Rock Doc- Billy Idol Should Be Dead

Not having watched a good rock documentary in some time, I watched the 2025 Amazon Prime promoted Billy Idol Should Be Dead. 

 For those early elementary school days, Billy Idol was my absolute favorite artist. I don’t know that anyone liked him as much as me. At least that was how I felt until distant cousin visited from Indiana and he felt the same as me. He even had the four track Don’t Stop (featuring Mony Mony and a 12minute interview) Billy Idol without a doubt is a particularly American phenomenon. The right person at the right time as MTV was launched. 

Take a glance at his UK charts and it’s a shadow of his American success. Of course, Idol was part of the “Bromley Contigent” and legitimately was at the beginning of the UK punk scene. He’s often unfairly treated by critics. I remember in high school finding the “Generation X” album at a record store and buying it. Idol wasn’t “lower class” and certainly his music reflected his love of rock and not angry politics. The doc shows those days and the appearance on Marc Bolan’s show and that Marc’s endorsement would have likely catapulted him to fame, but it would be the last show, their performance overshadowed by both Bowie jamming with Bolan and Bolan’s surprising death. 

 With more experience, Idol seems a bit of caricature- the spirit of punk and new wave boiled down to commercial product. Yet, he wouldn’t have been such a star if he didn’t have the pop sensibility and the personality to pull it off. The sound of the era was disco turning into rock and Idol was one of the main ones to define it. He was smart enough to go with an unknown producer who got him- Keith Forsey (Forsey had been drummer for Giorgio Mororder and played on many classic tracks like “Call Me” and “Hot Stuff”) The movie is directed by Jonas Akerlund who is probably best known for for his music videos- Madonna’s “Ray Of Light”, Beyoncé and Lady Gaga’s “Telephone”, and Prodigy’s controversial “Smack my B- Up”. He keeps things moving fast and keeps it entertaining. Of course, there’s a lot of focus on the self-destructive element, but it’s not overly tabloid. 

There are real pathos in the story of Idol’s relationships to his father, long time companion Perri Lister, and his children. I expected a bit more discussion on Idol’s relationship with guitarist Steve Stevens who was such a big part of his success. But that’s small complaint. He’s here as are Lister, Forsey, Tony James, Gene October, Nile Rodgers and Idol’s mother and sister among others. If you took my complaint to go deeper seriously, it would result in a 12 hour movie so let’s say we got it. There’s no mention of The Wedding Singer movie sadly, but the image of Idol in that movie feels real- despite the fact Idol probably partied too hard for a time and would have been miserable to have been around at his lowest- he comes across as a genuinely good guy. There’s no mention of any music after 1993 which is probably fair as I don’t think they have had a ton of impact. Of course, there’s a vague tie in at the end to his latest album. The movie does cover Cyberpunk- his 1993 album which sits high on a lot of “worst album of all time” lists. It is as one talking head says (paraphrasing) that it is surprising and also not surprising that it got the reaction it did. Drawing from William Gibson novels and being an early champion of the internet, it is “of its time” and surprisingly “ahead of its time”. It’s also probably simple enough - just not good enough with Stevens gone and a solid decade run on the charts. Sometimes, that is just how things end up. So while I would love an in depth take on that second Generation X album, one can’t expect it and this film generally works- explaining the appeal of Idol someone who tapped into the charisma of Elvis and JFK and lived his life as Billy Idol 24/7. 

 I have often spoken that in elementary school, I preferred the new wave sounds which boys in my school generally didn’t like- Duran Duran, Adam Ant, Frankie Goes to Hollywood. The popular artists with boys were the coming of heavy metal - Ted Nugent, Quiet Riot, Journey and so on. But Billy Idol sort of rode that 80s wave where he could appeal to both. I will never forget going to school and telling someone that I wanted to get the greatest hits remix compilation “Vital Idol” (it was the only place you could get Mony Mony besides Don’t Stop) , but being rebuked by a classmate who said “No. You are not supposed to pronounce it that way, don’t you know. It’s pronounced “Vi’le I’le”

Album Review- Zach Bryan

I first heard Zach Bryan about the time most people did with 2022s American Heartbreak. I was on a lot of long road trips and found his music was playing all over Sirius XM- from the mainstream country station to the American alternative station to the rock station. 

In 2023, his self titled album would be a commercial and critical success. It was an easy prediction for me to say that at some time the country music roller coaster would spit him out and he would come out of it angry and writing some killer albums like Steve Earle had done. 2024s The Great American Bar Scene made things happen like nothing I could have foreseen. He had previously taken two songs to the # 1 position on the country charts, and though Pink Skies only got to #3, it somehow felt bigger. Maybe it was the sold out Arena tours. Maybe it was that he reached a certain ubiquitous on country radio now that he had a handful of songs getting play. Maybe it was that he didn’t fit in with the country radio scene. Or maybe that the scene was starting to move from “party songs” to more earnest songwriter music like Bryan. 

But besides being supremely talented, like young Earle, he seemed to be possessed by that artistic streak for self-destruction. He was arrested in 2023 for interference at a traffic stop. More concerningly, when he should have been celebrating a successful 2024, he was in the news because of a messy breakup with girlfriend Brianna LaPaglia (Bri is a podcaster for “bro sports” franchise Barstool Sports) that played out in public. As good as Bryan’s music is, it’s those kind of headlines that turn people off. In 2025, he got into an online fight with singer John Moreland, an artist that he had previously collaborated with. Then later in the year, he got into an actual physical fight with country singer Gavin Adcock at a music festival. 

