RSD 2025 / Bob Dylan LIVE / NEW The Replacements & KISS / Rant About "No Phone" Shows + more (VIDEO)

Welcome to the newest edition of "This Year's Week" -- my wrap-up video of everything happening in the world of The Dark Stuff.

There's new music from KISS, The Replacements, and members of The Bangles to discuss, as well as some recent concerts from Bob Dylan and The Spirit of 1989 "hair metal" tour featuring Trixter, Enuff Z'Nuff, and Pretty Boy Floyd. This week gave us Record Store Day, and naturally, I had to partake.

I also have a rant about "no phone" shows and this month's playlist.

Dark Stuff: RSD Black Friday / New Vinyl Pickups / Speed! Nebraska / New Playlist (VIDEO)

In this edition of "This Year's Week," we hit the record release show for Speed! Lightning 500: new compilation of Nebraska bands from Speed! Nebraska Records. I caught "most" of the show, but had to take a burrito break, and missed a band I wanted to see.

Make sure to check out the latest Dark Stuff Playlist for December 2024!

  

I finally received my copy of the new Susanna Hoffs LP, The Lost Record. Just in time for best of the year consideration!

This Fall's Record Store Day (black Friday) was a total bust for me. I bought nothing. But I did hit a used store and grabbed some unexpectedly great stuff.

The newest episode of ‪Rock N Roll Book Club‬ has just dropped. This month, we read Sly Stone's memoir, "Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)." Next month is "The Witch's Daughter" from Orenda Fink.

Last up, I offer up a quick preview of some of the stuff I'm currently working on. There's some stuff I'm very excited about that will be premiering next month.

MJ LENDERMAN / M WARD Live / New Susanna Hoffs / Omaha Record Show /Jane's Addiction / Jesse Malin (VIDEO)

In the newest edition of "This Year's Week," I report on recent shows from M.J. Lenderman and M. Ward (pretty much all the M's), as well as a new release from Susanna Hoffs, and my trip to the Omaha Record Show. Make sure to watch until the end to see Blackie O and myself visit a cat groomer for the first time...

M.J. Lenderman is one of the most buzzed about indie artists of 2024. His new album, Manning Fireworks, is drawing comparisons to Neil Young and Paul Westerberg. Lenderman is featured on the newest Waxahatchee record, so he will be all over every critic's "best of" list for 2024. He played at The Waiting Room along with Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band.

Indie legend M. Ward returned to Omaha for the first time in 15 years for a show at Waiting Room. He's touring in support of a new greatest hits album. Shelley from ‪RockNRollBookClub‬ and I hit the very subdued show and enjoyed the music trip down memory lane. 

Susanna Hoffs is releasing a new solo record, The Lost Record, on October 18. These tracks were being worked on at the end of the 90s, but were never completed once The Bangles reunion happened. Note that October 18 is the day it will be available to stream. The vinyl will be released at the end of November.

Susanna Hoffs also appears on the new tribute album to Jesse Malin called 'Silver Patron Saints.' She appears alongside Bruce Springsteen, Tommy Stinson, Billie Joe Armstrong, Ian Hunter, and many more. It's a fantastic collection.

After showing some pickups from the recent Omaha record show, I give my (a little less than) two cents on the break-up of Jane's Addiction.

At the very end of the video, come along with me and Blackie O to The Grand Feline Hotel & Salon. In 30 years of cat ownership, I had never been to a cat groomer. There's a first time for everything, folks.

BEST DEBUT ALBUMS: The Bangles 'All Over The Place' // Susanna Hoffs, Vicki Peterson, Debbi Peterson, Michael Steele

 

How My Music Taste Was Forever Altered by a Teenage Crush on Susanna Hoffs

On my radio show yesterday, I premiered a new song by Matthew Sweet & Susanna Hoffs. The two have been making music together for years, and just released their third album of cover songs called, Under the Covers, Vol. 3. I've played Matthew Sweet on the show a number of times. His seminal 90s album, Girlfriend, still sounds as fresh as it did when it was released 20 years ago.

But listening to the new CD did not make me think of Mr. Sweet and his great albums from the 90s, it made me think of his collaborator, Susanna Hoffs.

Hoffs was/is a member of The Bangles, and that band's music had a pretty big effect on my younger days. For some reason, I haven't played them on my show (with the exception of their cover of Big Star's "September Gurls" which I played after Alex Chilton died a few years ago), but their original songs, especially those from the album, All Over the Place, deserve more attention on that score.

I tend to frame my discussions on The Bangles around my long-standing crush on Susanna. Sexist as it may be, I fell for her the second I saw her in the Bangles video, "Hero Takes a Fall." That crush did lead the 14 year old Dave to bike over to the record store and buy the LP. So, there's that.

 

In 1984, I was pretty much a metal kid. My record collection consisted largely of records by KISS, Ozzy, Motley Crue, Quiet Riot, and some Rolling Stones to mix it up. True story: I special requested the song, "Looks that Kill" by Motley Crue, to be played at my Bar Mitzvah. That's how serious a junior high metal kid I was!

Obviously, the 60's influenced, jangle-pop of The Bangles did not mix well with what I was listening to at the time. Nevertheless, that All Over the Place LP was in regular rotation at my house that year. I used to think that hearing The Replacements for the first time (apprx. 1986) was where my modern music taste was really formed. But now, looking back, I think that Bangles record was really where it started.

In addition to "Hero Takes a Fall," tunes like "Going Down to Liverpool," "James" and "Tell Me" further altered my musical perception. Sure, I got some crap from my metal friends, but no one in Quiet Riot was as cute as Susanna Hoffs, and that ended the debate for me (again, I was 14 or 15, so my debating skills were not quite perfected).

Susanna Hoffs in the 80s (note the hair)

The next Bangles record, Different Light, also had a bigger influence on the teenage me than I have previously given it credit for. The record itself is not as good as the first one (the hit was "Manic Monday" a decent tune written by Prince), but it did introduce me to the music of Alex Chilton and Big Star. The band covered "September Gurls" a full year before The Replacements' song "Alex Chilton" introduced the indie rock world to the former Big Star frontman.

By 1988's Everything album, I had (for the most part) moved on from The Bangles. I remember buying the "In Your Room" 7" because it was an incredibly sexy tune from Susanna, but my musical world at that time was mostly about Husker Du, Replacements, Soul Asylum, Mission of Burma, Faith No More, and bands like that. The Bangles were bona fide pop stars by then, and songs like "Walk Like an Egyptian" and "Eternal Flame" put them in a different place than where I first got into them years earlier.

The Bangles broke up the following year, and Susanna Hoffs went solo. I don't really remember anything about those solo records.

I imagine the longest lasting effect of my early interest in The Bangles is my total acceptance of women in rock. Yes, I initially got into The Bangles due to an adolescent crush (which still remains to this day despite being in my 40's), but without the accompanying good songs, I wouldn't still be thinking and/or writing about them. After The Bangles and Go-Go's, I went to groups like Babes In Toyland, L7, Seven Year Bitch, Savages, Throwing Muses, Dum Dum Girls, and many, many more.

Susanna Hoffs circa now

Wow. All of this reflecting and reminiscing from seeing a current photo of Susanna Hoffs and hearing her sing "Trouble" by Lindsey Buckingham. The mind is a seriously bizarre instrument.

Hopefully, you got something out of this post. I have no idea if it even makes sense. But the new album from Matthew Sweet and Susanna Hoffs is excellent. At least you can take that away after reading this. That, plus some teenage crushes never die.