Stay Positive
THE HOLD STEADY
Vagrant
It’s hard not to root for The Hold Steady. Especially if you’re from Tampa and regularly frequent Ybor City. The intelligent booze-rockers may call Brooklyn home but our famed entertainment district surfaces in so many of singer/songwriter Crag Finn’s tunes — most notably the band’s signature jam “Killer Parties” — that it’s like listening to one of our own. And then there are the joyous concerts The Hold Steady have thrown in Ybor, like the one in January at Czar Bar, which concluded with about 100 people joining the quintet on stage.
The band’s latest and greatest album, Stay Positive — currently available on iTunes; CD drops July 15 — also includes a couple local references. “Don’t tell ’em Ybor City almost killed us again,” Finn sings on the closing track, “Slapped Actress,” over a guitar-and-keyboard wall of sound straight from E Street. “Don’t mention Tampa, they’ll just know all the rest,” Finn sings on another verse of the same brilliant song. It’s a cinematic number inspired by the John Cassevetes flick Opening Night, which depicts a Broadway star on the verge of a nervous breakdown after witnessing the death of a fan. Finn documents desperation better than most.
This article appears in Oct 29 – Nov 4, 2008.