 If Bryan was going to have “rough and rowdy” days, he was having them, but 2026 could be maturity. He got married to someone without a public profile. He has also massively invested in the legacy of Jack Kerouac, purchasing the museum in Lowell, Massachusetts and the original typewriter scrolls of On The Road and Dharma Bums. He also started out the year releasing a new album, too- With Heaven on Top. As a Bryan fan, I am impressed with the new offering which starts with a poem and then 24 new tracks. He had Bruce Springsteen guest on his last album, and it’s a quick connect-the-dots to see the influence. That said, it’s not a negative, Bryan effortlessly tell stories that usually top out at 3 minutes. He also the bitterness of an old pop star already. “Bad News” was one of the first high profile songs to call out ICE raids. “Appetite” finds Bryan in northern Arkansas playing to “those who don’t care at all” - a lyric trainspotters try to guess might be a Wal Mart or Tyson Foods corporate gig. Elsewhere, Bryan struggles with God, Exs and the bottles. It’s a lot existential angst for someone who ended up scoring two bonafide hit singles on the charts with this album. 

As someone who like most people knew him only from radio airplay and then circled back to his early records, these songs are cut out of the same cloth. Bryan’s career feels like he doesn’t necessarily care about albums, he’s just as likely to throw out a fantastic single on an EP, which he seems to do quite abit. He has also been amazingly prolific. That said, the songs do hang together as an album. As much as it may seem lazy to compare him to Steve Earle- the parallels are too great. 

Looking at Wikipedia, his latest singles chart on both rock and country charts. That he didn't seem to put out any music in 2025 (after releasing roughly 75 songs in the previous three years) was a scary thought that he could go reclusive, but he hasn't missed a beat. This album also can’t escape the Springsteen comparisons either and I suppose The River or Nebraska have an American country feel to them. (Earle and Springsteen have strong connections to Johnny Cash of course with their songs). Bryan has collaborated with a variety of artists that only a few people like Earle or Springsteen might boast of (Kacey Musgraves, Kings of Leon, John Mayer, Charles Wesley Godwin, Bon Iver, Noah Kahan, The War and Treaty, the Lumineers, Sierra Ferrell, Maggie Rogers and the aforementioned Moreland). That said, this album doesn’t have star studded duets like the previous two long players and recent EPs. It is largely Bryan. He wrote all the songs and produced the album. The backing band is made of people that appear on some of his previous work but don’t include any names that most people would recognize. It would seem to say Bryan has reached his commercial peak since he has an amount of airplay over the past three years that few ever achieved and he packed stadiums. 

Whether that will continue is anyone’s guess and seems unlikely given the fact I think Bryan prioritizes art over commerce. Then again, like a Springsteen or Earle, I had no doubt with this much talent, he is going to have a solid fanbase, and the trade offs will be worth it. This album has a handful of songs that would make anyone’s greatest hits- “Say Why”, “Miles”, “Bad News”, “Appetite”, “Runny Eggs” and “Plastic Cigarette”. These songs are some of the best of any songwriter’s catalog. The world weary music and “getting older and getting clean” lyrics have the sense of realism of The Boss’s best work. Even among the songs that don’t hit this level, there aren’t any songs that feel like filler. Needless to say, I am already reserving a spot for this one on my year end "Best Of"

Album Review- Heavenly- Highway to Heavenly

I first became aware of Heavenly from the college radio station in the nineties. They were signed to K Records which history has shown to be one of American indie rocks most important record labels. They were one of the foremost places for riot grrl but they also a good deal of female led jangle and indie pop bands that I loved. Besides Heavenly, there was Lois, The Softies and Tiger Trap. But down the roster there were a lot of interesting artists. Beck, Beat Happening and Karp all had records. When indie rock cooled, they anticipated the next generation- the first EP from Modest Mouse, the first album from the Microphones and a compilation of songs by Built to Spill.

 Heavenly made four albums in the 90s and a couple of EPs- all worth while (despite NME giving a complete roast review on 1992s Le Jardin de Heavenly). The band broke up in 1996 not because they had run their course but because drummer Matthew Fletcher committed suicide. There was a 1999 album with a spinoff band Marine Research and four albums a decade later from a further spinoff called Tender Trap. 

I cannot mention Heavenly though without some mention of the previous band that Matthew, his sister and lead singer Amelia Fletcher, and guitarist Peter Momtchiloff were in. Talulah Gosh was a John Peel favorite and their short 1986-1988 existence predates Morrissey’s solo career, Belle and Sebastian and so much more. They weren’t on the seminal C86 album (as were Primal Scream, the Wedding Present and the Soup Dragons) but they were part of that scene which birthed indie pop forming as a band that bonded over a shared love for the Pastels. They only recorded a total of 29 songs and most of that stuff was hard to find until they were collected for a compilation in 2013 Parallel to the K Records story in America, they were signed to Sarah Records in the UK. That’s a fantastic story too but it was largely a mystery to me in the US Heavenly reunited in 2023 and released a single in 2025. 

Heavenly started 2026 by announcing a new album and February brought us Highway to Heavenly - their first album in 30 years. It’s nice to see that the band hasn’t missed a step and that if you liked their particular brand of music, then you will be happy with the new album. It is also a testament that the music- vocal harmony, intelligent lyrics, catchy hooks and mid-song shifts still sounds cutting edge. Heavenly predates Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, and the Shins but they don’t sound out of touch. This is quite an enjoyable return from a long time favorite.

Album Review- Gogol Bordello- We Mean It Man

Gogol Bordello are a favorite band of mine. Like the Pogues, they debuted with two largely unheard albums that created a sound that hadn’t come before. (The Pogues on two records that were “import only” in the US, Gogol with two albums for the small Rubric label). 

 The Pogues’ third and fourth albums were their breakout-.the sound finding itself distilled into something more accessible - similarly Gogol Bordello had that moment where the energy of their first releases gelled into a trademark sound- 2005s Gypsy Punks produced by Steve Albini and 2007s Super Taranta produced by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Beth Orton).

