PRODUCER OF THE YEAR, BRENDAN O'BRIEN

Brendan O'Brien has produced some of my favorite artists, so I'm glad he got the Grammy for Producer of the Year. Some of the recent albums he produced: Bruce Springsteen's Working On A Dream, Pearl Jam's Backspacer, AC/DC's Black Ice, Killswitch Engage's self-titled record and Mastodon's Crack The Skye. I thought T-Bone Burnett would have also been a good choice, but so was Brendan.

BEST OF THE 00s: BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN

In the '00s, who stood taller than Bruce Springsteen? No one, really. On so many fronts, he was the man. It is so interesting that he had to get back with The E Street Band to help him figure out what to do when he wasn't working with them. Let me explain.

He spent the '90s in a weird kind of artistic mid-life crisis. I am a big fan of the Human Touch and Lucky Town albums, but in retrospect, they weren't albums that The E Street Band couldn't have done. His tour, at least in the U.S., saw fans less than willing to give his new band a chance, and the tour played smaller places than Bruce had done in years. There was supposedly a full album of "electronic" type stuff like "Streets Of Philadelphia," but he decided not to release it. The Ghost Of Tom Joad didn't really catch on with fans, and the tour was really tense. I saw two shows: it looked like Bruce was trying to get away from being "Bruce." He wanted it to be A Serious Performance and for the fans to behave accordingly. There were near reunions with The E Street Band (for the Greatest Hits album and the opening of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland), but they were kind of one-offs.

In 1999, when he decided to reactivate the band, it was unbelievable. The shows blew minds: how powerful this band was after all these years, and after all these years of not playing together. As the new decade started, they were in the middle of thier tour. There was no new material, and they leaned towards their '70s output. But by the end of the tour, new stuff was surfacing, notably "Land Of Hope And Dreams," and, more controversially, "American Skin," which earned him some beef with law enforcement, as it had the nerve to look at the Amadou Diallo shooting from two angles (something he had done as far back as his first album with "Lost In The Flood"). It was sort of a taste of what was to come: Bruce had his political convictions, and instead of obscuring them, he was putting them out there, damn the consequences.

After 9/11, Bruce opened the America: A Tribute To Heroes telethon with a new song, "My City Of Ruins," one of his greatest works. It seemed like it was written after 9/11, when in fact he had performed it at a fair that he just showed up at in Asbury Park a few weeks earlier. It was written for Asbury Park, but it worked just as well after 9/11. Supposedly, soon after 9/11, someone on the street yelled out to him, "We need you, Bruce." That's a big responsibility, and Bruce was up to the challenge, with the help of both The E Street Band and producer Brendan O'Brien. 2002's The Rising is one of his greatest albums, and one of the very few to be able to really address the aftermath of 9/11. People reacted to it in a big way. He was alone among his peers: he was big enough to play multiple nights in stadiums, and he was able to play lots of new songs to crowds of 50,000 and have it mean something. No mean feat. During the tour, he spoke in interviews and from the stage about his dissatisfaction with the bush administration, pretty controversial given the time and also the fact that a good portion of his audience booed him for this every night and he kept up with it. The tour ended in 2003, but in 2004 Bruce and the band hit the road for two weeks on the Vote For Change tour, and after that, Bruce did some solo acoustic dates "opening" for John Kerry. We know how that turned out.

In early 2005, Bruce released a more stripped down album, produced by Brendan O'Brien but without The E Street Band, Devils & Dust. Supposedly, some of the songs were from The Ghost Of Tom Joad era. I like a lot of the album, but it isn't one of my favorites. Like Tom Joad, he supported it with a solo acoustic tour, but it was a totally different tour. In '97, as I mentioned, the shows were a bit stiff and dry. Bruce just played acoustic guitar. On Devils & Dust, he played acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin, piano, organ and uke. He also had a better time with the shows. I felt that he really came into his own as a solo acoustic performer in a way that he didn't in the '90s.

