So… remember Wednesday’s newsletter?

Yeah.

Me neither.

And Thursday? Apparently that one also decided it had somewhere better to be.

After missing two newsletters this week, I figured I could either sit here and pretend everything went exactly according to plan… or I could accept that the gremlins have once again breached the production facility and just give you one healthy-sized Friday edition to make up for it.

So here we are.

Consider this the Friday Director’s Cut — slightly longer, slightly more chaotic, and probably containing significantly more nonsense than was originally intended.

We’ve got an Artist Spotlight on Goodfella, a little Gen-X nostalgia, a trip back into the rock vault, a Producer’s Corner that has somehow turned into a two-person survival report, and an honest assessment of whether Bobby and I actually made it through the week with our sanity intact.

Spoiler: defining “made it through” may be doing some heavy lifting.

But hey… we're here.

The newsletter survived.

The show survived.

The gremlins are still at large.

And apparently, so are we.

So grab your drink, settle in, and welcome to Friday.

Wednesday was Vinyl Record Day, which means I missed the perfect opportunity to remind an entire generation that listening to music used to involve actual physical labor. Gen-X knows what I'm talking about. You didn't just hit play. You had to find the record, pull it out of the sleeve, carefully because apparently fingerprints on vinyl were capable of causing the apocalypse, put it on the turntable, line up the needle, and wait for that little click, crackle, hiss before the music started. And somehow, that was part of the experience.

You had the album artwork, the liner notes, the lyrics, and the ridiculous amount of time you spent staring at the back cover while listening to the entire record. And if you wanted to hear the other side? You had to physically get up and flip the damn thing. There was no skipping through fourteen songs in eleven seconds. There was no algorithm deciding what you should hear next. There was no “I'm not feeling this one” followed by an immediate swipe. You bought an album because you wanted the album.

And here's the funny part: decades later, vinyl is having its moment again. Which means the generation that grew up being told their music was outdated now gets to sit back and watch everyone rediscover the thing they never stopped understanding. Because there's something different about music when you can actually hold it. The artwork, the sound, the ritual, the memories attached to where you were when you bought it, who you listened to it with, and which record got played so many times you could practically hear every scratch before it happened.

That's the Gen-X crossover. You didn't just listen to the music. You owned a piece of it. And apparently, we were onto something.

Every once in a while, you run into a band that reminds you why the word “nostalgia” doesn't always mean “something from the past.”

Goodfella is one of those bands.

Coming out of Cyrus, Oklahoma, Goodfella started building their sound and their identity before the world decided to throw a giant wrench into everyone's plans. Then COVID hit, everything came to a screeching halt, and like a lot of bands, they had to figure out what came next.

But what makes their story interesting isn't just that they came back. It's how they came back.

Instead of trying to recreate exactly what they were doing before, Goodfella leaned into being more authentic, more human, and more connected to the people listening. That shift has made a real difference. Their pop-punk sound carries those familiar nostalgic vibes that can immediately take you back, but they're not trying to live in somebody else's version of the past. They're building something that's happening right now.

And that's a distinction I think is worth making.

There are plenty of bands that make you nostalgic because they remind you of a particular time in your life. Then there are bands like Goodfella that take those sounds, influences, energy, and attitude and bring them forward. You recognize something familiar, but there's still something new waiting for you.

During our conversation, we talked about the band's journey, what happened when COVID interrupted everything, what it was like coming back, and how becoming more open and authentic as people has changed the way they connect with their audience. We also got into tour stories, the wonderfully chaotic reality of being in a band, and a whole lot of just genuinely good conversation.

And honestly? That's what I liked most about talking with them.

It didn't feel like sitting down for a perfectly polished promotional interview where everyone says the approved answers and then goes home. It felt like talking to actual people who happen to make music, have stories to tell, and are still figuring out where this whole thing goes next.

So if you're into pop-punk, if you miss that nostalgic feeling but still want something current, or if you just like discovering bands that are doing things because they actually care about what they're building, give Goodfella a listen.

You might recognize the nostalgia.

But don't mistake that for them being stuck in the past.

They're here. They're making noise. And they're just getting started.

The Artist Spotlight only gives you a taste of the conversation. If you want the full story, the laughs, the chaos, and the stuff we couldn't squeeze into a newsletter, the latest episode of Noize Complaint is waiting for you.

I sat down with Goodfella to talk about where they came from, what happened when COVID put everything on hold, finding their way back, and why being more authentic and human has made such a difference this time around. We also got into tour stories, music, the reality of being in a band, and what happens when you stop trying to fit into a mold and just start being yourself.

It's a conversation about music, setbacks, starting over, and figuring out what comes next — with plenty of personality along the way.

So if Goodfella caught your attention in the Artist Spotlight, don't stop there.

Go hear the whole conversation.

Let's just establish something right now: I would like the official record to show that I tried. This week has been one of those weeks where the production schedule looked completely reasonable on paper, and then reality showed up wearing steel-toed boots and kicked the entire plan down a flight of stairs.

The newsletter disappeared for two days. The gremlins are apparently unionizing. Something is always making a noise it shouldn't be making, something else needs fixing, and something that was working perfectly fine yesterday has apparently decided it has personal boundaries today. Meanwhile, I'm still trying to make sure the show happens, the content gets made, the podcast gets handled, and nobody accidentally sets the control room on fire.

So yes, Wednesday and Thursday got away from me. Rather than pretending otherwise, we're calling this Friday edition the “Fine. Here's EVERYTHING” edition. But that's only half the story, because while I've been fighting the production gremlins, Bobby has been dealing with his own special edition of bodily nonsense.

This week, Bobby's body apparently looked at the calendar and said, “You know what would be fun?” No. No it would not.

He's worn out, his face is swelling, and apparently the nerves around his surgical sites have finally decided they're ready to start growing back. That sounds like a positive development until you remember that nerves apparently have absolutely no respect for personal comfort. So while the rest of us would like to celebrate the body doing what it's supposed to do, his body has apparently chosen the most obnoxious possible way to announce, “HEY! REMEMBER THIS PART OF YOUR BODY? IT WORKS AGAIN!”

Add in the usual gremlin issues, general exhaustion, and everything else this week decided to throw at us, and we're basically running on caffeine, stubbornness, and whatever remaining brain cells haven't escaped through an emergency exit. So if you've been wondering why things have been a little more chaotic than usual this week, there you go.

One corner has a producer fighting technology. The other corner has Bobby fighting his own nervous system. Somewhere in the middle, the gremlins are taking notes.

Honestly? We're doing great.

Define “great.”

Neither corner is surrendering. We're tired, we're annoyed, and we're probably one technical issue away from staring silently at a wall, but we're still here. The show is still happening, the newsletter is back, and the gremlins have not won.

Yet.

— Producer Laura & Bobby D