Helped marshall the vaunted Chicago sound including Naked Raygun, Big Black and Effigies.

By Fred Mills

Anybody who was on the indie scene during the ‘80s owns a record or two by hard-hitting postpunk bands from Chicago like Big Black, Naked Raygun, the Effigies and Pegboy. One man who had a major behind-the-scenes hand in records by those artists and more was UK-born Iain Burgess, whose engineering and production credits can be found over and over.

Word began getting out over the weekend that Burgess died last Thursday, Feb. 11, in France, where he'd relocated in 1993 to operate his own studio, Black Box. The cause of death, according to the Chicago Reader, was from a pulmonary embolism "a complication of the pancreatic and liver cancers he'd recently been diagnosed with."

Burgess also worked with the Didjits, Poser Children, Bloodsport, Ministry, the Defoliants, Heavy Manners, the Cows, Breaking Circus, Jawbox and others during his tenure here in the States.

Big Black/Shellac frontman and fellow studio maven Steve Albini posted a lengthy remembrance to the Electrical Audio message board on Saturday, writing, in part, "Iain did basically everything he wanted to. He made all the records, rocked all the houses, loved all the women and traveled everywhere until he settled down on a beautiful spot and made it more beautiful. He made records better than the bands on them for almost nothing. He drank wine and ate and laughed and talked loud and was loved. I suspect that Iain knew what an impact he had on everyone he worked with, and I hope he allowed himself to be content on the way out."

Read Albini's full post, as it's both revealing and remarkably sentimental in Albini's own unvarnished, straightforward manner; go here to read the entire Electrical Audio thread about Burgess, which includes a number of posts from people who obviously knew and cared about Burgess a lot.

Mark your calendars for March 23, when the album presumably will unrobe.

By Fred Mills

Is there going to be a new Bonnie ‘Prince' Billy album dropping on March 23? Will Oldham's label, Drag City, ain't saying for sure. But with a couple of cryptic videos making the internet rounds - see below - it appears that an album titled The Wonder Show of the World, by BPB and The Cairo Gang, is en route. Check out the videos, which are actually nearly identical - the first one references the UK release date, via Domino, while the second one would correspond with Drag City's American date. (Thanks to Pitchfork for the tip.)

That's quite an ass, by the way. Can we have her/his name for future modeling prospects?

"A national treasure": Brian Wilson's favorite lyricist turns the Swedish American Hall into an intimate room on Feb. 12. Opening for the bard: Clare & the Reasons.

By Jud Cost

Van Dyke Parks sneaked into San Francisco Friday night with little fanfare for a rare live performance and still managed to fill every folding chair in the cozy Swedish American Hall (capacity 225) with devotees of his delightfully off-kilter brand of Americana. As the mushroom-shaped lights dimmed overhead in this musty, unheated room-whose ornate, carved-wood filigree made it seem more Old World Lutheran parish hall than rock venue-the rotund, avuncular Parks plopped himself down in front of a baby grand piano and began thumbing through a large stack of sheet music.

Accompanied by cello, electric bass and the fine violin of Olivier Manchon from tonight's opening act, Brooklyn-based French popsters Clare & the Reasons, this was to be a thoroughly orchestrated evening of twinkling gems from the man best known as Brian Wilson's lyrical foil for the Beach Boys' long-lost, recently reconstituted, 1967 masterpiece, Smile. "Old age and treachery can sometimes overcome youth and ability," twinkled Parks in the direction of his babyfaced backing trio as he prefaced his magical "codger-rock" selections with rambling commentary, much of it muttered off-mic like the old man rummaging through dusty shoeboxes of memorabilia in Samuel Beckett's 1958 play Krapp's Last Tape.

At one point in the late '60s, Parks and fellow Los Angeles tunesmith Randy Newman were marketed as the brave young future of rock music by Warner Bros. records. And so they were, to some extent, although both began as word-of-mouth cult faves rather than instant pop phenoms. I once told Newman, now an Oscar-winning soundtrack composer, that his music sounded like its melodies came from Stephen Foster with lyrics by Lenny Bruce. "That sounds about right, as long as you don't get the batting order reversed," Newman laughed. But how to describe the unique oeuvre of Van Dyke Parks? That he's done to pop music what Stephen Sondheim would soon do to the Broadway musical via the jarring tonalities of Sweeny Todd and Into The Woods?

