Author: brendanmstewart

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A Year of Reading: 2025 In Books

Looking for something to read? Here’s the list of my adventures in reading for 2025. For whatever reason I leaned heavily into thrillers, including crime novels, mysteries, and supernatural chillers this year with some non-fiction, and one classic play, thrown into the mix.

The Small Faces & Other Stories – Uli Twelker & Roland Schmitt
This exhaustive chronicle traces English Mod band the Small Faces from their origins through various offshoots and solo ventures, including the Faces, Humble Pie, and Peter Frampton. It’s dry as dust and packed with more detail than even obsessive fans (guilty!) could possibly need. Die-hards might persevere, but most readers will tap out early. Too much story for too concise a book.

Anymore for Anymore: The Ronnie Lane Story – Caroline & David Stafford
Ronnie Lane, the soulful engine behind the Small Faces and Faces, gets a heartfelt portrait here, chronicling his music, his battles, and his enduring spirit. Absorbing and touching, it’s a fitting tribute to one of rock’s undersung heroes. Essential for anyone who loves that loose, boozy Faces magic.

Drums & Demons: The Tragic Journey of Jim Gordon – Joel Selvin
Jim Gordon was one of rock’s most brilliant drummers, laying down classic beats for everyone from Derek and the Dominos to Steely Dan. This heartbreaking biography traces his genius alongside his tragic descent into schizophrenia and murder. Fascinating and utterly devastating—a cautionary tale of unchecked mental illness in the music world.

Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood – Eric Burdon & Jeff Marshall Craig
The gravel-voiced frontman of the Animals recounts his wild ride through the British Invasion, psychedelia, and beyond with no holds barred. Engaging, raw, and full of rock ‘n’ roll anecdotes, it captures Burdon’s fierce personality perfectly, though he sometimes comes across as rock music’s own Zelig or Forrest Gump. A lively memoir from one of the era’s great survivors.

Hot Wired Guitar: The Life of Jeff Beck – Martin Power
Jeff Beck, the elusive Yardbirds guitarist, heavy metal inventor, and fusion pioneer, gets a thorough, guitar-centric biography here. Detailed and admiring, it dives deep into his innovative playing and restless career. Pure heaven for axe enthusiasts. Full review here.

The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Authorized Biography – Charles White
This authorized biography captures the wild, flamboyant ride of one of rock ‘n’ roll’s true architects and original wild men. Excellent and unfiltered, it celebrates Little Richard’s explosive energy and lasting influence. Essential reading for anyone who loves the roots of rock.

Alice in Chains: The Untold Story – David de Sola
The definitive, exhaustive history of Seattle’s darkest grunge giants traces their rise, demons, and tragic losses in unflinching detail. Dark, thorough, and compelling—it’s the full story behind one of alt-rock’s Big Four.

Pandora’s Box: How Guts, Guile, and Greed Upended TV – Peter Biskind
Biskind follows up Easy Riders, Raging Bulls with a chaotic saga of cable TV’s rise and the streaming revolution that upended everything. Still fascinating, though not quite as electric as his Hollywood classic. A solid dive into how these one-time fledgling upstarts reshaped entertainment.

Little Heaven – Nick Cutter
Mercenaries hired to investigate a religious cult stumble into forest monsters and bloody mayhem in this sprawling horror tale. It’s okay—gory and ambitious—but drags with its length and never quite hits the heights of Cutter’s best.

Those Across the River – Christopher Buehlman
In Depression-era Georgia, a failed academic couple moves to a small town with a dark secret involving werewolves and forgotten rituals. Well-crafted Southern Gothic that masterfully builds dread around the cost of appeasing ancient evils. Elegant and chilling.

Hollywood: The Oral History – Jeanine Basinger & Sam Wasson
This massive compilation of insider voices offers a sometimes fascinating, sometimes maddening peek behind Tinseltown’s curtain. Enlightening and infuriating in equal measure—an excellent read for anyone obsessed with the dream factory’s golden age. Full review here.

An Honest Man – Michael Koryta
On a remote Maine island, murder, drugs, and sex trafficking collide with buried secrets in this taut thriller. Very good, with Koryta’s trademark atmosphere and moral complexity shining through.

The Book of Accidents – Chuck Wendig
A fractured family confronts curses, multiverse horrors, and apocalyptic threats in this ambitious genre mashup. Part horror, part sci-fi—dark, sprawling, and unflinching.

Tell No One – Harlan Coben
A grieving doctor receives messages suggesting his murdered wife is alive, plunging him into a twisty conspiracy. Breakneck pacing and relentless surprises make it a very fast, addictive read.

The Night Parade – Ronald Malfi
A father and young daughter flee across a plague-ravaged America, dodging infected hordes and human threats. Strong, quietly devastating apocalyptic horror that hits hard emotionally.

Moguls: The Lives and Times of Hollywood Film Pioneers Nicholas and Joseph Schenck – Michael Benson & Craig Singer
The Schenck brothers rise from nickelodeons to building the studio system in this interesting history of early Hollywood power players. Solid and informative for film buffs.

