Pitchfork

Front page photo by Michael Alan Goldberg. Above: Photo of John Agnello and Bobby Drake by Tad Kubler

The Hold Steady note in an update on sessions for their fourth LP: "From the band's beginning, this is the longest we've been without being in the studio." And though it seems like all Craig and the boys do is tour, tour, tour, it's true: 2007 was the first year since 2003 without a new Hold Steady record.

The adoptive Brooklynites recently checked in on their webpage as they returned to the booth to lay down their follow up to 2006's glorious Boys and Girls in America. The band plans to keep the record button on for most of January and February, with Boys and Girls producer John Agnello in tow. Agnello got a word in on his own website to gloat: "the songs are great," he writes, "everyone is playing and/or singing their asses off and we are having a blast." Well, yeah, dude... it's the Hold Steady.

There's no title or release dates for the disc as yet, but one can probably expect it to include songs like "Lord, I'm Discouraged", "Magazines", and "Joke About 'D'yer Mak'er'", UPDATE: THE ACTUAL TITLE IS "Joke About Jamaica" all of which recently debuted on the band's joint tour with Art Brut. And no word yet on the live album and/or DVD, part of which was taped at their Halloween show in Chicago. But any and all Pitchfork staffers in attendance that night agree the show was pretty great. What we remember of it, anyhow.

The band will presumably be wrapping things up by the last week of February, as they've got a few UK dates to attend to before the shortest month comes to a close. That's not the gents' only UK plan for '08, what with their appearance among the rest of music's finest at the ATP vs. Pitchfork festival in May.

They'll also take a brief winter break trip to Florida next Sunday, January 19, to play the Skate Park of Tampa 15th Anniversary Party. It takes place at the Czar Bar in, yes, Ybor City.

In other Hold Steady news, dapper keyboardist Franz Nicolay will perform by his lonesome a couple times over the next few days in the general vicinity of New York City. And Craig Finn shows up in the recent All Over But the Shouting book to give props to fellow Minnesotans the Replacements.

Hold Steady:

01-19 Ybor City, FL - Czar Bar (Skate Park of Tampa 15th Anniversary Party)
02-25 Glasgow, Scotland - The Classic Grand
02-26 Manchester, England - Academy 2
02-27 London, England - Koko
05-09-11 Rye, England - Camber Sands Holiday Centre (ATP vs. Pitchfork) ^

^ with Of Montreal, Hot Chip, Jens Lekman, Man Man, Les Savy Fav, Black Lips, Caribou, Dirty Projectors, No Age, Los Campesinos!, Glass Candy, Deerhunter, Yeasayer, A Place to Bury Strangers, Redd Kross, Marissa Nadler, Sebadoh, Ween, Meat Puppets, the Black Angels, Fuck Buttons, Wooden Shjips, Pissed Jeans, Apse, Shit and Shine

Franz Nicolay:

01-11 Brooklyn, NY - Silent Barn
01-13 Hoboken, NJ - Maxwell's