Oddly enough, both Newman and Parks have written tunes called "Sail Away." While Newman's is an ironic description of a 19th century slave trader urging native Africans to join him on a great adventure ("In America every man is free/To take care of his home and his family/You'll be as happy as a monkey in a monkey tree"), Parks' song is more ethereal with echoes of "Surf's Up," the brilliant work he co-wrote with Wilson, originally intended for Smile. "Oh island in the sun/What I don't know won't hurt me none/When it's all said and done...That perfect host in harmony/We'll raise a toast to what's left of my memory/When will my ship come in?"

Parks dedicated "Orange Crate Art," the title-song of a 1995 album he shared with Wilson, to the "dust bowl" California migration of the Okies during the Great Depression of the 1930s, perfectly detailed in John Steinbecks' masterpiece, The Grapes Of Wrath. "It's ridiculous to think the poor will always be with us," said Parks before he played the  tune that details the colorful paintings stickered on the ends of wooden orange boxes. Parks also chuckled that his recent conversion to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal recovery program had coincided with receiving his first Social Security check.

Though Parks pokes fun at himself-"musical curiosity: boundless, abilities: marginal," he describes his skills behind the 88-it's clear he has the chops of a concert pianist. When added to a singing voice that sometimes sounds like it should be coming through a megaphone, a la crooners from the 1920s, it's an irresistible force that welcomes you on board that never-ending bus ride, best described on "America" by Paul Simon ("They've all come to look for America"). With every song Van Dyke Parks peels off the stack of charts before him, it's more apparent he's as much a national treasure as the things he describes in his haunting, evocative melodies. 

In the pantheon of gifts that just keep giving, this one is near the top.

By Perez Mills

As Paul McCartney once put it so eloquently, some people wanna fill the world with silly love songs - and what's wrong with that?

As lovebirds across America settle in for a fun day of snugglin' ‘n' snoggin' we present to you our favorite silly love song: "Drink, Fight and Fuck" (aka "DF&F") by late singer-songwriter GG Allin. Hailing from Allin's 1987's classic Hated in the Nation, the tune's got all the dramatic components (and action verbs!) that power a compelling love song's narrative. There's drama and implied tragedy, plus an undercurrent of redemption for the protagonist after he's gone through fire (the drinking part, followed by the fighting interlude) during the first part of the song, only to wind up with the proverbial happy ending (the fucking part).

It really gets to the heart of what Valentine's Day is all about, which is sharing some quality time with your sweetie. And the fact that the legendary scum-rocker died of an overdose in a squalid NYC apartment just makes the tune all the more poignant - clearly, this was a man with demons, yet he wasn't afraid to open himself up for the world to see.

Sing along, won't you?

"Drink, Fight and Fuck"

We like to drink and party hard
We're not afraid to fight, we're not afraid of die
We like to fuck, any girl will do
We're not ashamed of the things we do
Drink, fight and fuck
Drink, fight and fuck
Give me a bottle, Jack Daniels will do
Stay out of my way I'm gonna flatten you
Give me a girl, I don't care who
'Cause drink, fight and fuck is what I'm gonna do
Drink, fight and fuck
Drink, fight and fuck
Drink, fight and fuck
Drink, fight and fuck
We like to drink and party hard
We're not afraid to fight, and we're not afraid of die
We like to fuck, just any girl will do
We're not ashamed of the things that we do
Drink, fight and fuck
Drink, fight and fuck

Test driving new material and breaking in a new member, the band showed off its stuff on February 1 and 8 at the Middle East Upstairs venue.

By Wyndham Lewis

The Delta Spirit is one of those bands that seeps into your consciousness. Their debut release Ode To Sunshine arrived in early fall 2007 to universally steady reviews, yet by the time the year-end best of lists were written, there they were again and again.

Given the reception of the previous release and high profile opening gigs for the Shins and others, it was surprising to find the Southern California band playing Upstairs at the Middle East in Cambridge (cap. 194) on consecutive Mondays in February. But this tour, a two week circuit of Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore and DC, was primarily used to test drive new songs and touring guitarist Dave Quon (We Barbarians) prior to hitting SXSW.

The February 1 show in Cambridge was Quon's first with the band and if there were any kinks or jitters, they were well hidden from the sold out audience. Dressed casually, the five members established a playful vibe mixing 'Children' and 'Strange Vine' from 'Ode' with the new tunes 'Bushwick Blues,' White Table,' 'St. Francis' and 'Ransom Man.' The new material is cut from the same cloth as the songs from a few years back, but it seems to have grown incrementally and effortlessly more political and lyrically dense.

