Engaged couple Kristen Tiffington and Curtiss Ian announced today that their June 2013 wedding is in jeopardy due to ongoing conflicts regarding the music that will be used to commemorate their special day.
Ian, a 30 year-old maintenance supervisor and self-proclaimed “indie snob, but in a good way” says the high point of his life occurred when a drunken concert-goer recently mistook him for Hold Steady singer Craig Finn. Ian is rather blunt in his assessment of the ongoing conflict. “Chick’s taste in music sucks. Girly doesn’t know the difference between Tom Waits and Tom Hanks. She thinks Mission of Burma was a 1950s Russian space expedition and that Radiohead stole their ideas from Coldplay, for chrissakes.”
Tiffington, a 27 year-old investments analyst who describes herself as a “pop music princess” and is clearly marrying down, is still optimistic the matter can be resolved by the rapidly approaching wedding date, which is a scant five years away. “Right now Curtiss and I are not aligned in terms of the music that will be utilized, vis a vis our musical preferences. However, I’m confident we can reach a mutual agreement without me having to withhold certain favors from him,” Tiffington stated with a wry grin.
As the wedding planning got underway, it was agreed that each would create a list of the top 25 songs they wanted played at the reception.
“I picked upbeat, fun, danceable music, and I expected Curtiss to do the same,” Tiffington explained, her eyes misting with tears of disappointment. “I came up with enough 1990s sugar pop tunes to keep everyone dancing like the Funky Bunch. And of course the ‘Macarena.’ No reception is complete without that one.”
Yet the end results revealed that the couple’s diametrically opposite musical tastes were far greater than the blushing bride originally thought. “Was I bothered by his choices?” Tiffington asked rhetorically. “No. I was horrified and emotionally disturbed. The mixture of depressing, atonal, and patently unlistenable squawking crap he came up with I can’t even give a name. It’s a wedding, not some Emo weep fest.”
Ian is quick to defend his choices, however. “A wedding is more than just a celebration of life, eternal love, new beginnings, and all that crap,” he explained. “It’s also the perfect opportunity to foist my musical preferences on unsuspecting relatives.”
To this end, Ian compiled an eclectic collection of music that only a marginal number of wedding guests are likely to enjoy. “I want my wedding to have a certain vibe to it; sure it’s flowers and roses and obnoxiously drunken distant uncles. But it’s about more than that. If I convert just one person to a love of My Bloody Valentine or Jawbox while ruining the experience for everyone else, it will be totally worth it.”
Yet his future wife isn’t budging. “I’ve vetoed every one of his choices. I could have brained him when he suggested our first dance be to “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” This is a wedding; the music’s meant to be fun and frivolous in a light, airy, Electric Slide kinda way. His bizarre musical obsessions are out.”
Ian’s musical tastes might not be the only thing that’s out. The couple does agree on one thing: if they don’t get this resolved soon, the wedding might very well have to be postponed again. “Five years is barely enough time to plan a vacation, let alone a wedding,” Tiffington lamented, with Ian eagerly nodding his head and smiling widely in agreement.
Showing posts with label Craig Finn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Craig Finn. Show all posts
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Music Review: The Hold Steady - Stay Positive
The Hold Steady’s previous album, Boys and Girls in America, was an exhilarating, emotional, and occasionally sobering mix of songs about drinking, drugs, and other wholesome activities. Its characters seemed to enjoy getting their kicks and fixes in the moment, but remained acutely aware that the morning after wouldn’t be so sweet. Its most obvious influences were impeccable – a holy triumvirate of the Replacements, Husker Du, and E-Street Band-era Bruce Springsteen came to mind for various reviewers – yet the album somehow managed to incorporate those influences without sounding like a cheap knockoff.
The band’s latest album, Stay Positive, wears these influences with pride once again, perhaps a little too much so for some fans and critics. Still, it’s not accurate to dismiss the band’s latest effort as unoriginal or blandly derivative. Despite what one witty critic recently wrote, lead singer Craig Finn isn’t the offspring of Springsteen and Bob Mould. The band brings an organic, traditional rock sound, free of needless background music and manufactured noise, and an intensity to both their albums and live performances that do separate them from the glut of indie bands.
Stay Positive is a good album, even if it doesn’t quite match up to either Boys and Girls or their earlier album Separation Sunday. The songs vary from aggressive, pseudo-macho anthems (macho for indie standards, at least) like “Constructive Summer” and “Sequestered in Memphis,” to ballads like “Lord, I’m Discouraged.”
Although the vocals are a bit more restrained and the instrumentation a tad more polished, Finn still talk-sings in his distinctive voice and the band still makes a decent amount of racket. In an album setting, the band clearly knows how they want their music to sound; it’s textured and layered without being oversaturated or suffering from a cold production.
