Month of January , 2007

Jim Testa's recent JerseyBeat Podcast from yesterday is really good. Check it out over here where you can see the track listing and subscribe, or just download the mp3.

Tonight the Screaming Females are kicking it in Montclair, blocks from where I live. So I'll be going to that. You should, too. The Screamales have some fascinating posts on their blog about their recent tour outing, check it from their website's links section.

I've been a busy guy, probably won't be writing many reviews this next month, but I'll be posting info on shows, whenever someone puts out something and tells me, etc. I'm still here for you. Send us your music, it will get reviewed by someone if not me. Tell us about your shows, we want to go!

Electronic-mail us here: Sceneless@Gmail.com

Mike Watt-obsessed car blog Jalopnik recently put out its Ten Best Driving Albums list and challenged others to list their own. Kudos to the 'nik for props to Tom Waits and Minutemen, but Paul's Boutique? "Drifter" was hot shit, I'll give them that: "I'm doin' one-twenty rollin' over mailboxes. Radar detectors to tell me where the cops is."

My own list follows:

10. Beck - Midnite Vultures
If I ever became brain damaged enough to buy a Hummer H2, this is the album that will constantly blast from the 4 12's that I will have mounted to the place where the helicopter hooks used to be.

9. Spoon - A Series of Sneaks
Cars in a crowded city on the cover, a truck with a "30 gallon tank", "Car Radio", and the charging sound of songs that sound as if they were written in vans on tour.

8. XTC - Drums and Wires
My favorite XTC album, it's the band reduced to the most essential elements - literally drums and wires. Songs alternate from sprightly pop gems to bizarre hypnotic drones made perfectly for watching yellow lines zip by.

7. Kraftwerk - Autobahn / Neu! - Neu 1
I'm really disappointed at the Jalopnik guys for not catching the first one. Maybe it's not exactly a good album for driving 100mph in Montana, but it is about the damn Autobahn and it and Neu's counterpart are both ideal for spooky late night driving in the middle of nowhere.

6. Lightning Bolt - Wonderful Rainbow
This is the album for driving 100mph in Montana. Pure, drippy, smelly screaming sludge metal played by two sociopaths. I usually have to turn it off halfway through because one can only drive 100mph for so long.

5. T. Rex - Electric Warrior
From "Jeepster":

Just like a car
You're pleasing to behold
I'll call you Jaguar
If I may be so bold

"Bang a Gong" is still the greatest song ever made. "Flying Saucer take me away!"

4. Tom Waits - Rain Dogs
My personal favorite Tom Waits album, and since almost all Tom Waits albums are good to drive to, this one makes my list. "Midtown", "9th and Hennepin", and "going down down down down town down down town."

3. Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
Makes me think of the Pacific Coast Highway.

2. Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime
I really can't argue with this one. The album starts with the sound of a car ignition and 48 songs later ends with a Three Car Jam. In the middle, there's tequila, Michael Jackson, French Indo-China, "My word's a war", Toadies, something about tub caulking, an of course a #1 Hit Song.

1. Notorious B.I.G. - Ready to Die
I challenge anyone to doubt the power of this album. It lures you into its scuzzy world, and suddenly you're thinking about robbing that 7-11 on the way home. The ultimate in getaway car music.

Photograph by Tara McNally

Cross-pollination show 124: January 9 at Piano's

What do you get when you cross-pollinate a singer and a fool? One hell of a night that would make even the birds and the bees jealous.

Matt Singer's (myspace.com/mattsingermusic) lyrics are the cat's pajamas. *Meow* don't let his wholesome, boy-next-door façade fool you. Once he picks up his guitar and opens his mouth, no scandalous or political figure is safe, including the White House idiot or the carnal abuses of the Catholic Church.

Delivered like a rapping storyteller, his sardonic, side-spilting, politically-infused lyrics - thinly veiled in catchy melodic, folksy hooks - make you ask, "did he really just say that?;" usually followed by an uncontrollable, belly-aching laugh. Plus, he can whistle like a piping hot tea kettle. How coolio is that?