Road of Bones – Christopher Golden
On Stalin’s frozen Kolyma Highway, forest spirits and ancient horrors stalk modern travelers. Genuinely chilling Siberian nightmare fuel.

Runnin’ with the Devil:  A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen – Noel Monk & Joe Layden
Van Halen’s longtime manager spills juicy gossip on America’s premier party band’s wild early years. Fun, decadent, and a total blast.

Fire In The Hole: Stories – Elmore Leonard
This lean collection of sharp tales includes the title story that introduced the world to Raylan Givens. Typically excellent—vintage Leonard gold.

All Hallows – Christopher Golden
A nostalgic 1980s Halloween turns deadly when small-town secrets and childhood fears manifest. Sinister and atmospheric.

Devolution: A Firsthand Account of the Rainier Sasquatch Massacre – Max Brooks
“Found-footage” account of a tech-utopian community facing a Sasquatch massacre after Mount Rainier erupts. The author of the extraordinary World War Z doesn’t rise to that level here, but it’s a fun and scary read.

Goblin – Josh Malerman
Five interconnected novellas unleash creeping dread on a cursed town that despises outsiders. Malerman. the author of Bird Box, delivers atmospheric horror.

A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, Vol. 1: From Savoy Stompers to Clock Rockers – Andrew Hickey
The print companion to the excellent podcast dives deep into rock’s roots, from swing to early rockers. Fascinating and delightful for music nerds like me. Hickey has figured out how to do a comprehensive history of the music, not through bands and movements, but through songs that pushed the music forward.

Our Lady of Darkness – Fritz Leiber
1970s San Francisco occult paranoia blends ghosts, madness, and ambiguous urban horror. Moody and intellectually frustrating in the best way.

The Lesser Dead – Christopher Buehlman
1970s New York subway vampires face off against feral, hungry vampire children. Creepy, funny, and one of the strongest modern vampire tales. A cousin to John Skipp and Craig Spector’s similarly set The Light At The End.

Homeward Bound: The Life of Paul Simon – Peter Ames Carlin
A thorough, admiring chronicle of the brilliant songwriter’s life and career. Lovingly detailed and insightful. It’s easy to forget now just how massively popular Simon was once upon a time, and Carlin’s tome is a nice reminder that the musician was once a superstar. Full review here.

The Talisman – Stephen King & Peter Straub
Two horror masters craft a magnificent fantasy echoing Huckleberry Finn across parallel worlds. A sprawling, heartfelt, and still dazzling epic quest story.

The Nineties – Chuck Klosterman
A sharp, engaging tour through the decade’s culture, from grunge to 9/11, with extra snark. Fun and nostalgic.

Gwendy’s Magic Feather – Richard Chizmar
The middle entry in the Button Box trilogy suffers from a glaring lack of real plot momentum. Easily the weakest link of the series.

Gwendy’s Final Task – Stephen King & Richard Chizmar
The Button Box trilogy concludes satisfyingly, weaving in Dark Tower connections. A strong finale that is perhaps better than what the series deserves.

American Assassin – Vince Flynn
CIA super-agent Mitch Rapp embarks on his explosive first mission. Adrenaline-fueled action candy.

Just Kids – Patti Smith
Smith’s lyrical memoir recounts her artistic coming-of-age and profound friendship with artist Robert Mapplethorpe in 1970s New York. Engaging, heartfelt, and beautifully written.

Forest Ghost – Graham Masterton
An ecological horror starts promisingly but crumbles under weak characters and a catastrophically dumb ending.

It’s Alive! – Julian David Stone
This roman à clef explores the behind-the-scenes fight to greenlight the 1931 classic Universal film Frankenstein. Mildly interesting but ultimately kind of pointless.

Slow Horses – Mick Herron
The witty, slow-burn debut introduces Slough House’s misfit spies and served as the inspiration for the brilliant Apple TV+ series. A slow start but excellent once it hits its stride.

Haunted – Chuck Palahniuk
Twenty-three macabre tales framed by a gimmicky writers’ retreat novel. Gross, divisive, and ultimately middling.

Twelfth Night – William Shakespeare
The Bard’s funniest comedy sparkles with mistaken identities and farce that feels like the Marx Brothers with poetry. Brilliant and timeless.

Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music – David Meyer
This rich biography of Gram Parsons shines, but the opening third of the book drowns in unnecessary detail about the Parsons family business dealings and young Gram’s school years. Still essential for Americana music or country fans. The final two-thirds more than compensate for the slow beginning. Full review here.

The Manitou – Graham Masterton
A ridiculous 1970s premise—ancient Native spirit reborn via tumor—delivers pure schlocky pulp horror. Silly, clichéd, but charmingly fun.

Open Season – C.J. Box
Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett’s debut mystery starts slow but quickly roars into gripping territory. Worth sticking with.

Fever House – Keith Rosson
A severed hand unleashes apocalyptic mayhem and weird violence. Excellent and unhinged.

