Hold Steady now... new music is on the way

The Hold Steady return with more gut-wrenching, hope-inspiring, Springsteen-flavored, uber-poetic rock and roll, as the entire new album Heaven Is Whenever streams on NPR.

(With thanks to DV alumna Julia Skochko for the tip.)

Best Of 2008

As the holidays close in, the Daily Vault is proud to present our annual cavalcade of Best Of 2008 columns, this year featuring entries from six writers (and counting...). Jeff Clutterbuck, Melanie Love, Sean McCarthy, Kenny S. McGuane, Mark Millan and yours truly have all chipped in to highlight the highlights from Bon Iver to Bruce Springsteen, Neil Diamond to Nine Inch Nails, The Hold Steady to Nick Cave and those Bad Seeds of his. Even Guns N' Roses merited a mention -- but then, these aren't exactly your conventional awards we're handing out here...

Thursday Roundup: Sly Stone, The Kinks, The Hold Steady

Items three to you from me:

• Sly Stone is a musical icon, one of the truly towering figures in the history of soul music. Sly Stone is also a man... a very troubled, erratic and possibly unbalanced man. For more on the Sly one's latest concert debacle, check this account.
  
  
• Joining the recent flurry of reunion rumors are The Kinks, the original British brothers-and-bandmates-who-frequently-can't-stand-one-another-but-make-amazing-music-together. Brother Ray Davies reports that brother Dave has recovered sufficiently from a 2004 stroke for recording and touring to become a real possibility again. Stay tuned...
  
  
• Finally, one of this writer's favorite bands of the moment, The Hold Steady, earned a nice writeup the other day on MSNBC.com.