In 2006, he surprised everyone by announcing another new album, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions. I've mentioned this before, but I felt that the album was always given short shift by people who mistakenly thought that it was going to be a very dry, serious, folk album. It is actually garage rock, Depression-era style. So, maybe "barn rock." You can hear how much fun he is having when you listen, which isn't always the case on Bruce Springsteen albums. The tour was phenomenal. Unlike with his ‘92/’93 band, this one really worked. You could see why it was people other than The E Street Band (although with Patti Scialfa, Soozie Tyrell, Charlie Giordano, Curtis King and Cindy Mizelle all in both touring bands, they are getting closer and closer) and it worked. At least half the songs were not written by Bruce, and he rearranged most of his originals that made the setlist. He wrote one new song during this era, and it is one of his best: “American Land.” He said in a recent interview that he hopes to work with them again, and I hope he does.

The following year, another surprise. He had another album with The E Street Band. Magic was, in my mind, another classic. “Girls In Their Summer Clothes” is one of the best pop songs of the past decade or two. On the other hand, there were some great, angry, political songs: “Living In The Future,” “Last To Die,” “Long Walk Home” and “Magic.” And the intensely personal: “I’ll Work For Your Love” and “Terry’s Song,” in tribute to his late assistant, Terry Magovern. The tour saw even higher highs from the band. Again, they were playing lots of new songs, and those songs meant something to the audience. And they were playing old songs. And requests! These were some of their best concerts yet.

Around this time, he also contributed “The Wrestler” to the film of the same name, winning a Golden Globe.
Once again, Bruce went on tour as an “opening act,” this time for Barack Obama. We all know how that turned out. Thank God. While on that tour, he debuted a new song, “Working On A Dream,” which turned out to be the title track of his next album. I wish I liked the latest album more than I do, but there are some great moments, like “What Love Can Do,” “My Lucky Day,” “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “Good Eye” and especially “Surprise, Surprise” and “The Last Carnival” (a tribute to late E Street member Danny Federici). And on the tour for this album, the shows, impossibly, got even better (although Bruce wasn’t playing many new songs, with “Outlaw Pete” being the new album’s sole representative many nights).

In a recent Rolling Stone interview, Bruce mentioned that, although he’s 60, he has the tools to do whatever he wants in the years ahead. He can do solo acoustic stuff, he has the Sessions Band and of course The E Street Band. And he’s right. It’s amazing that he is still hungry after all that he’s done, and now he has three distinct different ways to tour and record. I know I say this a lot, but I can’t wait to see what the guy does next. On a personal level, what an inspiration: to see someone who could easily coast (or retire) being as vital as he’s ever been at age 60.

BEST OF THE 00s: PEARL JAM

Pearl Jam was one of the dominant band, if not the dominant band, of the '90s. It was their awkward childhood and adolescence as a band. And they probably produced their best music during that era: Ten, Vs.,Vitalogy and No Code. (I felt that Yield was a great album, but it saw them slipping.)

But in the '00s, they've put out a lot of great music which doesn't get its due. 2000's Binaural, produced by Tchad Blake, is probably their most underrated album. The single, "Nothing As It Seems," is a really cool song, but a willfully uncommercial pick for first single. There were some great garage rock gems there: "Breakerfall," "God's Dice" and "Evacuation." "Thin Air" is one of their sweetest songs (and was included on our wedding compilation) - I always felt that Al Green or Solomon Burke or even Willie Nelson could do a great cover. 

2002's Riot Act was kind of their mid-life crisis. Musically, it had a bit too much of an obsession (I felt) with indie rock. It was like a guy who works hard to stay in shape, but he starts slouching to appeal to indie rock fans.  It's not convincing and also unecessary.  It's interesting to me that they get so much respect from the indie rock world these days. Anyway, the album is, in my opinion, their weakest, but features two of their best songs, "I Am Mine" and "Love Boat Captain."

In 2003, they released a lovely song, "Man Of The Hour," for an equally lovely film, Tim Burton's Big Fish. That year also saw the release of Lost Dogs, a 2 CD set of non-album tracks.  The following year, they put out rearviewmirror, a 2 CD set of "greatest hits" (I had the privlege to write the record label's bio for that album). And, with that, they moved into the world of being actually independent.

On 2006's Pearl Jam, I felt that they wanted to be a "big" band again. Riot Act had a song called "Bu$hleaguer" - but it was so boring, that it didn't make much of a protest song. Even people who wanted to get behind it, couldn't.  I think they started taking cues from (maybe) The Clash and Bruce Springsteen - artists who had big messages, and wrote music appropriately so that it would reach big audiences. It was a great album, with "Life Wasted," "World Wide Suicide," "Unemployable," "Severed Hand" giving them some new anthems.  "Come Back" is maybe their sweetest song ever, if I produced Solomon Burke, I would suggest that he cover this one. I feel like that song could be a huge hit in the right hands.

