Pre-Hold Steady Band Lifter Puller Remembered With Reissue Series, Book
I'm editing this post because I didn't like the title it received after my lazy auto-add to Blogger.
Next month, Lifter Puller are re-releasing their entire discography with some rarities. I think it's only digital, which upsets me slightly, but my ownership of their music consists solely of Soft Rock and I had to download that (legally, I hasten to add).
For those who don't know, Lifter Puller is the band that Craig Finn and Tad Kubler were in before The Hold Steady. The straight-up rock of The Hold Steady is wonderful and accesible, but Lifter Puller's twitching indie nastiness is just addictive. The lyrics are exactly what you expect from Craig, but with a much darker, introspective edge. You sense that while his Hold Steady creations are largely fictional, Lifter Puller is all too real.
Enough gushing. I'll hopefully get hold of it as soon as it's available and post more here.
2.10.09
17.5.09
Journal For Plague Lovers
Okay. I said I'd say something about the new Manic Street Preachers album when I got hold of it. I was fully expecting to have to post "it's a bit shit". It isn't. It's just kind of boring. Really fucking boring. It has nothing to offer that isn't already covered by about another fifteen albums in my CD collection to which I don't listen.
I was really excited about the Steve Albini production factor. I'm an unashamed fan of his work - Shellac are awesome, and my two favourite albums he's done from behind the desk are F-Minus' Wake Up Screaming and Gogol Bordello's Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike. Both fantastic records, although I'll admit that the former is a little bit on the ear-bothering side of things.
It doesn't sound like a Steve Albini record. It sounds like the Manics said, "Hey (boyos), let's make a really gritty record. Let's make a record that sounds like it's full of anger. Let's make a record that sounds like we don't care about production value and we're all about the music (man)." In short, it sounds like a real fuckin' rock and roll record, made by your dad.
So I've pretty much just listened to some Howlin' Wolf instead. Maybe I should just give up on the Manics making a record as awesome as the one they made 15 years ago and stop pretending they have any contemporary relevance left to give.
Ho hum.
I was really excited about the Steve Albini production factor. I'm an unashamed fan of his work - Shellac are awesome, and my two favourite albums he's done from behind the desk are F-Minus' Wake Up Screaming and Gogol Bordello's Gypsy Punks: Underdog World Strike. Both fantastic records, although I'll admit that the former is a little bit on the ear-bothering side of things.
It doesn't sound like a Steve Albini record. It sounds like the Manics said, "Hey (boyos), let's make a really gritty record. Let's make a record that sounds like it's full of anger. Let's make a record that sounds like we don't care about production value and we're all about the music (man)." In short, it sounds like a real fuckin' rock and roll record, made by your dad.
So I've pretty much just listened to some Howlin' Wolf instead. Maybe I should just give up on the Manics making a record as awesome as the one they made 15 years ago and stop pretending they have any contemporary relevance left to give.
Ho hum.
3.5.09
Dylan. (Also some other music).
First of all, an apology is due to Bob Dylan. I went to see him over a week ago, and all he's received is a cursory few lines in my previous post. I know he's disappointed, so here's a proper appraisal.
I think we all know that Dylan's voice is shot to pieces. Recent albums, Modern Times in particular, show it can be barely more than a whisper. Smoking's bad, aye? Anyway, Dylan tours, it's £35 a ticket less than Tom Waits, and my dad's paying. Awesome. Sheffield Arena, here we come.
A note on arena gigs: just bloody don't. Were it not Dylan, I would not have been at such a soulless cavern of a place. The is something completely horrible about watching some idiot in Topman slacks buy fries and a Coca Cola so huge that, were he to take it home with him in his car, he'd need a child booster in which to accommodate it (notwithstanding the fact that the queue to get off the car park was so massive that he'd have pissed said slacks several times over before he made it out), and then take his seat to watch possibly the definitive counterculture icon of the last 50 years. Knocked me sick.
Anyway, neck at a near-90 degree angle, I sit down (insert sad face here) to watch Bob Dylan. I'm excited. He's a few minutes late out (gig is scheduled to run from half seven till half nine). Hmmm. Awful intro begins, "The subculture icon of the sixties, drug-addled in the seventies..." or words to that effect. And then, completely unassuming, a band dressed in grey suits ambles on stage - where's Dylan? Music starts. I'm reliably informed the song is called "Cats In The Well" (Under A Red Sky - early 90s, absolutely awesome song). Dylan's on organ?