There’s probably not been a bad Gogol Bordello album. It is interesting that they have continued to work with top name producers for 2010s Trans Continental Hustle (Rick Rubin) and 2013s Pura Vida Conspiracy (Andrew Scheps (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Metallica, Adele) before self producing 2017 Seekers and Finders. But it might be 2022s Soldaritine that might be the group’s masterpiece. It’s unlikely for any band to have their ninth album be so good but it was truly inspired. It is impossible to separate the song from the reality of the day as it is inspired by a theme of supporting Ukraine which was being invaded by Russia. But also inspired by punk. There’s a cover of Fugazi’s “Blueprint”, a cameo from HR of Bad Brains and the album is produced by Quicksand/Gorilla Biscuits guitarist Walter Schriefels. 

The band always seems to have an eye on what they can do different and 2025s We Mean It Man is definitely a new sound. The opening track and lead single is the title track which I assume is a Sex Pistols reference, but it threw me off (as did the people I knew who were looking forward to this). It’s manic but in a different way. It actually reminds me of digital hardcore band Atari Teenage Riot. 

Things do calm down and hit their stride on the next few tracks which more define the sound. “Life is Possible Again” sounds New Wave but not 80s MTV but the Eastern European version. Then “No Time For Idiots” isn’t quite New Wave either. It has the same energy as say U2s Achtung Baby- pulling those influences without sounding particularly dated. The album despite its first disappointing listen expands to a satisfying new version of the old Gogol. Not quite new wave or dance, but strangely pulling post punk influences for something quite rocking, with an occasional oddball notion like “From Boyarca to Boyaka” which is just perfectly pop. 

They have elected to have Nick Launay produce this one. The producer behind classic post punk albums by Killing Joke and PIL, most of Nick Cave’s more recent work, much of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs catalog, and a significant number of Australian bands like INXS, Midnight Oil , and Silverchalr. It is an inspired pick as the album definitely has those influences. There's also a guest co-lead vocal from Bernard Sumner for a cover of the Angelic Upstarts anthem “Solidarity” rewritten as an Ukraine anthem, the original song being written as a tribute to the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s.

 The result like the rest of the catalog is that it is an album that proves a fine end to end listen. Eugene Hutz and band know how to vary things enough to make it not a carbon copy but something new. Songs like “Solidarity” and “We did Good With the Good we did” could have fit on the last album and definitely fit the vibe of a sequel. In any case, I am glad I spent time with this and it’s exciting to see a band that never gives up on trying something new.

Album Review- SPRINTS- All That is Over

 I first heard SPRINTS on their debut- 2024s Letter to Self. It was a post punk blast of energy not muh different from what we might hear from IDLES, Wet Leg or Fontaines DC.

2025’s All That Is Over climbed a bit higher into the mainstream consciousness . WIth (mostly) single word titles and three minute songs, it is hard not to be won over. Particularly when the Irish band delivers perfectly on “Descartes”.

Opener “Abandon” is a slow intense song recalling Joy Division but it’s mostly bluster after that. But pinning them down just as a punk band is oversimplifying too. On “Something’s Gonna Happen” it sort of melds the Post punk influences into something that could satisfy an arena. The same can be said for a song like “Beg” that starts sounding like a Factory Records recording that twists into an angry punk tune. Closer “Desire” is over 6 minutes long building into a guitar fueled ball of rage and is probably closer to PJ Harvey or Hole than it is to Wet Leg.

I am nostalgic for the alternative boom of the 90s and I am nostalgic for the early 00s, but it does seem like we are seeing a new boom of bands like this.

Album Review- Foetus- Halt

There are few artists that have had such an impact on me that I feel the need to track down every release that they have ever made. 

One of those is JG Thirlwell who has a 40 year career where he has mostly recorded under the name Foetus. Occasionally that moniker is part of an elaborate sentence that features the word- Scraping Foetus Under the Wheel, You’ve Got Foetus On Your Breath, Foetus Interruptus, and so on. I first heard Foetus on public radio but also because of a friend who was familiar with his work. It was the 90s and all of his work - both the obscure and his more well known albums- were being re-released by Thirsty Ear. 

Though his first couple of albums are rudimentary, they are helping invent the industrial genre. In 1984 and 1985, he released Hole and Nail, two classic albums that are industrial and yet something more. I am going to skip to 1995. Foetus is working as a remixer for Nine Inch Nails and Columbia Records has decided to release his album. This is the weird days of Alt Rock where major labels signed artists that otherwise would never have been signed - Daniel Johnston, Ween, Boredoms, King Missile, Butthole Surfers, Unsane. That year’s album Gash gets mixed reviews these days but I think it’s a masterpiece. Given a big budget, Thirlwell goes from industrial to big band to Arabic melodies in a mishmash of genre stylings. The production is clean, the wordplay is clever, the music intense. These would mark the second half of his career, as would the decision to simply be called Foetus and to be credited by his birth name as opposed to the early records which were credited to monikers like Clint Ruin and Frank Want. 

Foetus had been prolific and Thirlwell remained that way by releasing other projects like Manorexia, Xordox, and Steroid Maximus, as well releasing soundtrack work under the JG Thirlwell name. Six years passed before we got Flow, which did what Gash did and possibly even better. I would sign off on it being his masterwork. Where his early work was easily categorized as manic blasts or maybe what the Damned called “mindless directionless energy”, Flow was the sound of someone in internal torment working out psychological struggles in his head. If Edward Munch’s “The Scream” had music, perhaps it would sound like this. In retrospect, 2005s Love had high expectations to live up to. But Love, a more restrained affair largely works with its ambition and quality songwork. Thirlwell had done it once again. Albums followed in 2010 and 2013 (the companion pieces Hide and Soak) and remix albums were sprinkled throughout but Foetus went mostly dormant. 

