The Hold Steady keyboardist uses Tolstoy's theory of history to explain why he left

01/27/2010

The Hold Steady keyboardist uses Tolstoy's theory of history to explain why he left

Nicolay illustrated things with a fairly confusing zoo creature analogy: "In the Hold Steady, I was kind of a fox in a hedgehog band. The Isaiah Berlin thing about the hedgehogs who have one defining idea and the foxes who have a lot of different ideas. So this is going to let me indulge a lot of those different ideas."

via pitchfork.com

I've often thought of rock bands in this way, although I always expressed it as there are some bands who write the same song over and over ("but it's a really good song" as Peter Buck once said of AC/DC") and those who dip into many different styles.

The Rolling Stones would be an example of the former, the Beatles the latter. Both bands went through stages where they tried to be the other kind (the Stones at various points in the 70s and early 80s, the Beatles earlier in their career) but they had the most success when they were true to their essential natures.

Jan 27, 2010 3:38:11 PM

The comments to this entry are closed.

Does the iPad include iTunes DJ? Music player is a hybrid between iPhone and regular iTunes. via www.macrumors.com The make or break iPad feature for me is whether the version of iTunes that the iPad runs includes the "itunes DJ" feature or something comparable. I want something where I can hang out with a group of people and assemble a playlist on the fly, but where it's not as awkward and inconvenient as using a laptop. Edit: also, it would need to support AirTunes to do what I want. The iPhone doesn't, which has always annoyed me. It can function as a remote to iTunes, but...

I always knew Pandora reminded me of something Entertainment Weekly asked director James Cameron whether he got his idea for the floating mountains from a Yes cover, and he laughed. "It might have been... Back in my pot-smoking days." via io9.com but I couldn't think of what it was. Now I know, a progressive-rock album cover from the 1970s. (via the AVATAR TypePad community, which you should join, of course, if you haven't already.)