And his voice. It's not that bad. It's more like a high-pitched Tom Waits. His band, however, are fantastic. This is LOUD. Not just "loud for Dylan", but really loud. Louder than The Bad Seeds. Almost as loud as ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead. Dylan's organ playing is spot on. The lead guitarist is really ripping it up. The drummer is one of the best I've ever heard, period.
Then it happens - "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". This is why I'm here - never mind political importance. Never mind quite how many of my favourite artists just wouldn't exist without Dylan, HIS songs are awesome. If watching Tom Waits (note to self: three mentions of Waits in one blog about someone else is restraining order material) was as close as I'll ever get to (re)finding Jesus, then this was an audience with the big beardy bastard himself.
It carries on - he blends music that is five years old (see - "The Levee's Gonna Break"/"Thunder On The Mountain") with music that is forty years old and it seems like the whole horrendous 80s gospel incident never happened. We get "Highway 61", we get "Like A Rolling Stone", we get a completely unbelievable rendition of "All Along The Watchtower", and my only complaint is that he ignores Blonde On Blonde in its entirety. But then, he also ignored Desire, and Blood On The Tracks. You have to consider that Bob Dylan has recorded 33 studio albums (I think), and with the exception of about ten, they're either pretty damn good or just about perfect.
Enough gushing. Here's a listening list for you:
Oh Mercy
Modern Times
Under A Red Sky
Time Out Of Mind
In no particular order. That's my recommendation of Dylan's output over the last 20 years or so. If you don't think it's as good as his 60s work, then you're wrong. Objectively so. Alternatively, you could acquire the most recent of his The Bootleg Series, being Volume 8: Tell-Tale Signs. Perfection.
Listen to Bob Dylan. And not just his old stuff.
I think we all know that Dylan's voice is shot to pieces. Recent albums, Modern Times in particular, show it can be barely more than a whisper. Smoking's bad, aye? Anyway, Dylan tours, it's £35 a ticket less than Tom Waits, and my dad's paying. Awesome. Sheffield Arena, here we come.
A note on arena gigs: just bloody don't. Were it not Dylan, I would not have been at such a soulless cavern of a place. The is something completely horrible about watching some idiot in Topman slacks buy fries and a Coca Cola so huge that, were he to take it home with him in his car, he'd need a child booster in which to accommodate it (notwithstanding the fact that the queue to get off the car park was so massive that he'd have pissed said slacks several times over before he made it out), and then take his seat to watch possibly the definitive counterculture icon of the last 50 years. Knocked me sick.
Anyway, neck at a near-90 degree angle, I sit down (insert sad face here) to watch Bob Dylan. I'm excited. He's a few minutes late out (gig is scheduled to run from half seven till half nine). Hmmm. Awful intro begins, "The subculture icon of the sixties, drug-addled in the seventies..." or words to that effect. And then, completely unassuming, a band dressed in grey suits ambles on stage - where's Dylan? Music starts. I'm reliably informed the song is called "Cats In The Well" (Under A Red Sky - early 90s, absolutely awesome song). Dylan's on organ?
And his voice. It's not that bad. It's more like a high-pitched Tom Waits. His band, however, are fantastic. This is LOUD. Not just "loud for Dylan", but really loud. Louder than The Bad Seeds. Almost as loud as ... And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead. Dylan's organ playing is spot on. The lead guitarist is really ripping it up. The drummer is one of the best I've ever heard, period.
Then it happens - "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue". This is why I'm here - never mind political importance. Never mind quite how many of my favourite artists just wouldn't exist without Dylan, HIS songs are awesome. If watching Tom Waits (note to self: three mentions of Waits in one blog about someone else is restraining order material) was as close as I'll ever get to (re)finding Jesus, then this was an audience with the big beardy bastard himself.
It carries on - he blends music that is five years old (see - "The Levee's Gonna Break"/"Thunder On The Mountain") with music that is forty years old and it seems like the whole horrendous 80s gospel incident never happened. We get "Highway 61", we get "Like A Rolling Stone", we get a completely unbelievable rendition of "All Along The Watchtower", and my only complaint is that he ignores Blonde On Blonde in its entirety. But then, he also ignored Desire, and Blood On The Tracks. You have to consider that Bob Dylan has recorded 33 studio albums (I think), and with the exception of about ten, they're either pretty damn good or just about perfect.
