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The Hold Steady
These guys know all about the rock'n'roll lifestyle: anonymous encounters in bathroom stalls, bailing each other out of jail the next morning, downing cases of brews, visions of tattoos and cross-dressers and empty pill bottles, tell-tale signs of excess. The Hold Steady have been on more than a couple bad trips but have somehow survived. Their music channels the world of shady bars and shadier alleys; they make raucous, intelligent, bar rock, and that's not an oxymoron.
The deceptively smart Craig Finn doesn't look like a rock star, but the minute he steps onto the stage, he turns into the spazzy poet laureate of PBR, arms flailing, guitar wailing, coming-at-you-from-Brooklyn-via-the-Midwest, and the rest of the band draws upon the awesome power of AC/DC in the process, laying down shredding solos, propulsive drumming, and grooving basslines. I predict Finn's anthemic lines start to make their way into your vocabulary. "You gotta dance with who you came with" and "Killer parties almost killed me." He sputters, "I got bored when I didn't have a band, and so I started a band, man." Finn always dreams about a unified indie rock scene, and "everybody's a critic but most people are DJs." The Hold Steady have been to places you've never even dreamed of, and want you to know all about it.
So "say a prayer for the boys in the band" and rock the fuck out, even though you're seeing triple and don't know how you're getting home tonight.
All you sniffling indie kids? Hold steady.
The Hold Steady - The Swish
The Hold Steady - Barfruit Blues
The Hold Steady - You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came With)
The Hold Steady - Knuckles
The Hold Steady official site. Buy Almost Killed Me from iTunes Music Store, Amazon, Frenchkiss.
Posted by Queen of the Front Row at 02.08.05 at 8:04 PM
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