Here Be Drags

I've never heard this song. I really like the Hold Steady. I lost track with them a little bit. It's too hard to keep track of music. Even music I already know and love. Some of my friends do an admirable job of keeping up. It is so easy to slip. They planted a flag in the dirt and stood by it, and rode dirt flag all the way to the bank. I like that, and I like that the hill they chose to die on was one that has absolutely no relation to the popular bands of the day. Craig Finn and his boys basically got super rich doing an approximation of a Bruce Springsteen who forgoes the pathos of the working man and pickets with the low-lifes and excellent scumbags and the dudes and ladies on the margins. I know pretty much anyone reading this probably knows who the Hold Steady are. They just popped up on iTunes. That's a good thing.

My bold declaration is thus: They make me proud I am a human, and that I have ears to hear, and that I was lucky enough to hear "Hostile, Mass" when I did, so I could follow them the whole way. Of all the paths this is one that seems the most deservedly emulated. Done the right way. The difference between the Memphis Grizzlies and the Miami Heat (something to be discussed soon). Decency and warmth and intent and delivery and lift-off like you wouldn't believe.

ALMOST KILLED ME indeed.