Thirlwell was busy making music that sounded like the coolest spy shows that hadn’t been made, so when shows like Archer and the Venture Bros came out, it had to be a no brainer to hire him for the soundtrack. Having made the blueprint that Nine Inch Nails and Ministry took to filling arenas, I am happy to see him get a nice big (hopefully) payday. His other projects put out fantastic work like the spacey Xordox, and he remained a big name remixer for artists like Faith No More, Current 93 and John Carpenter. But it sounded like Thirlwell was done with the Foetus world which meant one final album- the appropriately named Halt, the final of many four world titled LPs in his career, released the week of Christmas 2025. 

In many ways, Halt feels like a third part to Gash and Flow. The titles sound like a list of complaints- The World is Broken, Die Alone, Dead to Me, Scurvy. The production is clear. Thirlwell who often worked alone is joined here with some collaborators like Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Leah Asher of the Rhythm Method, and Simon Hanes of Tredici Bacci. Not surprisingly the production is crystal clear, this is a guy who’s been behind the desk for Swans, Sonic Youth and Boss Hog. The songs themselves stand out separately but I am always going to have a tough time judging this against a discography that I consider on of the greatest. I wish the songs had more variety between them. The “remote control clicker” effect of jumping genres from track to track as he did on Gash or Love probably would have made more an impact. Also, the crystal clear production somewhat feels like a blessing and a curse. I think it might have sounded better if it was a bit dirtier. But individually in five and six minute bursts of noise, I find myself finding the Thirlwell I fell in love with. 

Still, if Foetus is going to end, it likely would sound like the individual brain fighting itself in anguish which is the sound of this album and appropriately for someone with so many different projects (and differently named projects) ending in a track called “Many Versions of Me”. That my expectations are so high for an end to a career also means I am baffled that the album is only available on Bandcamp (and released in the dead zone of December and with only one video on YouTube to promote it) though maybe that just means Thirlwell wanted to share with his closest fans. As he has with most of his later work, Thirlwell plans to pair it with another forthcoming release, which means we should see at least that piece (entitled LEAK) according to the artist in 2027.

Wayne Kramer: The Hard Stuff book and a review of the final MC5 album

I read an interview with Iggy Pop awhile back where he said the best guitarists were thugs. He was talking about his Stooges, but given their history, he probably was thinking of the MC5s Wayne Kramer as well. I bought “Kick out the Jams” likely just based on its reputation without hearing it first. 

Although I never liked the MC5 as much as I did the Stooges, there was no denying its energy. There was real anger in its politics. In many ways the first step in the political side of punk. Though arguably its lineage is punk, I think most would agree that it is more accurate to call it proto heavy metal. While the New York Dolls and Ramones picked from girl groups and surf rock, the MC5 pulled from Jazz, Blues, ames Brown and Sun Ra. That said, I think it’s well deserving of its reputation and although it was seemingly downhill from there, there are a few standout songs in their discography like “Looking at You”. 

It is that reputation that made me interested in Kramer’s autobiography- 2018s The Hard Stuff. It’s not a perfect book by any means but Kramer is still a fascinating character. The more interesting parts of the book are unsurprisingly about the 5. Kramer has famously stated that the “Kick out the Jams” performance was not one of their strongest moments and the band’s live performances were even better still. As history has shown, the band was marred by self destructive behavior and record company fumbling. I find it fascinating that since the MC5 were speaking to such highly principled ideas, the fans’ expectations became unrealistic and they turned on them. It’s hard to describe Kramer’s life as anything but starts and stops. It feels like any biography of an addict. With the MC5 no longer a going concern, Kramer takes up small crimes. He famously ends up in prison in the mid 70s. After his stint there, Kramer starts a band with Johnny Thunders called Gang War, writes songs with Mick Farren, and finds some fame in playing with an early lineup of Was (Not Was). But that artistic and commercial well dries up and Kramer finds himself having to go into carpentry and woodwork to make a living. I can’t help but think of Kramer’s time in Key West where he was an anonymous member in a bar band. I was always excited that Kramer got the late life career resurrection. I always found him sort of a mismatch to Epitaph Records label that signed him (home of Bad Religion, No FX and the Offspring). 

This book gives the truth that these years and the MC5/DTK (a partial MC5 reunion) were not quite the Hollywood ending that us fans hoped them to be. This book came out in 2018 and Kramer at age 70 finally seems to have found peace. He’s making jazz music and it’s having success. He has cleaned his life up and he would be taking the MC5 back on the road (as the last active member surrounded by band fans like Kim Thayil, Matt Cameron and Brendan Canty. He also spearheaded Jail Guitar Doors USA- an American branch of the prison social outreach started by Billy Bragg in the UK named after a Clash song that referenced Kramer in its lyrics. In the afterword, he has also adopted a son and became a father. Kramer led an interesting life and he can tell a story. Some reviewers say the book focused too much on his rehab, but it is key to his story and I didn’t find that a negative. 

 It isn’t surprising that there would be a MC5 reunion album. From 2003 on with brief hiatuses, the band was often alive in some form. From 2018 until February of 2020, as the band now celebrated their 50th anniversary, Kramer announced a world tour that was billed MC50 and was the band that was featured in Kramer’s book. Post pandemic, in 2022, Kramer was ready to bring back the MC5, hitting all the media to say We Are All the MC5. With so many members passed away including singer Rob Tyner, it’s not quite the same but you also can’t blame Kramer for keeping the band alive. His plan was a new tour and a new album. The roots of this likely came in Alice Cooper’s 2021 album Detroit Stories. That album was Cooper writing a love letter to Deroit, and in doing so reunited the classic Alice Cooper Band lineup for two of the album’s tracks. The album was produced by Bob Ezrin who had produced the classic Cooper albums. But also of interest, Kramer played on most every track and cowrote three of the album’s 12 original tracks with Cooper. 

