Indy's own rock renaissance

Indie rock can come across sometimes as … well … kinda wimpy. And as much as we like sweet, heartfelt ballads or off-kilter pop experiments, sometimes you just want to ROCK. So, last weekend, while the indie world converged on the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, we headed north to Indianapolis to check out two of the genre's more ferocious specimens: Bush-blasting garage-punks The Thermals and America's greatest bar band, The Hold Steady. \nAppropriately enough, the evening began with an apocalypse. Upon taking to the stage, The Thermals unleashed "Here's Your Future," their portrait of a right-wing fundamentalist dystopia. Sounds like standard punk material, right? But here's the thing: It's also catchy as hell -- a fact evidenced by the hipster heads compulsively bobbing around us. Now, with their third and most acclaimed album, The Body, The Blood, The Machine, The Thermals are gaining attention as much for writing deadly sharp hooks as for their message. And talking to front man Hutch Harris, it sounds like the former is going to take priority. Hutch said that he's considering moving away from the political focus of Body, Blood and its predecessor, 2004's Fuckin A. \n"I kind of want to make a record that specifically doesn't have something like that, something that's more about the songs …" unlike Body, Blood, Hutch said, "where it's just kind of too heavy for such simple songs." \nOne idea is to expand upon the concept behind their song "Back To The Sea," which is "about a person that ages to mid-30s or 40s and then starts devolving slowly into a monkey, then back into a fish. …" But Hutch also said he's interested in writing pop songs without a message. \nIndeed, The Thermals' future seems wide-open. They are looking at going beyond the two/three-minute bursts that have populated much of their work thus far. And having completed their three-album deal with Sub Pop, Hutch was noncommittal about whether they would switch labels. \n"I still love Sub Pop a lot," he said, noting their strong support for Body, Blood. "But it's like your first boyfriend or girlfriend -- you could be totally great, but then you don't know how much better it could be if you break up." \nBut, for all these tidbits about things to come, as the amps roared thunderously and we bounced along to infectious tunes like "End To Begin" and "Pillar Of Salt," only the present seemed to matter. \nForty minutes later, the sweet, energetic punk renaissance of the Thermals gave way to the force of nature that is The Hold Steady. Incorporating the classic sound of bands such as Thin Lizzy and The Band, this ultra-talented group of musicians have become, themselves, classic -- and people are beginning to notice. The place was packed as even more fans streamed in after the Thermals. We estimated 300 to 400 fans had poured into (and proceeded to trash) the Music Mill's immaculately clean space. The Hold Steady had never been to Indiana before in their current incarnation and were unsure of what to expect from an audience here. \nThe crowd was a mix of the hardcore party animals who tend to identify with Hold Steady's drug-reference and scene resurrection-laden lyrics along with confused indie kids who were there because they knew the Thermals and, hell, it was only $15 to get in. As the show progressed, the floor became more and more littered with the plastic cups of the hard-drinking Hold Steady crowd. The rowdy fans pressed the stage and screamed along with the epic, truth-ridden lyrics word for word. When they played "Chips Ahoy!" mid-set, the crowd echoed the catchy "whoa-oh-ohs" of the chorus. When they played the gorgeous love ballad "First Night," with its unmatched piano crescendos, during their crowd-demanded encore, there wasn't anyone who wasn't moved. \nThe twitchy, frenetic frontman Craig Finn worked the crowd from the onset, playing off the energy from his fans with spinning narration and erratically flying arms. The Tom Waits-loving stage character, Franz, played his massive piano parts with heart-wrenching passion and a never-ending grin. Hard rockin' bassist Galen Polivka wailed, while Tad Kubler and Bobby Drake (guitarist and drummer, respectively), played with fatal dedication like there was no tomorrow. It's obvious these guys have nothing to prove, laying it on the line every night for the love of the music and to tell the dramatic truths of growing up in the scene. \nTheir dedication to telling the highest highs and lowest lows of the scene-kid story comes through in their performance, just as their connection to their fans is directly reflected in their lyrics. Upon asking Franz about whether the sad, nostalgic anthems of killer parties and drugged-out kids are autobiographical, he told us that Craig's storytelling is mostly composites of people they've met along the way. "(Going to shows as a kid and being on tour) you meet strange people doing strange things, smart people doing dumb things and dumb people saying some really smart things." Those are the folks who inspire the epic stories of album staples Charlemagne, Holly, Gideon and the Chillout Tent. \nIn interviewing Franz, the Northeast native who formally joined the band during their second album, we learned about his musical ethic, one very different from his Midwestern bandmates. This difference, based in a jazz-heavy pathos and a desire to take highly experimental and aggressive modern music out of the concert halls and into dirty basement parties, has inspired the pathos-ridden sound on their third album, Boys and Girls in America. He said that the sound hadn't felt completely formed yet during their first two albums, but with the team effort behind Boys and Girls, they've "really hit on something" with a more melodic vision. Craig's stories began to be packaged in a catchier way, with repetitive refrains and heavier piano in combination with their giant rock guitar and bass sounds. In the future, Franz said he is possibly looking for a more experimental sound, but die-hard Hold Steady fans will just have to wait and see how this would intertwine with their traditional meat-and-potatoes riffs.\nNo interview with The Hold Steady would be complete without the burning question, "Do you guys actually party as hard as your lyrics suggest?" With his easy smile and not missing a beat, Franz responded, "Oh, yeah." The disconnect between fame and parties, he went on to explain, is that the craziest parties tend to happen when you're smaller, crashing at "some random sound guy's house with his 14 ferrets and a shooting range his back yard." Now that they're bigger, he said fans assume that they already have something better to do after the shows and they're too star-struck to ask. Franz lamented this disconnect and said he misses the days when they got to hang out more with "real people." So do yourself a favor and partake in your own rock renaissance by catching these two acts the next time they're in town. And, really, stick around and buy them a beer, but, be careful, Holly. There's a reason why their characters are always looking for redemption.