Tonight I’m listening to Kilimanjaro, the 1980 debut by The Teardrop Explodes, while my band The No Good Crowd gets ready to celebrate the release of our debut album, Unproper. These two records have very little in common beyond occupying the same room in my head tonight.

Kilimanjaro is fucking brilliant. Julian Cope and company arrived sounding confident, imaginative, and fully formed, mixing post-punk with a heavy dose of West Coast psychedelia. It’s the sort of debut that makes you wonder what could possibly come next. In their case: a darker second album, Wilder, which I love; a band that imploded; and Cope’s long, wonderfully strange solo career.

You know the saying: you have your whole life to make your first album, and about six months to make your second. The No Good Crowd is in no danger of following The Teardrop Explodes’ career trajectory, but I do feel a kinship with anyone reaching that moment when a first album leaves their hands.

As a radio person, I love debuts. I love hearing something new and realizing that a minute ago it didn’t exist in my world, and now I can’t unhear it. Some bands spend the rest of their careers trying to outrun their first record (Strokes). Others sound so different a few albums later that it’s hard to believe they’re the same people (Radiohead).

Now I get to experience the debut from the other side. Unproper will be available on vinyl, CD, and streaming on Friday, September 25. That night we’re playing The Fallser Club in East Falls, Philadelphia, with our friends The Lazy Villains.

Did Pet Sounds start with a wooden spoon and a sauce pot?

Jamie Olson and I had stayed in touch while I was living in Minnesota. Back in 2022, he sent me a demo of a song called “Dennis Wilson.” It was poppy but also weirder than what he’d been writing, kinda sad too, and for a song without a real chorus, it was super catchy - bouncing along like The Monkees vs Wilco. I dug it. After I moved back to Philly later that year, I was going to join his band Midnight Singers on bass. But that group ran its course, I moved over to guitar, and we started looking for something new.

At the time, I had a spot in my apartment with just enough room for a guitar and a laptop. I took another Jamie song, “Some Kinda Gold,” a folky acoustic ditty, and turned it into a driving garage rocker with fuzzy guitars and wobbly harmonies. I even added what sounds like a cowbell. It’s a wooden spoon banging on a sauce pot

Eureka. We liked that sound.

Brendan Skwire joined on bass and Neil Simpkins on drums, and in late 2023 The No Good Crowd played its first show, opening for Joey Sweeney at Ortlieb’s. We were loud, energetic, a bit sloppy, and very real. That has remained a pretty good description of us. Neil Simpkins is a Philly legend and he freaked me out once by telling me that when he was young he saw Jimi Hendrix. Three times. Brendan has bounced from the Boston scene to Philly (Jim and Jennie!) to Nashville and back, across Country, Punk, Metal, and Bluegrass. These are good dudes to form a band around.

After a smattering of shows and new songs, we booked a day at Gradwell House in Collingswood with John Anthony. John is one of the great engineers in Philly music history. He spent years at Sigma Sound, ran his own studios, and has been making records and mentoring generations of engineers for decades.

We cut drums for seven songs that day. Drums are hard to record well: there are a lot of them, the room matters, and you need both the sound and the performance to be right. The whole band played, but we paid closest attention to Neil’s drums and the way we played around them. Seven usable drum performances in one day says a lot about Neil and John.

Then we moved the tracks from John’s Pro Tools system to Logic at my house. Over the following months, the band came by whenever we could to make it happen. We replaced scratch bass and guitar parts, recorded the lead vocals, and added the little things that make a recording come alive: shakers, maracas, background vocals, acoustic guitars, the occasional sauce pot.

I love this part. A song can grow beyond the version you play live, or it can get smaller and more direct. You try things, listen back, and find out what the song wants.

Friends helped us find those answers, too. I sent Adam Weiner a half-finished version of “All Right Now,” and the next day he sent back exactly the piano part it needed. Tim Meacham recorded keyboard parts at home and sent them over. Then we got two vocals from Emm Gryner, which meant a lot to me.

I first met Emm in 1998 when she came by Y100 to play in our conference room. We reconnected years later and became friends - after she’d been in Bowie’s band. During Philly Loves Bowie week in 2024, we planned a show together, which prompted TNGC to learn “Cat People.” We debuted it with Emm at Dawson Street Pub. When I sent her a rough mix of our recording a few months later, she sent back a vocal that turned it into a duet.

