Hahahaha Hold Steady Hold Steady Hold Steady

Okay look I had this crazy idea a while back.

See, on The Hold Steady's website lyrics page they have a section labeled "miscellaneous." There are five songs there, and I had located two, "Hot Fries" and "Curves & Nerves."

And one day last semester I thought, I need to find these other three songs. BUT HOW?

I e-mailed Tad Kubler, one of the guys in the band, and he told me the easiest way was iTunes.

"ITUNES?!?!?" I bellowed. "Tad, you dense fuck, I don't have iTunes!! That's not easy at all! FUCK, MAN!!!!" That was my reaction.

Now jump ahead to yesterday, when I asked Teresa to look on her version of iTunes for those three songs ("You Gotta Dance (with Who You Came to the Dance With)," "Milkcrate Mosh," and "Modesto Is not that Sweet"). I really wanted "Milkcrate Mosh," because of the hilarity of the lyrics online. How could you not love the charming closing couplet, "Went down in the Denver slums and woke up in the Sugar Mountain Pines / Only to find that what you put into your mouth always gets into your mind"?

That one wasn't on iTunes, but "You Gotta Dance" and "Modesto" were. And so was a little number from the Boys and Girls in America recording called "Girls Like Status." So we bought them all, $3 total, there we go.

Holy hell. Hold Steady rocks hard. If they had put "Girls Like Status" on Boys and Girls, I swear I would have given it an A. What did I give it, anyway? I would have given it something higher. It's so fucking cool.

And "You Gotta Dance" is really ballsy. It's maybe their most intense, straight-rocking song, passing up "Cattle and the Creeping Things" or "Same Kooks" for that title. It's older, I think. I'm pretty sure it was a B-side on the album Almost Killed Me. It's a great song, though.

"Modesto" is lame. It's slow and nondescript and you want it to be over. Sadly, once in a while Hold Steady forgets their own power and fails to rock. That's okay.

So if you have iTunes, lay down a couple dollars for "You Gotta Dance (with Who You Came to the Dance With)" and "Girls Like Status." Totally worth it.

In the meantime today T and I did little. We went to Target, she got a watch. Our dishwasher doesn't work so well. It batted about .300 on the dishes we put in there today. So I got to hand-wash them, which sounds like backhanded sarcastic bitching, but I actually like washing dishes. Tomorrow we explore the Denver bus system. We're going to ride it to my school and hers, and probably get lost somewhere in there.

Take care now.

Love,

Steve