Stephen and The Hold Steady

Stephen "working" at Hotel Frederick, 08-17-07

Stephen Perry was one of the first faces I saw after settling into my first town on this trip. Stephen works at the desk at the Hotel Frederick, where I have been staying in random spurts while in Boonville, Missouri. Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending a few hours with him at his place here in Boonville. Although he will likely not admit being a singer/songwriter, he is a very talented lyricist and guitar player. Stephen played me a very personal and haunting song while I was with him yesterday. I spent about an hour looking through his books and listening to him play. I then spent about 20 minutes taking his portrait; It doesn't take much longer then that when you have a willing subject that expels so much passion and emotion.


The Hold Steady - Your Little Hoodrat Friend

Last night I went by the hotel to give Stephen a copy of the first The Hold Steady album: Almost Killed Me. Almost Killed Me and their second album, Separation Sunday, have been in my CD player about 95% of the time on this trip. I've been a fan of these guys since Laura put the above song on a mix for me in 2005, but it wasn't until I hit the road in July that I truly got immersed into their world. Their new album, Boys and Girls in America, is amazing; But if your looking to truly understand this band and if you can deal with Craig Finn's sing-speak lyrics, then the first two are the way to go. These two albums and even the new one are truly amazing, very personal and they hit right at home for a kid who grew up in a semi-small, mid-west town. These lyrically-poetic and almost psychologically-damaging stories are especially potent to me now, as I am currently sitting in another semi-small, mid-west town, except now it's nine years later. The below paragraph is taken from a 2005 review by Pitchfork Magazine:

"In Separation Sunday, a confused Catholic girl named Hallelujah hooks up with a motley assortment of shady characters, does a gang of drugs, gets born again when some guy with a nitrous tank dunks her in a river, wakes up in a confession booth, and maybe dies and maybe comes back from death. But the real story is in Finn's virtuoso evocations of menace ("When they say great white sharks/ They mean the kind in big black cars/ When they say killer whales/ They mean they whaled on him till they killed him up in Penetration Park"), hedonism ("You came into the ER drinking gin from a jam jar/ And the nurse is making jokes about the ER being like an after-bar")"

"...he uses his adenoidal rasp to blurt twisted, dense shards of squalid back-alley imagery and bruised druggy lamentations, broken teeth and broken bottles, and tattered hotel-room Bibles and hidden knives..."

For some reason I thought Stephen would not only appreciate this stuff but maybe it would even be a bit inspiring...It has definitely affected me over the last four weeks...enjoy the video.