This Is The New Stuff

I have a favourite new band, called The Hold Steady. It’s a mixture of Counting Crows, Black Crowes, Cheryl Crow and Status Quo, some lyrical Brian Wilson, all wrapped together with some early Bruce Springsteen.

I’ve heard Russel Crow’s band, called Thirty Odd Foot Of Grunts but I don’t cite them as an influence, even though they make me laugh, with lyrics like “I’m going down to Queensland…”

Down? Really? From where? Papua New Guinea?

Anyway, Springsteen with all the other Crowses, Quoses and God Only Knowses, it sounds too perfect right? Well, I heard Stuck Between Stations over the weekend and was blown away. First line is “There are nights when I think that Sal Paradise was right ” and they had me at “There are nights”.

There were blistering guitars in short bursts, piano holding it together, backing vocals and lyrics like “She said you’re pretty good with words, but words won’t save your life and they didn’t so he died.”

I love music – it wraps me up and sends me away. It makes me think things that make me think where the thoughts came from.

I used to go to the Albert Hall a lot to see the classical concerts of The Proms. Sometimes things I knew, like Mozart’s “Delate A Mouse”, but oftentimes new things, and from work I’d meet my dad and have a couple of pints around the corner before the show. (I’ve just realised the building is round, so it has no corners and that’s a joke I never used, but will every time from now on.)

Two other things about the Albert Hall: one is that it’s carpeted throughout. Not just the floors, but the walls, the seats, the trim of the bar – it’s a dark velour shagfest.

The other thing is that it’s hot. There are no windows and it’s a dome and in the popular summertime proms, it feels like it could gently lift off over Hyde Park. Add Mahler and a couple of beers to that and your mind’s in a place, like right before you drift off and you’re in that half waking state, floating along on the regrets and ideas of alpha waves but never setting down anchor.

Music makes you do things you can’t explain. Why can’t I listen to the end of Oliver’s Army without going “Oh-oh-oh-oh-oooooh, oh-oh-oh-oh”? Why did I kiss her? Oooh, or why didn’t I kiss her? An akward silence would have precipitated the move, instead of a cool song making me think that apathy was some kind of a statement.

At its best, music is like love. It can make you feel like whatever you are doing is the most important thing. Which, I guess, at that moment, it must be, but music makes you realise it.

Except that right now I’m listening to that song and writing this, which isn’t the most important thing. But you’re the best judge of that, and since this is where you’re spending your time at this very moment, then just maybe it is.

Tomorrow: Swearing-prone transatlantic blogger shares observations of mirth and woe with bittersweet outlook and pleasing turn of phrase

Plus: Conversations with cats and the importance of silly.