Enough gushing. Here's a listening list for you:
Oh Mercy
Modern Times
Under A Red Sky
Time Out Of Mind
In no particular order. That's my recommendation of Dylan's output over the last 20 years or so. If you don't think it's as good as his 60s work, then you're wrong. Objectively so. Alternatively, you could acquire the most recent of his The Bootleg Series, being Volume 8: Tell-Tale Signs. Perfection.
Listen to Bob Dylan. And not just his old stuff.
27.4.09
Bob Dylan
I pretty much went to see Bob Dylan on Friday night.
Expect one scan gushing review sort of thing where I probably talk about some other stuff for the most part then gush a bit more at the end in the next few days.
'Sabout it. I've been well busy. Also watching a lot of Carnivàle. I got a promotion at work too.
Expect one scan gushing review sort of thing where I probably talk about some other stuff for the most part then gush a bit more at the end in the next few days.
'Sabout it. I've been well busy. Also watching a lot of Carnivàle. I got a promotion at work too.
5.4.09
In defence of the Manic Street Preachers
Talk about a love/hate relationship. Normally I try and skirt the issue by saying "well, The Holy Bible" was a great album (actually, much more than that; it was, in my considered opinion, the best British rock album of the 90s) and this usually lets me leave a conversation with my muso-cred intact.
Here's a secret - were it not for the Manics, I probably wouldn't be the nerdy music fan I am today. While most people at school were all drawly Nirvana types (and don't get me wrong - Nirvana WERE the better band, by about three million miles), I idolised four Welsh boys in leopard-print and eyeliner. Everything had to be political, everything had to be a bit pretentious. I think they served me well - to analyse the Manics earlier lyrics was to set yourself a fairly spectacular reading list. My GCSE English original writing coursework was about how I discovered them, and it won me a NATE/TES award and pretty much made me realise that I know some words and how to write them down, occasionally.
Let's start with a few home truths:
With the exception of a few tracks, Generation Terrorists is a terrible, terrible double album (in vinyl terms). It should've been an EP. "You Love Us", "Motorcycle Emptiness" and a couple of others are cracking rock songs, but it suffers from a massive 80s/GN'R hangover. Programmed drums. Ugh.
Self-harm is totally not cool, and in no way a thing to imitate or admire. I wholeheartedly blame Richey Edwards for the fact that my paperclip collection is raided by some of the older, panda-eyed young ladies I teach.
They haven't made a truly great album since Everything Must Go, which was a wonderful piece of music. I dare any of you to deny the brilliance of "A Design For Life", if nothing else.
ONE phenomenal musician. Just one. James Dean Bradfield is a singer/guitarist extraordinaire. Sean Moore is an average drummer. The other two are/were borderline incompetants. I put Moore's idolisation down to the fact that most Manics fans don't listen to any other bands.
Nicky Wire is a cock. Simple as that. He's like the guy at a party who tells everyone "how much The Matrix made me get into philosophy". He's got a degree in political history. A 2(ii), don't you know?
But, for all their faults, they can and have been a fucking great rock band. I'm currently playing Gold Against The Soul and sporting a wry smile. Noah has fallen asleep to it; I use him as a barometer of taste - he likes Tom Waits and it makes him smile, whereas my own guitar playing usually makes him cry, so this is somewhere in the middle.
Back to The Holy Bible - I don't own many better records. Razor-sharp new-wave guitars, arrythmic drums, lyrics spat out far too quickly because they don't actually fit the songs and a genuine sense of despondancy. I mentioned yesterday that Johnny Cash knew his time was up when he recorded American IV: The Man Comes Around, and when you listen to this record, it is painfully obvious that Richey Edwards' mental state had deteriorated to the point of suicide. Even if I was not a fan of the band, I would own this record as a voyeur of human misery.
Anyway, despite the fact that they haven't made a truly great album in over a decade, they have a new one on the way, produced by Steve Albini and I'm a bit excited. Not holding out much hope though.
Expect a short blog consisting of "oh well, it's a bit shit" to appear here soon.
