Darkness on the Edge of Town
I’ve been a Bruce Springsteen fan for about as long as I’ve been alive but when it comes to his music, I’ve steered mostly to the greatest hits collection that helped define most of my 80′s childhood. When it comes to the music of the Boss, Born to Run and Born in the U.S.A. were the defining albums for me. For any true Springsteen fan, however, those two albums simply represent one facet of a career that has spawned a huge number of classic albums. Some would argue that the best work of Springsteen can best be heard on albums like Nebraska and Darkness on the Edge of Town. While those less mainstream works were never something I paid much attention to as a kid, I’ve discovered them slowly over the years and realized just how brilliant those albums are. With the release of the new box set of Darkness on the Edge of Town, I’ve finally gotten to dig into one of Springsteen’s most important albums and, in my humble opinion, his best.
Included in the deluxe edition is an oversized box that houses a replica (presumably) of Springsteen’s infamous notebook, which he would use to construct lyrics for the huge number of songs that would be worked on during the Darkness period. All told, according to the story, there were around 70 songs recorded for the Darkness on the Edge of Town recording session but the notebook really only represents the ten that made it onto the album. With that said, it’s really interesting to see the different states that these songs were in over the three year period they were being worked on. You can see places where lyrics had been crossed out or added to and in some cases whole new revisions of songs on a separate page appear. It’s a very neat insight into how an artist goes about crafting his lyrics and stories.
The Darkness box set comes packed with a remastered version of Darkness on the Edge of Town, a collection of unreleased songs from that period (including two classics made famous by other artists, “Fire” and “Because the Night”) called The Promise and two live concert DVD’s. One of the DVD’s features the E-Street Band in 2009 playing down the entire Darkness album and it’s really one of the highlights of the set. To see these guys interpret one of the most interesting albums of their career only now with over 30 years of experience as a band makes for a very compelling listening experience.
It bears mentioning that The Promise, which is an additional 2-disc set featuring previously unreleased songs, is a real hit on it’s own. When you hear the variety of tracks that didn’t make the original cut of ten songs that appeared on Darkness, you really begin to appreciate the amount of discipline that Springsteen showed at the age of 26. The Promise now adds a whole new set of songs to the Springsteen catalog that have been sitting in a vault for thirty years and it’s a real treat to hear them now.
So, while you do get a lot of great stuff in this set, I have to admit that this is truly for the Springsteen nerds in the audience only. For me, it’s a great inside look at one of the best albums of one of my favorite artists and it was well worth the cash. However, it may be more benefical for folks to just check out the remastered Darkness and The Promise, both of which can be purchased individually. For those of you who, like me, have to have the big version, you can find the deluxe edition going for a ridiculously high $100.00+ price tag. However, you can find it for a more reasonable price on Amazon here: The Promise: The Darkness On The Edge Of Town Story (3 CD/3 DVD)
It wasn’t too long ago that I was walking through a Best Buy store and I saw this amazing game for the PS2. It had a plastic guitar and kids were jamming to classic riffs. Crowds gathered and people waited through several songs just to have a turn playing this game, which was called Guitar Hero. Of course, that game went on to spawn several sequels, all with additional features that made the experience a richer and deeper one. But there was something magical about that first Guitar Hero – the first time you actualy felt like you were jamming like a rock star. Harmonix, the makers of that genre-defining title are at it again, and this time instead of giving you a plastic guitar and a smokey club to play in, you’re under the lights of a fancy disco, showing off your moves with the latest in gaming technology. Their game is Dance Central and like the first Guitar Hero, it comes packed with a ton of magic that makes you feel like a superstar. 
Not my normal beat, for sure, and slightly off the beaten track for Robot Panic. But I recently got the chance to take in this duo’s show and I was impressed. There are a lot of acts out there catering to the wee ones, and 
For those unfamiliar with this groundbreaking film from 1927, it’s hard to appreciate how exciting it is to finally be able to see the entire film, uncut in this newly released edition on DVD and Blu-ray. Like many things that have been lost in history, I never imagined the footage would ever be found to re-assemble this film to the original cut. At about 2.5 hours, I’ll be the first to admit it’s too long and drags at points, but I’m also more forgiving of an 80 year-old film than I would be for something released today. I’m actually not going to be an apologist for the length or the hokey aspects of this film either. It’s got so much to offer, the negatives aspects are dwarfed by the positive ones.
When I was a kid, the first bit of anime that I was introduced to wasn’t Sailor Moon or Speed Racer. It was a serial cartoon show called Star Blazers. Every Saturday, my brothers and I would watch as the crew of the space battleship Yamato traveled across the galaxy in serach of a cure for a dying planet Earth. While not a new concept to Japanese audiences, it was the first episodic cartoon I can remember. It had a kick ass story, amazing battle scenes, and a very memorable theme song. My brothers and I would often make Lego Yamato battleships including the dreaded “Wave Motion Gun.”