Matt plays Bar Four (Brooklyn) January 19; Joe's Pub (with The Undisputed Heavyweights - yeah!) January 25; Freddy's (Brooklyn) January 28; February 11 (Sidewalk's Antifolk Festival - yeah!) February 11; and Makor February 20.

The Fools (myspace.com/thefools_lostandfound) are the symbolic motivation as to why I started a blog (myspace.com/mymusicalcrush); to spread the word about unknown, amazing musicians.

They are unequivocally one of those buried treasures that have yet to be fully unearthed. How do i know this? A: have you ever heard of them?; And B: their MySpace profile views are considerably lacking, which i find mind-numbing. So, grab your shovels and dig in.

Lead singer Jenn Tobin's voice, supported by bassist Uchenna Bright, is so incredibly rich and captivating that it unnoticeably consumes you with little effort.

The highlight of the evening was when Matt, Jen and Uchenna shared the stage to deliver a cover of Nirvana's 'Dumb' that would have even moved Courtney in ways she never knew.

The Fools play Sidewalk Cafe January 20; Mopitkins January 30; Sidewalk Cafe (Antifolk - Festival - yeah!) February 16; and Laila Lounge (brooklyn) March 14.

Pics from the show can be found at flickr.com/photos/mymusicalcrush

What the heck is cross-pollination?

For those of you who are 'cross-pollination' virgins, it is one of those rare, magical, music treats that hasn't seeped out so much so that the atmosphere is more like Madison Square Garden than sitting in your living room listening to your friends play. Every Tuesday evening on the lower east side, with a few exceptions, two talented singer/songwriters are invited to play together acoustically, who haven't necessarily done so before. Both of them play one set solo and then for the third they 'cross-pollinate' with each other. Yeah, it's f***ing brilliant and provides a venue for local artists to perform and stretch musically with other like-minds. Kudos to Wes (myspace.com/wesverhoeve) and Jay (myspace.com/jaymankind) for keeping it strong 123 shows and counting.

xo,
mymusicalcrush

Updated: We've got the mp3 for you right here

Oh my gawd. I've loved !!! ever since I first heard singer Nic Offer growl and slur on the song Dear Can, "Mister Presideeeeent you can suck my fucking diiiiiick, does that sound intelligent? Like I give a fuckin shiiiit!" And then goes on to make a chorus out of repeating "like I give a fuck, like I give a shit" over a hypnotic and hot dance/techno beat played by LIVE musicians.

And now they're back! Passed to me by Adam, they have a free single up over on pitchfork and a new album coming out within the next few months. This track is actually the catchiest I've yet heard the band put together (O.U.T.H.U.D. not included) and it's the first time I think I've heard Nic take a shot at really melodic, poppy vocals, and make it work, still preserving all the sinister slur that makes it his. Six months of some dump bass, funky evil disco. Dropping in "Real Love" in such a creepy context is fucking fabulous. This is a track for kickin' it in your car. Direct download of mp3 is over here.

Lots of bands talk that smack "we want to make music people can dance to," but when !!! gets it right, you can't help but fucking freak out.

Top 10 Albums of 2006

10. 3-way tie:
Man Man - Six Demon Bag
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
Grizzly Bear - Yellow House

All three of these albums are great, but need me to listen to them more. Neko is the female voice of God.

9. Sereena Maneesh - s/t
Released in 2005 overseas, we had to wait until 2006 for this swirling, searing mess of an album. It seems like a thousand different people contributed to this album - the liner notes even contain a very difficult to follow map that links together all the human beings involved in the project. The result is a 21st Century My Bloody Valentine fronted by a Scandanavian T.Rex obsessive who is reaching for the Moon on every single song. Brilliant and bloodying.

