One of the finest treats of the past few months was watching that shaky footage of Win and Régine joining Bruce & the E Streeters up in Ottawa. In hindsight that collab has an air of inevitability about it (as does the Fire’s time with Bowie, Byrne et al), but if you had to pinpoint a precipitating event, look no further: Win and Bruce reacquainted themselves (they’d met in passing in ’05) at an E Street show at Continental Airlines Arena in late September, Butler and Chassagne on hand as the Boss’s guests of honor, SPIN on hand to document the mind-meld (“not interviewing so much as eavesdropping”) for its December cover story.

It’s a long one packing a bunch of pics; sidebar pledges of allegiance to the Boss from Craig Finn (“Aging gracefully in rock is hard to do, but Bruce looks awesome”) and Matt Berninger (“Springsteen is one of those people you always trust”); and Bruce and Butler finding similarities in their bands’ organizational structure (lots of family and friends) and approach to a winning fanbase (says Win: “Not enough artists build it up the right way. You start with the guys, then get the girlfriends to come. That’s how you get the loyalty.”). At one point Butler professes his love for “State Trooper.” A few weeks later, this happened.

But our favorite part:

…when [Bruce] greets Butler and Chassagne after soundcheck, the first thing he mentions is the fan-made YouTube clip for their song “My Body Is a Cage,” set to scenes from Once Upon a Time in the West.

Just fun to think of Boss man at a laptop watching fan made YouTube clips.

Check the Win + Bruce SPIN cover after the jump.


Read an excerpt over at Spin.com.

Comments (15)
  1. derek  |   Posted on Nov 20th, 2007

    But seriously, that Youtube video is beautiful…

  2. thelonious  |   Posted on Nov 20th, 2007

    I know. It made me like the song.

  3. powerful in a fan-made-youtube-video sort of way.

  4. “THE CONVERSATION”. i dunno i find that funny. but yeah the song works really well with OUAITW. i saw arcade fire twice this weekend, they covered New Order, The Smiths, The Clash and allegedly Pulp’s Common People but i wasn’t there for that night.

  5. jesus  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    sounds as if they were discussing the fate of the universe.

    good to know win and bruce are keeping the gods in check with their mighty discourse etc

  6. Duke  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    It’s also fun to think of our Lord and Saviour commenting on a Stereogum post.

    What’s even more curious is that he didn’t even reply with “first!”

  7. SamanthaSecretAgent  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    Fuck Arcade Fire.

    There’s nothing entertaining about a bunch of ugly pretentious douchebags who can just barely play their instruments copy the music of one of the most popular artists of the past 30 years.

    That Cover Looks Like The Meeting Of Two Sex Offenders Rather Than Music’s Greatest Meeting Of The Minds Of The Decade.

    I’m not sure whether to Call the RIAA for Copyright Infringement or To Go To Home Depot to buy New Deadbolts to protect My Family and Pets from those two.

    oh and ‘rachel’ you missed a T in your totally necessary abbreviation.

  8. SamanthaSecretAgent  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    F–k Arcade Fire.

    There’s nothing entertaining about a bunch of ugly pretentious d-bags who can just barely play their instruments copy the music of one of the most popular artists of the past 30 years.

    That Cover Looks Like The Meeting Of Two Sex Offenders Rather Than Music’s Greatest Meeting Of The Minds Of The Decade.

    I’m not sure whether to Call the RIAA for Copyright Infringement or To Go To Home Depot to buy New Deadbolts to protect My Family and Pets from those two.

    oh and ‘rachel’ you missed a T in your totally necessary abbreviation.

  9. SamanthaSecretAgent  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    F–k Arcade Fire.

    There’s nothing entertaining about a bunch of ugly pretentious d-bags who can just barely play their instruments copy the music of one of the most popular artists of the past 30 years.

    That Cover Looks Like The Meeting Of Two Sex Offenders Rather Than Music’s Greatest Meeting Of The Minds Of The Decade.

    I’m not sure whether to Call the RIAA for Copyright Infringement or To Go To Home Depot to buy New Deadbolts to protect My Family and Pets from those two.

    oh and ‘rachel’ you missed a T in your totally necessary abbreviation.

  10. Jeff  |   Posted on Nov 21st, 2007

    That is quite possibly the absolute best youtube fan-made video I’ve ever seen and would ever want to see. Watching it immediately gives a different substance to the song and it’s just heavy, heavy, heavy…brilliant stuff.

  11. I heart duplicate troll posts.

  12. Hey, I’m actually the fellow that made the video. I can’t begin to say how honored I am that the Boss himself noticed it. Thanks for the good words, and thanks for posting this Stereogum.

    I have a newer video I made for Radiohead. You might like to check it too:

    http://jtylerhelms.com/2007/10/radiohead-all-i-need.html

  13. mattP  |   Posted on Nov 22nd, 2007

    Tyler, the Radiohead video is fantastic
    I put it up on my ’2007 list site’ :P ( http://www.angelfire.com/un/lemur/2007.html )

    Thanks for the creativity – the raindrops falling at the end is a wonderful match

  14. Just got the issue yesterday, awesome…

    http://www.alucinante.net

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