Heavy Lifting, that anticipated MC5 release did not see release until October 2024. Sadly, the last two remaining members had passed away- Kramer passed away in February that year followed by drummer Dennis Thompson that May. I am not sure what my expectations of Heavy Lifting were. To be sure, expecting an album like Kick Out the Jams is not realistic. Kramer has put together a real lineup for the band with Arizona based singer Brad Brooks as cowriter for the material, and a band that includes Don Was, 90s guitar hero Stevie Salas, Vicki Randle of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno band and Abe Laboriel Jr who often plays drums for Paul McCartney. Not surprisingly he also find a lot of guests to cameo- Slash of Guns N Roses, Tom Morello, Vernon Reid, Tim McIlreath of Rise Against and William Duvall who is the current singer of Alice In Chains. Ezrin produces and Dennis Thompson plays on two tracks. Not surprising given the guests, I think the sound is probably closer to Hard Rock than Punk. You hear elements of grunge, Living Color and Rage Against the Machine. 

It doesn’t have a ton of personality sadly and falls a bit in my opinion. That said, it does have a certain kick and I think it’s a nice bookend piece to Kramer’s career and life. It hits the mark enough that I can’t help but wondering where it could gain an audience if it had been released in a different era. . There’s not a ton of rock records getting played these days but this certainly is in that category of recent albums by Cooper and Blue Oyster Cult that FM diehards have bought in quantity. There is a heavy blues rock sound that is definitely the 5’s trademark and the current audience of that genre would probably dig it. Stylistically, there is a certain 80s quality. Not unlike Living Colour or The Cult, it might have done well in the era of glam rock. Wanting to overthink alternate history, would this album have given Kramer a resurrection in the Lollapalooza era of the 90s. Given he was signed to Epitaph, it is doubtful that it would have been any different. But it is generally enjoyable. 

At best when it’s straightforward like the opening title track with Morello or the similar or the lead single “Boys Who Play With Matches”. Melodic track “Blind Eye” with Thompson on drums is a particular high point and I wish more songs had a little bit of pop punk sheen like it. Instead it’s probably closer to the post grunge that these days are called (not) pejoratively as Butt Rock. The album included a bonus disc of the MC50 band playing the classics. In 2025, there was an additional release attributed to the MC50 featuring a lineup with Thayill, Canty, Billy Gould of Faith No More, Marcus Durant of Zen Guerilla and Kramer. This album hits the three original classic albums and a cover of Ray Charles’s “I Believe to my Soul”- an old setlist constant that the band played. It serves as a surprisingly good introduction to the band. The band is in fine form with all of the energy one comes to associate with the MC5.

 

Album Review: The Dears- Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful!

One of my favorite albums of the still young century is 2004s No Cities Left, the breakthrough second album by Montreal band the Dears. 

The band opened for Morrissey in 2004 and comparisons with their singer Murray Lightburn has been a blessing and a curse. While it surely helped them get an audience, Lightburn comes from a jazz background (his dad was a jazz musician) and there is a more cinematic element in his music à la Leonard Cohen, Tindersticks and Pulp. While I am not sure they ever eclipsed that breakout album. the band has (in my mind) largely avoided any missteps in their prolific career. In 2020, the band released their eighth album Lover’s Rock. 

One will occasionally find an album that no one else enjoys, and for me that might be Lovers Rock. Reviews were mostly good though some like the NME blasted it. Many a reviewer was quick to point out that Lightburn and bandmate Natalia Yanchak had been married for a couple of decades by now, but it sounded like a breakup record. The band rightfully choosing to self produce had stripped their sound a bit (though not fully - for example Jake Clemons of the E Street Band is here) and it felt in many ways like a throwback to No Cities Left. I find it a late era masterpiece the likes few bands can claim.

2025s Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! surely evokes a positive feeling follow up to Lovers Rock from the album title to the life affirming song “Life is Beautiful” near the end of the album. While I prefer its predecessor, there are plenty of great moments. “Babe, We will Find A Way” is as good of a song as they have ever done. "This is How We Make Our Dream Come True" feels like a cousin to the Sparks song “Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth” Tomorrow and Tomorrow is direct from Leonard Cohen’s “Memories”, with soulful uplifting singing from Lightburn. “Tears of a Nation” is a hard rocker that balances U2- style arena anthems and hard Goth guitar riffs. “Dead Contacts” is probably actually the closest the band has come to making a Morrissey sounding song in awhile. “Life is Beautiful” is almost too sunshine positive to be enjoyable but as switches to closer “Don’t Go” it feels an essential piece.

Though the band has not said it (and may not have intended it), this feels like a bookend to their last album. If Lovers Rock was the dissolution of a relationship and all the negativity that comes with it, this album is almost solely focused on the positive. The album is again bolstered by smart production, keen songwriting and a tendency towards short punchy songs. I am still shocked by the number of reviewers (not just the NME) who hated the last album. That album is without a question, one of my favorites in the last ten years. To me, this album falls short of that, but I definitely don’t feel any disappointment.

David Ball: An Appreciation

If you know me, you know I am a huge fan of Soft Cell. It’s a joke but the gateway to most people finding music they like is greatest hits. There were some great compilations that left lasting impacts on my generation. There of course the duality of things. 1991s Memorabilia-The Singles credited to Marc Almond and Soft Cell is at once fantastic, a primer to Almond’s best stuff and also about as good as beginning to end listen as one can experience. 

But on the other hand, you can overthink such things and this compilation is one on which it is easy to overthink These particular “greatest hits” make for a weird grab bag. The most famous songs are 1991 re-recordings of Soft Cell songs. Also, with a US track list of 13 songs (and 2 dance remixes), it is a tough job to limit that catalog to the “best of the best”. From a critic’s perspective, Marc Almond’s solo work is mostly overlooked here. There are his collaborations with Gene Pitney and Bronski Beat that both make for fine additions, but Almond had six albums of solo material by this point, and only two singles (then recently released) made the cut. Yet, such are the arguments to be made and while one can split hairs over whether the compilation was truly representative, it was still a fantastic album. At this point, I had bought it largely on the basis of “Tainted Love”- a song that made the American Top 10 in 1982 and one of those instances where it has remained one of the most played songs from year to year.

