Welcome to the 20th episode of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast — a.k.a. the podcast in which music journalists/obsessives Dan Epstein (the Yank) and Tony Fletcher (the Brit) clash and connect over music from either side of the pond.

For our big 2-0, we’re back on American shores — the Jersey Shore, to be specific. Bruce Springsteen is someone whose work is extremely dear to both of us — though because of our slight difference in age and the fact that we grew up on opposite sides of the Atlantic, our experiences were quite different when it came to discovering his music. We compare notes on the “origin stories” of our Bruce fandom in this episode, while also taking a closer look at a Springsteen album that didn’t chart in either the US or the UK at the time of its release: 1973’s The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle.

Released just 11 months after the acoustic-oriented Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J., Springsteen’s ambitious second album found him plugging in his electric guitar to record seven songs — four of which ran seven minutes or longer — with a full band, while drawing upon a much wider range of musical styles and influences. The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle was an incredibly important stepping stone in Springsteen’s career, once which put him and the E Street Band on course to create Born to Run and to play their first shows in the UK and Europe, including their now-legendary appearance at London’s Hammersmith Odeon on November 18, 1975.

We talk about that incredible performance in this episode, along with why Wild/Innocent is still such a compelling listen, Bruce’s knack for myth-making, the time Tony interviewed Bruce for his book with Eddie Floyd, Knock! Knock! Knock! on Wood: My Life in Soul, and a whole lot more!

As always, this full CROSSED CHANNELS episode is only available to paid subscribers of Jagged Time Lapse and/or Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith, though a short preview of the episode is available for all to listen to. To hear this episode in full, along with all of our previous CROSSED CHANNELS episodes, just sign up for a paid subscription to one of our Substacks — or, better yet, sign up for both of them!

Music on this episode: "Put It Down" by The Dear Boys. More info at https://thedearboys.bandcamp.com/album/put-it-down

Welcome to the 18th episode of the CROSSED CHANNELS podcast — a.k.a. the podcast in which music journalists/obsessives Dan Epstein (the Yank) and Tony Fletcher (the Brit) clash and connect over music from either side of the pond.

The Beach Boys fit in quite nicely with our whole CROSSED CHANNELS concept, as they were a quintessentially American band that was both profoundly impacted by the British Invasion and hugely influential on a number of British artists. And when their immense US popularity began to decline as Brian moved the band’s music away from surfing and hot rod songs, The Beach Boys experienced a new wave of popularity in the UK — a wave set in motion in May 1966, when The Who’s Keith Moon personally insisted that Beach Boy Bruce Johnston (then visiting London to promote the newly-released Pet Sounds) join him for an interview segment on ITV’s Ready Steady Go!

Of course, The Beatles also show up in this CROSSED CHANNELS episode. The competition between Britain’s biggest import and America’s biggest homegrown band produced incredible music from both camps, at least before the May 1967 release of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band caused Brian Wilson to scrap The Beach Boys’ ambitious Smile project. But even with Brian on the ropes, his band’s post-Pet Sounds output continued to sell remarkably well in the UK, where the influence of Pet Sounds itself also manifested in Billy Nicholls’ remarkable 1968 album Would You Believe, which Dan recently wrote about at his Substack:

As always, this full CROSSED CHANNELS episode is only available to paid subscribers of Jagged Time Lapse and/or Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith, though a short preview of the episode is available above for all to listen to. To hear this episode in full, along with all of our previous CROSSED CHANNELS episodes, just sign up for a paid subscription to one of our Substacks — or, better yet, sign up for both of them! CROSSED CHANNELS can be heard both here on our Substack pages or via your preferred podcast app: just follow the links and instructions on the right. In addition to the podcast, Jagged Time Lapse and Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith regularly serve up previously unpublished interviews and other exclusive content to our paid subscribers.