Springsteen's Guitarist Steve Van Zandt Warns on State of Rock

When it comes to the history of rock music, Steve Van Zandt knows what he is talking about. He's not the best guitarist by a long shot, but he is the soul of rock music personified. Plus his first two solo albums (Men without Women in 1982 Voice of America in 1984) were amazing.

One has to take Mr. Van Zandt's comments with a grain of salt.

On one hand, Little Steven is an elder. His long tenure as a troubadour and his place at the right hand of no less a personage as The Boss earns him sage status. One has to pay attention to an argument coming from someone with so much experience.

However, Mr. Van Zandt is also an old man whose glory days (pun intended) lie in the rapidly retreating past. While he contributes perennially to new records, from what I've seen they've all been retrograde celebrations of rock and roll's bygone past. Bruce Springsteen is an enigma, to be sure. Performing his music is hardly cabaret. But the stuff that went into The Boss's songs was stock material from the standard American songbook of the 50s and 60s. Springsteen is an impeccable lens, focusing the noisome spectrum into something truly magnificent. But the components were all pre-existing.

As such, Van Zandt is something like a master tradesman. I'm not convinced he has the ideal credentials to comment on the creative parts of rock and pop music.

Of course, the comments actually refer more to today's culture of leapfrogging past the troubadour phase. But that fails to take into consideration that everything has changed. Like stump politics, technology has changed the way music is promoted. Bands in the 70s and 80s had to play the small club circuit to sell their music. Before the standardization of American radio, folks played grueling tours of even smaller venues just to carve out a small ledge in a regional scene. Bands today communicate more directly to their audiences than they did even during the Pearl Jam or U2 eras. Bruce Springsteen and his band ultimately had to work less hard than Buddy Holly, Hank Williams, or Eddie Cochran (Eddie who?), who literally died in pursuit of a lucrative profession. The leapfrogging is less artificial than it is a natural adaptation of the current situation.

Bands that didn't exploit the electronic options of Facebook and MySpace would lack exactly the kind of savvy that made Bruce Springsteen and his E-Street Band the enigmas they are.

The one point Mr. Van Zandt is precisely on point about is the vanishing talent of the live band. My generation (Gen X) has seen a gradual shrinking of the rock band into a tight combo. It's all we've known, and we've compensated for whatever we've forfeited by seeking bands of tremendous intensity (like Fugazi, The Minutemen, even Nirvana), who did more with three or four than the arena blimps of our older brothers' generations could do with eight or nine. However, when treated to a real rock spectacle (like another recent Bonaroo alum, Wilco), one kind of sees what he's been missing and what Little Steven is going on about.

However, call me overly loyal to my generation and our way of doing things, but I prefer the small combo to the travelling rock circus for the same reason libertarians prefer small government. Music is a very precious thing and there's less room for abuse when it's kept in a modest frame. Engorging the combo will fling us back to the awaiting arms of Neil Diamond and Barry Manilow and the other "live from Branson, MO" hacks. I don't think that's what Mr. Van Zandt is recommending either.