Re: Lefsetz/The Hold Steady
Lefsetz mentioned our favorite band in last night’s and then again in today’s Lefsetz Letter.
I’ll paraphrase, but it started with one of his “This Week’s Sale’s” reports where he chooses a few artists from (presumably) the Billboard 200 and offers his quips about each.
Here’s what he said about THS:
71. Hold Steady “Heaven Is Whenever”
Sales this week: 6,595
Percentage change: -71
Weeks on: 2
Cume: 29, 734A press story.
And if you believed the press, they’d be multiplatinum and touring arenas.
Alas, you don’t. So another mediocre band that looks like those who write about it slug it out before giving up and getting day jobs.
And then the feedback:
2. Brian Koppelman wrote in to tell me that the Hold Steady are the best band in America right now. He told me to listen to “Sweet Part Of The City”, that it explodes on the third listen.
I got it on the first listen.
But I also had to say the guy’s vocal worked against the track. Oh come on, I’m not saying his words are bad, but…I am saying they’re bad. The final line of this track is “”We were bored so we started a band”. Now if that isn’t far too inside, if that’s not cliched, what is? Then again, it’s the fifth full set, so I guess they can be self-referential, but…WHO HEARD THE PREVIOUS RECORDS?
And the reviews of this album are uniformly…disappointing. I know, I checked.
“We’d like to play for you, we’d like to play for you…” Even the Boss doesn’t issue lyrics that hackneyed. And give the Boss credit, he’s got a sense of humor. Come on, how many points do you give Bruce for insisting “Don’t Stop Believin’” close Sting’s Rainforest show? Bruce is one of us. Craig Finn of the Hold Steady is not.
And if you want to hear this same thing done better, check out the Iron City Houserockers’ “Have A Good Time (But Get Out Alive)” The title track of that album is better than anything on the Hold Steady record, and it wasn’t a hit either.
It’s not that the Hold Steady are bad, they’re not. I can enjoy them. Well, not all the tracks, but… The point is, in a world with so many diversions do I CHOOSE to listen to them? That’s the challenge bands face. Can I not wait to hear your music? Is it driving me to my computer, to my iPod. If it’s not…it’s just part of the endless morass of ignored music.
“The Sweet Part Of The City”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmx8N6CC64Y
What’s your take?
So, naturally, I replied. Partly to defend my favorite band of the past ten years, but also to remind Lefsetz that he ain’t as hip as he sometimes thinks he is. Sure, I agree with him 75% of the time and have been an avid follower of his newsletter since first reading it about five years ago and even got a chance to meet and briefly chat with the guy at Pollstar in LA this year following his panel about “All In” ticketing. But sometimes he’s just SO off base that it’s hard not to respond.
And in what appears to be his parting-thoughts on The Hold Steady, he quoted my email – but it sort of seems out of context, so I felt compelled to publish the complete email here-
My reply-
Not unlike your late arrival to Twitter (c’mon..admit you were late to that party) you’re three years late to The Hold Steady.
“We were bored so we started a band” is a revisit of the opening track to the bands first record, “Almost Killed Me” where he sings “I got bored so I started a band, gonna start it with a Positive Jam, man”
ALL THE TIME you talk about how when a band grabs someone and moves them that they evangelize and shout it from the rooftops – The Hold Steady IS that band, Bob.
Those of us who’ve been adamant supporters of “the best bar band in America” have slews of friends who, not unlike you, are absolutely sick of hearing about how great this band is.
We buy the tee shirts. We go to the shows in an almost Deadhead-like frequency and spin the records for anyone who will listen.
Isn’t that what you say is the way music is supposed to spread? Organically? The guys started with very little ambition to record a proper album, much less play out and now you’re gonna rail them for their placement on the charts? (BTW- Billboard had HIW at #26 this week.)
Sold out shows in almost every city they play including the 9:30 Club in DC, First Ave in MN and an October play at the Beacon Theater in NYC-
As for the back-catalouge- the next time one of your car-reviewer buddies takes you on one of your jaunts up the coast in one of those hundred-thousand-dollar speed machines, pop on “The Swish” from Almost killed Me and tell me you don’t feel the need to hammer the gas pedal to the floor and get the hell out of town.
Awhile ago, you mentioned in one of your newsletters something along the lines of “I don’t hate The Hold Steady, I hate their FANS”
To that, I must extend the finger in the middle of my hand to you, Bob, for that statement goes against almost everything you say is necessary from a band today. Interactivity, clever videos and a fucking RABID fanbase that will go to the ends of the earth for their favorite band.
You asked for it…and I’m sure you’re getting it. I can almost bet that your inbox is getting hammered with a fairly equal number of “Hell yeah, I hate that band” and “Fuck you, Bob…The Hold Steady rules” emails.
It’s sort of like the band Ween for me….I can’t STAND them. Never got em. Maybe they’re too far over my head. But there are legions of fans who swear they’re the second coming of Christ.
“Eye of the beholder”, right?