I immediately jumped into the Soft Cell and Almond discography truly and deeply. While that momentum could have died off, especially with Almond not having a ton of success in America, the 90s ended pretty strong. In 1997, Some Bizarre Records re-released the early Marc solo records. In 1999, his solo album Open All Night with special appearances by members of the Creatures and Sneaker Pimps got a lot of attention in Uncut magazine. Almond’s discography is all over the place with a variety of sounds and plenty of gems in a ton of albums of various quality, but in light of David Ball's 2025 death at age 66, I want to focus on Soft Cell now.

Buying the Memorabilia compilation led to me buying the band’s debut Non Stop Erotic Cabaret. Soft Cell’s debut is on my short list of perfect albums. It is one of those magical albums where even the cover is perfect- a Peter Ashworth photo of the duo on front in a leather jackets with Almond ostensibly carrying the album like it’s a magazine in a brown paper bag as if it was just purchased from a seedy 'adults only' shop. The band was short lived, and there’s not a better record in their discography. That, of course, is because the band was a case of “too much too soon”. While surely played up to shock, the legend was that the band’s drug dealer Cindy Ecstasy was popping up in cameos for the band’s music videos and Top of the Pop appearances. 

1983s follow up The Art of Falling Apart may not have the legacy of the debut, but it’s a pretty solid of collection of songs 1984s This Last Night in Sodom is harder to defend but it does have a couple of killer tracks like the manic “Where was Your Heart (When You Needed it Most)” and the psychotic “Meet Murder My Angel”. The decadent lifestyle was over taking the music. The song “L’Esqualita” which took place in a Puerto Rican transvestite bar in New York was about Heroin. I didn’t buy these albums until a good decade-plus after their release but the story remains the same. 

Dave Ball did his own thing and did quite well, with most of his music coming from his project The Grid, also occasionally working with Almond, doing some production work, and being a top name remixer. I may or may not have been aware of his contributions to “Psychic TV presents: Jack the Tab” when I picked up that seminal release. He can also be found on that band's well-regarded Towards Thee Infinite Beat. 

 In 2005, Soft Cell released their early recordings in the compilation The Bedsit Tapes. These early recordings had been bootlegged and it contained the four songs that made up the band's 1980 debut EP Mutant Moments, as well as other early recordings, including a cover of Black Sabbath's "Paranoid". The Bedsit Tapes are great, not just in a "these are good for bedroom demos" way, but it truly sounds like a good record. Much like Gary Numan/Tubeway Army's early work, it is at once primitive and futuristic at the same time. 

I am sure many  critics thought that synths were destroying music when these recordings were made, but given the constraints of the time, it shows what an amazing ear for melody that Ball had. Obviously, the band would improve on these greatly by the time Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret came along, but the elements are there on these early recordings. Soft Cell would reunite and go back in the studio to record a new record- 2002's Cruelty Without Beauty. Robert Christgau gave it a "Bomb", but most reviews were generally positive. I liked it a lot as a reunion album that did a pretty good job of a band catching some of their early magic, and I have listened to it quite a bit over the years. 

 2022's Happiness Not Included is a bit more patchy as an album, but there are some solid songs there too. "Purple Zone" is a collaboration with the Pet Shop Boys and one of my favorite songs of recent memory. I love the video where Messrs. Almond, Ball, Tennant and Lowe having written so many synth classics seem to be having the time of their life. 

Album Review- David Byrne- Who is the Sky

At some point, David Byrne and I went our separate ways. 

The Talking Heads were a major pop band when I was growing up. Specifically “Burning Down the House” was a monster hit. It went to # 9 on the US charts. While “Once in a Lifetime” became their signature song (at least for awhile, “Psycho Killer” likely has eclipsed it now), the bigger radio hit was my main impression. In 1988, they released their final album Naked. (With time, the focus has gone to the band’s early work and this album is considered a bit of a dud). I picked up Naked off the strength of the fantastic song “(Nothing But) Flowers” which featured on record (and heavily-played-on- MTV video) an assist from Johnny Marr and Kirsty MacColl. The album feels quintessentially late 80s. College Rock was on the ascent but hadn’t quite made the breakthrough that gets attributed to Grunge in the 90s. That was when U2 and REM elevated to arena level bands. It seemed everyone was just a hit single away. There were a lot of solid albums in those days as record labels gambled on the likes of Elvis Costello, the Replacements and the Violent Femmes. There were some great albums but time has not been kind to those when people reappraise them and they get compared to those artists' earlier work. Now, I’m not here to argue that Naked is a five star album but it was a statement, and the world music elements felt revolutionary at the time. 

In 1992, I would pick up Sand in the Vaseline which like any decent compilation gives you everything you need in one spot. Though there’s probably multiple correcr answers, my go to Talking Heads album for recent years has been “Talking Heads ‘77”. In 1989, Byrne released Rei Momo, his solo debut album. It got a lot of play in the Modern Rock space. Still in that period of the ambitious college rock landscape, where there finally was room for left-of-center artists like Billy Bragg and Robyn Hitchcock. It wasn’t something that caught my attention but I appreciated that Byrne was doing something that hadn’t been done quite like this- combining Modern Rock with sounds from Brazil, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. 

You couldn’t have a discussion today of most influential bands of all time without mentioning the Talking Heads but there were some down times. In 1996, there was a reunion without Byrne called The Heads with the aptly titled accompanying record No Talking, Just Heads. It was a dud even though looking back now the talent assembled seems worthwhile. I remember listening to some songs and walking away with barely an impression.