8. Wilderness - Vessel States
Wilderness make my list for the second year in a row, and are best described as a towering, cerebral, Public Image Limited devotee group, but that of course is selling them short. Wilderness possess an even stronger melodic sense than on their self-titled debut. The first half is half-optimistic terror-rock, and the second reads like an elegy to the twentieth century. The stopping point for most is, of course, James Johnson's voice, which still hasn't gotten any more palatable. Fuck it, this band plays every note with abandon.

7. The Blow - Paper Television
Jona Bechtolt's dizzying production jumps from snare rattling Timbaland aping to butt shaking Motown to buzzing bass to sparse bubble gum pop. Meanwhile, Khaela Maricich's naked voice speaks rather frankly about the "Pot of Gold" girls sit on, how she "loves the shit out of" some lucky bachelor, and various activities that happen between the sheets between two consenting young adults. The highlight here is clearly "Parentheses", grammar-love about consoling a crying lover in a grocery store.

6. Swan Lake - Beast Moans
Tracks 5-8 make up the massively ambitious centerpiece to this year's high-profile indie rock super group project. "All Fires" drowns half a village, "The Partisan" finds Carey Mercer spilling his weird all over Bejar and Krug, "The Freedom" spirals floating pitch shifted melodies around a narrative that may or may not be about the band members, and "Petersburg" closes the crescendo with Mercer grumbling and moaning. Beast Moans is layers upon layers of swirling madness with hardly any percussion. It's most brilliant moment is when the smoke clears long enough at the end of "The Partisan" to invite us into their house to listen in on Bejar flubbing the first few notes of "The Freedom".

5. Beirut - Gulag Orkestar
Beirut band leader Zach Condon once remarked how he liked his horns to sound warbly and drunk because he's not really a good trumpet player. Fooled me. Or, is it even relevant? No, of course it isn't. This album is beautiful, heartbreaking, exotic, exciting, and 90% of it was recorded in Condon's bedroom.

4. TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
"What the hell is this album about?" was my major crutch in coming around to appreciate this gem. The truth is, it doesn't matter. These songs could be about clubbing baby seals and I think they would be just as infectious. Production egghead Dave Sitek makes Cookie the hugest sounding thing this side of Loveless. Check the hot duet with David Bowie on "Blues from Down Here", the clank-stomp fest of "Wolf Like Me" and the frenetic drumming of Jaleel Bunton throughout.

3. Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Drum and Mt. Heart Attack are friends. This is their story. Loose, slow, droning drum and guitar sound collages from the guys that first brought you Brooklyn dance-punk. Liars emerge from their Berlin cocoon sounding like acid-wrecked protozoic Newsun-era Boredoms. This album, more than any other this year, destroyed my notions of what music is "supposed" to sound like.

2. Xiu Xiu - The Air Force
Spanking, whipping, tight-ripping, "tucking", incest, lighting things on fire, and an entire track of koto and bird samples. Somehow, I'm still inclined to say that this is a Xiu Xiu album with most of its sharp edges rounded off, which in my book means it is their best. Deerhoof-er Greg Saunier produces and performs with regulars Jamie Stewart and Caralee McElroy to make a pastiche of negative-space anti-pop music. Highlights are the double bass work of Devin Hoff on the albums sinister second half, Caralee's vocal on "Welcome to Eau Claire", and the plaintive auto-harp rumination "PJ in the Streets". Throughout, The Air Force teeters from inspiring to devastating: "Loneliness isn't being alone/It's when someone loves you/And you don't have it in you to love them back"

1. Sunset Rubdown - Shut Up I Am Dreaming
The darker, slower, and more grandiose glam and noise-inflected sister to last year's Apologies to the Queen Mary. Although Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown share only one common member, making the comparison is instructive: when Spencer Krug is basically left to his own devices, he is a very different songwriter and still a very very good one. Shut Up is full of surprises: flickers of fast guitar arpeggios, accordions, xylophones, whistling, pitch shifted keyboards, and lyrics resembling fables punctuated with foul language. As Krug made my list twice this year and once last year, I can only expect more good things in 2007.

