Live Music Notes: Springsteen Week on Fallon and Jack White on SNL

There have been some memorable musical performances on TV this past week, featuring Bruce Springsteen and Jack White. In case you weren't up late to watch, here are the highlights.

Jimmy Fallon celebrated "Springsteen Week" on his show this past week, with appearances by Bruce and band on two nights, and covers of songs by The Boss done by John Legend and Elvis Costello (videos below).

Springsteen is prepping for the release of "Wrecking Ball,"his latest album with the E Street Band, which comes out Tuesday. Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune and public radio's "Sound Opinions" gives the album a rating of two stars out of four. 

(Speaking of live music, you can see a performance of an entirely different kind tonight [Sunday], when WFMU wraps up its 2012 fundraising marathon with a revival of Hoof and Mouth Sinfonia, an event at Maxwell's in Hoboken in which FMU DJs perform karaoke backed by a live band. Admission is only $5. If you can't be there, you can watch it or listen to it live. The festivities begin at 7 p.m.)


Springsteen performs "Jack of All Trades."



Springsteen plays "The E Street Shuffle" with Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.



John Legend plays "Dancing in the Dark."



Elvis Costello covers Springsteen's "Fire"...



... and "Brilliant Disguise." 

Jack White took the stage at the NBC studios last night as the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live." His two songs (both from his forthcoming album "Blunderbuss") looked, felt, and sounded completely different, and I liked both of them. The first, "Love Interruption," featured an all-female band and White on acoustic guitar. For the second number, "Sixteen Saltines," White amped up the intensity, ripping it up on electric guitar with a band of sharp-dressed dudes in jackets and ties.

Unfortunately, you'll have to wait a while to get "Blunderbuss;"it doesn't drop until April 24th.


Jack White getting in touch with his more mellow feminine side on "Love Interrupted"...



... and rocking out on "Sixteen Saltines."

That's a pretty good week of rock & roll on TV, I'd say.

New Music Podcasts: Favorite Cover Tunes, Elvis Costello Live, Gospel Christmas Tunes, & More

Check out the free music podcasts below for holiday and non-holiday music for your Christmas travels. Photo: SteveStrummer 

Since lots of folks are traveling around Christmastime, how about some downloading some music podcasts to listen to to occupy the time? Here are a bunch of them, enough (we hope) to drown about the all loud cellphone conversations of the people around you at the airport or on the train. And the more raucus holiday arguments at the dinner table.

* Over at Coverville, you'll find a stocking full of recent podcasts. First off, there are the first two parts of the podcast's annual countdown show of listeners' 40 favorite cover tunes. Included is recent NBC "Sing-Off" contestant On the Rocks performing their a cappella rendition of Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance."

Also on Coverville is the two-part tribute to the Talking Heads, performed by the podcast's listeners. As you'd expect, the quality and styles vary widely, but Coverville clearly has some very talented listeners.

And finally, Coverville offers its Christmas Cover Show 2010, with new versions of not-your-average holiday tunes, including remakes of "Christmas Wrapping" by The Waitresses and "Last Christmas" by Wham.

* The CBC Radio 3 podcast presents Home for the Holidays, a show in which listeners from all over the world make long-distance requests of their favorite songs by Canadian artists to send out to their loved ones.

* If your taste in Christmas music runs to the sacred side, download the podcast of the annual Christmas Eve Gospel Music program on WNYC's Leonard Lopate Show. It includes tunes like Mahalia Jackson singing "Silent Night" and the Swan Silvertones doing "Great Day in December."

Also, the Lopate show today rebroadcast (and reposted the podcast of) a live set by Elvis Costello and band at WNYC from back in November. He plays tunes from his latest album, produced by T-Bone Burnett, which shows the country/bluegrass side of the British rocker.

* KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic has a new in-studio live set with Jamie Lidell, the British producer who, the station says, can be found "sliding into neo-soul songs as easily as he slices through spacey folk-blues." For some reason recent MBE podcasts don't show up on their webpage, bou can download the podcast through iTunes (and probably other podcast download programs as well).

Merry Christmas!

Elvis Costello Podcast Looks at his First 10 Years

A number of musicians have created their own podcasts, and now Elvis Costello has joined in. As its title suggests, "The First Ten Years" takes us back to Costello's early days in the music business.

So far there are only five episodes, each about 8 minutes or so, but they are a good start. Costello talks about the music he listened to as a child, his musical influences, the recording of his first album "My Aim is True", the origins of the song "Allison," meeting Nick Lowe, and even how he chose his name.

It's not clear how many episodes there will be in this podcast, but there seems to be enough events in Costello's first 10 years for quite a few more episodes. Such podcasts can suffer premature deaths, however, if funding runs out or the producers or artists find themselves without sufficient time, interest, or momentum to continue the project.