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    Music Preview: A Resurrected Bash and Pop Take Big Room Bar by Storm

    There are very few pure rock and roll bass players as good as Tommy Stinson. Helping found The Replacements at 11; he’s spent the last 35 years bringing his magic to other bands on stage and record and periodically making time for his own songs. Every bass player I know cites him as a major influence and the record it feels like we, as fans, keep coming back to is his first post-‘Mats band Bash & Pop and their only album Friday Night is Killing Me. After two records under his name and two records leading the band Perfect (and extended stints in Guns N’ Roses and Soul Asylum) the Bash & Pop name and group concept make a triumphant return in 2017 with Anything Could Happen. The first leg of promotion for that record comes to Big Room Bar on Sunday, January 15, for a show that promises to be hot enough to set on fire whatever January has to offer (tickets here).

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    BNPhappenFINAL_HI-copyI was lucky enough to talk with both Stinson and keyboardist Tony Kieraldo about the record and upcoming tour. Kieraldo might be known to Columbus for his long-ago appearances with jam-funk band Bootyjuice or soul-jazzers The Barbarians won’t be joining the band on this leg of touring because, as Stinson said, “He has so many irons in the fire. But we’re going to work on that.” Both spoke at length about the organic, joyful quality of the sessions that created the new Anything Could Happen. Stinson commented, “I started by inviting some of my best friends up to my home studio in Hudson, New York. Luther Dickinson, Frank Ferrer, my neighbor Tony Kieraldo, and we ended up keeping just those tracks for a third of the record. As I played it for people they all said, ‘This sounds like Bash and Pop.'” Kieraldo who’d never played “that caliber of rock and roll,” was amazed at the natural spontaneity and the songs.

    I asked Stinson about what he’s looking for in a drummer, and he waxed enthusiastic about both Ferrer, his rhythm section compatriot in GNR and on his solo record Village Gorilla Head, and Joe Sirois (Mighty Mighty Bosstones, Street Dogs). Sirois, he knew from his time in LA, plays drums on the other tracks and is part of the touring machine of this version of Bash and Pop. “A lot of it comes down to how you play your eighth notes on the hi-hat. The way I’m used to playing with drums, the way I grew up playing with drums…there’s a difference between Marky Ramone and Tory Chimes… or Mick Fleetwood. That feel is important.” Asked about touring bassist Justin Perkins (Stinson covers bass on most of Anything Could Happen with Cat Popper handling a few tracks) and the perils of someone stepping into the bass role backing one of the best-loved bass players of a generation, Stinson said “Justin was mixing and mastering and sat in with us a couple of times. He was the closest I’d found to playing what I’d play and how I’d play, to capturing my phrasing. Plus he can sing his ass off, which is great.”

    Stinson’s lead guitar foil comes with a pedigree, Steve Selvidge from the Hold Steady, Lucero, and Big Ass Truck. After early tracks with Luther Dickinson, whose father Jim Dickinson produced Pleased to Meet Me for The Replacements and a record by Stinson’s band Perfect (and who famously said, “Tommy is rock and roll”), he needed a guitar player to fill out the record who would be available for touring. “Luther suggested Steve Selvidge, hell, they grew up together,” Steve Selvidge’s father, the great Sid Selvidge, worked with Jim Dickinson on excellent skewed Southern records like Dixie Fried and Alex Chilton’s Like Fries on Sherbet. “We played once, and it was ‘You’re fantastic. You’re in.’ And he was up for it!”

    What makes Anything Can Happen feel like Bash and Pop, even above and beyond the organic live-in-a-room feel, is its blend of melancholy and bombast in the songwriting. Stinson said, “That’s one of those things that naturally comes out of me. There’s nothing deliberate I can think about. When I’m writing, I try to get something funny, something depressing, and something real in the same song.” “Unfuck You” features barrelhouse piano and organ intertwined with grimy guitars, propelling singalong kiss-off vocals with an infectious bounce,  “Bet you would unfuck me too,” one of the songs on mentioning Kieraldo’s voice lit up, “That was a blast.” First single “On the Rocks” has a Stonesy riff that will bore into every listener’s head and a soaring chorus about love being wrong for you and coming back again and again as the bridge features a scream “Say ‘barkeep, barkeep, pour me a double shot.'”

    I haven’t found a dull song on the record after playing obsessively since getting a promo. With opening act So So Glos who are also firing on all cylinders these days, the Big Room Bar’s going to swing on Sunday. This show should be a double shot of hooky, danceable rock and roll, worth every ounce of regret you feel the next day.

    Tommy Stinson plays the Big Room Bar on Sunday, January 15. Big Room Bar is located at 1036 S. Front St., Columbus, OH 43206. Online at bigroombar.com.

     

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    Richard Sanford
    Richard Sanfordhttp://sanfordspeaks.blogspot.com/
    Richard Sanford is a freelance contributor to Columbus Underground covering the city's vibrant theatre scene. You can find him seeking inspiration at a variety of bars, concert halls, performance spaces, museums and galleries.
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