Little Steven Campaigns for Garage Rock in NY

By Gelu Sulugiuc
Reuters

NEW YORK - In the '80s, he campaigned against apartheid. On Saturday, Bruce Springsteen guitarist Little Steven furthered the cause of garage rock with a festival that featured the first U.S. performance by glam-punk pioneers The New York Dolls in more than 30 years.

Little Steven, whose real name is Steven Van Zandt, didn't have to convince the crowd at the 12-hour International Underground Garage Festival on New York City's Randall's Island that, despite scant mainstream radio play, garage rock is alive and well.

The fans danced on the muddy ground, braving an approaching rain storm, screaming in delight as New York Dolls singer David Johansen strutted and pouted across the stage, his pink nail polish matching his sleeveless shirt.

After the show, a buoyant Johansen was unable to contain his euphoria about the Dolls playing in their hometown again.

"It was dynamite, man, better than sex," he said. "It's about time I got a little exercise."

The moment was overshadowed by the absence of the band's bassist, Arthur Kane, who died on July 13 at age 55 of leukemia shortly after the reunited band played a few shows in Europe.

"He was a magical man," Johansen told Reuters. "It's sad, but we're doing what he would've wanted us to do."

Garage rock is loud and simple guitar-driven music so dear to Little Steven's heart that he produces a weekly radio show dedicated to it. At first, no one wanted to carry it, but now it plays on 136 stations in the United States.

The festival was a celebration of the genre, bringing together pioneers like The Pretty Things and The New York Dolls and current standard-bearers The Raveonettes and The Strokes.

Bands performed only two songs each with no time for sound check. A dozen go-go girls in brightly colored outfits entertained the crowd between sets.

Iggy Pop delivered the most energetic performance of the day, climbing on a stack of amplifiers to beat his chiseled bare chest like a Tarzan in low-hung blue jeans.

Blues legend Bo Diddley played his signature rectangular guitar sitting down and later rapping over a funky beat to show the young crowd that "I ain't gone yet."

"This feels like 1955 all over again," Diddley told the crowd. "God bless you and God bless rock 'n' roll."

I was reading an article about Steven Van Zandt and it said that his current role on the Sopranos was his first acting job. Is this correct? If so, I was curious about some of the details surrounding how he got the job. Was the producer of the Sopranos a fan of his rock music or something? It's interesting to me that he got the job with no experience in acting. And that being said, I think he does a really good job.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch

The Sopranos is, indeed, his first acting gig, and to be honest, I'm really not sure how he got the part.

He has stated, though, that he has no desire to do any other acting.

I found this quite interesting. I was browsing Little Steven's website, and I found this in the "Q&A" section:

I saw The Sopranos a few times and found it quite difficult to watch; guns, violence, pain, money-means-everything. In your work you are against these things, you sing for peace, love, forgiveness, freedom etc., yet you act in this program. I know it's just acting, but don't you think you could initiate wrong thoughts in people's heads - especially young people? I think it's hypocritical to say you're against war, guns, hate etc. and then act in this program.

Well **** you!

Just kidding.

Silvio answered before I could stop him.

Before I participate in any kind of work I ask a couple of simple questions.

Is it of the highest conceivable quality?

Does it express the truth?

Is it insightful?

Will it engage people and stimulate an intelligent conversation?

Is it something I would want to watch (or listen to, or read)?

In addition to the literal truth, is there a universal truth being expressed, metaphorically or symbolically?

Etc.

I have always been interested in gangsters and outlaws. This is probably why I played Rock and Roll all those years. As a kid all I remember is Cagney's gangster movies, John Wayne's westerns, war movies, and an occasional horror flick. All of which contained violence, prejudice, rewritten/romanticized history, and fantasy. And yet I grew up against guns, an American Indian rights advocate, anti-war, and most all of my work rooted in hard core reality.

Go figure.

Maybe it's the values instilled by one's parents and family that matters most and not the input from the external media.

As I've said many times, anybody watching The Sopranos and deciding to run out and join the mafia truly does need a psychiatrist. We go out of our way to portray that lifestyle as realistically as possible. There is no romanticizing or glamorization going on. One of the great achievements of the show is showing how mundane that lifestyle is without boring the audience to death.

Consider for a moment what the show is all about.

It is about having two families, one at home, and one at work, and how you balance the two and cope with the modern dilemma of never having enough time for either one.

It is about men who are watching the daily disintegration of the only life they've ever known. Watching the way they make their living and support their families becoming more and more irrelevant every day.

It is about the destruction of a value system that generations lived by. The end of all things once considered tradition.

It is about the confusion and insecurity felt by people who are in the middle of some of the most dramatic cultural changes that have ever taken place in the history of the planet.

The show does not advocate or encourage anything I am philosophically opposed to in real life. And even if it did, if it was casting light on a subject worthy of thought or discussion, I'd still do it.

I consider it a compliment that you would suggest that anything I participate in is an endorsement. That happens to be true. But remember art is not life. Art, at it's best, illuminates and dissects and exaggerates and dissembles and reassembles life in a way we may not have thought of and, by doing that, helps us understand ourselves and the world around us a little bit better. And keep in mind art speaks to a place and a time. What is meaningless or even offensive today may speak to you tomorrow and surprise you with its revelatory truth.

Do you believe that Anthony Hopkins is endorsing serial killing by being in Silence of The Lambs? Is Michael Douglas endorsing greed by being in Wall Street? Do you think Joaquin Phoenix thinks it's okay to murder his father because he did so in Gladiator?

Repeat after me.

It's only a movie, it's only a movie....

I applaud that very thoughtful insight from Mr. Van Zandt. :clap

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/attachment.php?s=&postid=1322893

I remember reading that David Chase was a fan of Van Zandt's and recruited him when casting the show.

His real-life wife plays his Soprano's wife. Little trivia for those who didn't know.

Great pics AKA. :)

That was a really interesting post from Van Zandt. He sounds like a well-versed, well-read individual. I figured that the producer/creator of the Sopranos must have been a fan or a friend in order to consider him for the role in spite of having no acting experience. And I did not know that his TV wife was also his real-life wife as well. That is interesting.

Signed,
Respectfully,
Dutch