That is not to say that these guys were ever frivolous. Their older songs have elements of social commentary, but never at the expense of being catchy, essentially lifting from the Woody Guthrie playbook without robbing the songs of their barroom rock appeal. Bassist Jon Jameson says he and his band mates keep themselves educated on political issues, but they feel they must assess their own actions and advocacy on a personal level before they start demanding activism from others.

Recognizing the band's measured approach to preaching politics, they still had something to say on their recent dates. Debuting songs from their forthcoming (May?) record 'History From Below' singer, guitarist Matt Vasquez etched ZINN into the body of his guitar. Both the album's title and the Guthrie cum Tom Morello guitar decoration, are a nod to 'A People's History of the United States' author and local (Boston) radical royalty Howard Zinn who had died the previous week.

Vasquez is a talented singer and performer and the rest of the band including Quon, multi-instrumentalist Kelly Winrich, founders Jameson and drummer Brandon Young are loose, seasoned performers who look like you would have to drag them off stage. When the band played their singles 'People C'mon' and 'Trashcan,' the audience shout-along was obviously appreciated, and it affirmed, for a band that had been in the studio for nearly a year, that they were missed.

Watching the Delta Spirit perform the following thought occurred; roots rock bands are kind of like Hollywood political thrillers. Both consistently use the same well-worn elements, neither appears difficult to create and yet, every year it seems thousands of new ones appear and nearly all are forgettable.

Not so the Delta Spirit.

Released this week, Heligoland is the erstwhile trip-hoppers' crowning achievement.

By Steven Rosen

Massive Attack's Robert (3D) Del Naja and Grant (Daddy G) Marshall construct songs the way artists create paintings. (Del Naja is an artist; his neo-expressionist portrait adorns the cover of their just-released fifth studio album, Heligoland.)

Using sound like a painter uses material to build up color and texture on a canvas, they use individual songs to create an album recognizable as theirs for its characteristic traits - an overall introspective, studio-processed swirl of sound, slow enough to let the ghostly, disembodied vocals and stately minor-key chording create a seductive narcotic effect, but varying enough in its changing drum patterns, bass figures and keyboard/guitar coloration to have a sense of movement from song to song.

They're so good at on Heligoland that they've made a lasting art object - their form-is-statement command of trip-hop is as masterly as is Pet Shop Boys' similar work with post-New Wave dance music. The title refers to a German archipelago in the North Sea, but some have wondered - with good reason - whether it should be pronounced "Hell Ego Land" in deference to Massive Attack's collaborative, virtuoso-adverse way of producing music.

Yet, pop music can be compared to literature as well as visual art. And for a specific album to really stand out, its individual songs have to have a memorable presence independent of the group's overall sound, however distinctive the latter might be. Like short stories, they need to have a sense of developing drama.

Overall, Heligoland is effective on this score. It avoids the kind of industrial-strength dance music Massive Attack has done previously, like Mezzanine's "Inertia Creeps," in favor of a more shadowy overall mood. The duo rely a little too much on thin, whispery and sometimes-enervated vocals (especially Del Naja's own) that bury the lyrics, but they aren't imprisoned by that. (While this approach keeps vocals from dominating the overall carefully constructed soundscape, an apparent goal, I sometimes wish Massive Attack would take a hint from their precursors, 1980s dance-music collective Art of Noise, and just let Tom Jones rip through an occasional song. Or at least bring back Sinead O'Connor.)

Sometimes the duo rescue a track from an uninteresting voice, as when they build up the bass and organ at the end of "Babel," which Martina Topley-Bird sings prettily but vacantly, and then double-track her to give the vocals some climactic power. And while Tunde Adabimpe (of TV on the Radio) actually sings the chilly, ominous but danceable "Pray for Rain" (think Peter Gabriel's "Red Rain") with just the right sense of expressive tautness, Massive Attack beautifully lets it build toward an ending with a waterfall of wordless, Brian Wilson-like harmonies. 

Other songs are made memorable by the lead vocals, themselves, and the sense of progression - rather than stasis - that the singers communicate as they traverse the compositions. Guy Garvey (of Elbow) does a terrific job with the melodically difficult "Flat of the Blade," reminding one of David Sylvian or Scott Walker in his ability to summon beauty out something you're never quite otherwise works as pop music. And Damon Albarn is romantic on a gorgeous song poetically titled "Saturday Come Slow."