Byrne’s output in the 1990s isn’t particularly impressive either. There were some singles that got some traction and some attention but nothing that gets much mention these days. In fact, it really was his 2012 collaboration with St Vincent-the Love This Giant album and follow up world tour that really brought Byrne back to the spotlight in a major way. Byrne followed that up with American Utopia-an album then Broadway Show and then a Movie. It was a culmination of a new generation that celebrated Byrne- sometimes in an imitative fashion- Vampire Weekend, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Franz Ferdinand and many others. Oh and there was those guys who named themselves after the sixth track on the Talking Heads seventh album - a song called “Radio Head”. 

Byrne was never completely off my radar, of course, even as I wasn’t checking in heavily. He appeared on 2009s Spirit of Apollo, an album by the collective NASA. He collaborated with Chuck D and Seu Jorge on that album which elsewhere paired indie rockers (Karen O, MIA, Santigold, Tom Waits) with innovative rappers (Kanye West, Kool Keith, KRS-1, and members of the Wu Tang Clan). I also read and loved two books he wrote -2009s Bicycle Diaries and 2012s How Music Works. 

The local public radio station played the heck out of 2025s Who Is the Sky? It makes sense of course- it’s the perfect album for that- equally ambitious and radio friendly. That will likely be the deciding factor if you like it. I fell in love with the record but it’s an upbeat, at times silly album. Some might find it cloying. The album is technically a collaboration between Byrne and Ghost Train Orchestra, the New York City based Avant Garde jazz collective. Hayley Williams and Annie Clark of St Vincent show up for vocals on a song each. Grammy winner Kid Harpoon (Harry Styles, Shawn Mendes, Miley Cyrus) produces, giving it pop star polish. 

As I look over reviews, it seems that this was generally loved though reviewers almost universally felt it fell short of being a truly great record. Pitchfork was the rare reviewer who gave it a negative review though it’s interesting that they picked up on something that I thought right away. There is definitely a Jonathan Richman vibe on some songs. Take “She Explains Things to Me” which is the sort of “older couple in love” songs that might fall on the wrong side for some listeners. “Moisturizing Thing” falls in similar cringe territory though I find charm in it. Or “My Apartment is my Friend”, a paean to… well, what it says in the title. Maybe this is why Pitchfork gave us the lowest score I have seen in months. Similarly you might not take to the songs that find Byrne in a sea of hipsters. 

There’s “The Avant Garde”, which is fantastic and argues just because it’s avant garde, doesn’t mean it’s good. Then, "I Met the Buddha at a Downtown Party" which has the trademark Byrne wit. I really love this album which is chock full of poppy sounding songs which remind you why you love Byrne in the first place, and that he is indeed the same as he ever...no I can't say that. Having reminded myself of the great Modern Rock boom of the late 80s and early 90s, this album feels like that- a true album and not a collection of songs, and that there is plenty of life left in David Byrne

Brian Wilson- An Appreciation

I probably should say something about the passing of Brian Wilson. It’s been a few years since I last wrote about him. When I was a teenager, the conventional wisdom was that Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band was the greatest album ever. It’s understandable that it earned that honor -it was a defining album in music. Over time, opinions change. For one, the Beatles had a lot of great music- and you could make arguments that Revolver or Abbey Road were better albums than Pepper. But more than anything, public opinion went to the album that inspired it and an album that aspired to it (Pet Sounds and Exile on Main Street) Starting with a love of Baroque pop taking over 90s indie rock, Pet Sounds has had a steady ascent and has found new fans via the online crowd. 

Now The Beach Boys were always in the discussion of greatest American bands, but it’s only recently that albums like 20/20, Surf’s Up and Holland get discussed in “Greatest albums ever” now discussion too. Wilson (as famous as he was) kind of feels like a cult figure like Alex Chilton or Syd Barrett. The fact he was suffering mentally and physically plays into certain “suffering for art” cliches, and his solo career is quite patchy. His 1988 debut solo album was critically loved but didn’t get the kind of mainstream inroads that similar records of the day by, fo example Roger McGuinn or Robbie Robertson did. Largely, his solo career didn’t get the attention you might expect from someone with his profile. 

 Personally, I love the early Beach Boy singles. Like the Beatles, there is a reason that critics focus on the albums that came later. I get it, but there is definitely a link from those early songs to the punk sound of the Ramones. Lest us not forget the other branches of psychedelia to bands like XTC and the power pop of the Raspberries and Cheap Trick. But the story of The Beach Boys is overshadowed by the myth which is the SMiLE album. I am not sure there’s a more famous “withdrawn” album (with Prince’s Black Album and Neil Young’s “Homegrown” and a few others in that conversation) SMiLE would not be released as planned in the Sixties. Instead we got a scaled down version in 1967s Smiley Smile. SMiLE was probably not going to bring the world jetpacks and flying cars. We know that with ambitious albums like Chinese Democracy and Their Satanic Majesty’s Request- the expectations usually overweigh anything the artist could possibly produce. But in 2004, Wilson was able to present (indeed it’s called Brian Wilson Presents) SMiLE. By that time the myth was strong and the story had established real Heroes (Brian) and Villains (Mike Love). You can’t probably have gotten a better reception for an album that people had already mostly heard the material. For me personally, it was my soundtrack for 2004. 

It’s not an album that I revisit often but I can’t separate the music from the timeframe and so it will always be meaningful to me.

Robert Wilson (The Black Rider) - An Appreciation

When I first heard of Robert Wilson in the 90s, my first thought was that it must be a pretty talented name (there’s also Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Charles Wilson for example). The highlight of Wilson’s 55+ year career is the 1976 opera Einstein on the Beach which had music composed by Philip Glass. It is considered a classic with the related 1979 album scoring 5/5 on Allmusic and 10/10 from Pitchfork. It is easy enough to say the album is a blind spot for me, but avant garde theater doesn’t quite get a bunch of air time. 

