SANTA CRUZ, Calif. — Insufferable penny-pinching hipster Paul Sandor recently began the cost-cutting and dickhead-looking practice of rolling his own cigarettes, annoyed friends report.
“Not only is rolling your own so much cheaper, but it’s actually way healthier than commercially produced cigarettes. I honestly think you could give these fuckers to kids,” said Sandor, whose 2-week tenure as the primary mod on the r/RYO subreddit was marked with strife and dissension. “I just get a real rush from rolling my own smokes. I do it everywhere from dentist waiting rooms to tables at restaurants or funerals. And just this week, I perfected maintaining eye contact with someone while licking the paper during a backroll. It puts out a very fertile vibe.”
Friends of Sandor have expressed the desire to distance themselves from him until this fad passes.
“He always had some shitty DIY project going, but those failed hobbies didn’t leave him looking quite as much like a fuckwad as rolling his own does,” observed longtime friend Emily Yari, who saved even more money by quitting smoking entirely. “First, it was homemade limoncello which was gross and gave me an ulcer. Then he was building guitar distortion pedals, which barely worked. But those were much less embarrassing than having his tongue out licking paper or haphazardly pouring loose-leaf tobacco everywhere. Why am I friends with him, or anyone for that matter? Hell is other people, indeed.”
The Truth Campaign, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading awareness of the harm of tobacco usage, cautions smokers against the idea that hand-rolled cigarettes are healthier.
“I don’t know how much more gore and horrors you little shits need to see to stop smoking,” gasped an exhausted Rick Cartwright, longtime head of creative for Truth. “We basically ran ‘Faces of Death’ skits in commercial form for years, yet I still see people lighting up. Do you need to see another person exhaling smoke from their throat stomas to stop? No? Then what? Someone please fucking tell me. I have no friends, family, or hobbies other than this quest.”
Sources close to Sandor announced plans to cut off all contact entirely upon rumors that he was recently seen Googling “tobacco plant seeds.”
If Motion City Soundtrack albums were your extended family, then “Go” would be like your 4th or 5th cousin whose name you can never remember. Sure, they seem fine, but they’re definitely not as cool as your uncle that let you drink beer in the eighth grade. Maybe you’ll see them at a cookout every once in a while, but that’s about it. The problem with “Go” is that it’s just alright, which is absolutely terrible for a Motion City Soundtrack album. This record finds frontman and head songwriter, Justin Pierre, listless and shaky – qualities that usually bode well for an MCS release, but fall tragically flat here. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to be talking to you at the family reunion either. Songs that seem like they have the potential to become classics just burn up like your less cool uncle’s hot dogs. The result is a rather inedible plate that will have you wishing someone brought more of Pierre’s excellent side dishes like Farewell Continental to the table.
Fresh off the heels of an unimpeachable three album streak, Pierre decided he was fed up with making totally perfect albums with respectable artwork. Serving as Motion City’s major label debut, “My Dinosaur Life” ironically takes the bite out of their previous works. Producer Mark Hoppus decides on this record to answer the question: “What if Justin sang karaoke on top of what appears to be AI generated backing tracks based on the prompt ‘pop-punk’?” with markedly lifeless results. Granted, this was an incredible feat as AI prompts hadn’t been invented yet. Perhaps Tom DeLonge gave Hoppus access to his secret government lab before the sessions started. We may never know. This album would be alarmingly respectable for a lesser band, but failed to bring the edge Motion City Soundtrack had come to be known for at the time. Also, seriously, what is going on with this album cover?
A good friend of ours once told us that this album was surprisingly great. We said “Alright, Phil. We’ll give it a shot” and then proceeded to do the opposite of that for years. We’d already been burned by “Go” so how were we supposed to know that “Panic Stations” was actually a pretty decent offering? This one was recorded mostly live at Pachyderm Studios, where Nirvana famously cut “In Utero.” Consequently, the album displays a rawness not heard since the band’s debut. If you listen closely, you can actually hear Pierre and company attempting to impress the ghostly specter of Kurt Cobain, though our in-house medium tells us that he hasn’t gotten around to listening to it yet. “Panic Stations” is by no means without fault, although it will definitely make you feel like you’re back in your twenties for just under forty minutes until your knee starts acting up again. Sorry, we can’t really help with that. Maybe try a brace.
If you’re listening to this at work, try not to yell “oh, fuuuuuuuck yeah” within the literal first ten seconds of opening track “Fell In Love Without You,” unless you happen to have a really good breakthrough on your current project. Chances are that your boss will have questions and “Jesse Johnson’s synth riff fucking rips on this one, bro” will not suffice as an answer to any of them. Like its predecessor, “Commit This to Memory,” “Even If Kills Me” continues to punch you in the head with hit after hit long after you’ve already crumpled to the floor. That is, of course, until it gets to its unfortunate Ben Folds impression, “The Conversation.” It’s a solid song but it makes us cry in the wrong way. Don’t worry; the album jumps right back into the hits melee after, but damn… Could you have not saved the slow one for the closer, Pierre?
