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Post by skepticatfirst on Jan 28, 2019 23:46:07 GMT -5
Just reread the whole thread, and notice that it was doctoracula (sorry!) who commented that Wait a While was "lazy." Yes also to Rattlesnake Gospel's observation about the male and female THS characters being equally flawed, and nevertheless having stories worth telling. We learn a lot from the flaws. (Jesse comes off a little more redeemable than the others, maybe.) Upthread orzelc mentioned Craig's regrets about the "advice songs"; there's an interesting version of this discussion in the Birmingham Weld, from 2017 ( link): That "just describe the situation" sounds a lot like Franz' "neutral narration of people's bad behavior"; it doesn't seem like a stretch to think he has Franz' criticism in mind here. If that's true, he's sliding pretty artfully around the paternalism angle. Not surprising from a master of ellipsis, but still. The soft insistence that his work needs to "translate" is interesting, too. Just a few more notes about Franz and his critcism: I just find the way he said it, at the time he said it, to be a little bit awkward. If you want to read Craig as a guy who writes condescending songs about women, there's plenty of stuff to pick out from Separation Sunday through Stay Positive as well. And those were songs Franz played on, co-wrote and (seemingly) happily sang along with for the good part of the decade. He could have spoke up in 2005, when Craig shouted "she got screwed up by religion/ she got screwed by soccer players" over Franz' piano lines, rather than take a cheap shot at Craig right after Teeth Dreams, I just read the full interview with Franz that you linked to, and now I'm thinking you might be right ... in context, it looks less like a failure to "get it," and more like a deliberate jab at Craig. It does also sound like he had a lot of pent-up frustration with the band that got sharper in the difficult years after he left (he talks in the article about "bands with a lot of melodrama involved," and reminds the interviewer that there were "people who thought keyboards ruined the band"; there was that stuff about Dave Gardner's theory of "Rock Eagle" and "the keyboards are the feathers" that sounded legitimately annoying, too). There's a lot of bitterness there. I'm glad things are going better for him now, or I hope they are.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 29, 2019 4:39:38 GMT -5
It does also sound like he had a lot of pent-up frustration with the band that got sharper in the difficult years after he left (he talks in the article about "bands with a lot of melodrama involved," and reminds the interviewer that there were "people who thought keyboards ruined the band"; there was that stuff about Dave Gardner's theory of "Rock Eagle" and "the keyboards are the feathers" that sounded legitimately annoying, too). There's a lot of bitterness there. I'm glad things are going better for him now, or I hope they are. What made me really certain that things were quite sour for a while was the way he talked about Bobby as "their designated Franz whisperer". That phrasing just contains so many things - and it refers to a situation in 2014, way after the break. I'm really glad they've found back together, and as I said earlier in the thread, I think the sound of the batch of new songs + what Craig says about Teeth Dreams "lacking pianio" can be read as a realization that Franz was a bit right. And to be clear/fair: I think Franz must have had his reasons for saying what he did the way he said it, and that his reasjons might as well be good too. I had forgot about that "feathers" thing, and I can easily see how that must have felt. And after hearing the These Miracles Work, the "one big idea" thing Franz got (unfairly, in my view) slammed for sounds even more like inner tensions in the band, and how other members felt the keys, and the attention they got, were in competition with the guitars, or a more guitar heavy sound. I guess I always heard Hold Steady as a really great guitar band with a lot of keys, but to a guitarist, especially one who plays guitar in the very same band I'm a passive listener too, that might feel different. I'm not trying to create any fuzz here, I just find it really, really interesting to backtrace how the band worked in the past, and work our how that influence the way the band functions today. And if the band didn't want us to talk about this stuff, I guess they hadn't opened up as much as they did in the podcast.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2019 2:19:25 GMT -5
Franz always felt like he came from a different world than the rest of THS. Like this Tom Waits, gypsey punk, Dresden Dolls, steampunk guy ended up in a straight laced bar band. But that tension was also something awesome! It added a whole new mix to the band! And, if I can get a bit pretentious, that’s part of the idea of the Unified Scene. That even if you are a terminal outsider, you can still join the party, still get accepted by the group and make kickass rock and roll. In terms of my subcultural background and personal influences, i’m closer to Franz than anyone else, I even ran into someone close to him on a nerd forum I was on, and one of my college classmates now plays in World/Inferno.
(I wrote all this and then realized Tom Waits and The Replacements actually recorded a song together, so the tension between the 2 styles is exaggerated)
Now clearly i’m exaggerating. I was tracking down Franz’ book on GoodReads and he wrote a short story based on a Replacements song, he’s clearly not as far musically from the rest of the guys as he might appear. But think that tension is important.
Plus the keys really add to the Springsteen feel.
I’m glad they’ve buried the hatchet enough to play together.
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Post by muzzleofbees on Jan 30, 2019 7:03:26 GMT -5
Franz always felt like he came from a different world than the rest of THS. Like this Tom Waits, gypsey punk, Dresden Dolls, steampunk guy ended up in a straight laced bar band. But that tension was also something awesome! It added a whole new mix to the band! And, if I can get a bit pretentious, that’s part of the idea of the Unified Scene. That even if you are a terminal outsider, you can still join the party, still get accepted by the group and make kickass rock and roll. In terms of my subcultural background and personal influences, i’m closer to Franz than anyone else, I even ran into someone close to him on a nerd forum I was on, and one of my college classmates now plays in World/Inferno. (I wrote all this and then realized Tom Waits and The Replacements actually recorded a song together, so the tension between the 2 styles is exaggerated) Now clearly i’m exaggerating. I was tracking down Franz’ book on GoodReads and he wrote a short story based on a Replacements song, he’s clearly not as far musically from the rest of the guys as he might appear. But think that tension is important. I totally agree! From the first time I saw photos of Hold Steady, and certainly after the first time I saw them live, I was deeply fascinated by Franz. He added so much to the band back then, obviously musically, but also... I don't know, culturally. And that slightly opportunistic thing he has about dressing down in posh venues, and dressing up at the shabbier venues, always appealed to me. And bringing the tension between (to simplify) Franz and the rest of the band into a talk about what Unified Scene is all about, isn't pretentious at all. It makes a great deal of sense. And, yeah, the musical gap isn't nescessarily so big. I remember hearing To Us The Beautiful and thinking he had taken big steps toward, not exactly a Hold Steady sound, but definitely something pretty close to classic rock. Always with some twists and left-turns, but pretty conventional.
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