I Will Find You – Harlan Coben
An innocent father serving a life sentence for murdering his young son receives photographic evidence that the boy may still be alive, prompting him to escape prison and embark on a desperate quest to uncover the truth. Another reliable Coben page-turner packed with twists. Propulsive comfort food.

The Lincoln Lawyer – Michael Connelly
Slick courtroom thriller introducing Mickey Haller, the defense attorney who works out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car. Instantly addictive. Haller’s a great character and Connelly is a fine writer.

Departure 37 – Scott Carson
Hundreds of pilots across America receive eerie midnight calls from their mothers—some deceased—begging them not to fly, causing a nationwide grounding of flights, and a teenage girl uncovers ties to a buried Cold War secret involving a scientist’s dangerous experiment. Thriller blends sci-fi and coming-of-age elements, tying up neatly. Ambitious but not Carson’s strongest.

A Drink Before the War – Dennis Lehane
Boston noir explodes with the compulsive debut of investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro, who are hired to track down a cleaning woman who allegedly stole confidential documents, only to uncover evidence of political corruption and street gang rivalries that ignite a brutal racial gang war in their city. Excellent from the jump.

Deal Breaker – Harlan Coben
Sports agent Myron Bolitar, on the verge of securing a massive contract for his promising young quarterback client, begins investigating after the athlete receives disturbing evidence suggesting that his former girlfriend—presumed murdered—might still be alive. Snappy, fun comfort read.

Skeleton Crew – Stephen King
King’s strongest short fiction collection delivers chills galore (skip the two poems).

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young – David Browne
Superb biography navigating four massive egos and their harmonious magic. Juicy and insightful.

The Last Kingdom – Bernard Cornwell
Uhtred (son of Uhtred) of Bebbanburg fights amid Saxons and Danes in the brutal founding of England. Epic and the source for the excellent Netflix series.

Darkness, Take My Hand – Dennis Lehane
Private investigartors Kenzie and Gennaro hunt a vicious serial killer. Tense, dark, and utterly gripping.

The Pale Horseman – Bernard Cornwell
Book two of the Saxon stories (the saga of Uhtred of Bebbanburg) ramps up the shield-wall battles and strong characters. In 9th-century England, as Danish invaders threaten to overrun the last Saxon kingdom of Wessex, the pagan warrior Uhtred of Bebbanburg—torn between his Viking upbringing and his oath to the pious King Alfred—flees into hiding after a devastating defeat, rallies forces from the marshes, and leads a daring campaign to turn the tide against the Viking hordes. Cornwell at his historical best.

The Secret Hours – Mick Herron
A seemingly futile government inquiry called Monochrome, tasked with investigating historical misconduct in the British intelligence service but stonewalled at every turn, is reignited when a classified dossier surfaces detailing a botched 1994 operation in post-Cold War Berlin. Time-hopping spy tale uncovers Slough House’s origins and provides the back story for Jackson Lamb. Essential for Slow Horses fans.

American Psycho – Bret Easton Ellis
Ultra-violent satire skewers Wall Street excess and emptiness. Savage and thought-provoking. I still can’t decide whether it’s over-the-top violence porn or brilliant satire. Maybe both.

Seeing the Light: Inside the Velvet Underground – Rob Jovanovic
Surface-level bio of Warhol’s house band offers interest but never digs deep enough.

Wild Town – Jim Thompson
In a corrupt West Texas oil boomtown an ex-con gets a job as hotel detective for a wealthy wildcatter, only to owe a favor to the deceptively folksy deputy sheriff and become entangled in seduction and betrayal involving the oilman’s alluring young wife. Flat, forgettable noir that ranks as one of Thompson’s rare misses.

Sacred – Dennis Lehane
Boston private investigators Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro are recruited by a terminally ill billionaire to locate his missing daughter and the private detective who vanished while searching for her. Book three for Kenzie and Gennaro delivers brutal, modern noir.

The Hollow Kind – Andy Davidson
In 1989, Nellie Gardner escapes an abusive marriage by moving with her son to the inherited Georgia estate of her estranged grandfather, only to confront an ancient, shape-shifting supernatural evil rooted in the land and intertwined with her family’s multi-generational history of greed, sacrifice, and horror dating back to 1917. Well-crafted dual timeline Southern Gothic horror that somehow failed to hold my attention despite checking all the boxes.

The Black Echo – Michael Connelly
LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch investigates the apparent overdose death of a fellow soldier from his unit. Outstanding debut of the stubborn, jazz-loving detective Bosch. Instantly addictive police procedural.

Who Goes There? – John W. Campbell
The 1938 Antarctic isolation nightmare that inspired The Thing. Pure claustrophobic dread.

The Pretty Ones – Ania Ahlborn
Set against the backdrop of NYC’s 1977 “Summer of Sam”, a lonely office worker finally gets some of the attention she desperately seeks, with murderous results. Strong writing and characters undone by total predictability.

Marathon Man – William Goldman
In 1970s New York City, a grad student and marathon runner becomes wrapped up in a deadly conspiracy when his older brother is mortally wounded and dies in his arms, drawing him into a terrifying confrontation with a notorious Nazi war criminal emerging from hiding to retrieve a fortune in diamonds. Paranoia thriller immortalizing the question “Is it safe?” Masterful tension and villainy.

