The Weekend Stream: October 4, 2025
Welcome to another edition of The Weekend Stream, The Second Disc’s review of notable catalogue titles (and some new ones, too!) making digital debuts. From the Foo Fighters entering Bandcamp for a cause to a Record Store Day rarity by Rage Against the Machine, the dream of the ’90s is very much alive here…plus much more from other decades, too!
Foo Fighters, Are Playing Where??? Vol. 1 (Roswell) (Bandcamp)
After kicking off a season of drummer exodus – sacking session drummer Josh Freese, who’d join Nine Inch Nails for their tour, leaving the door open for former NIN percussionist Ilan Rubin to fill the empty stool – Foo Fighters spent the last month surprise announcing a batch of spontaneous U.S. shows at venues far smaller than the arenas and festivals they’ve been a part of for decades. Yesterday, for Bandcamp Friday, the band equally spontaneously released a six-track EP of cuts from those shows that you can download at your own price, promising to donate proceeds to local charities near the venues in Washington, D.C.; New Haven, Connecticut and San Luis Obispo and Santa Ana, CA. One last Bandcamp Friday happens the first week in December, so bookmark this and mark your calendars!
Sugar, Changes / A Good Idea / Helpless / If I Can’t Change Your Mind EPs (Granary/BMG)
Changes: Apple / Amazon
Helpless: Apple / Amazon
Good Idea: Apple / Amazon
Change Your Mind: Apple / Amazon
Bob Mould recently took his Granary imprint over to BMG for a new deal starting with his latest solo album Here We Go Crazy, issued last spring. In turn, music from Sugar, his big post-Hüsker Dü power trio, is now distributed by BMG, and four original singles from the group’s stellar 1992 debut Copper Blue have just been digitally delivered as EPs. (This material will be collected on a box set of 12″ singles due out next month for Record Store Day Black Friday.)
Rage Against the Machine, Live on Tour 1993 (Epic/Legacy) (Apple / Amazon)
As we just noted, labels announced their Record Store Day Black Friday titles earlier this week – expect coverage in the coming days – but one of the last big exclusive titles from last spring that never got a wider release finally, recently did: a collection of seven raw, unmixed live performances from shows in support of their debut album.
Gary Numan, Cars (Remixes) EP (Beggars Banquet) (Apple / Amazon)
These versions of Numan’s signature synthtastic hit were collected back in 1993 when “Cars” was reissued for a best-of compilation. They’re now re-igniting digitally; it’s the only way to live.
David Longworth Wallingford, All Alone (SuperVisible Multi Media) (Apple / Amazon)
Released last week from our friends at SuperVisible Multi Media is this 2002 solo piano-and-voice recording from friend of the label David Wallingford. “For my birthday this week (and at the urging of my old friend Timothy J. Smith) I dusted off some old recordings I made back in 2002 and finally decided to let them loose on the world,” Wallingford told us exclusively. “Just me, a beautiful Steinway piano and a few things that were on my mind back in those days…The songs cover everything from love and growing older, to questionable dogs, sweet tooths (teeth?), my wrestling with demon alcohol and the occasional spiritual revelation. The stuff of life. It’s funny, a little tragic, and hopefully worth your time.”
Joan Baez, Farewell Angelina (2025 Remaster) (Craft) (Apple / Amazon)
A newly-remastered version of the folk legend’s fifth studio album, featuring an expanded, electric sound and a myriad of covers of Bob Dylan’s works (including “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue,” “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall,” a gender-swapped “Mama, You Been on My Mind” and the title track), is now available to stream or download.
King Creosote, KC Rules OK (Deluxe Version) (679 Recordings) (Apple / Amazon)
A longstanding underground legend of the Scottish folk scene, King Creosote’s KC Rules OK was one of his most mainstream projects, issued on the Warner-distributed 679 label with backing from British-American band The Earlies. As The Earlies plan to reunite with Creosote for a 20th anniversary show later this month, KC Rules OK has been digitally expanded with a bonus disc’s worth of rare material.
Donal Leace, Donal Leace (Atlantic) (Apple / Amazon)
A mainstay of the Washington, D.C. folk scene (the Georgetown club The Cellar Door touted itself as his home base), Donal Leace made a mainstream breakthrough in 1972 when his friend Roberta Flack – fresh off a hit that Leace suggested she play – produced a debut album featuring his originals alongside stirring covers (the Bee Gees’ “Words,” James Taylor’s “Country Road,” Joni Mitchell’s “Midnight Cowboy”), all played by a murderer’s row of session players including pianist Keith Jarrett, bassist Ron Carter, drummer Bernard Purdie and others.
