempe ’80 gets the nod. While there’s still about an hour of the concert not included (as it evidently wasn’t filmed), the entire soundtrack was professionally recorded. Shortly after the release of this set, as a Christmas Eve surprise, Springsteen offered the ten not-filmed tracks as a free MP3 download (or a $10 FLAC download) via Nugs. Both the soundtrack to the concert film and the Christmas Eve audio freebie were mixed by Bob Clearmountain. Certain entrepreneurial fans melded the two sources together to present the complete (or nearly complete, as some tiny bits of between-song banter remain unreleased) concert, which rivals the September 20, 1978 Capitol Theatre download as the best-sounding complete Springsteen concert on the market. The 40-minute film of Springsteen sitting outside his garage strumming his guitar while commenting on The River is worth seeing at least once, although I generally found it to be a less compelling offering than the documentary films that accompany the Born to Run 30th Anniversary and The Promise box sets. It would have been greatly improved had it contained unfiltered recollections from both Steve Van Zandt and Jon Landau, who were infamously in disagreement with one another throughout the recording of the album. The 150-page hardcover coffee table book is a nice touch as well, albeit hardly essential. Revisionist fantasies are unquestionably pointless, but I do wonder how differently a set like this would have been received had it been issued contemporaneously. Releasing this set at the conclusion of The River tour would have been impossible, as Springsteen has never been a ground breaker and box sets like this were still some years away. But imagine an abbreviated version of this set (perhaps a 3 LP or 2 CD set featuring the audio content from CDs 3 & 4 plus two VHS tapes containing the Tempe ’80 concert excerpt) being released following the conclusion of the Born in the USA tour, maybe in lieu of the Live 1975-85 box set. And I agree with robcar that the set should have included the "rock" version of "Point Blank," which was always one of the most fascinating outtakes. Of course, had it been released, Springsteen doubtlessly would have felt compelled to re-record that lead vocal.
In general, I like TTTB box set much more than The Promise. I think the most disappointing aspect of this set (like Tracks and The Promise before it), is the omission of alternate arrangements/takes of songs from album sessions. Tracks gave a teaser with the alternate Stolen Car and The Promise with Racing In The Street (78) and Candy's Boy, but there are numerous examples of such recordings in the Springsteen archives, and the alternates are arguably more tantalizing than "unreleased" titles. The TTTB album was a real single disc album sequencing delivered to CBS in '79 (it is unclear what the album title would have been), a true lost album, so its official release in great sound was a welcomed addition to this release, containing fantastic mixes of Hungry Heart (in its slower speed) and Loose Ends (superior over the Tracks remix), plus a great alternate of You Can Look and the long lost Cindy (a notable omission from Tracks). The modern vocals on 4+ songs are still jarring, as expected, but perhaps not as contrived sounding as what Springsteen delivered on The Promise (there is speculation that a couple of vocals may originate from the 1998 overdub sessions for Tracks, but I have my doubts). With respect to the new outtakes, the vintage take of The Man Who Got Away, Little White Lies, and mostly vintage Stray Bullet are standouts, as is the embellished Night Fire (it is so good that the modern vocals can't completely ruin it). The Tempe footage is first-rate, and obviously the performance is as well. Unfortunately the footage was incomplete, which added a challenge with respect to issuing a complete concert -- I am not sure including the rest of the songs sans footage would have been a compelling DVD presentation. The subsequent Nugs release should have at least offered the complete concert, not just the missing songs. The documentary was underwhelming and arguably unnecessary -- I would have much rather have seen the release of the audio for one the New Years Nassau concerts instead. Overall, a decent box set, but another large-scale Springsteen box set that didn't quite reach its potential.
I mostly concur with everything said about TTTB here.....but I'd like to point to a song that was not known before the boxset and which was a bug surprise for me. The Time That Never Was. Love the Orbisonesque singing, love the band, the drums. I am always surprised the nobody mentions the song ever. But what do I know? I also LOVE Someday We'll Be Together from The Promise. J
I couldn't agree more with everything you say (although is the Tempe video really 2 hours 40 minutes? I don't remember it being quite that long). Yes, not having a REMIXED River in the box was a missed opportunity. At the very least, Steven should have been interviewed for the documentary. The River outtakes may be some of my favorite material, but they sort of made a mess of them for the box. Too many repeats from Tracks, too many omissions like "Point Blank." I was really looking forward to this set, but it disappointed me in a lot of ways. It should have been so much better.
The single disc TTTB was one of the first Springsteen bootlegs I ever bought. The version of "Stolen Car" off it is absolutely incredible.
My first Bruce concert was 12/80 at Nassau Coliseum and my last (so far) in August 2016 at MetLife during the River anniversary tour and I couldn't ask for better shows, but it was at the MetLife show where he dispensed with River and opened the show with 9 songs in a row from his first two albums. I was glad because The River was never my favorite album. Of course it contains a few of his greatest songs, but a lot of mediocre or downright pedestrian generic rockers. And so it is with The Ties That Bind. Too many average songs that might have impressed me in 198o when I was 18 years old, but just don't do anything for me now. I expected the new vocals and other anachronisms so it didn't bug me as much as what I heard on The Promise. I have the old bootleg of the same name and that is enough. It has the slow version of "Stolen Car" the (interesting at least) rockabilly version of "You Can Look..." and the fantastic "Loose Ends" in it's original mix. I will admit that if not for the existence of Spotify I would have been forced to buy it just to listen to the unheard songs, but I saved about $100---a drop in the bucket compared to how much I spent in the late '90's on bootleg CD's.
