The Hold Steady, love them? hate them?

Cafe Society
1

The Hold Steady have been growing on me from initial outright dislike (the usual comparison is with early Springsteen - I’m no great fan of his and they didn’t even seem to have his ability to crank out memorable tunes)
Seeing them play live on Jools Holland’s show got them into my head though – something about their commitment to what they were doing, and the fun were having doing it, made me actually listen to them

So at Glastonbury I dragged myself over to the John Peel stage to watch them (couldn’t persuade any of my friends to go – one had even let out a yelp of pain when I’d played him a track earlier!)

And basically, they were just great, with a huge reaction from the crowd – The Guardian reviewer called it “The gig of the festival” and it certainly felt that way to me (though with about 10 main performance areas going at the same time at Glasto it’s a pretty bold claim!)

(Not sure if this page works outside the UK – but their set is one of the ones you can watch in Super-Shittyvision here )
Anyway, the Hold Steady is now in the category of things I didn’t think I could possibly enjoy but now love, without quite knowing why (like live electronic music – I’d always thought there was no way it could work as a “gig” in the way people throwing shapes with guitars does – until I saw Orbital at Glasto in ’94)

2

The first record, Almost Killed Me, is phenomenal - just pure piss-and-vinegar pop songs that still bring out enormous hooks; it combines the rant and rattle of the Fall’s Mark E. Smith or the Minutemen with the sort of smooth, throwback melodicism of bands like Guided by Voices. “Knuckles” is probably my favorite moment - it’s just so explosive and propulsive, and sounds like a survey of the past 30 years of post-punk looking to the future.

The two followups have been big letdowns IMHO; the band sounds complacent on Separation Sunday, trading in post-punk pathos for Springsteen-esque arena rock posturing. The most recent record was even lower, stooping to straight-up joke-o Weird Al territory on songs like “the chillout tent.”

3

Heard of them? No!

4

Love them. I think Boys and Girls in America was one of the top 3 albums of 2006. I can’t think of another album that grew on me as quickly as this one.

5

Neither had I till recently – the singer was making some comment about not being able to get a UK record deal because they were “too American!” :rolleyes: – so they’re “new” here and possibly not even available in Oz

6

WOAH. Shivers up the spine moment - I was just listening to Boys and Girls in America and thought “I’m going to start a post in Café Society about them…” and there was your post at the top of the pile.

I have got to say, I am unbelievably impressed with this album (I don’t know their earlier stuff). I bought it two months ago and have listened to practically nothing else since. Great musical style - accessible, hooky riffs overlayed with subtle interplay, messing around with traditional song formats, and laconic, ironic vocals.

My favourite track so far is Chips Ahoy! (YouTube video) This is so damn clever, IMO - three accessible refrains, but woven together to make a more complex whole. The lyrics have a really complex structure, almost a short story, presented in a minimalist and subtle manner. The title of the song is about delight at a horse winning a race (a la the Pogues’ Bottle of Smoke). Then it transpires that the protagonist isn’t completely sure that this is the horse’s name; despite this, it remains the name of the song. Why would the songwriter name the song after an something of which the protagonist is unsure? Then it seems that the song is about a clairvoyant gift that the girl has, and there’s an oblique reference to headaches, with no context. At the ‘chorus’ we find that the protagonist is in love with the girl - but she is unresponsive. The foreshadowed headaches are now revealed as a side-effect of her precognitive abilities. And despite the good fortune and partying as a result of successful gambling, it’s clear that despite all the distractions, the song is actually about an inability to connect between a man and his possibly unrequited love - possibly he is even self-deluded, mired in a fog of drugs and celebration. It’s a jolly tune with a silly title, but ultimately it’s a story of the inability of people to connect with each other. All in less than three minutes.

And that alienation in fact is illustrative of the thesis laid out in the previous, first song, Stuck Between Stations: “there are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right; boys and girls in America have such a sad time together”.

Also, I love the wit in Hot Soft Light - though I really don’t understand what the song is about, other than an incident of which the singer is supposedly accused, who again amusingly is making the old mistake kids make, saying “I don’t know anything about smashing the window… er I didn’t even know that the window was smashed”. But what I really love is “it started recreational, and ended kinda medical” comically juxtaposed later with “it started in the vestibule, and ended in the hospital” (which circumstance is reflected later in Chillout Tents). And then the sublime “it started ice cream social nice, it ended up all white and ecumenical”.

And each song is part of a greater whole - the album title is referenced twice; there are allusions to the same characters in different songs - Holly, who is clearly a beauty who has undergone a mental breakdown and religious conversion; “Gideon’s got a pipe made from a Pringles can” - the entire line is repeated wholesale in two different songs. Add into that references to contemporary and classical American literature - Kerouac, John Berryman - possible allusion to Jeff Buckley’s death “and we all come down and drown in the Mississippi river”? All strongly rooted in the city of Minneapolis, veiwed through a haze of drugs and drink, angst and alienation.

The only track I don’t like is Southtown Girls, because it’s so ponderous.

But on the whole, this is so fucking clever, like a musical version of a poetry version of a book of contemporary American postmodern short stories.

7

Well a man would have to be braindead to not be intrigued by this so **Hold Steady ** here I come.