Orphan X – Gregg Hurwitz
Government-trained assassin helps the desperate in this morally gray, jet-fueled thriller. Similar to Lee Child’s Reacher series, but better.

After Dark, My Sweet – Jim Thompson
Unstable ex-boxer drifts into a kidnapping scheme with an added fatal attraction. Classic Thompson noir that still packs a punch.

I Call Upon Thee – Ania Ahlborn
A woman returns home after tragedy, confronting childhood supernatural horrors she fled. Very good, atmospheric dread. Don’t play with Ouija boards.

No Second Chance – Harlan Coben
Doctor’s daughter kidnapped after wife’s murder in this relentless kidnapping and child trafficking thriller. One of Coben’s strongest.

The Prophet – Michael Koryta
Estranged brothers haunted by past tragedy face new murders amid high school football glory. Mostly excellent, though football details occasionally overwhelm.

Magic – William Goldman
Ventriloquist/magician descends into madness with his sinister dummy. Very good psychological chiller that powered the creepy Hopkins film.

The Brass Verdict – Michael Connelly
Defense attorney Mickey Haller inherits a murdered lawyer’s caseload, including a high-profile murder trial, and crosses paths with Detective Harry Bosch. Connelly masterfully unites his two iconic characters in a tense, twisty legal thriller. Haller and Bosch’s wary alliance elevates the stakes brilliantly.

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Grant-Lee Phillips: In the Hour of Dust

Grant-Lee Phillips In the Hour of DustAmericana came out of the dusty crossroads of folk, country, blues, rock, and soul. In its earliest iterations as “roots rock” it came in the shape of The Band, Gram Parsons, The Blasters, and others. It was always a responsive type of music. The Band were responding to the excesses of Sgt. Pepper and Cream. Parsons was responding to what he believed was the soulless aspect of modern country music. The Blasters were a breath of fresh air amidst the rhinestones and huge hair of the late seventies and early eighties, as well as a riposte to the punk ethos of burning down the past and starting anew. The Blasters wallowed in older styles of music and called their first album American Music. Throughout the eighties, nobody quite knew what to call this style of music that was neither fish nor fowl. Eventually the term “alt-country” was used to describe bands like The Jayhawks and Uncle Tupelo, and then that label gave way to “No Depression,” named after the Carter Family song covered by Uncle Tupelo. Desperate for a label that would stick, the Grammy Awards instituted “Americana” as a category in 1990. It was, and still is, something of a catch-all.

In 1991, Grant Lee Buffalo was formed, led by singer and songwriter Grant-Lee Phillips. The Buffalo were an important voice in shaping the sound. Their music was sometimes described as “folk punk” but that’s not really correct. Their sound was black and white in widescreen format: gritty, hushed, lyrical, atmospheric. Phillips was a truly gifted songwriter and lyricist, as well as being an uncommonly good singer (he was voted Male Vocalist of the Year in 1994 by Rolling Stone). The canvas on which he painted was America. Songs about the siege at Waco, Texas (“Lone Star Song”), the voodoo happenings of New Orleans (“Dixie Drug Store”), the undiscovered grave of Tecumseh (“The Last Days of Tecumseh”), and Johnny Cash (“Demon Called Deception”). Historical and popular culture figures trip off Phillips’s tongue like rain from the skies: John Wilkes Booth, Marie Laveau, Evel Knievel, John Wayne…Gacy. Famous American places are named, from Leavenworth, Kansas to South Rampart Street in NOLA, to the haunted hotel of The Monterey in California. Their sound was a combination of acoustic ballads and alternative rock’s hard edges.

Sadly, Grant Lee Buffalo never found a space in the marketplace. Too quiet for alternative rock, too rocky for folk, they split up after four excellent albums full of vivid imagery and emotional depth.

Grant-Lee Phillips’ solo journey, beginning with 2000’s Ladies’ Love Oracle, marked a shift from the lush, electric sprawl of Grant Lee Buffalo to a more stripped-down, folk-leaning sound that aligned closely with Americana’s core. Albums like Mobilize and Virginia Creeper showcased his knack for weaving personal and historical threads into songs that felt both timeless and urgent, drawing on influences from his Muscogee (Creek) heritage and the American South’s sonic palette. His voice—warm, clear, weathered, evocative, and soaked in sweetness—became the focus, carrying tales of love, loss, and resilience.

With his latest album, In The Hour of Dust, Phillips has once again proven himself to be one of the finest songwriters in the field. Self-produced and recorded with a small group, the record is a continuation of the sound he has carved out for himself since Virginia Creeper, over 20 years ago. The sturm und drang of the days when the Buffalo roamed are now a distant memory, replaced by some of the finest balladry of the times. Once again, the main weapon here is Phillips’s voice and softly strummed acoustic guitars, yet there’s an urgent undercurrent throughout the album the saves it from turning into Nick Drake territory, especially on tracks such as “Little Men,” “Bullies,” and “Stories We Tell.” While it might be nice to hear him break out the distortion pedal once again, those days are solidly buried in the past. “Lone Star Song” and “Homespun” are still there, available to listen, but it isn’t where his head is at these days.