Last year's Backspacer is a great album, it saw them reunite with Vs. and Vitalogy producer Brendan O'Brien.  The first single, "The Fixer," provided me with a mantra of sorts, and could be the unofficial slogan of No Expiration: "If something's old, I wanna put a little shine on it. When something's gone, I wanna fight to get it back again." "Gonna See My Friend" and "Supersonic" are great rockers as well, and "Just Breathe" is another wonderful ballad.

I also have to mention Eddie Vedder's work outside of the band: his solo debut, 2007's Into The Wild soundtrack, is classic. He's also collaborated with the Supersuckers, Neil Finn, Cat Power and former Pearl Jam drummer Jack Irons. He is creating his own solo repertoire, and hopefully he feels comfortable balancing his own career with the band. Stone Gossard has done some solo stuff and some guest appearances outside of the band.  His other group, Brad, released one album - I wish they were more active. Jeff Ament released his first solo album, and reuinted with his pre-Green River hardcore band, Derranged Diction (and Stone and Jeff did a few Green River reunion things). Mike McCready did a few things with his other band The Rockfords and did some guest appearances.  Matt Cameron meanwhile did a few albums with his garage rock band Wellwater Conspiracy, an album with his jazz band Harrybu McCage and a few other things. He really did come into his own as Pearl Jam's drummer in the '00s.

But the real reason that I am including Pearl Jam in my Best of the '00s is because they really created their own path during the '00s.  Not worrying about having huge hit records (but, finally, not shying away from the possibility of doing so), and taking advantage of their position: they don't need to deal with record labels anymore. They've always been a really popular touring act, and the group they get compared to often is The Grateful Dead. (Not musicially, just the fact that they can play huge venues without radio or press).  Since 2000, they've been releasing live albums ("bootlegs") of every concert that they play (for the most part) and they offer them at fair prices. Speaking of their live shows, they are always mind-blowingly great. They have also just started to dip into their archives: in 2006, they released New Year's Eve 1992, a concert recorded while they were just blowing up at New York's Academy (they were actually opening for Keith Richards & The X-Pensive Winos, my wife was at that show). And last year they put out a pretty amazing super-deluxe reissue of Ten (in a number of different versions, I got the big kahuna).

I think that, like The Dead, Pearl Jam will be a huge touring act for decades to come. But unlike The Dead, I bet they will still be making vital relevant music.

TOMORROW ON OUTQ: KISS, ACE FREHLEY AND JOE PERRY

Tomorrow on OutQ, I'll be talking about
some '70s hard rock legends who are still doing it today.

As I just mentioned, I enjoy the new KISS album, Sonic Boom, way more than I expected to. With KISS, it's not just about the music, but the spectacle and what kind of splash it makes. Well, the album is really good, but to make sure it gets the right push, KISS (who don't even need to deal with record labels anymore) made a deal with Walmart, f- the middleman. It's only available there, the chain is supposedly pushing it hard, and it may result in the band's first ever #1 album in the U.S. (Although as Gene will tell anyone in listening distance, "KISS have more gold albums in the U.S. than anyone, The Beatles, The Beach Boys...") I hope they get it.

Coincidentally, former KISS guitarist Ace Frehley has just his first solo album, Anomaly. The songs that I heard were pretty good. Some people don't think it is KISS without Ace, and I get that: he adds a weird quirkly element to the band, that they lack without him. Anyway, what I've heard from this album is cool, including a cover of Sweet's "Fox On The Run."

Finally, Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry has a new album, Have Guitar, Will Travel. I've always been a fan of his singing voice - at least in doses - and I think it's weird that he's working with another singer on this album. The guy, whose name is Hagen, sounds a lot like... Steven Tyler. Weird. But Joe does sing on a bunch of the songs, and those are the better ones. It's cool that Joe is doing his own thing, but I hope that Aerosmith get it together. They had a disabled list that looked like a baseball team's this summer, Tyler revealed that he has a seperate manager from the rest of the band, and they ended up cancelling thier tour. Hopefully next year they will reconvene and get back with Brendan O'Brien to start working on thier next album (which supposedly will be a Columbia distributed Walmart exclusive, a la AC/DC 's Black Ice).

