Yes, Brooklyn’s preeminent bar rockers just got one mustache lighter. The keyboardist/accordionist/backup vocalist explains his departure at franznicolay.com. Stay positive.
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This is hard news to stomach. Ever since he joined the band from Separation Sunday and out, it seemed like he gave The Hold Steady that extra something it needed in their music that made them sound great.
He left because 5 was a nice number of years to be in a band? What a crappy reason. Now my Hold Steady shirt with a mustache on it means NOTHING!
i sat next to him at a bar in Minneapolis about a month ago. He had like a 25 dollar tab and tipped 2 bucks. that is all.
Excellent. The piano/keyboards have been ruining Springsteen for 35 years, and Hold Steady were heading down the same road.
…No, I’m not joking. I don’t like piano in my American meat-and-potatoes barband rock. It makes it sound like Billy Joel when he’s trying, and failing, to rock.
Really? So what do you gather plays during “Thunder Road” if the pianos aren’t there? The Boss just sings about himself?
What an ignorant statement
*by himself
Oh well. At least bar fans rock still have The Roadside Graves
“Excellent. The piano/keyboards have been ruining Springsteen for 35 years, and Hold Steady were heading down the same road.”
Really? Take the piano out of “Stuck Between Stations” and the song goes flat as hell.
If you want to talk about something ruining Springsteen music, it’s that god-forsaken saxophone. The saxophone has no place in rock music.
I stand by my statement – Springsteen’s music would be improved if it were guitar-bass-drums only. Piano says ‘nice’ to me, like it’s trying to class up the song, and Springsteen’s voice is not nice and classy – it’s gruff and it’s hands are dry and cracked and grimy from working all day.
I’m not against piano every once in a while (like the sax), but as a permanent part of every song, I just don’t feel it works. Same goes for Hold Steady for the most part; for me, “Stuck Between Stations” would be the same with or without the piano. Great song. Piano can’t change that.
Example: Gaslight Anthem = essentially what I always wished Springsteen sounded like, just their lyrics aren’t quite as good yet.
Piano used best: Stooges (the one note banging approach) and Wu-Tang’s 36 Chambers
The Piano and the Sax are some of the most important elements in Springsteen’s music, in the first 3 albums especially – can you imagine “Incident on 57th Street”, “Thunder Road” or “Jungleland” without the piano, or “Spirit In The Night”, “E Street Shuffle” or agian “Jungleland” without the soulful Saxaphone? Springsteen never really was a “meat-and-potatoes” American rocker – he came from the Jersey Shore R&B, Top 40 pop mentality, and of course was heavily influenced by Dylan and Van Morrison. The “meat-and-potatoes” American rockers are really watered-down versions of Springsteen, whose musical sensibility has never been sacrificed because of what people think he should be. Mark of a true artist.
The Hold Steady was much better early on, before they were trying to be the E-Street Band.
But to those dismayed, it’s not like they’re not going to replace him; generic ham-fisted piano riffers are a dime a dozen, and you probably won’t even notice he’s gone next album.
He had kind of a cool stage presence, but that’s about it.
@ Raz: What’s really funny is that the “bar band” atmosphere you’re looking for from E Street/THS *by definition* includes piano, since the piano used to be a normal piece of furniture in most bars.