In August, Chris released the single “House of 70s” – today we bring you all of the information on the album that track is from — DOO WOP IN THE DARK: A PORTRAIT OF LOU REED.
DOO WOP IN THE DARK brings together a unique mix of Lou Reed‘s own compositions, spanning his career from the Velvet Underground onwards, along with Chris’s own songs. Together it details the creative and often turbulent path of Reed’s life, from his teenage years through to his death in 2013.
The album echoes his critically acclaimed 2022 release honoring NICO, EULOGY TO CHRISTA. In fact, the idea for this album began then, with the track Union Square West.
This is Chris, on why he wanted to make this album:
For me, and many others, LOU REED is one of the holy trinity of BOWIE, IGGY, REED. Mythologised by us, in our minds, each of these tempestuous spirits brought something to the altar of rock ’n roll that no one else could back then in the 70s. They glamourized everything, no matter how squalid — especially Lou, with his raw poetry and his fearless, untameable spirit. He walked through fire and was perpetually, painfully honest. I miss the fire of his energy. I don’t wanna eulogise, but here I am eulogising. But more than that, I want to keep that spirit ignited and alive, from the mean streets of TAXI DRIVER in drag, copping speed and using his guitar as a weapon, to the singer of “Magician”, lamenting the passing of a loved one. Lou is the poet who moved through his career with spite, tears, fire, love and rage.
The album was recorded and produced by Chris and ALAN HOLDEN BERLIANT, Chris’s Sons of the Silent Age bandmate, with additional performances and production by long-time collaborator CHRIS BRUCE. JEBNI BRUNI also performs on the album. The stunning cover and promotional photography are by DERICK SMITH. The album is dedicated to ZAK BOERGER, Chris’s dear friend and collaborator who passed in 2025, and LOU REED himself.
DOO WOP IN THE DARK: A PORTRAIT OF LOU REED will be released by Shipwrecked Industries on Friday, October 16, 2026 in three formats: digital download, double CD set, and an abbreviated single 12″ vinyl album. All formats are available for pre-sale now via Bandcamp, where you’ll also get the digital download with the CD or vinyl.
Chris and the Dirty French Novels will perform an album release gig on Saturday, October 3rd at Roberts Westside just outside of Chicago. You won’t want to miss this exclusive performance of the album!
If you follow Chris on social media, then you’ll know that a new video was premiered yesterday, in conjunction with an announcement about his forthcoming album, Doo Wop in the Dark: A Portrait of Lou Reed.
The new track, House of 70s evokes Lou Reed’s New York of the early- to mid-70s, distilled into a rock song. The 1960s hippy dream burned out, Altamont in the rear-view mirror — while the queens, the uppers, the downers, and the streets are brought to life by Lou’s pen and guitar, a remorseless sarcasm cutting down the competition with a switchblade, TAXI DRIVER in drag, chain-smoking and blasting the radio at 3 am.
Chris’s obsession with Lou Reed goes back to 1974, when he first spied the cover to “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal” while out shopping with his mum in Edinburgh. Something caught his nine year-old eye: a nightmarish yet beautiful photo of a strange yellow ghost, not man not woman, all ghost, as yellow as the sodium street light that illuminated the streets there at night. The ghost seemed to be dancing, arms aloft, blurry jewelry, black lips, dead eyes.
Fast forward to now, and he’s still obsessed with the same photo, and the same man. Chris ended up buying the record in the late 70s or early 80s when he was informed by everything that this untameable spirit was every bit the drug dervish, serpent king of NYC, and the encapsulation and custodian of all the real rock myths, along with IGGY, BOWIE and THE DOLLS.
Doo Wop in the Dark: A Portrait of Lou Reed brings together a unique mix of Lou Reed’s own compositions, spanning his career from the Velvet Underground on, along with Chris’s own songs, detailing the creative and often turbulent path of Reed’s life from his teenage years through to his death in 2013.
The full album will be made available digitally and on double CD while a selection of tracks will be released on a single 12″ vinyl record on October 16th 2026. Pre-orders are now being taken on Bandcamp. A release gig will also be announced shortly — stay tuned!
A new video for the FINI TRIBE track “Me and My Shadow” has been released.
“‘Me and My Shadow’ was taken from our second studio session in spring of 1982. We were all still in secondary school in Edinburgh. In fact, the lyrics were written during a library period in lieu of French studies or some tedious Thomas Hardy novel. This would be the first session with Davie Miller, who had previously been in the formidable band Explode Your Heart,” says Chris Connelly.
“The song addresses identity. Written by a 16-year-old, the lyrics float above a meticulous almost-spy-thriller guitar melody, which anchors the song to a fast-paced mechanical rhythm. At the time, we were swimming around in Can and French Noir, like every schoolboy should.”
“For me, ‘Me and My Shadow’ may be the definitive 80s Fini Tribe recording: Chris words, John’s trippy keyboards, and the prescient motorik metal rhythm (played on a chrome clothes rail, as I recall),” says Andy McGregor.
“I’d say it’s also probably the best recorded example of me ‘at one’ with my RAPIER 44, a red sharkfin plectrum, and a matching kitchen stool. I used to sit down to play most of the time, and I can see why. I don’t know if it was a mistake, but there’s something in the way that the recording starts with the reel to reel getting ‘to speed’ — that is the perfect start to a song that feels like the audio equivalent to a fever-dream motorway timelapse.”
The compilation, THE SHEER ACTION OF FINI TRIBE: 1982-1987 was a long time in the making: a labour of love for the band, showcasing our most productive years as a six piece. The compilation of tracks – from professional BBC recordings to live performance and rehearsal room demos – gives as broad a spectrum of the breadth of the band’s creativity during those five important years from 1982 to 1987. The compilation is available digitally on all streaming platforms, and as a 3-CD set with 24-page booklet or a single vinyl album with gatefold sleeve and insert from Shipwrecked Industries (distributed by Virtual Label).
WE’RE INTERESTED, a new single and video in support of the forthcoming THE SHEER ACTION OF FINI TRIBE: 1982-1987, is released today. The song was written around 1983-84 and this version was recorded as part of the band’s John Peel session.
Of the track, Chris says:
“We’re Interested” was a watershed moment for the Fini Tribe. Starting with John Vick‘s plaintive piano melody, it invited each member of the group to bring a melancholy laced with an (almost) pop sensibility to the song… inspired by endless walks, bike rides and other shenanigans on the banks of Edinburgh’s Union Canal, one of the many cryptic landmarks of the city that inspired the band. The song IS Edinburgh, more so than most: it is the green of the Braid Burn Valley, the dank history of the band’s Niddry Street rehearsal room, the secret lanes of the New Town.
The version you have here was recorded at BBC Maida Vale studios and produced by Mott the Hoople’s Dale Griffin, who was kind enough to lend his ears to the young Finis that amazing spring Sunday in 1985 when they recorded their first John Peel session. The song became a live favourite, and its haunting melody stretches far over the forty years since its conception.
The compilation, THE SHEER ACTION OF FINI TRIBE: 1982-1987 was a long time in the making: a labour of love for the band, showcasing our most productive years as a six piece. The compilation of tracks – from professional BBC recordings to live performance and rehearsal room demos – gives as broad a spectrum of the breadth of the band’s creativity during those five important years from 1982 to 1987. The compilation will be released as a 3-CD set with 24-page booklet, a single vinyl album with gatefold sleeve and insert, or digitally on Friday, October 10th, 2025 on Shipwrecked Industries (distributed by Virtual Label).