Phillips calls on his Native American roots with “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” a particularly good song that blends light humor about strange days with a chorus that opts for cheer instead of doom. “Bullies”—with Jamie Edwards, Phillips’s first ever co-written song— takes the schoolyard bully and brings him into the adult world of boardrooms and government bureaucracies and then refuses to give any concessions to them. It’s typical of his defiant attitude toward the “little men who want to rule like Caesar” (“Little Men”), and his penchant for bringing politics into his art in subtle ways.

The album’s centerpiece is “Stories We Tell,” a beautiful lyric of self-doubt and affirmation married to a sprightly rhythm track that belies the subject matter of the song. There’s a sense of hope in the music even as Phillips sings of the “crooked lies” and “fables” that we tell ourselves, and that’s a common thread through the album. “Regret is a martyr that bleeds ‘what ifs,’ he sings, “and laments what might have been.” He dismisses the idea by calling them “all those fairy tales” even while acknowledging the very real feelings that are generated by the stories. “None of this is writ in stone,” is the message of a pep talk we all need to hear on occasion. Musically the song fits right in between the jauntier tracks like “Little Men” and “Did You Make It Through The Night Okay?” and the bedroom quiet of love songs like “She Knows Me” and tunes that bespeak of a desperate loneliness like “Someone.”

Grant-Lee Phillips’s career since the dissolution of his old band has been one of a remarkable consistency. While the quiet, whispered tones of much of his solo work can be a little much when listening in depth, there’s simply no denying that the man seems incapable of writing a bad song. With In the Hour of Dust, like his earlier triumph The Narrows, there’s enough going on musically to keep the interest and while his voice has certainly lost some of its bellow and upper range it remains a gorgeous instrument. He is simply one of the best Americana artists walking the stage today. Smart lyrics, a small band, and honey-soaked vocals. What’s not to love?

Grade: A

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The Grip Weeds: Soul Bender

Grip Weeds Soul Bender Garage rock came out of the 1960s, a form of raw, back-to-basics rock and roll. The gateway drug for garage rock is the legendary collection Nuggets, originally compiled by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye and released in 1972 as a two-record compilation of great lost tracks from the sixties. It has since been expanded into no fewer than five four-disc box sets, focusing on America, international, modern, Los Angeles and San Francisco. They represent an alternative view of the history of rock and roll, one where the big bands of the era are only heard through their influence. And it’s possible to hear all those influences in the three minutes it takes to spin out one of these songs. Part of the fun of garage rock is how it teases the ear, reminding you of something else but remaining fresh.

New Jersey’s Grip Weeds, named after John Lennon’s character in the movie How I Won The War, is a modern garage rock band that has just released their ninth album, Soul Bender. They are also in many ways the definitive band in this genre. The influences are there: the jangly guitars of The Byrds, the cascading drums of The Who, the harmonies of the Beatles, etc. But the beauty of the Grip Weeds is that they have assimilated their influences so well that they transcend them. On Nuggets it’s easy to say, “This band sounds like The Yardbirds” or “This could be a Kinks song.” The Grip Weeds sound like The Grip Weeds and simultaneously nobody else and everybody else. Many bands wear their influences on their sleeves. The Grip Weeds have them etched into their DNA.

Soul Bender captures the band at their best. It features the differing patterns of the 1960s in a distinctly modern weave. Released in June of this year on JEM Records and recorded at the band’s own House of Vibes studio, the album is a tour-de-force of melody, guitar crunch, a pounding rhythm section, and exquisite vocals. The result is reminiscent of a time long ago yet also timeless.

From the “Hard Day’s Night”-ish opening chord of the title track to the Odessey and Oracle feel of “Love Comes in Different Ways” the influences are there for trainspotters but make no mistake, this is an original band playing original music. Kurt Reil (vocals, drums), Rick Reil (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Kristin Pinell Reil (lead guitar, vocals), and Dave DeSantis (bass, vocals) have created a heady confection that is one of the best albums of the year (maybe the best).

The music on Soul Bender is varied without ever losing sight of the goal. From the loping duet between Kurt Reil and Kristin Pinell Reil on “Promise (Of The Real)” to the breathy psychedelia of “Column Of Air” to the Byrds-y “Gene Clark (Broken Wing)”, Soul Bender presents what is essentially a hidden greatest hits of a bygone era gussied up with a 21st century sheen and modern production values. The effect is never less than a joyful blast of what the radio should sound like today.

The secret weapon of the band is undoubtedly Kristen Reil. Aside from sterling harmonies and the occasional lead vocal (her voice on “If You Were Here” could have come straight out of Susanna Hoff’s mouth), she’s also an ace guitarist. Her lead guitar adds a level of excitement to the songs, particularly on “Conquer and Divide”, where she steps to the fore and plays two volcanic solos that lean heavy on the whammy bar. There’s a good reason Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel on Sirius named it the “Coolest Song of the Week.”

