Nils by mouth (Old Wave / New Wave cusp)

Nils Lofgren - one of the critics's pet artists of the 1970s. On both sides of the Atlantic. 

Tasty licks. Rockin' - but not heavy. A guitar hero  - without all the phallic strut and willy-symbol wand-waving.  Intelligent - but not overtly prog or sophisto. 

Praised to the heavens by Greil here in Creem - compared to Buddy Holly  - but oddly absent from the 'greatest records of all time' at the end of Stranded - only five years later

One of the worst names for a group ever, I think - Grin. 

A thematic of "toughness" belied by the rabbit-punch palatability of the music.

Transitioning to New Wave

Richard Hell style tears in the T-shirt  - in 1981!

Perhaps analogous to Tom Petty as an Old Wave / New Wave alloy of undecidable composition. 

(Or maybe Mink Deville?)

But unlike Petty, never made it and then became subsumed into Springsteen's E Street Band.

I mean, he's a good guitar player 'n' all -  but the total package don't add up to anything really essential, do it? Splits the difference between Crazy Horse and Rick Derringer and I don't know what. Determinedly nondescript if impassioned "honeyed rasp" vocals, songs that don't quite make the grade, lyrics that miss the mark...  

The Let's Active of the 1970s?