The Hold Steady Play "The Weekenders" On Letterman, Ben Ratliff Pretends He's Craig Finn

“She said, this band’s still doing frumpy?/It’s craft, but mock-unsophisticated/it’s not what the kids this year really mean/It’s got eighth-note riffs with hiccups/and after Sunday Mass and nitrous/it all sounds like the old MTV theme/So this is Brooklyn bar-band rock?/Springsteen in quotation marks?/Drop your lighters, hold up library cards instead?/She closed bars in Clayton County/it was two years before irony/and she doesn’t think it was only in her head.”

Oh yes, the Times’ Ben Ratliff did indeed do a review of the new Hold Steady album, Heaven is Whenever, as a send-up-of/ode-to the lyric-writing style of the band’s frontman, Craig Finn.

The band played their new single, “The Weekenders” on Letterman Friday. And yes, same ol’ thing. But it’s a good ol’ thing. Hey, AC/DC’s been doing the same shtick forever, too.