Rock 'n Roll Iwo Jima

On some as-yet-undetermined date in some as-yet-undetermined city (surely a United States city), Bruce Springsteen and His E Street Band struck the powerful, unifying, healing pose that's come to be known through the Halls of Rock as Rock 'n Roll Iwo Jima. This is a pose that had never before been perfected on stage, not by Seger, John Mellencamp, or U2. Today we will attempt to define this term for future generations of musicians, rock critics, and music lovers, and we will begin to trace its development.

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The Rock 'n Roll Caterer takes five, in 1985!

Years ago, when my wife and I were first dating, we ran into one of my old musician friends on a street corner. His long hair and slacker Shaggy Rogers facade hid the fact that he was a gentle, thoughtful guy whose only vice was sweets. After continuing on our way, she said something like, "Band members have this reputation for being tough and cool, but whenever I meet them they're usually the nicest people in the club." From 1978 through the 1980s, Penny Rush-Valladares interacted with rock stars galore while running Backstage Cafe, a concert catering company in Kansas City, Missouri. In the process, Penny became a member of the Kansas City rock scene herself. From both the tales on her website, Rock and Roll Stories, and our conversations about her her experiences, it quickly became clear that Penny was among the many nice ones in the rock scene, super nice.

But this hard-working, rock 'n roll-loving hippie (in the best sense of the term) isn't beyond dishing more than her patented turkey dinners. In the course of our talk we gain some shocking insights about the likes of Roger Waters, Neil Diamond, and Bob Dylan - not to mention a story about Van Halen that's more disgusting than I would have thought possible. A key detail about a diminutive purple presence in the '80s rock scene explains so much, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. In the true spirit of the Halls of Rock, Penny brings a cheerful attitude, a bruised-but-not-beaten sense of idealism, and the willingness to let it all hang out. You won't run into a Penny on any old street corner.

Penny's website chronicles some of her earliest rock 'n roll stories, including her night with The Beatles; we start with her entry into rock 'n roll catering.

RTH: Can you summarize your work as a rock ‘n roll caterer? How did you get started as a caterer for touring musicians? You were initially based out of a certain venue, right?

Penny: Well, yes and no. I worked out of the Uptown Theatre in the beginning, helping another woman and learning the ropes. But it soon extended out into other venues. It was in its infant stages and we made it up as we went along. Basically we had to come up with a little dressing room food for the artists and some crew dinner for 20 or so guys. The reason I got involved was because I loved going to concerts and wanted to be backstage, so I soon realized there was a need for food and I knew that was something I could do.

It just kept evolving and demands from the artists kept getting more involved and official. A contract "rider" came along, which listed all the particular needs of each act and their food requirements were included. So it didn’t take long for me to start specializing in concert catering. I never wanted to do other kinds of catering, because I was only doing it to be backstage.

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There is one thing that bums me out the most about the legacy of The Clash: that the song "London Calling" is generally considered their anthem and stock song for modern-day artists to cover.

It's not that I don't like the song "London Calling"; it's a keeper, but I consider it most valuable as a set up for what follows on the band's breakthrough album by the same name. I also consider it a song that only The Clash have the right to play. Of course, maybe that's why the song has taken such a high place in the band's legacy, but musically the song leaves me wanting a lot more that I typically expect from a Clash song. If I could erase one thing from The Clash's legacy it would be this song as the go-to song for artists like The Boss to cover. If a blowhard like The Boss (with or without Elvis Costello, a blowhard I love) must cover a Clash song, I wish it could have been a song with a little more to it, like "Death or Glory."

How about you, what would you most like to see wiped clean from the legacy of a favorite artist?

Townsman andyr and his wife have reported the following series of Rock Crimes. Sensitive viewers are cautioned before proceeding to the video evidence, which was captured by the iPhone of an anonymous audience member. The authorities are currently interviewing witnesses. Please feel free to provide your own testimony in the Comments section for this post. Thank you, andyr family, for your bravery and good citizenship in reporting these crimes.

Watch video evidence of Rock Crimes of flash mob proportions...after the jump!

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Have you heard of Lala.com? It's sort of a one-stop online music shopping/listening site. You can buy legal MP3s and the like. You can make playlists. I believe you can load your home MP3 library virtually, so you can listen to it on another computer without having to actually transfer all those gigabytes from one machine to another. Most enticingly for me, you can stream entire albums completely free, one time. It's a great way to sample an album you're thinking of buying. You can avoid a lot of unnecessary purchases this way.

Unfortunately, Apple bought Lala, and they're shutting it down. The site will cease to be on May 31, 2010. So I've been streaming a lot of music on there while I can, trying to plug in some of the gaps in my rock knowledge and just generally having some fun. Some of the things I've played:

• X's See How We Are and The Dream Syndicate's Medicine Show. These albums made me sad, and made me think about Bruce Springsteen's pernicious influence on rock 'n' roll over the years.
• The Mekons' Heaven and Hell. Good-to-great stuff.
• Unrest's Imperial f.f.r.r.. I actually went out and bought this after playing it.
• That Fall best-of from a few years ago. OK, I get it. This is the kind of thing I can get into, when I'm in the mood. But I don't see myself buying much Fall right now. I gotta be fiscally responsible these days.
• I think I also listened to some Embarassment and didn't like it as much as I thought it would.

Also, earlier in the year, I was listening to as much '80s Neil Young as I could find on the site: Re-ac-tor, Everybody's Rockin', Life, This Note's For You, etc. I want to pick up this project at some point this month and listen to a few more "weird Neil" albums, like the all-feedback Arc and that one about his electric car.

So suggest other albums/artists I should listen to on this site, Townsfolks. If it's any help, lately my tastes have veered towards dirty, noisy, smart indie rock with guitars. Have at it.

I thought better of making a "Shroud of Turin" reference...

Can you help RTH Labs decipher the meaning of this interview?

Who are the worst dancers in rock 'n roll? I think we can agree that Bruce makes the list of rockers who shouldn't have been caught dancing.

Warning sign.

Artist Toby Wetland pulls no punches with his depiction of The Boss' second fall. "Even with help, The Boss stumbled and fell to the ground once more," explains the artist. "This time Julianne was the tipping point, but not - I stress - the sole cause of his fall."

Bruce has seen death before, but now He can feel the profound weakness of disability and disease and aging itself, there on his knees, clutching onto the mic stand, under the weight of his Telecaster.

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Sweat jacket.

In our sixth Station of The Boss, artist Hans Wheeler asked us to look at The Boss in a new light. "Perspiration was increasingly becoming an issue for The Boss and His E Street Band in the early '80s." explains Wheeler. By 1983, concerts typically ran for 4 hours or more, testing the band's improved cardiovascular fitness. Wheeler says the band was up to the challenge, and decided to emphasize their newly crafted "guns."

"The scrawny, hairy, sweaty, bearded, wool cap-wearing Boss was a thing of the past," said Wheeler, as we sipped soy vanilla lattes on the roof deck of his Dayton, Ohio condominium. "He liked the way the sweat ran down His sculpted physique, and He wanted to make sure this Look worked within His show." The problem, Wheeler explained, was how to keep all that sweat from gumming up the works of the band's equipment.

"In the old days," Wheeler continued, "the hats, beards, vests, and jackets sopped up enough sweat to keep the gear dry enough to play through the night." Now The Boss and His band were often down to one layer of clothing, with their sleeves rolled up high and tight over that finely honed artillery. Eventually something had to give, and the band introduced a new article of clothing into its ranks:

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