Perhaps the single best track is "Paradise Circus," which hooks you right away with a slow, steady keyboard pattern that straddles minor- and major keys so effectively you feel drawn to its secrets as if to a mysterious force. And then the drum patterns keep you close, while Hope Sandoval sings with a commanding mixture of quietude and clarity until the track builds to a symphonic flourish.

Incidentally, Massive Attack's treatment of their work as art extends to the production of music videos. One of several commissioned for Heligoland, Toby Dye's take on "Paradise Circus," is extraordinary - using former porn star (and now-elderly) Georgina Spelvin in a then-and-now reflection on her career, which is also about on her sexual awakening. Combining eroticism and melancholy, it takes on Proustian dimensions. In its survey of a life through a pop song, it's a worthy sequel to Johnny Cash's "Hurt" video and deserves a wide audience, even if it has some adult material.

Latin Alternative Music Conference Returns to New York City For Its Eleventh Year And Will Once Again Feature Industry Panels, Artist Showcases And Film Screenings Across the City In Addition To Free Concerts At Central Park SummerStage And Celebrate Brooklyn At Prospect Park Band Shell.

By Blurt Staff

What's billed as "the biggest event in the world for cutting-edge Latin music" will return to the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City from July 6th - 10th.  Featuring leading artists and music industry professionals, the Latin Alternative Music Festival is now in its 11^th year - and registration, which opens today, is a cost-efficient (and economy-nodding) $99. Seriously, look around at some of the other festivals that take place this summer and you're talking 250-300 bucks for those.

"We are very excited to be celebrating and sponsoring this year's 11th anniversary of the Latin Alternative Music Conference," said Joseph Carvajal, Hispanic Brand Marketing Manager, Jack Daniel's USA (with whom the LAMC partners). "The LAMC represents a great opportunity for Jack Daniel's to honor, connect and celebrate with thousands of friends in and outside of the music industry, who value and respect the fraternity, authenticity and independence that Latin alternative music has to offer everyone."

Among the events planned for LAMC 2010 are free concerts at Central Park SummerStage and Celebrate Brooklyn Festival at the Prospect Park Bandshell, as well as numerous industry panels, showcases and film screenings for LAMC registrants.

Past conferences have averaged more than 1,250 music industry attendees and 25,000 concert fans each year, networking with artists, labels, journalists, marketers and the like while taking in scores of performances. In the past artists such as Manu Chao and Café Tacuba have put on electrifying concerts and each year the LAMC seems to get stronger.

Panels and concert information will be announced in the coming months. 

Details and registration: www.LatinAlternative.com

Seriously, anything is fair game. Not they will be forced to answer "anything," but still.... Here's your chance to find out all those things about Spoon you always wanted to know but were afraid to ask.

By The Blurt Editors

Earlier this month Britt Daniel & Co. released its latest album,Transference, on Merge, and a big national tour will be kicking off in mid-March starting with an NPR Music showcase in Austin at SXSW. We've got the tour details here.

Meanwhile, we're offering you a chance to ask Spoon whatever questions you want, kinda like the way those British mags grill a washed-up classic rock personality each month, but way cooler, ‘cos it's Spoon of course. Wanna know how Britt gets his hair so perfect? Where they got the name Spoon from? Who's a Republican and who's a Democrat in the band? Maybe even some lingering queries about the agony and the ecstasy of their old major label nemesis Ron Laffitte? Ask away! The results will be included in a far reaching and sure-to-be entertaining interview at blurt-online.com and the upcoming issue of BLURT.

And if this goes well, maybe our next contest of this ilk will be "Ask Laffitte".... Hey, it could happen...

Email your questions to: askspoon@blurt-online.com

Incidentally, make sure you identify yourself in some way - it doesn't have to be elaborate, but at the very least give your first name and where you are from, e.g.:

Wayne
OKC, Oklahoma

Hey, it's just common courtesy. Internet anonymity is for pussies.

Holdin' steady despite leaving his former band...

By Blurt Staff

As previously announced, Franz Nicolay, the mustachioed multi-instrumentalist,  has decided to leave the Hold Steady and has now outlined some more plans for 2010 which includes solo touring, a new book and a GUIGNOL & MISCHIEF BREW collaboration.

On February 11, he'll release Complicated Gardening Techniques, his collection of short stories, via Julius Singer Press.  He will embark on an east coast solo tour to support the forthcoming book and the release of last years' Major General and St. Sebastian of the Short Stage.  The book can be preordered here or you can pick up a copy from the man himself on tour. 

