Friday, January 26, 2007

References the The Hold Steady has not made and which, in retrospect, Flop finds surprising to some degree

A small part of my admiration for The Hold Steady stems from the realization that Craig Finn and I share the same dorky love of specific place names. I'm pretty sure Finn would never pen a short story or a novel which included places like Haddam, N.J.; East Egg, N.Y.; or St. Jude, Mo. I don't think I would either. Although I've seen it denigrated by snotty reviewers, I think all the references to specific places, people and things add to the Hold Steady's overall bitchin'-ness.

As such, I present a list of future proper nouns I would not be at all startled by if they were to appear somewhere in The Hold Steady oeuvre.

1. Kirby Puckett
2. Garrison Kiellor
3. The Little Brown Jug*
4. Spoonbridge and Cherry
5. The Miracle on Ice
6. Northwest Orient
7. Prince
8. Gump Worsley

Not receiving votes: Fred Smoot, Andrei Zyuzin, 3M, Land O' Lakes, Nicollet Mall, those glassed-in bridges between buildings in downtown, Asad Abdul-Khaliq, Mall of America, the merger between the Cleveland Barons and Minnesota North Stars, Brett Hull, Gordon Lundegaard.

* Not that Minneapolitans would ever have really had any reason to know what this is.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

These posts about music are a refreshing vacation from all those posts about dumbassness.

Anonymous said...

In re the "not receiving votes" list, I have to disagree with one of them (no, it's not Fred Smoot...if it were, I would have said "I have to disagree with two of them," wouldn't I?).

It would not surprise me in the slightest if a future Hold Steady song mentioned "those glassed-in bridges between buildings in downtown," since among Finn's avowed influence is Minneapolis legend Paul Westerberg. As such, I could see him referencing the Replacements' song "Skyway" at some point (I dunno, one of Charlemagne's drug deals or Holly and Gideon hooking up in public are viewed from the vantage point of the skyway...)

Personally, I'm hoping that at some point he references Paul Westerberg referencing Alex Chilton.

Anonymous said...

Curl girls?

Anonymous said...

For me even more so, voidoid. I'm the one who lives the life of a dumbass every day.

copyranter said...

Long Live The GUMP...
(go Habs!!!)

Anonymous said...

You underestimate any Minnesotian's ability to know what the Little Brown Jug is - and those glass enclosed walkways between buildings are skyways. The Replacements did a nice song about them called "Skyway".