She also sang verses on “Headlong,” a song I wrote in 2000 when Christine and I started dating. My old band Cordalene released it twice, with two different singers. For this third version, getting to sing it with Emm felt pretty special.

Eventually, everything went back to John for mixing. As he got close on each song, I’d visit his Fairmount basement lair. We’d decide how loud a guitar should be, what the reverb on a chorus should feel like, and when a song was finished. Mostly, I’d listen and learn. That guy is good!

I’ve been lucky to learn from some wonderful engineers over the years: Brian McTear when Cordalene recorded with him, Ed Ackerson when I played in BNLX, and now John. He was generous with his time and his ears, and this album owes him a lot.

We released a few songs from that first batch, including “All Right Now,” “Cat People,” and “Headlong.” In 2025 we went back to Gradwell to record seven more. This time we had a second day, so more of the tracks left the studio nearly finished. Our version of “Sunshine Superman” has no overdubs at all. It’s a quick, live, one-take recording. Sometimes that’s the one you want.

An album, with two days to spare

Mixing was still moving along piece by piece when Main Street Music asked us to play its Record Store Day celebration. We had two 45s, but no album. It seemed a shame to play Record Store Day without a full record to bring.

I said in a band text that we didn’t have a proper album. But maybe we had an Unproper one…

We could combine some previously released songs with a few rough mixes, make the artwork quickly, and, if everything went right, get records pressed just in time. So we did. And while we’d been sweating out the mixes and sequencing - in a rush, we just threw on what sounded best to us in that moment - and it felt liberating. Unproper is right for TNGC.

The band takes turns singing lead on the album, just as we do onstage. Mostly it’s Jamie and me, with Brendan stepping up for a couple of covers. Some people say it’s foolish to have multiple lead singers. Some say it’s crazy to put covers on your debut album. To which I say: The Beatles. They did both, and things worked out reasonably well for them.

So yes, alongside our own songs, you’ll hear Bowie, Donovan, Scruffy the Cat, and The Bags. I realize I’ve just compared our dumb pub rock band to The Beatles. I stand by it.

What do you put on the cover when you have few good band photos, limited design skills, and no grand visual concept? In our case, you borrow inspiration from the best. We looked at the stark, mysterious sleeves of early Bob Dylan bootlegs like Great White Wonder and Stealin’: simple lettering, lots of white space, and the sense that the music inside was the main event. I added the parenthetical subtitle (Test Mixes and Rough Pressings) to the vinyl sleeve, with a little nod to the Stones’ Big Hits (High Tide and Green Grass).

After some harrowing hours getting the art into the printer’s templates, we uploaded everything and waited. Studio 4 Vinyl got the record made in time. I printed and cut the inserts at work. With two days to spare, the vinyl arrived.

Playing your own record for the first time is a mind-blowing experience. After years of demos, takes, overdubs, rough mixes, second guesses, and eurekas, suddenly there it is, spinning on a turntable, blasting through your speakers.

And it sounded great to us. It felt like a live band, even though much of it wasn’t recorded live. It had the Rock we wanted, along with just enough looseness and Roll.

We took the records to Main Street Music for Record Store Day, where King Tuff accidentally walked off with my guitar right before our set. Tyler from The Tisburys knew someone nearby who could lend me one, and the show went on. I got to introduce a song as “the first song on our new album,” Cheap Trick style. Later that afternoon, Pat and Jamie put the record on in the store. Hearing it out in the world for the first time was something else.

We didn’t play much this summer other than benefits celebrating the music of The Kinks and The Clash. Somewhere along the way, we realized we’d never had a proper show to celebrate Unproper. So we booked The Fallser Club, invited The Lazy Villains to share the bill, and asked a few friends to join us for a post-set jam - get ready for Adam Weiner of Low Cut Connie, Phil Dunn of The Modbeats, Rick Henderson of The Wayward Wind, John Faye of John Faye, Cowmuddy, and whoever else is there to get onstage before they kick us out.

John finished a few more mixes this summer, and we’ve added those to the streaming and CD versions. As of Friday, Unproper will have a home on vinyl, CD, and streaming.