Nicolay is also part of the gypsy-punk unit, GUIGNOL, who recently recorded Fight Dirty - a collaboration with anarcho-folk hero, MISCHIEF BREW. The CD and vinyl release of the collaboration has been delayed, but fans can now pick up the digital and cassette (with a digital download card) release of the album atthe Cottage Records.  Look for more news on the official release of the collaboration and collaborative touring to come.

 
Tour Dates:

2/19 - Alfred, NY - Alfred University, Knight Club
2/20 - Washington, DC - DC9 (w/ Roman Kuebler of Oranges Band)
2/21 - Charlottesville, VA - Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
2/22 - Charlottesville, VA - Guest DJ on WNRN In The Morning
2/22 - Richmond, VA - The Camel
2/23 - Charlottesville, VA - Guest DJ on WTJU Afternoon
2/24 - Baltimore, MD - Otto Bar, (w/ Roman Kuebler of Oranges Band)
2/25 - Philadelphia, PA - Khyber, (w/ Ha Ha Tonka, Peasant)
2/26 - Brooklyn, NY - Knitting Factory (Book release party for Complicated
Gardening Techniques; w/ Tim Fite)

 
GUIGNOL On the Road:

3/4 - Boston TBA
3/5 - Bennington, VT - Bennington College
3/6 - Great Barrington, MA - Bat Barn
3/8 - Lowell MA - Live on WUML,

Voices and words from the past...

Ed. note: With the arrival of today's news of erstwhile Hold Steady multiinstrumentalist Franz Nicolay's upcoming book/music tour, let's cast our vision back to just over a year ago when Nicolay sat for the official BLURT grilling. Our esteemed griller as A.D. Amorosi, and as you'll read, at the Nicolay had just released his solo album Major General and, although he was still a member of the Hold Steady, he was clearly laying plans for a busy future.

***

Interview conducted by A.D. Amorosi

Franz Nicolay isn't just another pretty face with a handlebar mustache that happens to play the accordion. (Franz plays the accordion. Not the mustache.) He's the most debonair multi-instrumental Brooklyn-based composer famous for playing tickling ivories for his pals in the frenetic cabaret act The World/Inferno Friendship Society and the equally fevered-but-poppier The Hold Steady. Plus Nicolay's played a bunch with The Dresden Dolls, recently co-founded the Anti-Social Music (an avant-garde composer/performer collective) and become part of the gypsy-klezmer outfit, Guignol. But Nicolay isn't so busy that he can't finish the solo cycle he demo-ed on his show-sold 2007 CD Black Rose Paladins. Nicolay then dropped Major General on Pennsylvania's Fistolo label with Dresden Doll drummer Brian Viglione and pals from Demander, Nanuchka, and World/Inferno assisting.

NICOLAY: I picked up the accordion after my father's German grandfather brought him one from the homeland in the early 50s so grandson could play him polkas and waltzes. As a good child of his times, my dad rebelled - to the point where he sliced the bellows with a butcher knife to keep from going to lessons. To his credit, he kept the thing around, and I picked it up in high school when I got obsessed with (Dylan's) Basement Tapes.

I never really had an opportunity to play the accordion in a band until I joined World/Inferno in 2001. I joined as a keyboard player, but after two rehearsals, I thought, "You know, this is the kind of band that could really use an accordion". They said yes immediately and then I faked it until I could play it for real.

Most bands, I find, don't know that they need an accordion until they hear it on their songs, then they crave it everywhere.

What kind of man does it take to grow my sort of a mustache? One very secure in his self-image. Who'd've guessed Greg Norton was the straight guy in Husker Du? The mistake most hipster-come-latelys to the handlebar scene make is that you can't just grow it, you have to organize your whole wardrobe around it. It doesn't work with Converse. I'm looking at you, Nick Gazin.

My brand of moustache wax is Cowboy Stache Wax from Montana. I had been experimenting with brands for years - regular pomade; Clubman the name brand you could find it in old-school drug stores. The problem with them, for a performer, is that once you started to get hot and sweaty, they'd melt. My then-girlfriend vacationed at her family's ranch in Montana and picked up a tin at this car dealership-slash-saddle store somewhere in the middle of nowhere and brought it back for me to try. I've been ordering it from them online ever since.

