#245
June 6 1980 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
Iron City Houserockers
Have a Good Time but…Get Out Alive
Genre: Child of the Boss
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
Don’t Let Them Push You Around
Pumping Iron
Angela
We’re Not Dead Yet
Junior’s Bar
This is the kind of record that makes me say “Fuck John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band”.
Cafferty aped Bruce’s sound, watered it down and made a fortune as Eddie and the Cruisers. But, Joe Grushecky is the real deal. A real child of that barroom New Jersey sound. Even though he’s from Pittsbugh.
He’ so much the deal that 15 years later Bruce would produce his seventh solo album American Babylon.
I’ve never heard of the guy but this album kicks.
It makes me want to know more about Grushecky. 21 albums since 1979. If Springsteen had opening bands, Joe would and should have absolutely been one of those. In fact, I prefer this album to any entire Southside Johnny joint. And then I learn that he and Bruce teamed up in 2017 for an Anti-Trump protest song. “That’s What Makes Us Great” almost gets there. It’s pretty scathing. I wish more people had heard it. Maybe I would have learned about Joe Grushecky before today.
“We’re Not Dead Yet” just landed on my Best Of Playlist. It’s “Roulette” years before Bruce got pen to paper.
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