Top Songs of 2006

10. Grinderman - No Pussy Blues ( unreleased )
Nick Cave and three of the Bad Seeds formed Grinderman in late '06 to fill the void in his life left twenty years or more ago when he broke up The Birthday Party and started covering Elvis and "Stagger Lee". It's vicious, brutal, nasty, hairy, disgusting music. And I love it.

9. Oneida - Up With People ( from Happy New Year )
The minutes whiz by and the beat keeps going. The lyrics say something about getting up and doing it and doing your thing and you know what it makes you want to do your thing, what ever it is, and just keep on fucking doing it until you are done because the energy is crazy and the room is hot and sweaty and everyone is dancing. Up with people, sweat, tears, blood, joy, music, love. up up up.

8. Swan Lake - The Freedom ( from Beast Moans )
The pairing of Bejar, Krug, and Mercer on Swan Lake had a lot of potential and nowhere else on the album was that potential realized as it was with "The Freedom". Bejar takes the reins here, and the others are content to contribute: Mercer lays down perfectly serpentine guitar fuzz, and Krug lays off the fireworks for one track to provide a subtle key backing. The lyrics are downright beautiful in this contemplation on personal liberties: "confounded when the girl became grounded, and packed her bags, for the beaches, with contacts and breeches of contracts".

7. Prince - Black Sweat ( from 3121 )
"Working! Working up a black sweat! I'm hot, and I don't care who knows it. I got a job to do." Then later he does that amazing thing where he makes his crazy high pitched voice go unnaturally way way down in his register and it is so god damned sexy. This song is fucking amazing.

6. Band of Horses - The Funeral ( from Everything All of the Time )
I shouldn't like this song. It's over-dramatic, the singer has that reedy and high-pitched timbre that belongs on an album of your dad's favorite hits from the 1970s. Elsewhere on the album "they're playing country music", but Band of Horses take a sombre topic, twist it on its head with a triumphant and ageless melody, and cap it with a blazing coda. The end result sounds downright brilliant and inspiring.

5. Tokyo Police Club - Nature of the Experiment ( from the A Lesson in Crime EP )
The specter of post punk is strung out on methamphetamines, on a greasy Canadian street corner, holding a sign: "Will _____ For Money, Fill in the Blank." This is what youth sounds like filtered through fuzzy bass and compressed drums.

4. Smog - Rock Bottom Riser ( from the Rock Bottom Riser EP )
More gloom from Bill Callahan, but this time something is different. A lilting and dare I say cheerful nature bubbles beneath the surface on the entire Rock Bottom Riser EP, and its title track is a lovely, swaying little ditty. Callahan's next album will be his first under his given name. Let's hope this track is a proper preview.

3. Voxtrot - Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives ( from the Mothers, Sisters, Daughters and Wives EP )
This amazing new band from Austin, TX opted to release two EPs this year in lieu of an album ( the other is Raised by Wolves ). This title track off the better EP of the two may or may not be a Belle & Sebastian/Smiths rip-off, but explodes with so much unbridled energy that it just doesn't matter. Ramesh Srivastava has a voice that girls across the country are currently swooning over. All men be jealous now. Britt Daniel, you are on notice.

2. Beirut - Elephant Gun ( from the Lon Gisland EP)
Zach Condon closed out 2006 with a short 4-song EP of songs recorded shortly after his move from Albuquerque to New York. This first track is everything great about Gulag Orkestar compressed into one song, with higher recording quality. Sublime.

1. Guillemots - Trains to Brazil ( from Through the Windowpane )
A song that may or may not have been about the London tube bombings nevertheless gained extra poignancy when set against the backdrop of one of the most anxious years in recent human history. "Trains" sets tragedy and realization atop a stomping Motown girl-group rhythm, blaring horns, and woozy sampling. Then it does what any great song should do: affirms life, with a lovingly placed kick in the ass.