Wilson’s later career did bleed into rock music a bit. In 1990, Tom Waits wrote the music for Wilson’s play The Black Rider- based on a German fairy tale and a book by William S Burroughs. Three years later, it became Waits’s then-new album. It’s hard to call Waits accessible in the first place but the Black Rider is surely an averse non commercial move following the critically acclaimed Rain Dogs and Grammy Winning Bone Machine. If Waits was making any inroads with a popular audience, The Black Rider took the weirdness to 11. Contemporary reviews maul it. Allmusic damns it to two stars and very rare is the decent review like the 4/5 from Rolling Stone. 

I loved it though. The first thing anyone seems to mention is Burroughs who takes “vocals” for a song and admonishes “t’aint no sin to take off your skin and dance around in your bones”. It’s not my favorite part of the album but I do enjoy it and it certainly adds to the weirdness. Some of my favorite moments are the inclusion of the musical saw on “November” and “Flash Pan Hunter”. I love “I’ll Shoot the Moon”, a late night drunken lament that would fit on Frank’s Wild Years. “Russian Dance” is well… just that. The music is strange and alluring, but so are the lyrics. Waits is jarring at times “Go away you rainsnout/go away, blow your brains out”. Lucky Day may even the most Waitsian words ever “And when you get blue and lost all your dreams/ there’s nothin’ like a campfire and a can of beans” 

Like Franks Wild Years, you might not get the story without the liner notes but it’s a great folk tale. Our hero hunter makes a Faustian bargain and gets a collection of magic bullets that always hit but the last one is cursed and will hit the target of his love. I love the Waits album. It’s one of my all time favorites and probably ranks as one of my most listened to albums as well. Waits and Wilson would do two more collaborations - in 1992 and 2000- and Waits would again turn these into albums. He would release these on the same date in 2002 - Alice and Blood Money. You can probably guess but I love these albums too which amp up the aspects of folklore and instrumental oddity. I can’t completely remember but I must have bought them close together if not at the same time. They are pretty tied together in my mind. They take me back to 2002 and 2003 in one of those ways memories tie the music to the year because it’s become so big of a part of your life. I think I prefer Blood Money over Alice but both are quite good and filled with memorable songs. 

Looking back it was such a treasure trove of Waits sandwiched by 1999s Mule Variations and 2004s Real Gone - classic albums in their own right; followed by a three disc set of “lost songs” in 2006. Then somehow we haven’t got a new Waits album in 14+ years Looking at Wilson’s work- I would probably enjoy it quite a bit- the names he worked with are too notch- Anna Calvi, Arvo Part, CocoRosie, David Byrne, Gavin Bryars and so on. 

The last Wilson collaboration that made significant shockwaves in the alt rock category is Lou Reed’s 2003 album The Raven. I love Reed but it is interesting that his work post 9/11 is as unpredictable as Reed could be- The Raven was his last solo rock album, followed only in the Discography by live discs, the Metallica collaboration Lulu and the Hudson River Wind Meditations album. An all star cast collected for a concept album around Edgar Allen Poe’s poems and stories, I want to like The Raven but I find it generally unlistenable. Even with the talent assembled- Bowie, Laurie Anderson, Steve Buscemi, ANHONI, Ornette Coleman, Kate & Anna McGarigle, Willem Defoe, the Five Blind Boys of Alabama, among others including Reed’s longtime sidemen Mike Rathke and Fernando Saunders. I did find performance pieces of The Black Rider and it’s hard to say which is weirder or more accessible- with Waits singing or with it part of musical theater.

Either way, it scratches an itch of mine which I don’t expect anyone to necessarily understand- a bit of the Kurt Weill/Beroldt Brecht cabaret and dark carnival elements - mixed of course with more modern sounds of pop, rock and blues with lines of comedy and existential horror woven through out, but also beauty. Wilson died in July of 2025 at age 83. 

This is one of a series of posts this week I wrote about artists we lost in 2025. 

Jock MacDonald: An Appreciation

 Jock McDonald passed away in July of 2025. He was the frontman and brain behind English joke punk band The Bollock Brothers.

The Bollock Brothers were largely a nonentity in the US, but had a string of records in the 1980s that made headlines in Europe. Someone surely would have made the joke inherent in “Never Mind the Bollocks”

Related stunts including a disco version of the Sex Pistols “Never Mind the Bollocks…” album in 1983, and I have heard it’s not bad. For a short time, they hired Jimmy Lydon (Johnny Rotten’s brother) as vocalist. On record, they gave the mic to Michael Fagan who famously broke into the Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace. (Martin “Youth” Glover even played bass for them around the time he briefly left Killing Joke in 1982.)

Song ideas include writing a sequel to the Velvet Underground’s “The Gift” and covering Serge Gainsbourg’s “Harley David (Son of Bitch)” (which became a bit of a cult hit)

I doubt I would have encountered them if a friend didn’t lend me his copies of The Last Supper (1983) and The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1985). He had served in the military and heard the band in Germany.

The truth is the band did have some tunes and sometimes comedy punk if done well can be as good as the serious stuff. Besides, where is the line between this and “serious” bands like the Damned and the Stranglers, and does it really matter.

As much as I love “Horror Movies”, the band sticks out in my mind for the timeframe I encountered them. In the 1980s and 1990s, trading cassettes and making “mixtapes” was a major component in discovering music. The music industry hated it, though as usual, short sighted by greed, the practice probably helped their pocketbooks as much as hurt them.

In more recent years, there may be a rare case of a friend “burning” a CD or outright occurrence of giving of music. But we don’t really put as much significance on that. If you want to let someone know about a particular piece of music, you can post a video or the actual song; or not even necessarily do that as the person can do such things for themselves. In fact, they may prefer to do for themselves.

But cassette swapping was where I heard a lot of bands for the first time, and the Bollock Brothers in the middle of the 1990s may have been the end of that era for me.

This is one of the 2025 tributes I wrote that I plan on sharing this week.