Gavin Creel, Walk on Through: Live at MCC (Hackl House Records) (Apple / Amazon)
The death of Tony and Olivier Award winner Gavin Creel on September 30, 2024 the age of 48 sent shockwaves through the Broadway community. The gifted actor and singer died of a rare, aggressive form of cancer just months after wrapping up his final performance on a New York stage. That was Walk on Through: Confessions of a Museum Novice; Creel both wrote and starred in this deeply personal musical inspired by his visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Now, this intense but blazing performance comes to life on a new cast recording also featuring Ryan Vasquez, Madeline Benson, Chris Peters, and Sasha Allen. With a score blending rock, pop, and musical theatre, Walk on Through captures another side of this beloved artist whose legacy will endure. No physical editions have yet been announced.
Kiss of the Spider Woman (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) (Lakeshore/Center Stage) (Apple / Amazon)
In advance of a CD release on November 21 and vinyl LP on December 19, Lakeshore and Center Stage Records premiere the full soundtrack to writer-director Bill Condon’s upcoming big-screen adaptation of Terrence McNally, John Kander, and Fred Ebb’s Kiss of the Spider Woman. Starring Jennifer Lopez, Diego Luna, and Tonatiuh, the movie hits theatres next Friday, but listeners can preview its soundtrack – featuring both classic songs from the original musical and “new” songs written for the show but originally unused in the final production including “Never You,” “An Everyday Man,” and “I Will Dance Alone.”
Phillip Officer, “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” (Center Stage Records) (Apple / Amazon)
On Friday, October 24, cabaret star Phillip Officer will debut his newest album, You Fascinate Me So: Phillip Officer Sings Mabel Mercer – a tribute to the late, great cabaret icon (1900-1984) – on digital services. The first single is a contemporary reworking of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s “I’m Glad I’m Not Young Anymore” from the Academy Award-winning movie musical Gigi, and Officer imbues it with a delightful freshness.
Joe shares a remembrance of Dame Patricia Routledge (1929-2025):
The Bouquet residence! The lady of the house speaking! As delightfully insufferable social climber Hyacinth Bucket (that’s pronounced bouquet!) on the BBC sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, Dame Patricia Routledge attained international stardom in her golden years. But Keeping Up Appearances (1990-1995) and her next series, the unlikely detective drama Hetty Wainthropp Investigates (1996-1998), were only part of Patricia Routledge’s story. A veteran actress with credits on screen (To Sir with Love, Girl Stroke Boy) as well as television, she was perhaps most comfortable on stage, where she enjoyed a long career in London, New York, and regionally.
Though Hyacinth Bucket couldn’t carry a note in, well, a bucket (don’t miss her warbling Irving Berlin’s “You Can’t Get a Man with a Gun” in a classic Keeping Up Appearances moment above), Routledge was blessed with a luminous voice, impeccable comic timing, and larger-than-life presence ideally suited to musical theatre. On Broadway, she won a Tony Award as Best Actress in a Musical portraying Alice Challice in Nunnally Johnson, Jule Styne, and E.Y. Harburg’s Darling of the Day (here she is leading the boisterous “Not on Your Nellie”) and stopped the show nightly in Alan Jay Lerner and Leonard Bernstein’s 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with the moving “Take Care of This House” and tour de force “Duet for One.” Cast recordings preserved her roles in Darling of the Day and such West End musicals as Follow That Girl, Virtue in Danger, and Cowardy Custard as well as in the title role of Little Mary Sunshine in the original London production. Her turn as Ruth in producer Joe Papp’s revival of The Pirates of Penzance opposite Linda Ronstadt, Kevin Kline, and Rex Smith at New York’s Delacorte Theatre was released on home video and can be viewed here.
In addition to her appearances on various studio cast recordings and concert albums, she recorded one solo LP: the lovely (and sadly difficult to find) 1973 RCA album Presenting Patricia Routledge. She was made a dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017. A consummate actress and singer as well as a dedicated philanthropist via her own Patricia Routledge Foundation and various charities, The Second Disc remembers Dame Patricia Routledge for her enormous legacy of laughter and music.
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Thank you for the lovely tribute to Patricia Routledge.
What I appreciate most at Second Disc is that it is all encompassing,acknowledging artists from all of the music world.