It’s heartening to hear new music like this. From their first album (House of Vibes) way back in 1994 the Grip Weeds have maintained an astonishing level of consistency in their work. Over nine studio albums (one of them, Strange Change Machine, a double CD set), plus a live album, a Christmas album (!), and a covers album (Dig) the band is still going strong, sounding as fresh now as they did when Nirvana and Pearl Jam were all over the radio. It’s no mean trick to sound so nostalgic and so new at the same time, but they pull it off with memorable tunes, great production, and incendiary playing. The Grip Weeds are the real deal.

Grade: A

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Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music, by David N. Meyer

Trying to track down the Big Bang of any type of music is a fool’s game. Every genre has multiple antecedents. This is particularly true of rock music, which has many rivers feeding into its ocean. Several years ago, a new genre was coined: “Americana.” Truth is, there was absolutely nothing new in this genre. It goes back to Sun Studios and the initial blending of country music and rhythm and blues. Elvis Presley singing “Blue Moon of Kentucky” is as Americana as it gets. It was dubbed rock and roll.

Over the ensuing years, other threads were added to the tapestry. The Byrds brought folk music into the mix, and it was dubbed “folk rock.” They also incorporated country music into their repertoire. In 1967 Bob Dylan traded in his wild mercury sound for sparse instrumentation and acoustic music with John Wesley Harding. He was followed in 1968 by his old backing group The Band and their Music From Big Pink, an album of almost incalculable influence. The Beau Brummels, famed for their British Invasion-style hits “Just A Little” and “Laugh, Laugh” made a hard turn left with their country- and folk-inspired Bradley’s Barn LP. And it was called roots music.

The biggest musical shock of 1968 was likely the Byrds and their terrific album Sweetheart of the Rodeo. Here was an album that was made by a well-established rock group, but the sound was stone-cold country music. Although the Byrds had always dabbled in country, Sweetheart was a complete stylistic change. This was due to the influence of a country singer who loved rock and roll, Gram Parsons.

Parsons had been kicking around for a few years and had released an album with the International Submarine Band (so many bonus points for naming themselves after a Little Rascals joke). He befriended the Byrds’ Chris Hillman and was brought into that group. Such was his presence that even the founder of the band, Roger McGuinn, bought fully into the country sound.

It is here, from his time in the Submarine Band through his short stint with the Byrds and the Flying Burrito Brothers to his time as Keith Richards’s drug buddy and through his all-too-brief solo career, that David N. Meyer’s 2007 biography Twenty Thousand Roads: The Ballad of Gram Parsons and His Cosmic American Music stands as a definitive work.

Gram Parsons

Meyer’s greatest achievement is his incisive exploration of Parsons’ musical legacy. He dissects what Parsons called “Cosmic American Music,” a blending of country, rock, soul, and folk with precise attention to detail. He frames the style as a radical synthesis of country’s emotional authenticity, rock’s rebellious energy, and soul’s spiritual depth. The book meticulously traces Parsons’ evolution from the International Submarine Band’s tentative experiments to Sweetheart of the Rodeo, which Meyer argues was a cultural pivot point for country-rock. His analysis of Parsons’ tenure with the Flying Burrito Brothers, particularly albums like 1969’s The Gilded Palace of Sin, highlights their blend of Nudie-suited theatricality and raw vulnerability. Meyer’s close readings of songs like “Hickory Wind” and “Sin City” reveal their lyrical and sonic complexity, positioning them as archetypes of Americana’s introspective ethos. His discussion of Parsons’ collaboration with his protégé Emmylou Harris on 1973’s GP and 1974’s posthumous Grievous Angel is especially good, portraying the duets as high art. Meyer convincingly argues that Parsons’ influence—evident in the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, Wilco’s experimentalism, and the alt-country movement—stems from his ability to transcend genre. This was a man who felt comfortable adding distortion to pedal steel (an unforgivable sin in country music at the time) and who did a fine rendition of “Cry One More Time” by Boston’s answer to the Rolling Stones, the J. Geils Band. With the Burrito Brothers he was also the first to record and release “Wild Horses,” predating the Stones’ classic recording on Sticky Fingers by a year.

The biography’s portrayal of Parsons’ life is equally rigorous. It’s clear that Meyer is a fan, but he’s able to look at the singer objectively. Parsons’s youth is portrayed as something out of a William Faulkner novel, born and raised fabulously wealthy in a highly dysfunctional family torn and frayed by alcoholism and tragedy. This context informs Parsons’ paradoxical character: a charismatic innovator whose idealism and prodigious talent was undercut by self-destructive tendencies. Meyer’s research—drawing on interviews with obscure associates and bandmates—illuminates Parsons’ relationships, notably his influence on Keith Richards and his creative partnership with Chris Hillman. The book avoids hagiography, candidly addressing Parsons’ heroin addiction, erratic behavior, and professional unreliability, which Meyer frames as both a personal failing and a byproduct of the 1960s counterculture’s excesses. This approach yields a complex portrait of the artist as a young man: Parsons as a catalyst for musical change, yet someone whose potential was curtailed by his inability to harness his own genius. Meyer’s vivid prose captures the era’s cultural ferment—Los Angeles’ Laurel Canyon scene, country music’s resistance to rock, and the transatlantic exchange with the Rolling Stones—making the biography a valuable cultural history as well as a personal one.