8

It was a toss-up between starting this thread and starting one called something like “Gandalf is hung and Dr Who is hanged” about seeing Ian McKellen as King Lear (He gets his knob out at one point, and Sylvester McCoy as the fool is hanged for an impressively long time – actually the play was so emotionally overwhelming that seeing Gandalf’s willy was a minor detail)

I didn’t start that one ‘cos I know I wasn’t up to writing anything like an adequate review – judging by your post I should have subcontracted the job to you, don’t suppose you’ve seen Lear have you?

9

Though a former actor, I have never yet sat through an entire performance of Lear.

BTW it was seeing them on Later with Jools that prompted me to buy the album.

ETA: Sylvester McCoy once bought me a pint of Guinness. So there.

10

I think their Separation Sunday is their best album. In fact, it’s one of the best albums of recent years. I love the whole storyline, with sex and drugs and religion all coming together into one big high (or low.) Boys and Girls in America is very good, but it sounds a little flat and unlike their first two albums, there a couple tracks that don’t measure up to the rest. I also thought they were underwhelming when I saw them live two years ago. My absolute favorite song is “Cattle and the Creeping Things.”

11

Opinions is opinions, of course, so yours are perfectly valid, but I really don’t understand your POV. To me, Seperation Sunday and Boys and Girls in America are everything …Almost Killed Me was, but better. SS coalesced the clever lyrics and references into a coherent storyline, and expanded on the characters and themes. I love Almost Killed Me, but the detractors who mocked Craig Finn’s predilection for lyrics that went along the lines of “I’m trying to get people to call me…” or “They called her…”

Then Boys and Girls took SS’s expanded palette, added more melodicism and structure, and showed that Finn could tell interesting stories within a single song, as well as across a single album. I even like “Chillout Tent”. What isn’t to love about lyrics like, “She looked just like a baby bird, all new and wet and trying to light a Parliament”?

Also, the really rewarding part about this band are the cross-album references. The way that, if you’ve heard Almost Killed Me, you know that when you’re asked about Charlemagne, you should be polite and say something vague. Which is exactly what Holly does on Seperation Sunday. And the way we know that hard drugs are for bartenders. And the way when Finn sings about the Party Pit on Boys and Girls…, we know the venue from previous albums.

12

Well I’m even more impressed - I didn’t realise the characters and situations went further than that one album.

So, tell me, if I first heard Boys and Girls…, and that’s what I love, will I love the earlier albums? What should I expect to differ?

13

I would forgive him for having been such a piss-poor Doctor if he’d fronted up a drink (He wasn’t as bad a Fool in Lear as I’d feared, but not great either)

I have spent an evening drinking with Tom Baker. So there-er (don’t actually remember much about it except that he’d got a story about having had a penis-double for Canterbury Tales, an Italian porn star who couldn’t actually get it up when the time came)

I’m now more intrigued than ever to hear the first two albums based on the different opinions here

14

I’m well impressed. You have totally so there-d me. [Duncan Bannatyne] I’m out. [/DB]

15

I hope you will love them. Boys and Girls… sounds very much like the culmination of a band working out how they want to make their music. Seperation Sunday sounds more rudimentary; the arrangements are simpler and Finn has less melody in his voice. …Almost Killed Me is even more extreme; it’s very lyric based, and the song structure isn’t as refined, almost to the point where the songs consist of chunks of riffing and chunks of solos. That’s not to say that the earlier albums are lesser, but you can hear them developing as a band.

Prior to The Hold Steady, a couple of the guys were in a Minneapolis band called Lifter Puller. Once you’ve exhausted the Hold Steady’s output, have a look at them.

Separation Sunday revolves around the characters Holly, Charlemagne and Gideon, whom you will know from “First Night.” Put simply, the album is the story of Holly’s life partying in Minneapolis and across America, and her subsequent embrace of Catholicism. It’s a whole lot more religiously themed (though not at all proselytizing) than most of Boys and Girls…, save perhaps for “Citrus.”

Almost Killed Me is more haphazard in its narratives, and while all three major Hold Steady characters make an appearance, Charlemagne is probably the most prevalent. To be excessively reductionist, it’s mostly concerned with “the scene” and youth culture.

16

All three Hold Steady records are stuffed to the gills with Twin Cities references. Literally, very nearly all their songs, particularly on the last record, mention something about the Minneapolis/St. Paul area. Odd, now that he’s moved to New York, all Craig Finn sings about is Minneapolis.

BTW, Almost Killed Me is IMO their best. It’s not as tied together as a whole concept the way the other two records are, but it’s much more fun.

17

Love them, love them, love them. Been moderately obsessed with them for the past year or so, in fact.

Forced to choose a favorite, I’d probably (barely) pick Almost Killed Me over Separation Sunday, though “Your Little Hoodrat Friend” and “Banging Camp” and the big piano sound of SS were what got me hooked. (People compare them to Springsteen, and I think the piano contributes as much to that as Craig’s vocals.) Boys and Girls in America would be slightly behind those two, even though it was my favorite album of last year.

I’ve seen them twice in the past year, including just two weeks ago at Bonnaroo, and I’d recommend their shows to anybody. Very energetic.

18

Because of this thread, I just downloaded all three of their albums via my emusic.com account. Thanks!

19

Good stuff! All I can say is that they give much hope to middle aged dudes who still want to rock credibly.

20

As an Aspringsteenist, or at least Agbrucetic, I had to get beyond the comparisons before I could listen to them in their own right.
I quickly stopped hearing the Bossy parallels, except – as you say – that piano, which somehow I love in this context
(It’s like my first reaction to Daft Punk:- “they’re doing Disco, I fucking hate Disco – how come I love this?)