Elvis Costello never said that "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", despite what you may have heard. I'm glad too, because although many of music's joys are ineffable, that's no reason not to try to put them into words. Michael Azerrad knows this better than most people, as the author of Our Band Could Be Your Life, the seminal history of the "post-punk" or "alternative" or "D.I.Y." or "whatever name you care to give it" movement of brash, independent and unfiltered music that bubbled up around the country during the 1980's before jumping the charts in 1992 (to very mixed results).
The subtitle of Azerrad's book is "Scenes From The American Indie Underground" and it's not unfair to say that the bands chronicled in this book functionally started the musical genre that is now ubiquitously and unhelpfully referred to as "indie rock." Of the 13 bands profiled only one, Sonic Youth is still going. A few such as Mission of Burma, Big Black, the Butthole Surfers and even the Replacements have reformed (although the latter was a two song, studio-only affair). But the influence they project onto the scene today is almost incalculable.
"Craig Finn is an Irish poet!"
That was me, talking to (err, yelling at) a friend two years ago. At the time the Hold Steady was in the midst of absolutely destroying a 90 minute set to close out a Chicago block party, which might be the perfect showcase to see these boozy Minnesota-via-Brooklynites who sound like Zeppelin meets the Clash with a little Kerouac thrown in for good measure. Finn is the band's songwriter and he writes dense, intertwining narratives about invented characters that stretch across albums. His songs manage to be both cerebral and visceral and have that ring of vérité that comes from writing out of experience.
The Hold Steady have never been afraid to reserve classic songs for B-Sides or other non-album sources (see: "Girls Like Status" and "You Gotta Dance (With Who You Came With)") and "40 Bucks" is perhaps the ultimate example of this. The song came as a bonus download with the purchase of their 2009 live album, A Positive Rage and has never, to my knowledge, been played live but it's one of those songs that in another, better reality would be a massive radio hit.
Chicagoans once again woke up this morning to puddles, blinking stoplights and alarm clocks flashing 12:00 as last night’s thunderstorms made this our wettest July on record. Assuming you have power, On Warmer Music has your back with six songs about rain to make your day a little better.
The Very Best are comprised of English DJ Radioclit and the African singer Esau Mwamwaya. They’re perfect summer music with danceable, poppy hooks combined with booty-shakin’ beats. This is off their debut album, The Warm Heart Of Africa and features not only everyone’s favorite agit-pop controversy diva, M.I.A. but a great rainstick intro, which I’m a sucker for.
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