Artist Franz Nicolay

Long before Franz Nicolay became the keyboardist for The Hold Steady, he was part of New York’s thriving gypsy-punk scene—as an integral member of World/Inferno Friendship Society, as co-founder of Guignol with Balkan Beat Box’s Peter Hess, and as the bearer of an old-school mustache that rivals Eugene Hutz’s. So it’s not surprising that his solo albums, 2009’s Major General and 2010’s Luck And Courage, have more of a gypsy-punk flavor, though Nicolay draws on a Craig Finnian life-in-the-clubs storytelling style for “Jeff Penalty,” a song about watching the Dead Kennedys with Jello Biafra’s inferior replacement.

Updated 04/09/2012