In the Mix

Rock music is "full of fiction and inaccuracies," Craig Finn asserted at the World Cafe Live on Friday, introducing a song called "You Can Make Him Like You." He asserted that there are some truisms, however. "It is a long way to the the top if you wanna rock and roll. You can't always get what you want. And parents just don't understand." Among other things that are worth believing in: Finn's band The Hold Steady, who put on a terrific, convulsively rocking, take-no-prisoners WCL show that was the high water mark of the Non-Comm convention, which also featured Ani DiFranco and the good Dr. John. (Also pictured here, playing piano and showing off his dance moves, in fuzzy photos I took on my need-of-an-upgrade camera phone.) The bespectacled, spastic Finn, along with guitarist Tad Kubler and the rest of The Hold Steady, come back to town on June 28 for the Paul Green School Of Rock Festival at the Festival Pier, and you'd be foolish to miss them. Their fourth LP, Stay Positive, comes out July 15. Dr. John's still-righteously-enraged-over-Katrina The City That Care Forgot is out now.