White Noise

Today's tune comes from an album that has yet to see its release. However, it is my belief that this forthcoming album is the best effort of 2006. Since 2004 The Hold Steady has been rocking bars all over the great United States of America. The band formed from the skeleton of Minneapolis area indie staple Lifter Puller, namely nasally voiced vocalist/lyricist Craig Finn and guitar shredder Tad Kubler. For The Hold Steady, Finn and Kubler relocated Brooklyn, though most of the lyrical content of the band's three albums revolve around happenings in Minneapolis and St. Paul.

The band's first album, Almost Killed Me, was all but ignored, despite being one of the best albums of 2004. Almost Killed Me is a ball-busting examination of one man's journey through drugs, alcohol, rock'n'roll, and “killer parties” in general. Along the way Craig Finn mostly talk-sings his way through ten Springsteen and Thin Lizzy inspired tracks, bustin' enough thick and descriptive narrative to immediately put him among the top lyricists in the game today. He brings characters like Holly and Charlemagne to life like a true novelist, and leaves with lyrical gems that shine even out of context: “They got coaxed out by a certain perfect ratio: of the warm beer to the summer smoke, and the Meat Loaf to the Billy Joel...certain songs they get scratched into our souls!”; “Half the crowd is calling out for born to run and the other half is calling out for born to lose. Baby we were born to choose. We got the last call bar band really big decision blues. We were born to bruise!”; “If they ask about Charlemagne. Be polite and say something vague. Like another lover lost to the restaurant raids.”

Separation Sunday, the band's sophomore effort, was released only a year later and officially put the band on the map. It was about a month after this album was released that I first heard the band; they opened for The Get Up Kids on their farewell tour. Separation Sunday is the story of Holly, a girl that gets caught up in hard drugs and parties that always seem to get ugly and “druggy”. Holly goes through years of seeing America, taking drugs, meeting sketchy people, and basically living out Kerouac's America before finding God on the shores of the Mississippi river. Separation Sunday is a complex and beautiful concept album about a “hoodrat” who finds religion first in drugs and then later in Christianity. Musically the album was also more complex than it's predecessor; the band added a keyboardist and explored and experimented with their bar band sound a little further.

Boys and Girls in America is a damn near perfect album and sure to be a star-maker for the band. The album title comes from a Kerouac quote in On the Road (“Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together”), which is perfect, seeing as The Hold Steady are constantly channeling Sal Paradise. Craig Finn continues to also channel Springsteen, but this time does it with more actual singing and less talk-singing. The band also abandon the concept album shtick for a less structured, but more successful, rock and roll format.

The track I've decided to share with you all is the fifth track on the album, and probably the most emotional track the band has ever recorded. "First Night" is the only song on the album to specifically make mention of Holly and Charlemagne, Finn's party-lovin' heroes. The band breaks its own precedent here by laying a pedal steel delicately over the drama of the keyboard and guitar pairing. “Holly's insatiable, she still looks incredible, but she don't look like that same girl we met on that first night...” a wonderfully bittersweet...fuck it- PAINFUL sentiment. Nothing will ever measure up to the intense perfection of the first night, no matter what you try. “Charlemagne shakes in the streets...” These are the boys and girls in America, stripped naked for us to see. All drugged out and pulling “street corner scams”, or recovered and not quite as lovely as they once were. “And then last night she said 'words alone never could save us', and then last night she cried and she told us about Jesus...”

Craig Finn also delivers the one-liner of the year: “When they kiss they spit white noise...”
A positive jam, more or less.

05 First Night.mp3