First name basis

You know how Coors Light claims to be “cold filtered?” Well Benjamin Booker’s voice is kind of like that. Except instead of good times, football, and twins, the sieve is composed of heavy gauge railroad gravel and thumbtacks. Just how much of that is effect and how much is genuine Booker family growl is a question too sophisticated for my ears to parse; the resulting sound, however, is distinctive enough regardless to at least hint at a cannon of first name guys like Bruce, Tom, and whatever astral creature did this.

Hold Steady, Part II

There is a Replacements song called “Treatment Bound.” It’s a freewheeling number; like most of their stuff it sometimes sounds sloppy and sometimes comes off tight, but most of all is just perpetually threatening to fall off the highwire. It took me a while to realize it, but Paul Westerberg and company weren’t beating their chests or telling fishing stories when they sang, “First thing we do when we pull up / get shiiiiiitfaced drunk / try to sober up.” They didn’t care about labels, hits, or SNL and even if The Mats didn’t live every single line they sang, at least they could have. With the recent release of Teeth Dreams, The Hold Steady’s sixth album, I’ve come to a similar realization about Minnesota-born but Brooklyn-bred group.

State of Grace

We might as well get this out of the way first: Grace Potter is a stone cold fox. Of course, you can’t tell that from any of her studio tracks. All you can really gather is that she can absolutely shred a B3 organ and she’s got an easy singing style that can jump from embers to inferno at a moment’s notice. And that’s more than enough.

Sultan of swing: an ode to Mark Knopfler

The first time I heard Dire Straits I must have been in second grade. “Walk of Life” came on the radio and the Hammond organ hooked me immediately. Of course, being eight I had no idea the song was brought to life by Mark Knopfler and his crew of British rockers or how to ever find it again, so that little riff was consigned to a dusty corner of my mind even as my eight grade self downloaded “Money for Nothing” and “Sultansof Swing” on Napster.* There it sat waiting to be rediscovered with only the harmonica part from “Fear ofFalling” to keep it company. Then, in high school, I bought Dire Straits’ greatest hits CD. Of course I rediscovered “Walk of Life” as I drove the Carter boys and my brothers home from Best Buy in my mom’s minivan.** But I also realized something else: Mark Knopfler is a flipping genius. 

40 Bucks and My Favorite Band

It wasn’t my favorite band, strictly speaking, but Craig Finn is about four fifths of The Hold Steady. And PJ’s Lager house in Detroit may not have been the Nice Nice, but they were only charging ten dollars for cover. So call it 80 percent of my favorite band at 25 percent the price. Either way, I had to go see Finn play Wednesday night because a.) he’s awesome, b.) he just released his first solo album (“Clear Heart Full Eyes”), and c.) it gave me an excuse to get some pretty sweet barbecue. At first I was worried that he would find himself lost without his buddy Tad Kubler. It’s a funny bit of chemistry when a lead singer sets out on his/her own. But hell, if Stevie Nix could do it, there’s no reason Craig Finn can’t. Over 2 hours, Finn showed he could distance himself from his old bands and still evoke that joy, chaos, and fear that marked previous THS and Lifter Puller (another former group) releases. 

Confessions of a Country Music Convert

If you’re reading this, you've probably heard of country music. I have too.  But, until a year ago, I had only heard of it…and then I started to listen to it.  The decision to start listening to country music was not mine , but exclusively attributable to my brother and sister telling me that from this moment on, “Patrick all of the presets in the cars will be country...even if it means button 5 and 6* are both tuned to K102.

Singing in the Church

My friends all have different views on the Church, but one almost universal perception of Catholics is that they are big on ritual. To that I plead guilt-diddily-ilty as charge-diddily-arged*. I think it’s pretty cool that from parish to parish and even country to country, the Mass remains largely unchanged.

The Springsteen Draft

Ed Note: This post is based on a draft conducted between Joe and Patrick over 20 days in July. For ten rounds, Patrick would pick a song followed by Joe. At the end, the song lists were compared by an impartial expert and Patrick was declared the winner. What follows is those picks and the authors' commentary. Special thanks to Christine Duda for being that impartial expert.
Go ahead and pick your own winner in the poll on our sidebar.

Round 1
Patrick Carter: Badlands
Joey Labuz: Rosalita

JL: Gotta admit, this was a Mario Williams-scale surprise for me. The very first pick in the draft with so many songs to choose from and Carter takes...the song I had always though of as The Promised Land’s little brother. It’s a good song, and the crowd is certainly rocking, I just don’t think any song set in South Dakota can hold a candle to Rosie.
PC: There are two reasons that this version of Badlands was the first pick: its an instrumental jam session and the fans in Barcelona.  Ok, so most versions of Badlands are jam sessions, but the crowd in this video is amazing.  Howabout that version of “Rosie”? Wow.  Speaking of fans, I wise I were at this concert: Bruce and the boys playing follow the leader and hide-and-go-seek while playing - incredible.