Friday, January 26, 2007

Hold Steady Educates

Today's Independent has a nice piece / interview with The Hold Steady. I really like the idea that a school used the band and theie lyrics as a teaching tool

"Once we agreed to go, he changed his curriculum to fit around the band - maths would involve problems like: 'The Hold Steady has to get from Portland to Vancouver for their next show, a distance of x miles; if gasoline is $1.69 a gallon, how much will they spend?' My favourite part was, while we were on tour, each kid would be assigned a tour-date destination to research, and on that date they'd have to get up and explain: 'Today, The Hold Steady is in Seattle, Washington. Seattle is known for coffee...', or whatever was the case. So we went there and we did a little acoustic show for them, and it was really overwhelming."

Very cool.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Kasim

Kaz is on tour this week and he and Doug have an entertaining video diary of the journey on YouTube

Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Hold Steady

My dedicated reader's favourite album of last year was Boys and Girls in America by The Hold Steady. The album gets its UK release next week and if there is any justice in this world it will be huge. 11 songs all about drugs - as far as I can make out - and sort of channelling early Springsteen and Southside Johnny into late 90s rock. And you know what, it works a treat. This is a wonderful album. Go buy it.