Top Albums not from 2006

10. Les Savy Fav - Inches (2005)
The definitive statement from Les Savy Fav is, fittingly, a singles compilation. Therefore, Inches can be difficult to consume all at once. Use caution: I once read that Tim Harrington ran to an audience member and put himself in the audience members t-shirt... while the fan was still in it.

9. The Birthday Party - Hits (1992)
The ultimate post-mortem document of a fucked up group of individuals. Nick Cave of course went on to find Jesus, a storied solo career, and "Red Right Hand" appearing on the Shrek soundtrack. Roland Howard is probably one of the greatest guitar players to ever live, except he doesn't know it. Tracey Pew died too early, and the world mourns the loss of his sexually deviant slimy cowboy bass lines. Mick Harvey is that normal looking guy who is actually the most screwed up in the bunch, and he's still propping up Cave. These songs were too weird, even for punks.

8. The For Carnation - s/t (2000)
When Slint broke up, Brian McMahon tried his hand in various groups but kept coming back the same few songs. He finally got together a group of musicians in 2000 to lay them to tape, and much of it is not louder than a whisper. The musicians barely play their instruments, notes hang in the air for what seems like days.

7. Minor Threat - Complete Discography (1988)
Much love for Henry Rollins, but this is the definitive hardcore album. Nobody was as motivated, angry, and talented as Minor Threat. I was pretty stupid for not appreciating them earlier.

6. Smog - Red Apple Falls (1997)
Bill Callahan's most delicate album is also his most thematically complete. The red apple - the ripe one, that is - falls, and color, age, time, sexuality, humanity and love are all explored in the cryptic and sparse fashion now synonymous with Smog. My first and favorite Smog album.

5. The Mountain Goats - The Sunset Tree (2005)
This record feels strange, as if you are eavesdropping in on a personal conversation between John Darnielle and a close friend of his. Their stories remind you of parts of your life, and the closely miked music drifts, sways, stomps, and carries you there.

4. Nick Drake - Pink Moon (1972)
At just over 25 minutes, Drake at the time claimed that this was all he had left. This, his last album, was also his finest. Recorded in two studio sessions with only the assistance of producer Joe Boyd, Pink Moon should be stark, but is illuminated by Drake's voice and elegant guitar playing.

3. Dr. Octagon - Dr. Octagonecologist (1996)
Rap music made on Jupiter. Kool Keith's deadly alter ego creates the entire acid rap genre in one fell swoop of his tentacle. Who could imagine that an album about an alien gynecologyst that pretends to be a woman in order to take advantage of his patients could be so good? Three words: "juicy brown booty".

2.Bauhaus - In The Flat Field [reissue] (1980/1998)
Rock music made on Mars. This album sounded so foreign to my ears in 2006 that it took me a month to come around to it. Imagine how much this shit freaked people out in 1980. Sure, the material is dark - sores, epileptics, boredom, violence, meaningless sex, screaming whores - but the fun part is the confidence of the delivery and the inherent sense of humor throughout. "Back in the good old days, when dancing meant exploding".

1. Mr. Lif - I Phantom (2002)
I speak absolutely no hyperbole when I say that I Phantom is probably the best hip-hop album since Ready To Die. I actually cannot think of anything released since 2002 that might even top this. Lif weaves an incredible meta-narrative about dreaming, being broke, trying to make it, giving up, raising a family, and eventually succumbing to nuclear holocaust. With El-P on the boards - breathing new life in to old school soul tracks - this album is a juggernaut of style and substance.

First off, I know I'm a slacker, I'll put that out there. I'm also sick as a dog, which is why I'm on the internet on such a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

What follows is my attempt at doing the look back at last year list type thing. I've seriously had my head up my ass this year - I've been involved in my own things, or checking out my friends' bands, I haven't been listening to the radio or reading indie music sites or anything.

I'd like to get out to more shows this year. Way more shows.