Here's a secret - were it not for the Manics, I probably wouldn't be the nerdy music fan I am today. While most people at school were all drawly Nirvana types (and don't get me wrong - Nirvana WERE the better band, by about three million miles), I idolised four Welsh boys in leopard-print and eyeliner. Everything had to be political, everything had to be a bit pretentious. I think they served me well - to analyse the Manics earlier lyrics was to set yourself a fairly spectacular reading list. My GCSE English original writing coursework was about how I discovered them, and it won me a NATE/TES award and pretty much made me realise that I know some words and how to write them down, occasionally.
Let's start with a few home truths:
With the exception of a few tracks, Generation Terrorists is a terrible, terrible double album (in vinyl terms). It should've been an EP. "You Love Us", "Motorcycle Emptiness" and a couple of others are cracking rock songs, but it suffers from a massive 80s/GN'R hangover. Programmed drums. Ugh.
Self-harm is totally not cool, and in no way a thing to imitate or admire. I wholeheartedly blame Richey Edwards for the fact that my paperclip collection is raided by some of the older, panda-eyed young ladies I teach.
They haven't made a truly great album since Everything Must Go, which was a wonderful piece of music. I dare any of you to deny the brilliance of "A Design For Life", if nothing else.
ONE phenomenal musician. Just one. James Dean Bradfield is a singer/guitarist extraordinaire. Sean Moore is an average drummer. The other two are/were borderline incompetants. I put Moore's idolisation down to the fact that most Manics fans don't listen to any other bands.
Nicky Wire is a cock. Simple as that. He's like the guy at a party who tells everyone "how much The Matrix made me get into philosophy". He's got a degree in political history. A 2(ii), don't you know?
But, for all their faults, they can and have been a fucking great rock band. I'm currently playing Gold Against The Soul and sporting a wry smile. Noah has fallen asleep to it; I use him as a barometer of taste - he likes Tom Waits and it makes him smile, whereas my own guitar playing usually makes him cry, so this is somewhere in the middle.
Back to The Holy Bible - I don't own many better records. Razor-sharp new-wave guitars, arrythmic drums, lyrics spat out far too quickly because they don't actually fit the songs and a genuine sense of despondancy. I mentioned yesterday that Johnny Cash knew his time was up when he recorded American IV: The Man Comes Around, and when you listen to this record, it is painfully obvious that Richey Edwards' mental state had deteriorated to the point of suicide. Even if I was not a fan of the band, I would own this record as a voyeur of human misery.
Anyway, despite the fact that they haven't made a truly great album in over a decade, they have a new one on the way, produced by Steve Albini and I'm a bit excited. Not holding out much hope though.
Expect a short blog consisting of "oh well, it's a bit shit" to appear here soon.
23.3.09
There is so much joy in what we do
I'm a bit short of things to blog about at the moment - nobody wants to hear how wonderful everything is. People having a good time is boring, and so if I'm happy and cool and having fun, it's boring for the six people who read this. Love y'all. Anyway, I was going to call this blog "why I love The Hold Steady", but the Craig Finn quotation I nicked for the title is pretty much the reason, so I'll use that instead.
Something heavy we could feel through all the Feminax.
The Hold Steady brought me out of a bit of a dark place, musically. Stopped me pontificating about, trying to be uberalt. and made me realise that, with a few notable exceptions, and to quote a friend, "the only music I like is rock music and if it is not rock music it is fucking shit". I was at the wonderful Connect Festival in Inveraray, Scotland, and was at that point when it was a few hours before a band that I wanted to see came along, and I was far too drunk to really get up and do anything about it.
It's great to see you back in a bar band baby.
Completely awesome. I'd drunk a lot of a popular brand of pear cider at this point, so until I bought their debut album Almost Killed Me, I couldn't be sure whether I was doing that thing were I go watch a band, get shitted, tell everyone how awesome they were, and then look really stupid. I digress. They were quite simply the best rock band I'd ever seen. I couldn't hear the lyrics (I needn't have worried on this point - Craig Finn is up there with Dylan and Waits, so far as I'm concerned), but it was just song after song. Nothing atonal, nothing grinding, just vaguely punk-inflected melody, big guitars, a few solos and a nice keyboard sound. Everything I'd rallied against for years. Hypocrisy is fucking awesome.
Lost in fog and love and faithless fear, I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere.
