"You've had bad breaks? Well that's tough luck."

"The Ghost of Tom Joad" (featuring Tom Morello) by BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN & THE E STREET BAND:
Today sees the release of Bruce Springsteen's Magic Tour Highlights digital EP, featuring collaborations with Alejandro Escovedo, Byrds' guitarist Roger McGuinn and this duet with Rage Against the Machine guitarist Tom Morello on Bruce's "The Ghost of Tom Joad" (which RATM covered nearly a decade ago).

The EP features the final performance of E Street keyboardist Danny Federici. Royalties and profits from the EP (iTunes also has videos of each performance for sale at 1.99 a piece) will go to The Danny Federici Melanoma Fund, in honor of Federici, who died shortly after the March 20 Indianapolis concert where "Sandy" was recorded. The EP also features Springsteen covering Escovedo's "Always a Friend" and The Byrds' "Turn! Turn! Turn!" For more information, check out your iTunes store or head over to Amazon.

"My Daily Food" by TOOTS & THE MAYTALS:
This track came on my iPod Shuffle and pretty much plastered a gigantic smile onto my face. An explosion of happy, a party in a pill bottle, "My Daily Food" is over almost as quickly as it begins. What makes someone create such a great song and then decide, "Okay, if we make this thing longer than 2 minutes, we're really wasting everyones time"? A question only Robert Pollard might be able to answer.

"Laissez Briller Le Soleil" by LES BOOTS:
I don't know a damn thing about Les Boots. I can't even tell you how I stumbled onto this song, or where it came from. I most certainly can't tell you what they're singing about (though I'm pretty sure it's in French). All I know is that Garage Rock, in any language, is pretty much the best shit in the world.

Tuesdays with LIZZY!
"Bad Reputation":
Fans of Guitar Hero will recognize tonight's tune as one of the most fun tracks from the second volume in the game franchise. It is completely beyond me why this is the only Lizzy track to ever appear in either the GH or Rock Band series of games, since there are easily dozens of Lizzy tracks that would be perfect. No "Jailbreak," "Emerald" or "The Boys are Back in Town"? Come on, assholes.

(As a side note/afterthought: is every song with the title of "Bad Reputation" pretty kick ass? I can't think of an example where the song is lame, from Lizzy to Joan Jett. . . even Freedy Johnston.)

Bad Reputation, as rendered in Guitar Hero 2 (this version is a pretty spot-on cover):