Bash & Pop - Friday Night Is Killing Me (3/5 stars)

By Steven Mirkin [Rolling Stone Magazine]
(#649, 1993)

There's a temptation when bands break up to hear their solo records through a tabloid filter, to sift each song for dirty laundry. That the Replacements always seemed to write songs about themselves only increases speculation. And it's tough to miss the implication when Friday Night Is Killing Me, Tommy Stinson's debut with his new band, Bash and Pop, opens with the lines "Tried to keep your party rolling/It rolled over me."

While that song (and about half the album) make it pretty clear that Stinson's not going to be sending Paul Westerberg any valentines, the best songs are those that hew closest to the Mats' brand of hard-edge pop. Stinson, who played bass with the Replacements and moves to guitar with this band, reveals a sharp ear for hooks not unlike his former frontman's, with hard, loose arrangements closer to the Faces or Exile-era Stones than, say, All Shook Down. And while his phrasing resembles Westerberg's, his grainy tenor sounds at times like Ronnie Lane's.

The Bash side of the equation is less successful. The problem is not so much the songs but the production by Don Smith, a turgid guitar-bass-drums-keyboards soup that ends up simultaneously dense and hollow. The midtempo material is strong enough to withstand this, but the faster songs lack dynamics and sound all too familiar. The production also undermines "Nothing," a ballad given a clumsy, tentative performance.

While not as pointed as ex-Mats drummer Chris Mars's vitriolic Horseshoes and Hand Grenades and lacking Westerberg's songwriting polish, Friday Night Is Killing Me is still a notable debut that at its best flashes the easygoing, knockabout charm missing from the Replacements' last few albums. (RS 649)