The Bruce Springsteen story vol. 1: the Castiles
Live at the Left Foot Teen Club in St. Peter's church, Freehold NJ
january 1967 (says the cd cover. please read Brucebase story below)
ONE show, double bill, with PURPUL DYNESTE opening and THE CASTILES
headlining. Each band played two 30-minute sets. This was grand opening
night at The Left Foot, an "over 13 under 18" club located in the
recreation centre of St Peter's Episcopal Church at 37 Throckmorton
St. Sadly The Left Foot had a short existence (7 months). This was the
first of only 2-ever live appearances by The Castiles at the club -
fortunately both appearances were audience recorded by Left Foot Manager
(and St Peter's priest) Fred Coleman on a good quality reel-to reel
device.
The above-mentioned 13-song setlist represents The Castiles' complete
song performance in the correct sequence. The entire performance can be
found by combining Tracks 3 thru 8 on the CD boot "THE BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
STORY, VOL 2 (E Street) with Tracks 1 thru 7 on the CD boot "THE BRUCE
SPRINGSTEEN STORY, VOL 1 (E Street). Note: the session details on this
CD are not accurate. This bootlegger used a rough downstream generation
source tape (running slower than the correct speed and with numerous
short edits) and the sound quality is (at best) only fair. Two of the
songs heard in the audio are cut prematurely - a flaw in the original
master recording, not in later copying. However the sound quality of the
original master tape (which does not readily circulate) is dramatically
better (very good), with the vocals up front in the mix and good instrument
separation.
All 13 songs are covers of other artists' material, including The Blues
Magoos' "One By One" and Moby Grape's "Omaha". The inspiration for often-
covered "Get Out Of My Life, Woman" was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band
version. Similarly the inspiration for Leonard Cohen's "Suzanne" was the
1966 Judy Collins recording. Although Springsteen may have started out in
mid 1965 singing mostly background vocals, it is clear that by this point
Bruce is the band's focal point. Bruce handles the lead vocals on all
songs except "Eleanor Rigby", The Kinks "See My Friends" and The Blues
Project's haunting "Steve's Song" (all handled by George Theiss). Tex
Vinyard, The Castiles' manager, is heard introducing the band at the
start of the 2nd set. Interestingly the group uses The Yardbirds
instrumental "Jeff's Boogie" twice, as both the set closer and show
closer.