A guest posting by Chaval
I’m too old for rock bands. That’s an (appropriately) bald statement but generally true. Those grand gesture, guitar-posing, pounding drum intro, crowd-pleasing singalong shows mostly leave me wishing I’d stayed at home with the LP instead.
So my relationship with all-American bar-band made good The Hold Steady is ambivalent. They have made some fabulous records, sensitive portrayals of losers, drugs, booze, sex and casualties in the Twin City conurbation where Minnesota abuts Wisconsin, with self-referential post-modern punk-goes-Springsteen soundtracks. Live though, it grates, a frat-boy crowd (the band calls their fans The Unified Scene, meh) bellowing along to a sound that loses its subtleties and lyrical insights, melds into bland roadhouse rawk.
Part of the problem is front man Craig Finn, who looks a little like the mid-point between George Costanza and Tony Soprano, an affable ironist who lacks the requisite Dionysian abandonment that characterises the most convincing rock stars.
He’s a great songwriter though. If the last few Hold Steady albums have been lacklustre, it may be because Finn’s creative skills have been diverted into a solo career that has headed off into more rarefied realms. He has a novelist’s eye for economic characterisation, a knack for gripping narratives, and the freedom to explore more interesting musical palettes. This ICA from his solo work might offer a few starting points.
Maggie I’ve Been Searching For Our Son
Taken from Finn’s second solo LP Faith In The Future, it’s an everyday American tale of a guy and his family getting lured into a messianic cult involving drugs, firearms and sex slaves, before the Feds bust it open. “A kid went to the movies with a gun” is a chilling, evocative line and a story ripped straight from the US’s brutal news tickers.
Taken from All These Perfect Crosses, a compilation of assorted demos and b-sides, this is a totally infectious romp through assorted injustices from local music scenes, romantic rejections, bad drugs and street violence, delivered by a guy with a “broken heart from 1989”.
From A Legacy Of Rentals from 2022, this is a jaunty account of a gamer kid looking for career opportunities and finding an opening in Buffalo’s lucrative but complicated narcotics retail industry. The bosses are generous with nicknames, less so when a fellow wants to branch out on his own . . .
Always Been, from 2025, is Finn’s finest album to date, a loose concept work about a disgraced preacher trying to put his life back together. This is the sort-of-overture, with the character lying low and reflecting on fatal mistakes and alternative possibilities, with just enough time for a guest guitar solo before the law catches up.
We All Want The Same Things from 2017 is a compelling collection of vignettes of (mostly) ordinary people trying to survive. There’s a glimmer of hope in here if you choose to look. Damaged divorced guy into wine hooks up in a mutually agreeable, not-too-deep way with a waitress who enjoys the finer things in life.
From Finn’s 2012 solo debut Clear Heart Full Eyes, the singer struggles with nihilism and despair, buoyed up by an unlikely support network of Jesus, Freddie Mercury and Johnny Rotten, and ends up with a sideswipe at a place called the Riverside Perkins, that sounds like it’s not exactly a gastropub.
The sort-of title track from We All Want The Same Things. Spoken word narratives (a la Willy Vlautin’s Richmond Fontaine) are a Finn forte. There are several strong candidates in that genre for inclusion here, but this might be the most devastating, tracing the familial fallout from a youthful dealer’s demise. It’s also an unlikely romantic ballad.
We All Want The Same Things is about how we all get by in different ways. So when a guy owes money to some dangerous sorts, rescue and refuge come in the form of widow Jamie and her apartment with a balcony and a giant TV. This probably isn’t going to end well, but for now it’s pretty pure.
The anti-hero confessional from Always Been, it’s one of those lovely intimate acoustic songs where you can hear the fingers sliding over the frets, like you are sitting three feet away, and the tasteful, discreet string section is lurking in the shadows. This gets better with every listen.
Hey, we’ve all done it: called in sick with a hangover and headed out to the multiplex with a half-bottle in the pocket. The sweet backing vocals on this Legacy of Rentals highlight really hammer home a woozy tale of a mildly desperate suburban existence of bar-rooms and bills and regrettable hook-ups.
chaval
JC adds…………………
Until picking these up via chaval’s superb ICA, I had just the one track by Craig Finn on the hard drive, and thought it might make for a nice bonus track today.
It’s from 2019 and is Craig’s contribution to Tiny Changes: A Celebration of Frightened Rabbit’s ‘The Midnight Organ Fight.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
This is an excellent over haul of an artist I rate very highly.
I was a Unified Scene Guy from the ground up (long sleeve scene kid #33 reporting for duty) but even I got too old. From my 30s to my mid 50’s THS were my favourite band. And Finn’s solo work is a great off ramp when the noise is too flat and the confetti too irritating.
Thanks to JC for running this today. Should mention that Craig Finn is playing a couple of UK dates this week, in Manchester and London, and is supporting The Mountain Goats on their European and UK tour in the autumn.
I’ve always preferred his solo records over the Hold Steady stuff. Especially the last 4 or 5 solo records. Though I did think the slightly rockier last album was nudging a little towards Hold Steady territory.
A mostly good selection, but there are a couple of others I’d say belong there.
Grant At Galena, Screenwriters School, Shamrock (it’s a bit infuriating that digital copies of his latest record include this great track but the vinyl copies don’t).
I’d give 90 Bucks an honourable mention. It’s good on record but excellent live.
I remember Honolulu Blues being his first solo single I heard. I’m still rather fond of it.
Maggie I’ve Been Searching, Tangle Town and Blankets I play a lot.
We All Want The Same Things is my favourite of his solo albums.
God In Chicago I’ve covered on SFTD
Excellent work, Chaval. I too rate his solo output far more than The Hold Steady (although I’m still a THS fan), and his solo albums usually feature highly in my year end lists. Saw him live a couple of years back too and it was a great night.
Outstanding. Seems like Finn picked up where Springsteen left off 40 years ago. Nice one, Chaval.
I’d missed the fact that Craig Finn has launched a solo career. Thanks for the heads-up. My favourites from the ICA are “Rescue Blue” and “A Break from the Barrage”. The latter puts me in a similarly relaxed mood as “Fake Empire” by The National. Or “Fallin’ Rain” by Karl Blau.
Terrific ICA, Chaval – like many on here I prefer CF’s solo output over THS for the same reasons most have given. He is one of my favourite writers and God in Chicago is just the most amazing, moving song, one I return to again and again. Like Honest Ed, I would suggest that Grant at Galena should have been worthy of a slot – I saw him perform it live at King Tut’s a few years back and it was so powerful live.
Grant at Galena is a great suggestion. (Maybe I was just a bit wary of fate-tempting by including a song with the refrain “I need a new war” in the current political climate . . . !)