Will this record change anyone’s life? Maybe. I’d be happy if it kept someone company on a rough day, gave them a tune to hum, or made them want to turn it up in the car. I do know that making it has changed the lives of the people in this band. I’m incredibly proud and thankful to have created it.

You make songs. You record them, take them apart, build them back up, question everything, fall in love with them again, and eventually let go of the wheel.

We’re ready to let go. I hope you’ll come hear us celebrate!

The No Good Crowd and The Lazy Villains play The Fallser Club in East Falls, Philadelphia, on Friday, September 25, 2026. Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door. To keep the night affordable, we’re selling everything at half price: Unproper vinyl for $10, CDs for $5, and if you stream it, just Half Your Soul.

Unproper is also onsale at a few fine stores like Main Street Music, Vinyl Chickie, Latchkey, Forever Changes, Hideaway, and online orders at our Bandcamp page.

Paris 1919 is the 3rd solo album by former Velvet Underground bassist/viola player John Cale, released in February 1973. I stumbled into it as an impulse purchase. I popped over to Long in the Tooth record shop to buy a silly cheap record to give to my pal Leigh Lust for his bday dinner that night (it ended up being Foghat Live, a GREAT $3 album with that cutaway cover), and the Paris 1919 reissue caught my eye. I spent the next week going thru the entire album, flipping it over and back again, letting the music wash over me.

It’s a gorgeous sounding album - previously I only really knew him as 1) the guy in the Velvets, 2) the guy who inspired Jeff Buckley’s Hallelujah, 3) a guy that produced The Stooges, Squeeze and a bunch of cool albums, and 4) the guy whose recent albums were generally pretty out there, and whose later ‘70s solo records (I picked up 1975’s Helen of Troy a few years ago) were more discordant as well. I’d heard Paris 1919 was the one to get - but as a fan of Roxy, Eno, Velvets, I’m not sure why I’d never heard it before.

And after hearing it, I’m not sure what to compare Paris 1919 to - it’s a singular listening experience. Not quite singer-songwriter, not quite Beatle-esque, not quite Roxy Music art rock, but maybe a little of all of the above. It’s got that rich 1972 studio vibe - both quiet and loud, led by piano and acoustic guitars, then big drums and roaring slide leads, with Cale’s distinctive shaky beautiful vocals, and beguiling lyrics. It that felt both familiar and obscure. There’s heavily orchestrated songs, quiet ballads, and rockers. It’s a record to get lost in, to sink into the emotions - the sadness, anger, melancholy and joy. After leaving the Velvets, after having married (then divorced) designer Betsy Johnson by 1971, when Cale married former member of the GTOs Miss Cindy (Girls Together Outrageously, an LA-based band composed of rock groupies who hung around the Sunset Strip and had a bizarre album produced by Zappa), it was tumultuous marriage that would end soon after, augmented by Cale’s own escalating drug use. Maybe that inspired some of the mixed emotions under the surface of the songs.

The only song I knew going in was Child’s Christmas in Wales, a wistful song sometimes played as holiday music, where Cale seems to look back with mixed feelings on his childhood. Macbeth is a flat out rocker, and that’s when I realized how big a role Little Feat’s Lowell George had played on this record. But then you shift into pastoral folk like Andulucia, or super melodic Beatles + orchestra vibe of the title track.

John Cale “Paris 1919” - absolutely frickin’ gorgeous

Sometimes extra material on reissues can be pretty useless, and sometimes it’s illuminating - this 2024 reissue is generous with a great second album that enables deeper exploration - bonus tracks - including some great alternate versions of songs, works in progress, plus a fragment called I Must Not Sniff Cocaine, which seems to also explain the working conditions in the studio.

John Cale - "Hanky Panky Nohow" drone mix (bonus track)

But it was the second song on Paris 1919 that really dug into me, especially combined with the two alternate versions on the second disc. Called Hanky Panky Nohow, it is somehow sad and triumphant at the same time. And the lyrics are a mystery that I pondered for a long time. Hanky Panky... is that a reference to the Tommy James song? To infidelity? Why are their lyrics about cows? What Law - was there a drug bust? Those “planing lakes will surely calm you down”? Huh? Is it about nature vs modern man, money, Hindu beliefs? I’ve seldom felt so much in a song I understood so little. And given that it was John Cale’s version of Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah that took that song out of obscurity and inspired Jeff Buckley’s version, it’s interesting to note how the phrasing and melody of Hanky Panky Nohow are similar to Cohen’s song, which came out a decade later in 1984, with Cale’s version arriving in 1991. I became a bit obsessed with this Hanky Panky tune and I ended up learning the song and cutting my own demo version.

