Skip to main content

The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me :: An Introspective Debate in the Lyrical Style of Craig Finn


I met myself at a bar last Thursday. It was cold and wet and the wind pushed against the pub door like a tramp out of stash. I was drinking doubles but my dopple drinks 3.2, he grabs a round and I shout "me too." We two got down to the business and we shot the shit like a preach with no witness.

"Finn should have stuck with Lifter Puller," I holler over the out-of-whack juke. "They turned you inside out," I spout. It was a sour metaphor but he bit like a trout.

"It's just like you to like 'em out of context." Jamie throws back both his head and the PBR. The bar is dark but we can see where we are. Jenny from the Fisch Haus plays pool with the skaters. We like to hate 'em but they ain't so bad at the skating. "But let me tell you about The Hold Steady."

"Don't even start." I'm ordering bourbon now by fanning my fingers out. Only a couple down and we've already lost all our manners. "I think Finn got a bit lazy and settled for 4/4. And you can't compare the lyrics. Lifter Puller blows 'em out the door." I toss back the bourbon and check the place out. Kids are packing in and getting rowdy. The girl from the grill is dishin' pills and wishin' her thrills numbered as high as her ills. Jamie clears another beer and a new thought.

"I think you're missing the transition between bands," he says as he pops a new blue top, and with a pop an eight ball cracks against the thick of his skull. A couple of skaters want a fight so we decide to set the place alight. Jamie kicks the table out and grabs a couple of cues from the skinheads. We crack a few heads and head for the back. "Lifter Puller," he says, grabbing a couple cans as we ran, "sets the tempo. The Hold Steady picks it up. How can you argue with that?"

"Two words: cow bell. Besides, you're drunk," I holler. We're out the door and over the fence and hopping in once more with Spence. He's driving the van but the man can hardly stand anymore. He's been snorting for days and the ride is packed with some friends and some whores. "Lifter Puller surpasses The Hold Steady in the same way that Pavement will always surpass Malkmus, and Frank Black will never be as good alone as he was with The Pixies." Spence peels out of the lot and hangs out the door shouting We are the troubadors!

Jamie's a sardine between a hooker with an eye patch and our good friend Mag Pie. The van must be rocking 'cause nobody's knocking but our heads are knocked all over as Spence floors the pedal and takes to the Interstate. "It's the same Craig Finn," he begins, "in The Hold Steady. He's there in Killer Parties as much as he's there in Manpark."

"Two completely different bands," I scream. I know he can hear me, but I can't hear me. The drink is hitting hard. "How can you forget 'wake up in the grass with the ass-less chaps'? It's a line so real yet so poetic you barely have time to think about it because you have to wipe Finn's spit from your cheeks."

The van teeters and peels onto two wheels. Now the girls are screaming like we are, and we are screaming like girls. Spence cranks the wheel and the van flips over. After a few turns we're crawling over bodies. Jamie pulls me out the back doors. "The Hold Steady aren't some creepy evolution or a half-assed effort. Think of them as taking back a sound ruined by bands like Kings of Leon. Remember when rock knocked you in the gut? Well, The Hold Steady is swinging. They're not Lifter Puller. Nobody is. Now pull yourself together."

Band :: Lifter Puller

Song :: Manpark

Album :: Fiestas & Fiascos


Comments

Dakin said…
I've got it! Lifter Puller is to the Hold Steady what Scroat Belly was to Split Lip Rayfield. SLR was pretty good, but it was never Scroat Belly, and thus the same with Lftr Pllr & el Hold Steady. (Although, methinks that you may just lack sufficient exposure to the Hold Steady and their own lyrical mythology... Charlemaigne anyone?)

Popular posts from this blog

Lucero Video for "Darken My Door"

Darken My Door from Lucero on Vimeo . It's good to see that a serious band doesn't have to take itself seriously. Even better when a band's fans don't take them too seriously. "Darken My Door" off of Lucero's latest album, 1372 Overton Park , is a song about losing stuff--girlfriend, money, dignity. In fact, a lot of Lucero's songs are like that, but I'm not getting into that now. I'm talking about the video, which has so much to love. Obviously, I love the fact director Alex Mecum has used a puppet as the protagonist. But it's what the puppet does that makes this video so much fun. Puppet eating chili dogs, puppet drinking whiskey, puppet giving blow jobs . . . Hell, there's even puppet vomit! It's ridiculous, yes, but also tragic. By the end of the video, if you don't feel a little sorry for the scruffy faced whore puppet, then you have no soul. Here's a little more about the videos for Lucero's new album: To promot...

Okkervil River, Wellington, New Zealand :: Live Music Review

There are energetic drummers, and then there is Travis Nelson. Truly, he is 'Animal.' Okkervil River albums have so much personality, the songs themselves become characters: players, people in the guise of animals or gods (and who can tell the difference sometimes?). And like watching a melodrama, we are witness to emotions that heave and plummet with frightening force. The songs can be drunken youth: the rotund boots on their feet knocking wildly on every surface. Or they can be villainous and smart, full of smiles and wishing-you-well up to the second they thrust the dagger into your belly. Pitched, lust-crazed, calculated: that is one half of an Okkervil album. The other emotion is equally intense in its thick, slow agony: the eternity it takes to remove the knife, knowing you have it all to do over. And so it goes: soaring, drunk, angry, knife, stab, agony, pull-it-out-and-let's-do-it-again. At the San Fransisco Bathhouse in Wellington, New Zealand, on a crisp early a...

Best Music of 2008 [Last.FM gobbles our scrobbles]

Internet radio / social network / music discover tool Last.FM has released its Best of 2008 list. There are going to be dozens of "best" lists coming out in the next few weeks, but this one should command your attention. The list is not based on radio play, and it is not based on best selling albums. It is based on the number of times we (that's the royal "we" in all it's regal garb) have played tracks from our iTunes, iPods, Songbirds, or any other player that allows scrobbling. It is based on what we wanted to hear. We pressed play. We made the playlists. The only fault I can find lies in the Top 10 Tracks, which basically MGMT and Colplay. But that's what you get with raw data. To me, the Artists list is the most compelling. You will find no Kanye West on this list; no Britney and no Janet. You will only find the artists played incessantly and obsessively.