staying posi for the holidays…

It’s remarkably easy to become one of those people who think about the Hold Steady all the time. It’s even easier not to realize you’re thinking about the Hold Steady all the time.

I came across this lovely little piece in the Independent this morning whilst the final notes of “Slapped Actress” made their way across my aural spectrum, and it’s inspiring in all the generally predictable Craig-Finn-interview kinds of ways.

One thing that really struck me about it, though, was the way in which he pinpoints seeing The Last Waltz as a moment that changed his line of thinking about music. I’ve always maintained that those kinds of moments are exactly what rock and roll is meant to be about – in a sense, we’re floating in a world of billions of songs just trying to strike that exact feeling. It’s kind of fun to wonder what revelatory moments of our own we would be without if someone else hadn’t had one first. Would there be a Hold Steady without that viewing of “The Last Waltz”?

Probably, but would it be the same band with the same ideas and the same faith? Not exactly. Would they be able to fully recreate what it meant for me to discover Stay Positive in summer 2008, broke and broken-up-with and trying to remember if there still existed a hopeful artist in me somewhere?

Maybe. Probably. I’m just glad I’ll never have to find out.

~ by 365holdsteady on December 17, 2008.