John Cale "Hanky Panky Nohow" live in 2012 with Orch

Jim McGuinn covering "Hanky Panky Nohow" because why not?

A bit more album backstory - Paris 1919 was produced by Cale with Chris Thomas, in between working in the early ‘70s with folks like Procal Harum and Badfinger, and late ‘70s with the Sex Pistols and Pretenders. Thomas was also working with Roxy Music around this time, while Cale had been a producer too after leaving the Velvets, working on landmark records by Nico and The Stooges, and also playing on Nick Drake’s Bryter Later. It seems like if you were “in the club” in the early ‘70s, you found your way to a lot of music making! One of the things I didn’t know about Paris 1919 going in was that about half of Little Feat were the backing band. The album was made in LA, with songs by a Welshman who’d spent much of last decade in New York, with help from an Englishman (Thomas) and a southern rock sounding band from LA (Little Feat). Lowell George of Little Feat is another of those cats - a hipster Leon Russell, bouncing from Zappa’s band to being a member of the Standells to sessions and writing to eventually forming Little Feat, whose music I always associate more with New Orleans than LA or the UK - but somehow the combo is perfect on this album. However it came together, so glad it did, and so glad I stumbled into it on my way to buying a Foghat live album (no offense to Leigh Lust OR to Foghat). Here’s where you can really hear the Little Feat impact:

John Cale - “Macbeth” - Little Feat rocking!

So - that’s my story. And maybe it’s all old hat to you if you’ve been in love with this album for a long time (it is over 50 years old after all). But if it is new to you - my hope is that these words might inspire you to give it a listen, not in the “I’m at work so I’ll skim thru it” way, but in a sit back and let it envelope you kinda way. I think you’ll love it too.

Happy 50th Birthday to Born To Run. A few outtakes from the classic album cover photo shoot are sprinkled into this post. Thx to Winston for subbing in as The Big Man and Christine Weeks for tolerating (and snapping) her husband’s silly ideas. Most people have never seen the photos where Clarence licks Bruce’s chin.

(We’re celebrating this album all day 8.25.25 at WXPN - including a Track-By-Track Bruce-a-thon rundown with Dan DeLuca and Dan Reed for Highs In The ‘70s today at 6p.)

What does Born To Run mean to you?

Some Bruce fans (especially here in Philly, and especially here at WXPN - ahem, David Dye, Bruce Warren…) go way deeper and earlier with the Boss than I do. Here’s the thing - if you are under the age of (perhaps) 63, you don’t really know a time without Born to Run rattling around your brain. If you are older than 63, you may have seen him at the Main Point one of the 45 times he played there circa 1973-4, you might have luved Greetings and Wild and the Innocent in real time (I doubled back after hearing BTR and Darkness). But if you’re younger than that, you don’t know of a Time Before BTR. It’s just - always been - on the radio, in the pages of Rolling Stone, in your brain.

I discovered Born To Run as part of a Columbia House record purchase (13 albums for a Penny!) in the late ‘70s as a 12 or 13 year old, and it opened my ears to the cinematic wide screen possibility of rock and roll, of freedom, of escape from the Chicago ‘burbs, to a faraway place I’d bever much thought about - New Jersey!

These were the years before I found Punk (or punk found me), and Bruce was one of the newer artists along with Bob Seger, Foreigner, Boston, Pat Benatar, Chicago, ELO, Frampton, who joined all the ‘60s British rock Beatles/Stones/Zepp/Who/Kinks, CCR and Motown that I was drinking in at the time. Some of those artists were jettisoned for a few decades when Joe Strummer, Paul Weller, and Elvis Costello entered my life, but Bruce always remained - with the exaltation of Born To Run in my holy trinity of the greatest rock songs of all-time (Boys are Back in Town and Surrender my other two for those curious). “In the day we sweat it out in the streets / of a runaway American dream”… I remember my childhood bedroom, opening the gatefold and following along as Bruce told us those stories, and the band galloped along. I studied those words, stared at the photo of Bruce and Clarence. Like so many kids, I wanted to feel the freedom in these songs, I wanted to drive a cool car, I wanted to knock on door of my girl, some girl, any girl - and whisk her away. I wanted to drive as far from Downers Grove, Illinois as that car could carry me.

