The Makin Waves Song of the Week is “Big Black Car” from “My Island,” the third album from Jersey rocker Part Time Baby, aka singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mike Goldstein. PHOTO BY MATTHEW GOETZ
“My Island” is the third Part Time Baby album, following 2024’s “Only the Ocean” and 2025’s “Came From a Woman.” Its 11 songs explore memory, relationships, uncertainty, time and the search for connection, moving between intimate reflection and bigger, guitar-driven arrangements.
The brand new album includes “Big Black Car,” the Makin Waves Song of the Week.
As the Makin Waves Song of the Week, “Big Black Car” also can be heard between 6 and 8 p.m. on Oct. 30 on “Radio Jersey” at ThePenguinRocks.com. If you miss it, you can tune in any time in the archives at The Penguin, Mixcloud and RadioJersey.
Built around the image of a solitary drive with no fixed destination, “Big Black Car” turns the open road into a setting for reflection and self-discovery, Mike said.
“As the miles pass and the landscape recedes, the song shifts the journey inward,” he said, “toward memory, uncertainty and the persistent search for some clearer sense of direction. The car is real enough, but the destination is deliberately elusive. ‘Always winding, maybe finding / Inside a piece of me’ captures the song’s central idea: movement can create the space to look backward and forward at the same time, even when no definitive answer appears. The final verse makes ‘another trip ‘round the daystar’ and remains ‘still searching.’ Rather than resolving the journey neatly, the song embraces the sense that life offers fragments of understanding along the way but rarely a final destination.”
Musically, “Big Black Car” draws on the warm, melodic rock sounds that have long shaped Part Time Baby: guitars, melody and atmosphere carrying as much weight as the lyric. Its combination of forward motion and introspection makes it a natural entry point into “My Island.”
Mike said, “There’s a searching quality running through the record. ‘My Island’ isn’t really about retreating from the world; it’s about figuring out where you stand within it and recognizing that the answer keeps changing.”
Mike wrote, performed, recorded and produced “My Island” entirety by himself. The DIY project combines melodic rock, folk, Americana and classic-rock influences with introspective songwriting.
Part Time Baby will celebrate the album release with a performance on Oct. 31 at Asbury Park PorchFest at 1100 Summerfield Ave.
Listen to Part Time Baby on Apple Music and Spotify.
Bob Makin has produced Makin Waves since 1988. Follow Makin Waves on Facebook and Instagram and contact Bob at [email protected].
Friday, October 30, 2026
@ 7:00pm
Union County Performing Arts Center (UCPAC) - Main Stage
Rahway, NJ
Friday, October 30, 2026
@ 8:00pm
State Theatre New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ
Friday, October 30, 2026
@ 8:00pm
Mayo Performing Arts Center
Morristown, NJ
Friday, October 30, 2026
@ 8:00pm
Outpost In The Burbs
Montclair, NJ
Suzanne Vega will perform a career-spanning show including favorites like “Tom’s Diner”, “Luka”, “Marlene On The Wall”, and many more, plus songs from her latest album, Flying with Angels, which was released in May 2025 to critical acclaim. She will be joined on stage by her longtime guitarist, Gerry Leonard (of David Bowie fame), and cellist Stephanie Winters. [Video Trailer]
Friday, October 30, 2026
@ 7:30pm
Lizzie Rose Music Room
Tuckerton, NJ
