The Hold Steady

Lately I’ve been fascinated by the Hold Steady. And when I say “lately”, I mean maybe the past year. I was first introduced to this band by Tom, who had a writing class with the mother of (I think) the bass player. He sent a link to their video for “The Swish”.

Later, Tom’s twin brother, and my best friend from college, Paul, sent me a mixCD he titled The Best of 2005. It took me a year to get into that CD, but when I did, I really got into “Cattle and the Creeping Things.” I remembered that I also liked “The Swish” and so, like 2 years later, I did some research on the band and discovered that they had several albums out and began to procure them.

Those of you who have been into this band in the beginning may ask why it took so long to delve deeper. I think mostly it was how singer Craig Finn more or less barked out the lyrics versus singing them. The lyrics are great, don’t get me wrong:

You in the corner with a good looking drifter
Two cups of coffee and ten packs of sugar
I heard Gideon saw you in Denver
He said you were contagious

But I was wondering if those clever lyrics were maybe going to be too clever, because you can get sick of clever lyrics really quick. However, Hold Steady lyrics have just enough seediness in them that prevents them from ever getting clean enough to be annoying.

If you get into this band, you can start anywhere, but I think that getting into their albums in chronological order is best, since there are underlying themes. I just discovered the Hold Steady Wikia page, and while there might be another site with more information about the songs and the bands, this one looks like it could be a good start.

There are characters in the songs that recur, the two prominent ones being Charlemagne and Hallelujah (“Holly” for short). There are great references comparing rock music to religion, or religious services. It’s definitely not Christian rock, but I gotta give it to these guys for taking the “good” parts of Christianity and twisting them for their own rock and roll efforts. It’s about the only way Christianity is palatable to me.

They’re due to release their 5^th album on May 4, titled Heaven is Whenever.

Elysian Fields - Minneapolis

When I lived in Decorah, Iowa in the mid-90s, there was a bar there, probably from 1993 to early 1995 called Orrsey's. I won't go into the details on where the name came from, but it was Dave Orr's bar. The bar opened up soonafter I moved to Decorah, and actually had live bands just about every weekend. Most of the bands were of the cover variety, but there were a few bands that played their own music.

One of the bands that I enjoyed was called Elysian Fields. I realize there was some other band that burst onto the scene around 1996 with the same name, but I assure you, the band I'm talking about was not that band. The one I'm referring to was from Minneapolis. They self-released a CD, and then I moved away in April 1996, so I never knew what happened to them.

This is the unfortunate problem with the internet. These days, any kid with the software can record songs and get a Myspace page. Myspace is very helpful in providing bands a quick start to allowing people to access information about the band AND their music. I would have killed for Myspace in the late 80s/early 90s.

What I have often found as I've travelled and moved around the country in my post-college years is that just because you think Band X is the shit in say, Ames, Iowa, or Decorah, Iowa, someone who lives in Florida may or may not feel the same way, since they didn't see the band in the bar in your condition. It's almost like a "I Guess You Had to Be There" situation. What you get in a live show, you don't necessarily get on the CD.

Elysian Fields used to play a lot of their originals, and in fact, I'm pretty sure they stuck to the ones that would later be on their CD. They also did some covers that I liked. They did "Sister Luck" by the Black Crowes, they did "Sucker" by Mott the Hoople, and while I was never a big fan of "End of the World As We Know It" by REM, they did that, and it was a crowd favorite.

I enjoyed their originals which ranged from an almost MC-5-like "DC-X", the straightforward rock of "Ether", the plodding "A Couple Weeks" and the Zeppelinesque "Sometimes Why".

These guys came back into my consciousness a few weeks ago when I was taking the garbage and compost out. Or maybe I was shovelling the driveway. I just remembered that on the live version of "A Couple of Weeks" they would get to the middle part and sing, "Forty years ago, drifting through the snow, I lost my way, could not go" and we would chant it back at them. Because, you know, it was fun. And we were drinking brown liquor. Whenever I'm out in blowing snow, I am reminded of those lyrics.

So, anyway, I went looking for them on the internet the other day (as I have several times over the past few years) and came up with nothing. So I was hoping that someone out there, maybe up in Minneapolis way, would know about them or some of the members and what they're up to these days if I put a footprint on the internet out there about them.

Random Internet Stuff

I was looking on iTunes yesterday for some Dio tunes. I have not kept up with Ronnie James' namesake band, so I was shocked to find there were many albums released during the 90s by him. It sort of bummed me out that I had sold Lock Up the Wolves, since it was considered one of the band's better releases. I listened to some samples and thought they sounded pretty good. I was really getting into grunge and alt-country at the time, so I don't believe my head was ready for that album.