There is virtually nothing that I wouldn't do. As the great John Barrymore once said, "A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." And I've made a life where all my regrets are ones of action, not inaction.

I co-founded Anti-Social Music. No. It's not so doggone anti-social. The idea is that the music we're playing - new chamber music - has a reputation as a room-clearing racket. We thought, metal, free jazz, all this extreme music has lost its cachet as parent- and friend-alienator, what if you showed up at your holiday party and put on Diamanda Galas? Or Xenakis? And, while you're at it, come to our show and have a drink or ten.

Our meetings are productive at the beginning and increasingly less productive as they continue - they tend to trail off toward the end. A good meeting - World/Inferno rehearsals used to be like this too - is more like a scheduled drinking bout with friends you'd just as soon be hanging out with anyway, with the added benefit of you occasionally get some work done. Jean Cook is the most likely to bring cake. Pat Muchmore is the most likely to bring a pint of Jack. Andrea La Rose is the most likely to bring ocarinas in five keys.

I don't have the foggiest idea what the The Hold Steady boys or World Inferno think of my solo stuff. They came to see one show I did in Hoboken while we were making Stay Positive but never said word one about the record. One guy just got stumbling drunk and told my friend he was the most famous guy in her cell phone. Not the most communicative bunch, those boys. Terricloth said he always gets emotional when he hears other people singing his lyrics. Hess said he only wanted to hear "World/Inferno" once through, which I said was sort of the point.

I'm not afraid of losing  the momentum THS garnered in 2008. We took a step back already when Tad got sick in October. But I don't think this will affect THS touring and scheduling in the slightest - I'm small potatoes in that organization. I just told our booking agent to go ahead and assume that I'll tour whenever the Hold Steady is off. It's not like I'm the main story in the Hold Steady novel, you know?

The biggest shock regarding how big Hold Steady was came when I got the text from Tad that we'd be opening for the Rolling Stones. They are one of the small handful of bands that still have that "wow" factor.

I was a strange little child - I grew up in almost complete cultural isolation, in a mountain cabin in New Hampshire with no electricity or plumbing. I really didn't hear pop music until about 1989 or so.

I had cassette series of "Lives of the Great Composers" - narrated biographies interspersed with clips of the greatest hits - that I listened to obsessively, and decided I'd grow up to be a Great Composer, capital G, capital C. I'd cover my ears when my dad put classic rock radio on. "Ow, Dad, this is too loud." "Someday, son, I bet you'll like rock music." "No way, Dad!"

I think you're exaggerating how many opening dates we do, but the reality is, being a full-time musician really means FULL TIME. You gotta keep working. It's a strange lifestyle that operates somewhere at the nexus of art, craft, and factory job. You can be precious about it, but you still gotta show up.

I missed the shows where THS opened for the Get Up Kids. I hear that was a culture clash. I'd have to say the Kings of Leon in London was a difficult band to open for - for a band whose press styled them as straight-outta-the-hills Southern boys they sure had the most rock-star attitude of anyone I've ever dealt with. Their security team - they had a bodyguard for each band member - locked us in our dressing room because "The band needs the stairs". And their front row was all bored models. Not very rock, boys.

I'm not surprised theater festival organizations like the Fringe Festival love us. How many nascent theatrical productions can promise an instant crowd of hundreds of teenagers? On the other hand, though, what do you do with hundreds of drunk teenagers in a seated theatre - they don't always think as hard about that.

I believe Major General me fresh perspectives on what I do with THS and W/IFS. And I don't care if it does or doesn't. And I am being selfish. I think it'll help me blow off some steam. I think it'll keep me from playing live with Inferno, probably, this year, just for scheduling reasons. It's frustrating being sort of the George Harrison of the Hold Steady, especially when it's become such an all-consuming time commitment, so it's already good to have another outlet for my songs, which, let's face it, are not always in the main stream of the Hold Steady river. I may have to count the first THS B-sides collection as a Franz Nicolay record.

I never wake in a cold sweat trying to figure out which of my ideas fit what ensemble. It's usually pretty obvious. And sometimes I can treat it like a project, like, "Ok, time to sit down and write three songs for the new Hold Steady record. Oh, only two make it? OK, let me see if I can re-purpose that one and see if someone else will bite. No song left behind!" In theory, it's ideal to have multiple outlets and die with every (decent) note recorded.

I was a average-to-mediocre baseball player and skiier until I moved to New York. I'll kill you at ping-pong.

