HOW "BORN IN THE U.S.A." INFLUENCED "KILLING IN THE NAME"

Yes, it's true. In the above video, Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello (who of course also records as The Nightwatchman, is a member of Street Sweeper Social Club and a former member of Audioslave) explains how Bruce Springsteen's "Born In The U.S.A." influenced Rage's "Killing In The Name" (yes, the "Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me" song). He's talking to Jay Weinberg, son of E Street Band drummer Max Weinberg. This is part of an E Street Radio roundtable discussion that is airing on the channel this week: I was lucky enough to be in the SIRIUS XM studios in New York (Tom Morello was in the Los Angeles studio).

QUESTLOVE EXPLAINS "WALK ON" MUSIC

A lot had been made of how Conan O'Brien had Max Weinberg and the band play very expensive songs in his last week on The Tonight Show last week. Questlove of The Roots, house band for Jimmy Fallon's show, breaks down the science "walk on" music on late night shows - I didn't realize that this was started by Paul Schaffer on David Letterman's show. Read all about it on a very extended Quest tweet.

WHAT DOES JAY WEINBERG SOUND LIKE?

So, Jay Weinberg, who will be sitting in for his father Max Weinberg at a few Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band shows this summer plays in a number of bands: a metal band called Chaosis, a more punk band called Reveling and a more pop group, they're a bit like The Foo Fighters, called Get It Good. You can hear all three bands at his myspace page.

ROCK HALL ANNOUNCES PRESENTERS FOR THIS YEAR'S INDUCTION CEREMONY.

This year's list of presenters includes Flea (Metallica), Eminem (Run-D.M.C.), Jimmy Page (Jeff Beck), Ron Wood (Bobby Womack), Smokey Robinson (Little Anthony & The Imperials), Paul Schaffer (Spooner Oldham) and Garry Tallent and Max Weinberg of The E Street Band (Bill Black and D.J. Fontana of Elvis Presley's band). They haven't come up with a presenter for Wanda Jackson yet. 

I think Flea is a weird choice for Metallica: it seems like he's just paying them back for performing at his Silverlake Conservatory benefit concert last year. I know The Red Hot Chili Peppers signed to Metallica's management a few years ago because they respected the way Metallica has handled their career; on the other hand, I thought that Flea was always kind of anti-metal and macho stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of Flea and the Chili Peppers, I just think it's a weird choice.  I would have gone with Dave Grohl, or Jerry Cantrell or someone a bit more metal. 

Eminem was sort of obvious for Run-D.M.C., but I would have gone with LL Cool J or Chuck D or The Beastie Boys or Q-Tip or Mos Def. But I know Eminem is a huge hip-hop fan, he'll probably come up with a cool speech. 

Jimmy Page is a great choice for Jeff Beck: I think it would be bad-ass if they reprised "Beck's Bolero" with John Paul Jones on bass and Zak Starkey on drums (filling in for Keith Moon). What would be even cooler would be if Ron Wood and Rod Stewart did they honors for Jeff, but I guess Rod would worry that that would only fuel the Faces rumors even more. 

Max and Gary were a good choice: I guess there's a chance that Bruce Springsteen will show up and the trio will do some Elvis covers. Anyway, the ceremony will air live on Fuse on April 4, I look forward to seeing it. 

HEY, I HAVEN'T WRITTEN ABOUT BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN IN LIKE THREE WEEKS

So the big news with Bruce Springsteen (other than the fact that he's playing Pete Seeger's 90th birthday celebration in May) is that he has announced that Max Weinberg will not, in fact, be playing all of the dates on Workin' on a Dream tour. That's because Conan O'Brien's show starts at its new time right as Bruce and The E Street Band start their European tour. I thought that maybe Larry Eagle from the Sessions Band might be a logical pick (Charlie Giordano from The Sessions Band is now E Street's touring organ player). But he's sticking closer to the family: Max's son, Jay Weinberg (who played drums on "Born To Run" at one of the Giants Stadium shows last summer) will fill in when Max can't make it. 

Bruce has also announced two "rehearsal shows" at Asbury Park's Convention Center Monday and Tuesday.  They went on sale Friday and predictably, sold out immediately.   But I'm still hoping that I can pull off tickets for Tuesday's show. 

LITTLE STEVEN'S NEW LABEL, AND MORE NEWS ABOUT THE E STREET BAND

I'm always willing to tell anyone within listening distance about how cool Little Steven Van Zandt's Underground Garage channel is, and how many great bands he puts out on his Wicked Cool Records label. I recently talked about his Halloween compilation and his even better Christmas compilation. I don't know if the label makes money, but Steven does it because he genuinely cares about rock and roll.  His label gives bands like KO & The Knockouts, The Cocktail Slippers, The Charms, The Woggles The Len Price 3, The Contrast and many more an outlet for people to hear their music.  They aren't metal or emo or indie, and there isn't much interest at major labels for bands that don't fit into those categories. But I was surprised to read in a Billboard interview that Steven is setting up another label, this one for hard rock bands. The first band he's signed is Crown Of Thorns, who I think are not new. I would have thought that if he started a second label, it would be more in the Outlaw Country vein. He also hinted that he might re-release his solo back catalog on Wicked Cool.  I'm not an expert on Steven's solo career, but I love "I Am A Patriot" (which Eddie Vedder has covered) and "Native American" (a duet with Bruce Springsteen). 

Steven has also denied reports that Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band would be playing one classic album in its entirety on their upcoming tour, as has been rumored. In a separate interview, he addressed rumors that Max Weinberg might not play on all of the dates on the summer European tour, since the new Conan O'Brien show starts during the summer. It seems like they may have to use a different drummer on some dates. 

Other cool Bruce stuff: he has a video for "The Wrestler" that you can buy on iTunes. Also: a bunch of indie-ish artists have covered Bruce songs as part of a program called "Hangin' On E Street," which was, oddly, initiated by indie blog Pitchfork, and the results are at Bruce's website. You can see clips by members of Gaslight Anthem, Bouncing Souls and Against Me among other cool bands.