At my day job, I recently got to talk to Joe, who is always cool, and he told me that not only was Aerosmith planning on playing Toys In The Attic start to finish at their shows, but they were going to learn a bunch of other entire albums.

PEARL JAM IN 2009

It's not just about celebrating Ten: Pearl Jam is going to headline San Francisco's Outside Lands festival, and they're rumored to be headlining Austin City Limits as well. And there's reports that they'll be doing a short tour as well. They're also working on their new album with Brendan O'Brien and on a documentary film with Cameron Crowe. It's a good time to be a Pearl Jam fan. 

AEROSMITH IN THE SADDLE WITH BRENDAN O'BRIEN

Last year, I told you that Aerosmith is finally hitting the studio to record a new album. Well, it turns out that they are making the album with Brendan O'Brien, which is great news. Brendan did a great job with AC/DC on Black Ice, and he doesn't go for the trendy stuff that Aerosmith sometimes veers towards in the name of seeming current. I wonder how that will work, he's also supposed to be producing the next Pearl Jam album, and supposedly he is going to oversee the deluxe reissues of Vs., Vitalogy and No Code. Anyway, hopefully this will result in a great album. By the way, I loved Aerosmith's latest album, 2004's album of blues and R&B covers, Honkin' on Bobo, it's awesome.

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S NEW ALBUM WORKING ON A DREAM DUE OUT 1/27

Bruce Springsteen has a new album! The follow up to the classic Magic is Working On A Dream, and it is due out January 27. Like Magic, Devils & Dust and The Rising, it was produced by Brendan O'Brien. The songs were started during the Magic sessions, and also feature The E Street Band. Not many artists get to plan their album around performances at the President's inauguration and the Super Bowl halftime show, but that's Bruce for you. Here's hoping for another big tour in 2009.

AC/DC's BLACK ICE DUE 10/20

So, AC/DC's new album Black Ice is coming out on October 20 through Walmart. I don't love having to buy something through Walmart, but I will make an exception in this case. I have every AC/DC album! I'm excited to hear this one, I think producer Brendan O'Brien was a great choice. I saw AC/DC a few years ago at Roseland the night after they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and they killed it. So I look forward to seeing them tour in the '09.

PEARL JAM RECORDING NEW ALBUM WITH BRENDAN O'BRIEN

Now that is some good news. I would argue that Brendan O'Brien produced Pearl Jam's best two albums: 1993's Vs. and 1994's Vitalogy. Plus the 1995 collaboration with Neil Young, Mirrorball (and the Merkin Ball EP) and the 1996 No Code and 1998 Yield albums.

Pearl Jam's last album, 2006's self-titled debut, was my favorite since No Code - it showed a willingness to want to be the biggest and the best, and not worry about indie cred. Getting back with Brendan is another step in the right direction. I don't love everything he's ever worked on, but since he stopped working with Pearl Jam, he's done two classic Bruce Springsteen albums - 2002's The Rising and last year's Magic. Plus Rage Against The Machine's 1999 The Battle Of Los Angeles.

I know if I were in a band, I'd rather make records like those than My Morning Jacket or whoever. They are strong, credible albums with a definite voice and no compromising.

I'm excited to see Pearl Jam next month - I have tickets to both of their MSG shows. Hopefully they'll play some new songs.

AC/DC HOLDS UP NEW SUPERSUCKERS ALBUM. HUH?

Well, it turns out that AC/DC actually is in the studio, and they've chosen a great producer: Brendan O'Brien. O'Brien has a long list of credits, including three of the last four Bruce Springsteen albums, as well as records by Pearl Jam, Rage Against The Machine and Matthew Sweet, among others. Here's hoping that this results in a great album.

What's funny is the way this news has gotten out: not via AC/DC or Brendan O'Brien, but The Supersuckers. On their web site, frontman Eddie Spaghetti said that the guy producing their album works as an engineer for O'Brien, and was called away from doing 'Suckers mixes to work on AC/DC.

I'll take this opportunity to try to pimp the 'Suckers. Great band. Saw them twice last year, once opening for Social Distortion, and then again for The New York Dolls. Lots of fun, criminally underrated. Anyway, here's hoping for new AC/DC and Supersuckers music soon.