Like everything with Bruce back in the day, the cover of Darkness was very carefully considered. Here's what the photographer, Frank Stefanko, has said about it: From what I understand, when he (Bruce) looked at the photograph he said, "That's the person that I'm writing about. That's the person that is the Darkness on the Edge of Town character and that's what I want on my cover." Apparently, my photographs helped him find the characters he was writing about in the songs. ... I just shot my ass off. We worked all day and night. His stamina was incredible. He threw himself into the graphic aspect of the album. Whatever I asked him to do, he did. I'd give him a little direction and he gave me a lot back. For that I was grateful. We were trying to recreate these middle America, working class families; guys that were looking for redemption. It could have been done in the '70s or '50s or even the '40s. The idea was that these people transcended time or space. But we were trying to get something to look like an old Kodacolor snapshot. There were a lot of black and white photographs taken in those sessions too which were very striking in their own right. But the idea of this color photograph that could have been a snapshot in somebody's drawer worked for the album. Generally, I'm all for not over-intellectualizing things, but I'm still surprised that people would think such a determinedly somber shot -- down to the ugly wallpaper -- was a matter of happenstance. The cover was definitely making a "statement."
The lower middle class characters Springsteen was writing about in 1977 would have been the equivalent of the rural bourgeois Courbet had painted before he died in 1877. There's your idea of "people transcending time and space" in a nutshell. It's also called the human condition, which is one of the subjects of art.
I love all the outtakes from The Ties That Bind whether they were are vintage or have modern overdubs. I don't like that they were not available for individual purchase at the time. (I think they are now.). I didn't need a book. I didn't need any documentaries or concert videos which I would watch only once.
Steve’s absence from the doc is a major oversight. Steve had major influence on what ended up on that album. But these films always have to be about The Boss, and The Boss only.
Steve's influence is greater than is generally recognized. He did more than "tighten up arrangements" or whatever the going euphemism of the day would be.
John Berg, Art Director for Springsteen, Dylan, Dead at 83 "Berg worked on over 5,000 records during his 25-year tenure at Columbia, earning Grammys for his work on Dylan’s 1967 Greatest Hits collection, Barbra Streisand’s The Barbra Streisand Album, Chicago’s Chicago X and Thelonious Monk’s Underground. Those covers showcase the multi-faceted components of Berg’s style, which included an excellent eye for photos as well as a love of unique typography and sly sense of humor. Dylan’s Greatest Hits, for instance, boasted a close-up of the musician shrouded in a halo of light, while Chicago X featured the band’s famous logo — which Berg also helped create — emblazoned on a bar of chocolate. Berg also made frequent use of the gatefold cover, which opened like a book and allowed for twice as much artwork. For Dylan’s classic double LP, Blonde on Blonde, Berg placed a close-up of the artist’s face — sans any text — on the cover, while the album opened to reveal a vertical, nearly-full length portrait. Berg’s innovative covers were as much a product of his own artistic sensibilities as they were indicative of his eye for talent. As art director at Columbia, and later creative director and a vice president by the time he retired in 1985, he commissioned works by noted contemporary designers, illustrators and photographers like Richard Avedon, Paul Davis, Milton Glaser, Edward Sorel, Tomi Ungerer, Jerry Schatzberg and W. Eugene Smith. In a 2013 interview with his alma mater, Cooper Union, Berg said his photo acumen was one of his greatest traits: “I will actually look at your pictures,” he said. “All of them. I mean relentlessly. I will find stuff the photographer never knew was there.” His eye proved especially fruitful on perhaps his most iconic work: Bruce Springsteen’s seminal 1975 LP, Born to Run. The photo — Springsteen gripping his guitar, leaning on the shoulder of Clarence Clemons, hiding a smile in his hands — was not the one the rocker had envisioned. But Berg could not abide the dour photo Springsteen had chosen. “Springsteen wanted to use a picture that looked like what John Updike used on the back of his books,” Berg said. “I hated that kind of stuff. We already had one of those [The Wild, the Innocent and the E Street Shuffle] and we managed to mess with the type so that it was acceptable to me.” While scouring photographer Eric Meola’s contact sheets, Berg found a handful of Springsteen and Clemons pics, but all were similarly stolid. “But in this one, they were just breaking up, or whatever the emotion was. It was perfect. It oozes charm. So I told Springsteen and Meola that I wanted to use it as the fold-out cover. I said, ‘Now I gotta try and sell this thing upstairs to management because the cost is twice as much to print a gatefold.’ The product manager came down and said, ‘We love it!’ But I cooked all that up. What I was doing was selling Springsteen the idea to avoid having another John Updike cover.”
Ha! So as far back as 1975, Springsteen had these Guthrie-type fantasies or at least aspired to "greatness" in the world of songwriting- assuming you like Updike I suppose. What a great tribute to John Berg, thanks for posting. Just terrific, anyone have any notion of the photo Bruce wanted to use for Born to Run?
I would assume it's the photo which appeared inside the gatefold above the lyrics? But Berg's diss of the WIESS sleeve is pretty hilarious. I always thought BTR was the all-around mulligan when the second album almost tanked Springsteen's career.
It's one of the only bootlegs I ever actually bought. When it came out, it was revelatory - mainly for the stunning sound quality. It sounded far, far better than the official CD of The River did. How those tapes leaked would be a fascinating tale.