Anyway, here we go:

Top Ten Songs 2006

I don't have ten. I've had my head up my ass. So here's five:

5. Beck - "Que Onda Guero" ... This one song is why I hate the rest of Guero. It's hot as all fuck. There's really no denying that his lyrical run on there verses of this track are among his most impressive in years. But really, it's all about the beat, and he knows it. I have no idea what that swirling sound is that makes that basic hip-hop beat such a struttin thing, but when he tries he's still got it. Rip this track and toss the rest of Guero in the dustbin.

4. Channels - "Little Empires" ... I can't remember the last time I heard such RIPPING guitar, such intense and artful bass and drum kit, when a band rocked me like this, spoke to the storms swirling in my head. Beginning with a seeming innoccuous verse, pleasantly singing about the cooling breeze and the coming freeze, a direct warning to the current Junta in the white house that "little empires rise and fall" and then RIIIIIIIIIIIIIP "UNDER THE WEIGHT!!!!!" One of the hottest and dizzying, hardest and mesmerizing, and fucking CATCHIEST choruses to ever come out of that DC / Dischord / Post-punk scene. Wow. I don't think J. Robbins has written anything this goddamn catchy since "Breathe" back in the days of Jawbox. Onward to the future!

3. NAS - "Hip-Hop Is Dead" ... This fucking DEADLY song is amazing. It's the very essence of hip-hop, using a classic rock hit like Iron Butterfly's "Inna Godda Davita" to drop a smashing rap tune. Sick. Perfect. Put's the rest of the trash the labels are pedaling at this point to shame, and that includes Rocafella and Def-Jam. Tris McCall nails it in this year's Pop Music Abstract (which is a hysterical and thorough read if you're into end-of-year lists and pop music).

2. Cansei de Ser Sexy - "Let's Make Love While Listening to Death From Above" ... You just have to hear it. You HAVE TO. This Brazilian group (fronted by a half Japanese half Brazilian woman) is just absolutely tearing: "Kiss me I'm drunk, don't worry it's true!" It's a rocking dancing sick tune with THERAMIN!!!! The band's name means "tired of being sexy" and I can't blame them, this is the sexiest song I've heard in a long damn time.

1. Belle and Sebastian - "Dress Up In You" ... This tune off their new record The Life Pursuit seems to come from the band's older sound and records, a beautiful and lilting ballad, a one-way dialogue that seems to be from a woman's point of view, I reckon it's Stuart Murdoch artfully putting himself in someone else's shoes (dressing up?) and it has a disarming sweetness, a beautiful melancholy when you get to the line "they are hypocrites, so fuck them, too!" sung so sweetly with a high harmony by Sarah and then that beautiful trumpet line follows... "I'd hate to see on the pile of nearly made its ... you're a star now, I am fixing people's nails, I'm knitting jumpers, I'm working after hours, I've got a boyfriend, I've got a feeling that he's seeing someone else, he always had a thing for you as well." It makes me hurt and it feels very good.

Top Ten Records 2006 (not numbered, slacker!)

Channels - Waiting For The Next End Of The World ... This is my favorite record of the year. Absolutely. It speaks to me, it touches me. I wrote a glowing review about it earlier in the year. "Little Empires" is one of the best songs that J. Robbins has put together. His new band, with his wife on bass, is fucking amazing. Not all DC punk rockers lose their edge when they get older. This treo has a depth that most five-person acts can't hope to pull off, beautiful and deadly.

Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime ... There's something so wonderful about this totally absurd electro rock outfit singing science fiction tunes that make me want to shake it and also practice my instrument more. It's a short EP, maybe not even 20 minutes long, and I'm completely enamored with their song writing, with how the garage-like drums and bass underpin such pretty keyboard parts, and then totally ripping guitar riffs and some beautifully sung stories from a harrowing future that sounds exactly like now. This record sounds like now.

Beirut - Gulag Orkestar ... Only just recently started really listening to this amazing record. it's so foreign sounding... i mean that with no irony... it's SO out there, I could listen to it all day long about the house.