Dresden Dolls? We've been friends for an awfully long time - I think I saw their second-ever show in New York, at a cabaret night my friend Professor Jef used to run, for maybe thirty people, then my girlfriend hit on Amanda - or was it vice-versa? - and it was buddies thereafter. We share an aesthetic, musically and sartorially. They're serious and focused people. And I think sometimes it helps them to have a neutral third party as a foil. One time I flew to Paris with them to play one song on one show, a showcase for European promoters - their label boss had happened to see me do the Jacques Brel song "Amsterdam" with them at a coffeeshop at Bennington College, and said, "Bring the accordion guy. I'll pay for it." Same guy who funded the Inferno acapella project, incidentally. I shared a bottle of champagne with their manager and never really got on top of the jetlag.

Viglione is someone I always knew wanted to do a record or six with. He and Yula are the greatest rhythm section that never happened in a regular band. Both of them are among the most extraordinary musicians I've ever met - on any instrument, without obvious effort, and with an unerring generosity and fierce drive for perfection regardless of circumstance. We would watch the Dolls and wonder if Amanda knew what she had in Brian. Still sometimes do.

One singularity I wish someone had on tape was myself, Terricloth, and the Dolls doing Kurt Weill's "Tango Ballad" at Bowery Ballroom five years or so ago. What a performance. Jack and Amanda were born to do that song.

The last book that inspired me to madness was Good Night, Sweet Prince, a biography of John Barrymore by his boon friend, my favorite writer, the fantastically purple Gene Fowler.

The biggest differences sonically and spiritually between Black Rose Paladins and Major General is that Paladins is demos for the record: one-take solo run-throughs of the songs so I'd have something to give the band, and something to sell at the shows. Major General is the proper record. That said, I'm keeping BRP available in digital form because there are a few songs that didn't make it on Major General, and because I'll be touring without a band and maybe people who see that would want to hear the songs done that way.

I knew I wanted to start doing solo shows again - if only so I'd never have to turn down a gig again.

I knew that if I ever did a record my dream band included Brian Viglione and Yula. Jared was kind of the x-factor; I knew him from Demander but I knew his band mates way better, and it wasn't until we did "Jeff Penalty" that I realized the kind of spark he could be. A very strange fellow.

In regard to "Jeff Penalty" - sometimes a great band is about more than who's standing the front of it.

Major General. I knew I had limited time to make a record, and wanted to turn that into a virtue by trying to capture that elusive moment when really talented musicians are just figuring out their part on a song they don't know very well, but before it's really crystallized. We did two day-long rehearsals, a chaotic show at the Brooklyn DIY warehouse Death By Audio, and three days of tracking and feasting - the studio has an apartment upstairs, so we could stay and cook a proper family-style dinner each night. And mostly, we got it.

In the future, Major General will be a signifier - if it's Franz Nicolay, it's just me; if it's Franz and Major General, I'm bringing a band. I can't promise Brian, Jared, and Yula; everyone's got a lot on their plates. But it might be a woodwind quintet. Or barbershop. Don't assume I'm kidding - you should hear my demo for "Two-Handed Handshake".

Everyone always likes the pre-reknown band better, you know, "Oh you like The Hold Steady? Lifter Puller There's always a reason one band succeeds in one way while other bands succeed in others. Nothing ever burns down by itself. Every fire needs a little bit of help.

On "Do We Not Live in Dreams" I think this might be cribbed from Wordsworth. I was on a Brazilian music kick when I wrote this; I was learning all those Jobim chords.

You can be whoever you want to be, sure, but some roles fit better than others. Excess is not excessive when it is conceived in principle. Except when it gets excessive. That's "Confessions of an Ineffective Casanova."

"Note on a Subway Wall" is the saddest story ever told. We will never run into one another on trains.

Dexys Midnight Runners is one of the great underrated bands of their generation. My string parts are my homage to "Celtic Soul Brothers".

Some of these songs were old songs that I rewrote the lyrics to, because as a 31-year-old sometimes you can't sing the lyrics you wrote as a 22-year-old. This one I felt I had to leave alone in deference to the old me who took himself so seriously. You can't get that back, you know?

"This World Is an Open Door" is a reminder to myself. Somebody once said 'I don't get it, what's so special about hardwood floors?" Clearly you've never gone apartment-hunting in New York.

Am I really "Done Singing"? Not ‘til they pry the banjo from my frozen claws.

My last words for 2008? Why is there so much month left at the end of the money?