It must be said that the book gets off to a rough start. A reader would be forgiven for abandoning the story fairly deep into it. Approximately 30% of the book, almost the entire first third, is a forensic detailing of Parson’s family history going back to his grandparents. Page after page is filled with the minutiae of their business dealings, their successes, their failures, their trouble with alcohol, distant relatives, childhood friends. The subject of the book is barely a character and deep into the book there’s still plenty of discussion about his eighth-grade band and his high school years. This excruciating level of detail proves that Meyer did his research, interviewing virtually everybody whose life intersected with Parsons, but a good editor could have told him to summarize it all in one chapter. It’s an interesting detail that the Parsons family at one point owned a full third of the orange and citrus business in Florida, but you don’t have to read about every business dealing on the way to their fortune. The writing here is self-indulgent and unnecessary.

Once the reader gets past this, the story takes off, culminating in a motel room in Joshua Tree National Park. The story of Gram Parsons’ death from an overdose of morphine and tequila is tragic; the immediate aftermath is a sick farce. Meyer does not romanticize this story, as many have in the past. It is not the ultimate farewell to a shining star as Parsons’ road manager Phil Kaufman tries desperately to portray it. Kaufman’s theft of Parsons’ body, and the gasoline-fueled cremation of his naked, recently autopsied corpse in Joshua Tree is now the stuff of gruesome legend. It matters not that Parsons and Kaufman had pledged to do this in case one of them died. It was a reckless, drug-fueled promise that should have been broken, and Parsons should have been buried with dignity.

Twenty Thousand Roads is a much-needed biography of a figure that, as much as any single person, can rightfully be called the father of Americana. He was building on influences from Buck Owens to the Rolling Stones, but the sound coalesced on his wonderful solo albums and his work with the Flying Burrito Brothers. One listen to the heartbreak of “$1000 Wedding” or “Love Hurts” and the spinning road tale of “Return of the Grievous Angel” and you can hear the entire history of country music as well as the key to the future of the genre. Gram Parsons was the real deal, the performer that the Eagles desperately wanted to be, though they could not hope to measure up. You can hear Parsons’ influence through the subsequent years. It’s in the cow punk of Jason and the Scorchers, the Southern Gothic sound of early R.E.M., the alt-country stylings of Lone Justice, the Long Ryders, Uncle Tupelo, the Jayhawks, and so many more. None of those bands were labeled as Americana because the term didn’t exist until marketing departments became desperate to hang a label on the sound, but they all tie back to Parsons. Much of the modern sound of country (I’m talking real country, not that godawful “sittin’ in my pickup with my dog, drinking a beer, wearing my blue jeans and Stetson, looking to raise trouble” bro-country) owes allegiance to a singer who was scorned by Nashville for decades until the music scene caught up to him. He was, in the prescient song by fellow Burrito Brother and future Eagle Bernie Leadon, “God’s own singer.”

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The Death of Summer: Brian Wilson and Sly Stone, RIP

It’s been a rough week for popular music with the death of two of the most important figures in the culture of the last 70 years. On the surface, Brian Wilson and Sly Stone could not be further apart. Wilson was the sun-kissed, clean cut all-American kid singing pop songs with his family about surfing, girls, and cars. Stone was the perpetually high black hippie singing funk and soul songs with a racially and sexually integrated band about togetherness, self-empowerment, and enjoying life to the fullest. Wilson marked the first half of the 1960s, Stone was a product of the second half of that decade.

On further reflection, several striking similarities are also evident. Both were geniuses. Both bands were built around family members. Both made it into the 1970s with increasingly scattered results. Both were casualties of drugs and mental illness. Both were unbelievably influential on their peers and their descendants.

Sly Stone, born Sylvester Stewart in 1943, was a disc jockey, producer, and musician in San Francisco who led the Family Stone, a funk outfit that had a great love for all types of music and incorporated rock, soul, psychedelia, gospel, and pop into their sound and blew the doors off of the boundaries of the music scene. Beginning with his Top Ten hit, “Dance to the Music” he began a string of classic songs and albums that redefined the music of black America. This was not the hardcore funk of James Brown, nor was it the Memphis soul of Otis Redding, or the gorgeous pop symphonies of Motown. This was, well, all of that thrown in a blender. The result was unique to Sly and the Family Stone, but others were paying attention.

