With their upcoming documentary/live album “Positive Rage” coming April 7, the Hold Steady are returning to the South by Southwest Music Conference in mid-March, and they landed a coup of a performance slot… they’re headlining Rachael Ray’s private party! OK, maybe it’s more impressive they were also recruited for a public interview in front of SXSW registrants at the convention center, the kind of thing that in past years has been saved for the likes of Morrissey, David Byrne and Mick Jones.

“Positive Rage” will be sold as a CD/DVD package. The CD comes from a single show at the Metro in Chicago last Halloween, but lest you think they left out Minneapolis, the movie reportedly culminates with footage shot last summer at First Ave show (their solo gig, not the Truckers shows). And if you didn’t know already it, the band covered Springsteen’s “Atlantic City” for the new war-victims benefit album “War Child,” also featuring covers by TV on the Radio, Beck, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Rufus Wainwright.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 4:39 pm and is filed under Local, Main, SXSW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.