When I went to the official Ronnie James Dio site, I found out about all those other albums, but looked at the different bands he's been in, and saw this about his dealings with Black Sabbath:

Issues with post recording processes on the next live release, Live Evil, meant the downfall of the band in this incarnation. Only to reform a decade later to produce a more modern hard hitting album called Dehumanizer. Likewise one of the album tracks was featured on the motion picture Wayne's World, prompting further global success for the band.

This proved short lived when Sabbath reformed under its original vocalist and Ronnie reformed the band DIO.

Wow. So now Ozzy can be known not only as "The Prince of Darkness", but "He Who Cannot Be Named". Way to not give props to Ozzy, RJD!

Also, a random thought. Whenever I see this picture, I always think it's Keifer Sutherland:

I Found the Hellmouth

Ladies and Gentlemen, look no further for the Hellmouth! I have found it wide open at the McDonalds off of I-44 in St. Robert, Missouri.

It's true. We were rambling home from the folks' house yesterday when my youngest declared that she had to pee "REALLY BADLY!" We tend to utilize McDonald's for this task, as their bathrooms are cleaner than your average gas station variety. As I made my way down the frontage road, an Okie in a sedan was impeding my path. He seemed to be trying to go to the McDonald's as well, but couldn't exactly find the correct entrance. He ended up stradling the bike path slowly. I pulled up next to him, looked over, and he waved me around.

I pulled completely around the McDonald's, so as not to have to get out of the car smirking at the Okie. But I did see him inside fixing his coffee with his wife, who had auburn hair and about 4 inches of gray roots. He got his sack of groceries and they were off. I observed this while waiting for my wife and daughter to come out of the bathroom.

Were this the only thing I observed, I could not say it was the Hellmouth. Next, a family of three and a half people (a man and two women, one of which was hugging an infant on her waist) were ordering food AND having a conversation on a push-to-talk phone. I, myself, use one of these where I work. They have replaced the walkie talkie-style radio. However, this person was using it to check in with someone. Stated that he was at the McDonald's in St. Robert getting breakfast. He passed it around to everyone in his party and they all had a conversation and wished the person "Happy Easter" while the counter person talked with them and filled their order.

As my wife and daughter approached, the homeless man whom I noticed as I entered the location tried to get my attention by greeting me with "Excuse me, sir..." I quickly motioned for my son and the rest of my family to walk out the door as he attempted to get my attention a second time. I did not make eye contact.

What could a place such as this offer the average homeless person? It would behoove this individual to start walking south. After a month of walking, one might find himself in the hills of Arkansas, be able to squat in an abandoned trailer, and actually find some work collecting shoe leather or other random materials for cash. At least enough to buy a ham sandwich every now and then.

A moment's confusion sent us the wrong way out of the McDonald's, as it appeared the frontage road once again allowed access to the interstate. However, this appeared to be another Devil's ruse and we turned around in another driveway. As if to attempt a final thwart, an early-90s model LTD loaded with 6 passengers (3 in the front, 3 in the back) stayed in the right line until the very last moment to impede our entrance onto the highway.

We were able to make our way home safely, but I shall mark this spot on my map for future reference.

Finding Ways to Share Rare Music

I used to write with a few other people over at a blog called The Music is the Message. Then we got an offer to start writing for a bigger website called Pajiba, which started with movie reviews. I only read TKs posts over there, because, quite honestly, 1) I don't do a lot of research when it comes to watching movies, because there's hardly any movie I won't watch, and 2) I like reading TK's stuff. I just relate to his style and his humor. I just don't understand why he can't keep from spilling shit on his shirt.

So the whole Pajiba thing started at least a month, if not two months ago, and the creative writing about music completely got blocked for me because I really wanted to write a blog about Mover's Original Recipe album. The only problem was, I couldn't find any cool Youtube videos of Mover to share, and it's not like they got snippets out there on Amazon or iTunes. So it really bummed me out. So much that I didn't feel like writing about music. Not to mention, the holidays were coming, we moved from one house to the other, and I travelled for a week there in November.

So Felicia, another writer for the site(s), asked if anyone had an idea on how to put songs out there. From my friend Tom, who writes Edit Before Posting, I learned that box.net had a widget you could use to post stuff in Blogger. What he has in his latest post is a bit different, I may have to ask for a tutorial.

Anyway, it's pretty easy to use. Here are the basics:

1) Get a box.net account.
2) Upload some files.
3) Go to the Open Box tab and select See All Services.
4) Choose the one for posting to your blog.
5) Go to your files. On the arrow pulldown button, select your blog service. It will ask for your username and password, and then the name of the post you want to slap the song into (it will make a new post, so call it whatever you want. You can copy the html into your actual blog, or start the blog with the file and write around it, like I am doing now).

So there you have it. Here's a sneak peak of a tune from the post that I'm hoping TK can use. If he can't put it on Pajiba, then I might as well throw it out there on TMITM. I'll keep you posted. The band is MOVER, and the song is "Choyce." Enjoy!