The thing I like to do on a day like today (besides take photos with my dog) is to TRY to listen to an album as if you’ve never heard it again. Ever do this? This album starts with Thunder Road. I always think of Thunder Road as a, well, thundering epic rock anthem. But go listen to it again. It opens simply, quietly, with a piano and a harmonica. Listening today I’m thinking of folk music, Woody Guthrie when I hear the harmonica, or early Dylan. And with piano, Elton? In the first verse Bruce references Roy Orbison singing for the lonely. It would be years before I’d learn how intentionally Bruce had peppered the album with references to classic songs and song structures - how this album streamlined the more elliptical early music into tightly constructed musical short stories that borrowed from Motown, Garage Rock, Chuck Berry, and pre-Beatles (or at least pre-psychedelia ‘60s rock), and folks like Orbison. Bruce is singing for the lonely, for all of us. The song goes on - first verse, second, finally drums and a guitar join, but still - restrained. Holding back while the story unfolds. And then right after the line “What else can we do now?” the band fully enters - “Except roll down the window / And let the wind blow back your hair / Well, the night's busting open / These two lanes will take us anywhere” - and we’re off. But it’s still holding back til we get a few more verses down the road he sings “So Mary, climb in / It's a town full of losers / I'm pulling out of here to win” - and wham - Clarence arrives with the sax solo that pull it all home, brings grown men to tears, and opens the book on one of the greatest albums in music history. It’s a path that will contain twists and turns, the hushed noir of Meeting Across the River, the epic Jungleland, the modern Bo Diddley of She’s the One, the self-reflective tribute to his own band in Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out, and of course, the hall of fame title track.

Songs like Thunder Road are so hard to hear anew if you’ve lived thru them for 50 years now - it’s like peeling layers of paint off to get back. But if you can, it’s so worth it. I’m stoked to check out this new book about the making of BTR, and excited to hear Dan and Dan today and their takes on the songs. Meanwhile, how about some more cuteness from Winston?

And one last BTR fact I picked up from today’s Wall Street Journal:

Bruce Springsteen has a tradition: Each year on Aug. 25, he puts his 1975 album “Born to Run” on and goes for a drive.

“On its anniversaries, I get in a car and I play it from start to finish,” the musician told Peter Ames Carlin, author of “Tonight in Jungleland,” a new book on the album’s making.

Springsteen, 75, says he cruises past old haunts along the Jersey Shore before queuing up the last track at his final stop: a cottage in Long Branch where he lived in the mid-1970s.

“I sit by the curb and let ‘Jungleland’ play, all the way through, while I sit outside the little house I wrote it in,” he said.

Kinda makes me want to get up from my desk and head down to the shore and look for the guy in muscle car blasting his own song…

Otto Kemp. Who is this guy? Called up by the Phillies on June 7th, he's a rookie utility player. On a team filled with $300 million dollar contracts, there's something about having a guy who played D2 college ball, was an undrafted signing in 2022, and worked his way up thru the minors that's a joy to watch and root for. Add in a hipster mustache that looks a bit like Jason Sudeikis in Ted Lasso, and his use of Franz Ferdinand's "Take Me Out" as his walkup music, and I think I'm in love! This is a guy who was playing for the Florida Complex Rookie League Phillies in 2022 when Bryce was hitting the Shot Heard Round the World, then the Clearwater Threshers and Jersey Shore Blueclaws in 2023, the Threshers and Blueclaws, Reading Fightin' Phils, Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs, and Glendale Desert Dogs in 2024, before reaching the Big Leagues after a great half season at Lehigh Valley this spring.

