LITTLE EGYPT FROM ASBURY PARK

Bruce Springsteen sits cross-legged on his half-made bed, and surveys the scene. Records are strewn across the room, singles mostly, intermixed with empty Pepsi bottles, a motley of underwear, socks and jeans, half-read and half-written letters, an assortment of tapes, and a copy of Richard Williams" Out of His Head, the biography of Phil Spector. The space is small, but Bruce and the two friends listening to Harold Dorman's "Mountain of Love" don't mind. They'ie listening for the final few bars of "Mountain," in which the drummer collapses and loses the beat—the song slows down to a noticeably improper tempo, and the effect is nothing less than absurd. Unfortunately, Springsteen, unlubricated by anything more than the spirit of the thing, is having trouble getting the turntable to spin consistently. (One of those weird things with the green push button that lights up when you press it.) When he finally does, it turns out the record was warped. It is unplayable. Hyster-_ ically, Springsteen sweeps it under the mass of accumulated debris.