The Hold Steady are the first band that legitimises my Catholic guilt. Every Sunday that I don't go to church (and that's pretty much the past 500+ Sundays), the guilt grows. The Hold Steady reference enough Catholicism for me to feel better about this. That doesn't usually happen. Separation Sunday is such a wonderful album for this. It's a loose concept album, based around the character of Hallelujah (but the kids they called her Holly), who struggles to equate Catholicism with taking drugs and being promiscuous. That's helpful.
So this is it, this is the end of the session, I ain't gonna be taking any more questions. I think my attorney's going to second that notion.
"So I'm just going to go right ahead and say it. Here it comes. Thank you so much - there is so joy in what we do!"
Every time I've seen the band, Craig Finn says this, and it brings tears to my eyes. Such honesty from a man pushing middle age is a wonderful thing. If you don't enjoy being in a band, fucking stop it and let someone else do it, because there's millions of people who'll do it better than you anyway. The Hold Steady are the perfect antidote to the whinging rockstar. Stay Positive.
Something heavy we could feel through all the Feminax.
The Hold Steady brought me out of a bit of a dark place, musically. Stopped me pontificating about, trying to be uberalt. and made me realise that, with a few notable exceptions, and to quote a friend, "the only music I like is rock music and if it is not rock music it is fucking shit". I was at the wonderful Connect Festival in Inveraray, Scotland, and was at that point when it was a few hours before a band that I wanted to see came along, and I was far too drunk to really get up and do anything about it.
It's great to see you back in a bar band baby.
Completely awesome. I'd drunk a lot of a popular brand of pear cider at this point, so until I bought their debut album Almost Killed Me, I couldn't be sure whether I was doing that thing were I go watch a band, get shitted, tell everyone how awesome they were, and then look really stupid. I digress. They were quite simply the best rock band I'd ever seen. I couldn't hear the lyrics (I needn't have worried on this point - Craig Finn is up there with Dylan and Waits, so far as I'm concerned), but it was just song after song. Nothing atonal, nothing grinding, just vaguely punk-inflected melody, big guitars, a few solos and a nice keyboard sound. Everything I'd rallied against for years. Hypocrisy is fucking awesome.
Lost in fog and love and faithless fear, I've had kisses that make Judas seem sincere.
The Hold Steady are the first band that legitimises my Catholic guilt. Every Sunday that I don't go to church (and that's pretty much the past 500+ Sundays), the guilt grows. The Hold Steady reference enough Catholicism for me to feel better about this. That doesn't usually happen. Separation Sunday is such a wonderful album for this. It's a loose concept album, based around the character of Hallelujah (but the kids they called her Holly), who struggles to equate Catholicism with taking drugs and being promiscuous. That's helpful.
So this is it, this is the end of the session, I ain't gonna be taking any more questions. I think my attorney's going to second that notion.
"So I'm just going to go right ahead and say it. Here it comes. Thank you so much - there is so joy in what we do!"
Every time I've seen the band, Craig Finn says this, and it brings tears to my eyes. Such honesty from a man pushing middle age is a wonderful thing. If you don't enjoy being in a band, fucking stop it and let someone else do it, because there's millions of people who'll do it better than you anyway. The Hold Steady are the perfect antidote to the whinging rockstar. Stay Positive.
5.2.09
The best two records I've listened to this week
I used to listen to a lot of this sort of thing when I was a bit younger. My beloved Phlegm Fatales were heavily influenced by Bad Religion and their ilk when we first started out. I think it had something to do with being skint and unhappy. It's odd listening to the music that people in their 40s made when they were younger than you are. Suffer is a great record - it's short (long punk albums are almost always a bad idea, unless you're The Clash), it's angry, and it changed the face of punk music beyond repair. Unfortunately, it mostly went shit (see: your little brother's record collection), but Bad Religion were cool as fuck. I like the artwork too.
Notable tracks: 'Suffer', 'Do What You Want', '1000 More Fools'.
Night train is groovy
An orange jubilee
Feels good comin' and goin'
I'm warm all over me
Fire up the crack boys
And tie off my arm
Cinch up my diaper
Turn the TV on
Give me another blow job
Before I'm on the nod
Say you'll always love me and
Never do me harm
Never do me harm
Never do me harm
Well you're a preacher's daughter
And I'm a bastard's son...
There can be nothing wrong with an album that includes these lyrics. Mark Lanegan is a new discovery for me, and my life is a better thing with him in it.
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