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Best Albums of 2008
This list is a little bit late but at least I made my personal deadline of getting it in before baseball opening day. 2008 was a decent year for music. There weren't too many albums released that absolutely floored me but I still found some albums that I thoroughly enjoyed. Bradford Cox had an impressive year with two releases that made my top dozen with his bands Deerhunter and Atlas Sound. Kansas City locals The Republic Tigers put out one of the most impressive albums the city has ever heard. Mainstream favorites Beck, Santogold, MGMT, Vampire Weekend, and The Raconteurs put out albums good enough that even the biggest music snobs could also enjoy. I heard some interesting new electronic projects such as Starfucker, Crystal Castles, High Places, Empire of the Sun, Tussle, Ladyhawke, and Tobacco. More than anything though, I think I enjoyed hearing some of the releases put out by artists that have been around for a while but had slipped my attention before: Deerhunter, Mount Eerie, The Mae Shi, The Kills, and Thao with the Get Down Stay Down. My three finds of the year (stuff you probably haven't heard) would have to be Finnish collective Paavoharju, Absolutely Kosher weirdos Little Teeth, and San Diego rockers The Muslims - a band so fresh, they had to change their name to The Soft Pack after releasing their first album. Enjoy the list, feel free to comment, and here's to an awesome 2009!
*****Top 100 Albums of 2008*****
| 1) | Deerhunter | Microcastle |
| 2) | Why? | Alopecia |
| 3) | MGMT | Oracular Spectacular |
| 4) | Mount Eerie, Julie Doiron, Fred Squire | Lost Wisdom |
| 5) | Portishead | Third |
| 6) | Bon Iver | For Emma, Forever Ago |
| 7) | Hot Chip | Made in the Dark |
| 8) | Paavoharju | Laulu Laakson Kukista |
| 9) | The Republic Tigers | Keep Color |
| 10) | Little Teeth | Child Bearing Man |
Flashback to The Year In Music 1998
Stealing an idea from my friend Holly and Tripwire.com, I thought it would be good to take a look back at the albums released 10 years ago. This was a pretty pivotal time in my auditory life. It spanned my first and second years of college, a time when I devoured new music and discovered that there was so much other music out there instead of what they play on Top 40 radio. I'd known this for years but had yet to take that plunge. I tried out for my campus' free-format radio station and failed the interview process twice before finally being accepted. Some of the stuff on this list was actually still on the new rack when I started at the radio station, some of it I discovered a few months later, and some I didn't listen to for years. So yeah, 1998 was a pretty good year in music overall I think. My favorites are near the top. Feel free to comment any of your favorites...
Poradova
Check out my friend Sarah's band Poradova. She also has some audio samples up on her myspace page.
-ick!
Best Album of 2006
Three months late for 2006 but I've finally completed my annual Top Albums list. 2006 was a bit of an off year for music overall but I really enjoyed most of these albums. My finds of the year made number six and seven on the list. In the Pines are a folk / country string band from Kansas City. I attended their CD release party and was pretty well blown away. Ten Kens I found through MySpace and I love their debut CD. Good job guys. Feel free to comment on this list as I always enjoy hearing what others are listening to...
*****Top 100 Albums of 2006*****
| 1) | Beirut | The Gulag Orkestar |
| 2) | Islands | Return to the Sea |
| 3) | Joanna Newsom | Ys |
| 4) | Belle & Sebastian | The Life Pursuit |
| 5) | Man Man | Six Demon Bag |
| 6) | In the Pines | In the Pines |
| 7) | Ten Kens | Ten Kens |
| 8) | Hot Chip | The Warning |
| 9) | Yeah Yeah Yeah's | Show Your Bones |
| 10) | Peter Bjorn and John | Writer's Block |
Hidden Pregap Audio Tracks
It's a rare occasion that you get to completely blow the mind of a record store worker about something music related. I managed this last night as I picked up a couple new CDs at the last remaining record store in midtown. Stumbling in, I was surprised to hear Lamb's Fear of Four playing, which I happen to own and is at least 5 years old. I mentioned to the clerk that this CD has a hidden track before the first track that you have to rewind to get to. He blinked for a few minutes then proceeded to finish bagging my purchases. A few seconds later, after giving it some time to process, he retorted "Really?", then "I'll have to check that out at home tonight".
Prison Wine
This last week was pretty fun. I finally escaped the doldrums of winter and made it out to several fun events around the city. I don't have too much to say about the last several months, just know that lots of movies were watched, many books were read, and the number of mostly-completed crosswords littering my house is innumerable.
Tuesday, I saw old favorites Of Montreal play at The Granada in Lawrence. They'd just played in Larryville a year before and I'd attended that much more sparcely attended show. Their popularity seems to have expanded exponentially in one year and I can't figure out why. You'd think after ten years and almost as many full-length albums that the masses would have recognized their great talent for writing great pop songs. Maybe it's the recent Outback Steakhouse commercials that feature the reworking of "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" that are bringing out all the kids. At any rate, the show was pretty good but not quite as good as last year's performance (which still rates in my top 5 of all time), even with the new video backdrop and stage props. A Japanese sextet called Elekibass opened for them. They fit right in with their bubblegum pop over thick Japanese accents. I left thinking that I probably won't see anything like this ever again.
Cities
I just finished up a great new compilation CD for a CD group that just started up again. We pick 10 songs and a bonus track but I usually burn a whole disc's worth just to have extras in case somebody else also picked one of my songs. The theme of this one was my idea, "cities". The requirements I set up for myself were that every song had to have the city in the title, I could only use a city or artist once, and the song had to be about the city or repeat the city name at some point in the song. Here's my list...
-ick!
Pumpkin and Gravy
I've had a really good last month or so. The weather hasn't been too bad. There have been a handful of decent local rock shows around the city. Halloween is always a blast and this November also marked a very surprising and momentous midterm election. Top this off with my trivia team's domination over the last few month and things are looking on the up.
I stayed at the recordBar late after a big first place trivia win one week and watched up-and-coming Detroit indie rockers Thunderbirds Are Now!. TAN! showed up early and competed against fellow bar patrons in skills of the mind. They held their own and I think they had a pretty good time. About two years ago, I was quite impressed with them as an unknown opener touring with Enon (who produced their new album). Once again, they didn't disappoint . I was also a big fan of the local opening band. I didn't catch their name but I'm sure I'll see them again somewhere around town. They were a bit of a Yeah Yeah Yeah's ripoff - but who gets tired of that. The female lead singer was just as much a spaz as Karen O.
Hotel Living
This must be the year for traveling. I'd already been in six states this year and just added three more with a couple of weeklong mini-vacations along the I-35 corridor of Kansas City, Austin, and Minneapolis / St. Paul. These trips were nice but not entirely leisurely in nature and at times even stressful. More than ever now, I'm just looking forward to some downtime in my home city as fall rolls across the midwest.
I finished out August with a surprise visit from my out-of-town friend Rick. He'd heard that a few other high school chums were playing a special show at McCoy's that weekend and decided to make the drive up from Springfield for the event. We caught some great pizza and beers at Waldo Pizza and I won $20 from him in a bowling bet before we went to the show. My friends' band Golden City, Mars were the opening noise band / performance art installation. Most of the band members wore masks and their only song was 10 minutes of drony gloom-and-doom chords. I can't do them any justice retelling the mythical tale of how they came to earth from Golden City, Mars - just know that it happened. McCoy's own 30-Minute Recess headlined and were solid as usual. The highlight for me was the Brokeback Mountain theme played as an intro to one of their own country numbers. Hilarious.