The Dresden Dolls - Yes, Virginia... ... One of the best records I've heard all damn year long. And one of the best I'll hear for a while. Amanda Palmer and her trusty side-kick, drummer Brian Viglione have put together a massive sophomore effort that has totally stolen the limelight from their intense debut record (self-titled the Dresden Dolls). The stuff I'm really drawn to this year, the stuff that I've been exposed to that I loved so much seems to all involve song-writing that makes my hair stand on end, I find it difficult to comprehend.

Man Man - Six Demon Bag ... Holy SHIT this band is amazing. Go here and listen to their mp3s. Six Demon Bag is a WILD ride from Philadelphia that reminds me very strongly of Need New Body in that way that weird art rock bands from Philadelphia do.

Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock and Roll ... wait, wasn't this on last year's list? Yeah, but only released in the U.S. in the beginning of 2006. It rocked me all year long. "I'VE SEEN HER NAKED! TWIIIIIICE!"

Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit ... what a sweet, beautiful, sassy and sad record. Stuart Murdoch and crew have reached a new height, I believe, as much as I like the old If You're Feeling Sinister. I'm not in school anymore, and neither is B&S.

Top Ten Old Things (again, not ten)

Adam, suspecting that neither of us had much to say about the (admittedly tons of amazing) music that came out this year, we should definitely write a little bit about stuff we discovered this year. I don't have ten of those either, but here we go:

Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E. ... Holy fucking shit, I didn't know that back in the day before Make Yourself that Incubus was a massively kick-ass band with a sound that must have just driven 311 crazy because they just couldn't pull it off like SCIENCE. I've never really been able to get into Incubus, but I love this record. Love it. Vitamin, New Skin, A Certain Shade of Green, fuck every goddamn track on this record is amazing and really broke new ground in mixing acid jazz with blistering metal, hip-hop beats and brain-damaging funk. I mean, just listen to Glass. Fuck this record is amazing. Quoth a sample: "Until the 20th century, reality was everything humans could touch, smell, see, and hear. Since the inital publication of the charged electromagnetic spectrum, humans learned that what they can touch, smell, see, and hear...is less than one millionth of reality."

Fela Kuti - "Expensive Shit" ... I cannot get enough of Fela and his determined building beats, his whacky horn and his thick accent as he recounts his harrowing tale of escaping a death sentence from a government determined to silence him; In short and to wit: they made him swallow drugs in jail, so that when he pooped them out they could arrest him for trafficking and kill him. So while in jail he swapped shit with another inmate. Few things have influenced my own band this year like Fela and his Afro-beat.

Okkervil River - "Black" ... What an amazing tune. I kinda turned my nose up at this band for a little while, and then slowly started warming up to Black Sheep Boy this year, and when I listened to "Black" on one long drive, I was heart-broken and totally hooked. "Ill call up some black men, I'd fuck up his new life, where they don't know what he did, tell his new wife and second kid," those are DEVASTATING lyrics, "you should wreck his life the way he wrecked yours!" Pop music can save your soul.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine ... Yeah, I'm a late comer to their Trip-Hop. I fucking love this stuff.

NoFX - Pump Up The Valuum ... Wow I love this fucking record. Exposed to it by my girlfriend on our cross-country road trip in December. It's real punk rock. Fast as they could make it, with guitar theatrics and songs about how much it sucks when your parents do more drugs than you do, and then start hanging out with your friends, and how you really need even more drugs.

McLusky - Mcluskyism: A Sides ... I realize this was released this year, but it's a compilation of their songs over some years. I didn't buy the three CD box set. But my sweet jesus was this band amazing. "whoyouknow", "Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues", "To Hell With Good Intentions"... those are just amazing songs. Noisey art rock with intense and infectious hooks that make me want to sit down and learn each of their songs.

LCD Soundsystem - self-titled ... James Murphy, you are my hero. There was nothing quite like driving up to Virginia from NC with Ben Jones while hollering along with "DAFT PUNK IS PLAYIN AT MAH HOUSE, MAH HOUSE-UHHHHH!"