Will he last the summer as a Phillie? Will he have a long career? He's hitting about .260 so far, and while he'd mostly been an infielder prior to getting to the majors, the Phils have too many left-handed hitting outfielders right now, which means a right-handed hitter who can stop most of the balls hit to him in Left Field just might stick for a minute, and get some playing time (unless they tade for another outfielder in the next two weeks). Imagine it! It's gotta be a blast and a dream come true. Plus, his name is Otto, and according to Baseball-Refernce, that makes him the 8th Otto to play major league ball, and along with the Marlins' Otto Lopez, is appears to be the first time since 1939 there were two Ottos in the majors at the same time. There have never been three at the same time.

I would love to meet this Otto Kemp, and buy him a beer, preferably at some local dive bar. He's looks like the kind of guy that would appreciate a beer, like the old school 'lunch pail' type. Maybe go to some grimy indie rock show at Johnny Brenda's. Or maybe that's just my fantasy of the cool baseball player guy. I have no idea anything about him other than what I've seen watching the team the past month. But check out the photo at the top of the post - Otto getting the water treatment from the ultimate lunch pail Phillie Kyle Schwarber, after Otto was the hero in his first home game as a Phillie!

And here’s a couple Otto-snaps from the weekend, when Christine and I took in a Phils win.

It’s good to have a guy like this on a team full of big contracts. And it all reminds me of Chris Coste. Longtime Phils' fans will recall Coste who endured 12 years of minor league and independent league baseball to make it to the Phillies as a backup catcher in 2006 at age 33, and managed to stick in the big leagues for 4 years. He's currently managing the Fargo-Moorhead Redhawks, an independent league team from his hometown. The other day my wife and I went to a game, and walking out among the smiling victorious crowd, I spotted a woman with a #33 Coste t-shirt - and stopped and complimented her. As we walked away I heard her say "He noticed my shirt!" I guess what I'm saying is, if they exist, it's time to stock up on the #4 Otto Kemp jerseys now!

Lola has a captivating presence - you are drawn into her and her songs, which manage to feel personal to her life and universally relatable at the same time. As she said during a Q and A - “anyone who doesn’t feel like this is a big fat liar” - we are all messy! And perfect! And clean and dirty and all the contradictions she delivers in her hit song.

It was a unique show - opening with a half dozen songs performed with her band, then a 15-minute QandA with Rolling Stone’s Brittany Spanos, in which Lola displayed an honesty and openness that took me back to the moment I saw Amy Winehouse do a tiny SXSW gig as Back to Black was about to come out. Comparisons to Winehouse may be unavoidable - especially when you hear Lola speak, but while Lola may lack Amy’s vocal jazz chops, she brings more of a pop and hiphop vibe to the mix, with a clutch of songs that might be even more relatable. At one point in referenced to recent guest appearances on songs by both Tyler, The Creator and Lil Yachty, she said, “I’m your favorite rapper’s favorite artist!” As to her influences, she gushed about quite an eclectic mix, perfectly suited for this 21st century melting pot - Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Frank Ocean, and Trap Music.

Then a totally unique thing happened AFTER the Q&A as Lola stayed onstage and sang along with brand new songs, and intended for her NEXT album. In this age of social media and ubiquitous fan vids, it’s a bold move! But it personifies Lola’s I-Don’t-Give-AF attitude.

Messy is having a run up the radio charts all over - hitting the Top 20 at AAA, Rock, and Pop at the same time. I ran into rock radio programmers like SiriusXM’s Jeff Regan and Robert Cross, the legendary Pop PD Alex Tear and WKTU’s Steve Bartel - and have never been to a show where the crowd was buzzing over the sight of key “Influencers” - though I admittedly didn’t know who they were even when told of their presence. Ah, the times a-changing, eh?

It’s always exciting to see an artist as they are ascending into the pop culture mountain, and Lola talked about processing all this new buzz in real time - how she used to be able to just hang out with fans after her shows, but now it’s becoming impossible… and thanks for that! As Brittany said, this might be the last time we see her in a venue this size, and I feel very lucky to have been invited to witness what may be the arrival of an artist that will walk the line between pop and indie, rock and hiphop, critical acclaim and influencer fame. If you haven’t spent time with her music yet - give it a listen and let me know what you think. I come away from this show convinced and on board, psyched to look forward to being a fan of Lola Young on her journey.