The songs explore many of the same themes as Boys and Girls and Separation Sunday. Like those two albums, Finn’s characters still invariably always seem to be getting older at breakneck speed, aided by drugs, booze, horizontal tangos, or the various other temptations of the late-night scene. These are songs where the characters could either be heading for redemption or disaster, or maybe both. There’s a fair amount of boredom and restlessness here, with little hint of resolution or positive endings.
Death guest stars on many of the songs. The clear Springsteen conceit aside, Finn’s cynical summation of “work at the mill and then you die” in “Constructive Summer” sets the tone for the much of the album. “Lord, I’m Discouraged” is damn bleak, with the narrator admitting “I mostly just pray she don’t die.” “Both Crosses,” so heavy on the religious imagery you might think you’re back in PSR, ranks among the darkest songs Finn has written. On top of a sparse musical arrangement, Finn sings “I’ve been mostly dying, and I’ve been mostly coughing, and I’ve been mostly crying.”
There are a few subtle shifts though. Whereas the band’s two previous albums explored drug and alcohol-fueled lives and the inevitable after-effects, some of the songs on Stay Positive find people simply struggling to come to terms with getting older, no chemical assistance required.
The title song (if you’re in a particularly bad mood, this song might set you off like Michael Douglass in Falling Down) finds the narrator increasingly tiring of wild nights. In “Joke About Jamaica,” a woman finds herself noticing that “the boys are getting younger and the bands are getting louder.” Longtime Hold Steady geeks will also notice that recurring characters Holly, Charlemagne, and Gideon don’t make any explicit appearances on the album. If any of the songs are about them, Finn’s not giving it away.
Stay Positive isn’t exactly The Hold Steady treading water, but it’s certainly not a major step forward musically either. In many ways it sounds like we’ve heard this before, or at least parts of it. Still, there are some noticeable shifts, even if it won’t stop the detractors from focusing on the band’s sometimes too-obvious influences.
The band’s latest album, Stay Positive, wears these influences with pride once again, perhaps a little too much so for some fans and critics. Still, it’s not accurate to dismiss the band’s latest effort as unoriginal or blandly derivative. Despite what one witty critic recently wrote, lead singer Craig Finn isn’t the offspring of Springsteen and Bob Mould. The band brings an organic, traditional rock sound, free of needless background music and manufactured noise, and an intensity to both their albums and live performances that do separate them from the glut of indie bands.
Stay Positive is a good album, even if it doesn’t quite match up to either Boys and Girls or their earlier album Separation Sunday. The songs vary from aggressive, pseudo-macho anthems (macho for indie standards, at least) like “Constructive Summer” and “Sequestered in Memphis,” to ballads like “Lord, I’m Discouraged.”
Although the vocals are a bit more restrained and the instrumentation a tad more polished, Finn still talk-sings in his distinctive voice and the band still makes a decent amount of racket. In an album setting, the band clearly knows how they want their music to sound; it’s textured and layered without being oversaturated or suffering from a cold production.
The songs explore many of the same themes as Boys and Girls and Separation Sunday. Like those two albums, Finn’s characters still invariably always seem to be getting older at breakneck speed, aided by drugs, booze, horizontal tangos, or the various other temptations of the late-night scene. These are songs where the characters could either be heading for redemption or disaster, or maybe both. There’s a fair amount of boredom and restlessness here, with little hint of resolution or positive endings.
Death guest stars on many of the songs. The clear Springsteen conceit aside, Finn’s cynical summation of “work at the mill and then you die” in “Constructive Summer” sets the tone for the much of the album. “Lord, I’m Discouraged” is damn bleak, with the narrator admitting “I mostly just pray she don’t die.” “Both Crosses,” so heavy on the religious imagery you might think you’re back in PSR, ranks among the darkest songs Finn has written. On top of a sparse musical arrangement, Finn sings “I’ve been mostly dying, and I’ve been mostly coughing, and I’ve been mostly crying.”
There are a few subtle shifts though. Whereas the band’s two previous albums explored drug and alcohol-fueled lives and the inevitable after-effects, some of the songs on Stay Positive find people simply struggling to come to terms with getting older, no chemical assistance required.
The title song (if you’re in a particularly bad mood, this song might set you off like Michael Douglass in Falling Down) finds the narrator increasingly tiring of wild nights. In “Joke About Jamaica,” a woman finds herself noticing that “the boys are getting younger and the bands are getting louder.” Longtime Hold Steady geeks will also notice that recurring characters Holly, Charlemagne, and Gideon don’t make any explicit appearances on the album. If any of the songs are about them, Finn’s not giving it away.
Stay Positive isn’t exactly The Hold Steady treading water, but it’s certainly not a major step forward musically either. In many ways it sounds like we’ve heard this before, or at least parts of it. Still, there are some noticeable shifts, even if it won’t stop the detractors from focusing on the band’s sometimes too-obvious influences.
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