“I Am the Movie” finds Pierre pulling every influence he can think of out of his gigantic fucking hair and hurling them at the band with the force of an MLB pitcher. If you were to throw Fugazi, Superchunk, Pavement, and a few of your other favorite indie darlings into a blender, press the resulting goo onto wax, and then play it at 45 rpm instead of 33, you would get close to the frantic sound that makes up this record. Lead single, “The Future Freaks Me Out,” is such an absolute banger that even to this day, acrophobic Pierre still makes sure he can hit those brutal falsetto notes for adoring fans nationwide. No doubt this one rips, but Motion City Soundtrack was merely slamming down the marble they would use to sculpt their forthcoming masterwork.
This album is so goddamn perfect that the band has gone on at least a hundred tours for it. Speaking of, if you know anyone with an extra ticket for the 19-and-a-half year anniversary show coming up this fall, we could use it! In no particular order, here is what is featured on this album; breakup songs, love songs, anxiety songs, depression songs, slow songs, fast songs, mid-tempo songs, songs with cool drum features, songs where Justin does that cool falsetto thing, plenty of stops where Jesse can do that neat little handstand thing on his keyboard, Patrick Stump guest vocals, Mark Hoppus guest vocals AND production – the list goes on longer than Pierre’s list of things that make him nervous. All of these elements, of course, are wrapped up elegantly under the continuous and, at times, blatant theme of Pierre overcoming addiction and other personal demons. In an era predominated by literal party-rock anthems, he was able to find a way to make his personal journey to sobriety sound punk as fuck while simultaneously resonating with thousands upon thousands of fans who get blackout drunk at every anniversary show for the album.
Around the time the band was writing this album, they also recorded a couple of tracks for HBO’s hit fantasy series “Game of Thrones.” They were pretty good, especially when the guy from Snow Patrol did a cameo to sing one of them. Anyway, this album came out a few years later and has songs on it.
The first album to not include contributions from Franz Nicolay, a 19th-century toy soldier who came to life to play keyboards, “Heaven is Whenever” is noticeably more reliant on the diminishing quality of Tad Kubler’s guitar riffs. While it’s not terrible by any means, if someone says this is their favorite Hold Steady album, it’s time to make an excuse and stop the Tinder convo.
Pretty much every Hold Steady album is an excuse/reason for Craig Finn to write some short stories about drug-addled losers and set them to some kickass chug-rock. Now that everyone in the band is middle-aged, it’s more relatable than ever and even a bit boring. Just like all of us, really.
If a band can make it nearly 20 years before a brass section become a big part of their sound, it’s probably a good thing. This album is pretty full of horns, but not the worst thing they’ve ever done, so it’s quite a pleasant surprise. Call it the “Can’t Hardly Wait” exception.
Sometimes an iconic band will hit a second wind deep into their career and produce a classic, like the Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls” or Neil Young every couple of years or so. This is probably the closest the Hold Steady will get, full of weird sonic grooves and odd song structures that would have been unthinkable to the band 15 years earlier. Plus, Franz Nicolay is back, so there’s the pointy mustache factor.
A band’s debut album should be the template for their career and “Almost Killed Me” fucking rocks that shit. The album introduces many of the motifs Craig Finn would return to again and again, namely near-death experiences, the sad sweetness of getting wasted with people you don’t even really like, and a pair of scuzzballs named Halleluiah and Charlemagne. The band would soon perfect the formula, but it’s probably easier when it begins near-perfect.
Craig Finn has said “Stay Positive” is about aging gracefully, which shows how far back the band was preparing to become elder statesmen of indie rock. The album is the band just a moment past their creative zenith, which makes for some of the most fascinating music of their career and a great album to listen to while slamming a PBR.
The band’s only true concept album, “Separation Sunday” details the life of Halleluiah (Holly, to her friends) in elusive and evocative detail. While Holly is referenced through the discography of the band, their second album is a full, agonizing portrait of a young woman burdened by addiction and hard living, yet full of an inextinguishable radiance, set to the finest riffs they would ever produce. We’d make a joke, but we’re having too many feelings just thinking about it.
The Hold Steady broke out of the constraints of Springsteen anthems and Hüsker Dü attitude with this one, and we can only say “fuck yeah.” This is the kind of album that makes you feel like there’s a point to poetry, rock n’ roll can save your life, and maybe angels exist in a shitty bar at closing time. See? Listen to it enough, and you start talking like Craig Finn.