Do The Bruce, Butch ! Uh, I Mean Stay Gold, Ponyboy! Uh, I Mean...What Was I Just Talking About?

The One Buck Guy is not known to be lazy, though he's increasingly known for talking about himself in the third person. Because if I were, lazy that is, I would just copy and paste a chunk of the write-up for Ozarker and attach it here. You know, that part about cool musicians emembering the music they heard, when they were young, and that music would possibly probably certainly include Born In The USA. Listening to  utch Walker's Stay Gold - and its obvious pointer to nostalgia, and 80s nostalgia specifically, in the title, I had the exact sae thought I had when listening to Ozarker: 'This man loved Born In The USA when he was a kid, and that love will out'. The sonic markers might not be as pronounced as on Ozarker, but they're there. 

Butch Walker had been lingering around on the periphery of my record collection and musical awareness, popping up on the occasional 'various artist'-sampler. One of those appearances finally got put to good use hen I used his cover of a Nirvana song for my Nirvana rock opera redux project, but other than that I hadn't really deepened my knowledge of Mr. Walker. I finally did, thanks to a mistake. Browsing on Allmusic for one reason or another, I saw a link to an interviw with Mr. Walker on the title page, which sounded interesting enough, and was. It talked about the impressions and the making of his new album. Well, except it didn't. That album was Stay Gold, which had come out in 2016, but that  tite page link to what I assumed was a promo for the just released album was in...2024. Surely a programing error, but you know, some philosopher, possibly me, once said 'Life is using a faulty algorhythms to get something useful out of it' (or something). So I finally dove into Mr. Walker's music after that interview piqued my interest, if you pardon my French. Deep-dive would have been too much, since Walker is active ince the 80s, in -various bands ranging from glam-metal to moe straight forward rock. So I mainly focused on checking out some of his solo work. 

Oh, and of course first and foremost, the aforementione Stay Gold. which is a really really swell piece of rock'n'roll business, with just the slightest hints of twang and Americana to it. The set-opening "Stay Gold" is, well, pur gold, Ponyboy. "East Coast Girl" has some weird spoken word interludes that remind you vaguely of, oh I don't kno, ggy Pop maybe, but the chorus threatens halfway through to collapse into that of "No Surrender". Like I said, maybe this isn't intentional, but, you know..."Ludlow Expectations" has a title that Springsteen would never write, the song's chorus, however...

Anyway, I don't wanna hammer these comparisons down everyone's throats too much, so let me say this: Great set of ten rock tunes, whether you're a Springsteen-ite (-ist, -ophile?) or not. Walker is a bit of a traditionalist, for sure, in music and attitude, even sequencing - something the One Buck Guy wholly approves of, of course. He puts the pedal to the metal for most of this album, but when he slows down for ballads "Descending" and "Record Store", it's on traks five and ten, the vinyl side closers. Well done, Butch. As is the whole of Stay Gold. Just a wonderful album, that reminds you of what you liked about Ryan Adams back in the days when he still made good records. 

So, everybody, stay gold with, naturally, Stay Gold...