Tom Waits - Mule Variations ... well I've really dug into his whole catalogue this year. The guy is just fucking amazing. Amazing. The old joke about how his songs are all brawlers or bawlers? Well he's in on it. I can't wait to hear the new box set. "Pony" is one of those songs that just punches you in the gut, and I didn't know it at all until Jo Stewart of Charlottesville, VA told me it was her favorite. Off of Bone Machine, "Who Are You" is another that makes me weepy nearly without fail. I can't get enough of the stark existential humour of Frank's Wild Years.

Talking Heads - Remain In Light ... This record is stellar and mind-blowing. I can't get over the amazing intertwined vocal parts of "The Great Curve", or the constant driving rhythms of "Crosseyed and Painless" that never get old because of the intense and constantly changing melodies and vocals hanging out on top. Ah, David Byrne, you and your tricks.

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists - "The High Party" ... This song totally rules. Ted doesn't suck. I already took it back a couple of weeks ago. I love this song.

Metric - Live It Out ... Though it's a record from last year, it's been constanly in my ears, all year long. I love this band, I love their songs. Touching stuff.

Total Disappointments

The Flaming Lips - At War With The Mystics ... I tried to like this record. I really did. I spent more than one hour long drive listening to the whole thing start to finish. It was so hard not to hit the SKIP button over and over again. It really just bored me to tears, painful repetition ad nauseum, lame hooks ... what happened to my Lips? Did that tour with Beck take the fight out of them? It really just seems like they aren't trying hard enough.

Beck - Guero ... Would the real Beck Hanson please stand up? Or was he just fooling us all the way up to Midnight Vultures? Dear lord is this record boring as all hell.

Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade ... I know, I know, it's not a new record, but I picked it up and gave it another shot for Jarrett D., and god damn, I still totally hate listening to Bob Mould's barking. Totally. I can't get past it even a little bit. On top of that, I find little in the music that really grabs my ear, allows me to look past it for things I never considered before, new sounds, etc. I reckon this was pretty new and intense back in 1985, but it really doesn't do anything for me.

Matisyahu - Youth ... I don't care what my drummer says, this yahoo is not a genius and his music makes me want to kill. I remember when Lloyd first played me a track in his car, he was so excited to show me, and it was pretty hot. But in the end all the tracks tend to blur together and sound the same to me and his philosophical (theosophical) observations grate on my nerves.

Gnarls Barkley - St. Elsewhere ... With the exception of the hit tune "Crazy," I find this record pretty damn boring. And I've definitely heard "Crazy" enough for this lifetime. I was really expecting a whole lot more from Cee-lo with such a strong single. Damn.

Total Trash

James Blunt - Back To Bedlam ... Okay, so most of you already knew better. But I could have sworn that recently someone recommended some pretty awesome white-boy funk to me, and there I was buying some records and saw this one and thought that's what I remembered. Nope, wrong artist altogether. Dear lord, this is total radio trash. Total. It's basically the same fucking song over and over and over with a really annoying Jason Mraz kinda voice being effected. I can't wait to go out into the street and smash this thing to pieces.

Oasis - Stop The Clocks ... would this band just go away already?

Biggest Hopes for 2007

- A second Screaming Females record, one that captures their live sound: the thick grooves and the vicious attack riding on top.
- The new Zelda Pinwheel - For Safekeeping Warm. The performances by this band of their material over the course of the year are foreshadowing an intense record, one that departs from their more ambient sound to something that is just drop-dead rocking in a way that only an ambient noise band can pull of. Their genre bending shows have me salivating.
- My label (Tank Crash!) has two releases scheduled, and I hope people dig 'em and pick them up. One is the spoken word/slam artist Twig, and the other is the ambient electronica outfit Theory Anesthetic.
- I should be putting out a demo with my band The Meltdowns very soon. We changed line-up in September of 2006, and we're getting back on our feet; we just brought on a new musician, and I'm looking forward to showing off our new sound and playing for you, my friends!

To a great new year! FORWARD!