Bruce Springsteen Forum

Bruce always nicknames band members with a purpose. Danny was Dangerous Dan. Clarence Clemons is the Big Man. How did you become the Professor?
I think it was because I seemed to have a plausible answer for any question that came up, whether it was true or not. [Laughs] I was the answer man.

Not just musically?
Bruce once called me to the back of the bus and said, "Professor, what exactly is E=MC2?" I said. "Well, it's energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, which is 186,000 miles per second." And he said, "Uh, okay."

Maybe it was the "police riot" in Middletown, New Jersey. A show we were doing to raise bail money for "Mad Dog" Lopez who was in jail in Richmond, Virginia, for having an altercation with police officers who we'd aggravated by playing too long. Danny allegedly knocked over our huge Marshall stacks on some of Middletown's finest who had rushed the stage because we broke the law by...playing too long.

As I stood there watching, several police oficers crawled out from underneath the speaker cabinets and rushed away to seek medical attention. Another nice young officer stood in front of me onstage waving his nightstick, poking and calling me nasty names. I looked over to see Danny with a beefy police officer pulling on one arm while Flo Federici, his first wife, pulled on the other, assisting her man in resisting arrest.

A kid leapt from the audience onto the stage, momentarily distracting the beefy officer with the insults of the day. Forever thereafter, "Phantom" Dan Federici slipped into the crowd and disappeared.

A warrant out for his arrest and one month on the lam later, he still hadn't been brought to justice. We hid him in various places but now we had a problem. We had a show coming at Monmouth College. We needed the money and we had to do the gig. We tried a replacement but it didn't work out. So Danny, to all of our admiration, stepped up and said he'd risk his freedom, take the chance and play.

Show night. 2,000 screaming fans in the Monmouth College gym. We had it worked out so Danny would not appear onstage until the moment we started playing. We figured the police who were there to arrest him wouldn't do so onstage during the show and risk starting another riot.

Let me set the scene for you. Danny is hiding, hunkered down in the backseat of a car in the parking lot. At five minutes to eight, our scheduled start time, I go out to whisk him in. I tap on the window.

"Danny, come on, it's time."

I hear back, "I'm not going."

Me: "What do you mean you're not going?"

Danny: "The cops are on the roof of the gym. I've seen them and they're going to nail me the minute I step out of this car."

As I open the door, I realize that Danny has been smoking a little something and had grown rather paranoid. I said, "Dan, there are no cops on the roof."

He says, "Yes, I saw them, I tell you. I'm not coming in."

So I used a procedure I'd call on often over the next forty years in dealing with my old pal's concerns. I threatened him...and cajoled. Finally, out he came. Across the parking lot and into the gym we swept for a rapturous concert during which we laughted like thieves at our excellent dodge of the local cops.

At the end of the evening, during the last song, I pulled the entire crowd up onto the stage and Danny slipped into the audience and out the front door. Once again, "Phantom" Dan had made his exit. (I still get the occasional card from the old Chief of Police of Middletown wishing us well. Our histories are forever intertwined.) And that, my friends, was only the beginning.

Wenn wir schon mal bei der Aufklärung von Pseudonymen sind:
....
und an anderer Stelle (irgend ein halboffizieller Lifesampler, falls es keiner kennt muss ich es mal raussuchen) meint er "my name ist Steve..." Warum?

Gruß,

jykke

Da Steve van Zandt u.a. auch den Spitznamen 'Miami Steve' hat, könnte es durchaus sein, dass Du Dich da verhört hast und vielmehr der Herr Springsteen eben den Herrn van Zandt 'spitznamentlich' vorstellt bzw. zumindest erwähnt.

storyteller

richtig; und der Name Miami Steve kommt daher, weil Steve bis damals nie in Miami war

ich dachte immer, "Miami Steve" rührt daher, dass Steven sich im Winter immer in Florida aufhielt, weil es ihm in New Jersey zu kalt war

Das mit dem Winter-Urlaub in Florida ist richtig. Aber den Spitznamen "Miami-Steve" hat er meines Wissens bekommen, als er unmittelbar nach so einem Urlaub mit einem potthäßlichen kribbelbunten (in Miami gekauften) Shirt im Studio auftauchte. Seither wird er mit dem Spitznamen an diesen optischen Ausrutscher erinnert und immer noch damit aufgezogen.

als ob die Hemden, die er in den letzten Jahren trug, besser aussehen würden...

und meistens einen Knopf zu viel offen für sein Alter...

@ die Herren der Schöpfung - Stevie ist einfach eine coole Socke

Wenn wir schon mal bei der Aufklärung von Pseudonymen sind:

Auf der Hammersmith Odeon '75 kündigt Bruce "It's hard to be a Saint in the City" mit "This is for P" an. Wer ist P???

jykke

P = Pete Townshend

Rock n Roll Hall of Fame: "It was the early '80s. I went with Pete Townshend, who always wanted to catch the first whiff of those about to unseat us, to a club in London."
Klar, 1975 war bestimt nicht in den frühen 80er aber ich nehme an, dass sie sich vor der Show in London kennen lernten und über das Lied gesprochen haben oder sich schon vorher kannten, New York.