It’s simply impossible to imagine the sound of black music in the 1970s and beyond without hearing and understanding Sly and the Family Stone. Beginning with his first breakout albums, Music of My Mind and Talking Book, and culminating with the magisterial Songs in the Key of Life, Stevie Wonder had clearly been paying close attention to Sly. Without Sly, there is no Philly soul, no Jacksons, no Parliament-Funkadelic, no Earth, Wind, and Fire, no Spinners, no War, no latter-day Temptations. Follow the trail into the 80s and beyond and there’s no Terence Trent D’Arby, no Prince, no Red Hot Chili Peppers, no Fishbone, no OutKast, no Vintage Trouble. James Brown can rightfully claim the credit for inventing rap, but one wonders if the more music-oriented rappers would have picked up their instruments without Sly leading the way. All these bands and performers were paying homage to Sly Stone in their different ways. Even Talking Heads’ more funk-oriented songs from the early 80s were directly inspired by Sly.

Stone peaked with 1968’s album Stand! and the three singles that he released to close out the decade. “Hot Fun in the Summertime” remains one of the all-time great summer songs, as good as anything Brian Wilson’s brothers had released. The double A-side that he released at year’s end, “Thank You (Falletinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” and “Everybody Is A Star” pointed the way to the seventies on the first side and summarized Sly’s sixties on the second half.

Brian Wilson, the heart and soul of The Beach Boys, was a fragile genius who turned the California dream into a universal language. Born in 1942, Wilson’s early life was steeped in music but scarred by the abuse of his father, Murry, a domineering figure whose cruelty left lasting marks. It was a smack from the desperate wannabe songwriter Murry that rendered Brian deaf in one ear. Wilson’s genius took a while to become evident. The early Beach Boys, as enjoyable and as fun as they are, were mainly variations on a theme: surfing is cool, and life is best lived at the beach. But the genius was lurking all the time, poking his head up in introspective songs like “In My Room” that hinted at a more melancholy side to the songwriter. The musical and vocal arrangements were also getting more sophisticated. As a kid, sitting in front of the stereo with headphones on listening to the then-new Endless Summer compilation, I was drawn more to the intriguing arrangements of the music on “California Girls” and the vocals on “Help Me, Rhonda” than I was to “Surfin’ Safari”.

Brian Wilson Beach Boys

Still, nothing prepared the music-loving America of 1966 for the explosion of brilliance that was Pet Sounds. Surely the winner of any competition for “Worst Cover/Best Album” in history, Pet Sounds was Brian Wilson’s attempt to pick up the gauntlet the Beatles had thrown down with Rubber Soul. Brian has stated that his album was an effort to create something that had “more musical merit than the Beatles.” For their part, the Beatles flipped over the Beach Boys album. Paul McCartney still calls it his favorite album. It wasn’t the lyrics on Pet Sounds that were revolutionary, though they broke from surfing and cars. Singer Mike Love even complained about that to Brian, telling him to “stick to the formula.” No, it was the musical arrangements that completely upended rock music. This was music that demanded to be taken seriously. Even the brilliant musicians who provided the instrumentation, Los Angeles mainstays The Wrecking Crew, familiar and fluent in every type of music around at the time, were confused by what Wilson was asking for in the studio. Confused, but also in awe of the results. Harpsichords, tympanies, barking dogs, bicycle bells…nothing was off-limits in Wilson’s imagination. Anchored by “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” and “God Only Knows,” Pet Sounds remains one of the greatest albums ever recorded. And it was such a flop Capitol records rush-released a greatest hits album just two months later. The fact is that nobody (except other musicians) was ready to hear Brian Wilson’s genius yet.

Wilson’s brilliance reached its apogee with the following single, “Good Vibrations,” a song whose intricate arrangement stuns the listener to this day. But Wilson’s attempt at a follow up album, Smile, was mired in a sea of LSD, pot, and mental illness. He’d had a nervous breakdown in 1964 which led to him giving up touring to concentrate on the records, and now he had another, far more serious one. Smile was abandoned. Parts of it were released on the albums Smiley Smile and Wild Honey, providing a tantalizing glimpse into what might have been. While he “finished” Smile in 2004 as a solo artist, the fact remains that the full Beach Boys-treatment remains the great lost album of the sixties.

Wilson’s career was a rollercoaster of brilliance and breakdown. His mental health struggles, compounded by drug abuse and the manipulative control of psychologist Eugene Landy, derailed him for decades. Landy, initially a savior in the 1970s, became a Svengali-like figure, isolating Wilson until a 1992 lawsuit freed him. His wife and guardian Melinda Wilson died in 2024. Brian Wilson lived out his life suffering from dementia, a tragic ending to a tragic story.

Sly Stone’s life mirrored Wilson’s in its descent. Drug addiction, particularly cocaine, and erratic behavior unraveled his career by the mid-1970s. The Family Stone fractured, and Stone became a reclusive figure, his output dwindling as he battled personal demons. His later years were marked by legal troubles, financial ruin, and health issues, culminating in a prolonged battle with COPD that eventually killed him.

While their stories are tragic, the music they left behind stands testament to their genius. As the drugs got worse Sly Stone’s music turned dark, but his work from the sixties remains fresh, sunny, bold, and optimistic. It’s the perfect companion to the hot nights partying after spending the day on the beach, where Brian Wilson and the Beach Boys provide the soundtrack of the endless summer. The musical world is greatly diminished by their loss.