Unsung (and more recent) Heroes 7 : The Hold Steady

I started to write this as a review of The Hold Steady's latest album Teeth Dreams but in the end decided that I had better introduce the band first. The review will appear soon. 

Minneapolis has produced some great music over the years.   In fact while the 1980's were generally a period of crappy music for some reason at that time in Minneapolis there was a wealth of great music. Whether it was the hard melodic thrashing of Husker Du, the shambolic rock of The Replacements, the new americana of The Jayhawks or Prince's funk - somehow it all came together in Minneapolis.  

Pogoing along to Husker Du and The Replacements was Craig Finn who was also a massive Springsteen fan and who went on to form The Hold Steady. A band I first heard when they released their third album  Boys and Girls in America. I had read a review that among other things said that they were a bit like Springsteen on Speed.  I was sold.  I could not find any of their CDs in Singapore but managed to find a copy on a business trip to Australia.  It immediately became a favourite with memorable songs like Massive Nights, Chillout Tent, Stuck Between Stations and Chips Ahoy. 

The Springsteen comparisons were relevant especially to his first three or four albums.  Like early Springsteen the songs are frenetic and occasionally anthemic and populated with interesting characters. However rather than drama through the hope of youth and redemption and liberation through rock'n'roll Craig Finn's drama comes from a more desperate and modern take on youth exposed to drugs, spontaneous parties and casual sex. Over about a year I acquired their earlier albums  Separation Sunday and Almost Killed Me and came to know the characters better and realise that Finn had actually made them grow up through the albums. After listening to all three you felt you knew and (but maybe from my age not quite) understood Gideon, Hallelujah (Halley),Charlemagne.  

The Springsteen comparisons were conformed in 2009 when a series of major artists were asked to nominate new artists to record one of their songs for the War Child charity album Heroes.  Springsteen nominated The Hold Steady to do Atlantic City and I think it was one of the few versions on the album that actually improved on the original.

In some respects the whole Hold Steady Agenda was spelt on on Positive Jam  the first song on the first album

Woke up in the '20s and there were flappers and fruits in white suits
It was right before the crash, we got thrashed throughout the '30s
Queuing up for soup with scabby sores
Then they sent us off to war

We came back in the '40s and there were wheelchairs, guns and tickertape
We poured it on the floor and we made love to the interstates
We got shiftless in the '50s, holding hands and going steady
Twisting into dark parts of the large midwestern cities

Tripped right through the '60s with some blissful little hippie
Some Kennedys got shot while you were screwing San Francisco
And the '70s got heavy, we woke up on bloody carpets
Got tangled up in gaslines, and I guess that's where it started

The '80s almost killed me, let's not recall them quite so fondly
Some Kennedy OD'ed while we watched on MTV
And in the '90s we were wired and well connected
Put it all down on technology and lost everything we invested

We gotta start it off with a positive jam
We gotta start it with a positive jam, man
Gotta start it with a positive jam

All the sniffling indie kids: hold steady
And all you clustered-up clever kids: hold steady
And I got bored when I didn't have a band
And so I started a band, man

                                         We're gonna start it with a positive jam 

In 2008 they released what I consider to be the peak from their career so far.  Yes it lacks some of the exuberance of the earlier albums and the first fans will always say they are better but to me the vision, musicianship and songs come together best on Stay Positive.  The tales of lost urban youth are still there but now have a more positive view as expressed by the title song.  The album is packed with sing along anthems and songs with great lyrics. Sequestered in Memphis, Lord, I'm Discouraged and Constructive Summer all stand out.  The first versions also came with three hidden songs (Ask Her for Adderall, Cheyenne Sunrise and Two Handed Handshake) that are as good if not better than some of the main songs. However the band felt that they did not fit with the main album so hid them at the end.  

I was lucky enough to see them twice in  early 2009 when they toured the album.  The first time with Chris and Sam at the Laneways Festival in Melbourne and with a colleague two nights later for a full show in Sydney. Two great shows with Finn reminding me of a young but nerdier and more manic Elvis Costello.  At each concert I would have raised the average age of the audience by at least a year.  However they put on shows that deserved a wider audience and respect that maybe their songs gritty content deny them.  Anyway here is an entire live show from 2009 so you can make up your own mind. 

An interesting aside is that after seeing them play in Melbourne, Jan the Boys and I drove the Great Ocean Highway - we must have followed or been there at the same time as him as he wrote about almost exactly the same trip in the song Apollo Bay on his solo album a few years later.