The Hold Steady

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The Hold Steady have single-handedly turned “bar band” into a term of endearment. Blame it on frontman Craig Finn, whose half-sung, near-Joycean rants about drugs and alcohol and teenagers and Minneapolis and drugs are shot through with so much wit and wisdom they manage to turn bar chatter into a kind of high art. Anyway, without Finn—or with a lead singer who actually sung—the Brooklyn quintet would be little more than arena rock nostalgists churning out scads of decidedly uncool rock clichés (guitar solos, piano interludes) for middle-aged audiences. In other words, they’d be a bar band in the old sense. With Finn, though, all those dad-rock histrionics go down real easy.  read more »

As we told you earlier in the week, on Tuesday, Brooklyn's most beloved indie band, the Hold Steady, released its new album, Stay Positive. And tonight, the band is the musical guest on the Late Show With David Letterman. Pitchfork reports that the Hold Steady will also star on in a taped segment on tonight's show: "Apparently, Letterman's crew followed the Hold Steady on the road for a few days earlier this year, and captured what it's like to be in 'America's Rock Band'. The segment is about five minutes long, and it will air tonight before Letterman's Top 10 List."  read more »

It seems safe to say that Brooklyn’s The Hold Steady has become one of New York’s most beloved indie bands. After all, back in 2005, with only two albums under its belt, it was the first rock act in about 15 years to grace the Village Voice’s cover. Its new album, Stay Positive, was released across the pond yesterday on the U.K. staple Rough Trade, and comes out today in the U.S. on the more pop-punk oriented Vagrant Records. The critics are already fawning. Salon describes The Hold Steady—four members are originally from Minneapolis, the fifth plays accordion in the Brooklyn-based cabaret-punk troupe the World/Inferno Friendship Society—as “a New York Indie rock band for people who hate New York indie rock bands,” and it deemed Stay Positive a “Soundtrack for the great American road trip.  read more »

The critics who praise the Hold Steady share a kind of collective relief that at last, someone's making music for men in their 30's who like classic rock.

But since when are men in their 30s who like classic rock such an underserved demographic?

I have had the band pushed on me by aging, formerly disillusioned rock lovers, and pushed again, and again. Nothing works.

I could never get into Craig Finn’s nasal wordiness and self-satisfied smartness, or sense that there was something great in the blustery arena rock of the band’s music.

It’s not that I don’t like smartness or arena rock or even nasal singers (if I could sing, I would most certainly be one).  read more »