Tommy Stinson’s Bash & Pop headlines at The Saint
Friday performance coincides with Anything Could Happen album release
Bash & Pop follows up a sold out show at NYC’s Mercury Lounge with a Late Show With Stephen Colbert appearance Thursday before headlining Friday at The Saint (601 Main St].
Bash & Pop is the creation of Tommy Stinson [at right], who brought the band together back in 1992 after The Replacements split. They released one album – Friday Night Is Killing Me – before Stinson set off with Guns N Roses in 1998.
Friday’s headlining performance at The Saint coincides with the release of Bash & Pop’s Anything Could Happen album, featuring “Never Wanted To Know,” the topical riff recorded the day Prince died that seems to drawn from news reports: “Shot down, bleeding from his back in the rain; some kid, they didn’t even know he was eight; you’re wishing that it all would end; they repeat it on CNN.”
The track was specifically written for the No. 1 slot, Stinson said.
“I wanted this thing to come out with, ya know, just – BAM – rock n’ roll,” he said. “The first B&P album was rootsy, very rock n’ roll and as the new stuff started to come together, it felt like that. Also, as I was playing rough mixes of some of these new recordings for friends, many said it reminded them of the B&P record … so it just seemed to make sense.”
The album was recorded in Hudson, NY and London and sports nine rock songs and three ballads – “Anything Could Happen” and “Bad News” are about adaptability and optimistically facing the curve balls life can throw, while “Breathing Room” couples a catchy tune with a heartbreaking lyric: “You’re the dream I thought that I had; I’m the wish that won’t come true; we’re running out of breathing room; ain’t that a bitch, being stuck this way.” And in “Anytime Soon,” Stinson sums up a shattered yet resilient dichotomy: “You won’t see me dangling from these rafters anytime soon.”
“On the one hand, I might’ve just gotten lucky but on the other hand, I totally approached it in a different way than I have in the past,” Stinson says of the new album. “The last two solo albums were done rather piecemeal. On this one I had all the songs written in advance and, with the band there throughout the sessions to help make the tracks really ‘sing,’ it improved the whole process.”
BASH & POP features Stinson, lead guitarist Steve “The Sleeve” Selvidge [of The Hold Steady], Joe “The Kid” Sirois [of Mighty Mighty BossTones] on drums, and Justin “Carl” Perkins [of Screeching Weasel] on bass.
Along with Friday’s release, comes the first vinyl pressing of Friday Night Is Killing Me due to be release Tuesday via Sire/Reprise.
There’s also a Pledge Music campaign in support of Timkatec trade schools in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, featuring everything from merchandise and voicemail recording by Stinson to pieces of his bass and pool game with band.
Brooklyn’s The So So Glos kick things off before Bash and Pop takes the stage, with doors opening at 7:30 p.m. Day of tickets are $18. For more information, visit thesaintnj.com.
[featured photo courtesy of Steven Cohen]
——————————————————————-
Follow the Asbury Park Sun on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
The Asbury Park Sun is affiliated with the triCityNews newspaper.
