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So, I am speaking at an interchurch event about Christianity and Rock Music and in the afternoon begin to realize that my knowledge of those two things meeting is all from a Protestant evangelical perspective. Where is Catholic rock to be found? Soon I realized that there actually wasn't much of it at all which was a surprise as Catholics were more prominent when it came to the twentieth century novel - Flannery O'Connor, Graham Green, Walker Percy, Shusaku Endo et al. Anyway as I thought maybe Springsteen was all I had, priest of rock alongside Bono the revivalist preacher, I typed various phrases with "catholic" and "rock" into Google and found The Hold Steady; never heard of them. The same afternoon I buy Uncut magazine and album of the month is... you guessed it The Hold Steady. Interesting... 

In a world of indie rock, where it is about swagger noise and fashion, there comes something wholly other. The Hold Steady have added literature to the mix, against the run of play. Yes, maybe The Killers songs mean something more than the average and The Shins have a poetic thing going down but The Hold Steady’s Craig Finn takes words more seriously than most (and actually he is more economical with them on this one than on previous outings). The album title nods its head with respect to Jack Kerouac’s _On the Road_ and apparently "Stuck Between Stations" refers to the suicide of the great American poet, John Berryman.  Musically it is the big rock sounds of the E Street band circa _Born To Run_, with the wordiness of _Greetings From Asbury Park_, revamped for the twenty first century. Every now and then they flit across New Jersey and meet The Ramones in the outskirts of New York and Lou Reed is always lurking round the street corner spaces that these songs inhabit. It can be loud and full on and then drop to gentle and tender; _First Night_ comes on like a great Counting Crows ballad. In the end it is about riffs, over Roy Bittan style piano rolls and street poetry poured on top. Songs are never wasted as background soundtracks. Thematically it is about those girls and boys in America, finding them bouncing about between drugs and bars and churches. It is about being lost and found, damned and redeemed, sometimes in the very same word filled line, – “I seeJudas in the hard eyes of the boys working the corners/I feel Jesus in the clumsiness of young and awkward lovers.” "Hot Soft Light" puts it best:

there are guys
with the wild eyes when they ask to get you high.
there are girls
that will come to you with comfort in the night.
there are nights
where it all comes on a little bit too bright.
there's a cross
and in the center there is a hot soft light.

Steve Stockman

Steve Stockman is the Presbyterian Chaplain at Queens University, Belfast, Ireland, where he lives in community with 88 students. He has written two books Walk On; The Spiritual Journey of U2 which he is currently updating and The Rock Cries Out; Discovering Eternal Truth in Unlikely Music. He dabbles in poetry and songwriting and he has a weekly radio show on BBC Radio Ulster (listen anytime of day or night @ www.bbc.co.uk/ni/religion/rhythmandsoul). He has his own web page--Rhythms of Redemption at http://stocki.ni.org . He also tries to spend some time with his wife Janice and daughters Caitlin and Jasmine.