Hey, kids, is this starting to feel too much like work? Would you like fries with that opinion? This mound of music and plastic is turning into Stonehendgeand I need smething to sacrifice. I would do a ritual dance, but I have clacium in myankles. Same truth different day…. I’ll go on … it’s Becketts world, the rest of us just live in it. Translation available on request.
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1. Mat Sweeney / Bonnie Prince Billie – “Superwolf”
Will grows up, his voice stops cracking and now sounds like… Stephen Stills? And somehow that’s a good thing. Sweeney’s guitar adds muscle and melody behind the usual sex and god and gothic flesh tearing Oldham loves so much. Bet they could do a killer version of the Allman’s “Melissa.” And no, I’m not being ironic.
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2. Monk/Coltrane – “Carnegie Hall”
Would be number one if I wasn’t so much of an indie rock geek. Coltrane is the greatest musician of the 20th Century …. I stared at thet line for ten minutes and I have nop follow-up.
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3. Angels of Light & Akron Family – “Angels of Light & Akron Family”
I’ve only been 1iving with thisa for a couple of weeks, and I favor the Gira tracks. Sounds like he swallowed the world and the worms are his choir.
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4. Dirtbombs – “If You Don’t Already Have a Look”
Rock. You know, rock. Songs about girls and cars recorded with casual regard to vu meters and shit. You know, rock.
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5.The Drones – “Wait Long by the River and the Bodies of Your Enemies Will Float By”
Autralian melodrama just in time for the Green On Red revival. Crazy Horse would be an obvious comparison, maybe the Birthday Party and fuck all if this is one of the few bands who remember what a guitar is for.
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6. Six Organs of Admittance – “School of the Flower”
Part of the new weird America thang by accident. Been around for a while and have more of a sense of melody and not really weird. The bandwagon is riding them.
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7. Konono #1 – “Congotronics”
It took 25 years to record their first record and it’s echo should kill every patchouli stink drum circle in every college town in America.
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8. Alasdair Roberts — “No Earthly Man”
Sad trad by morose Scot produced by sad boy Will Bonnie Palace. Gets kinda one note, but perfect for the winter meloncholia when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of death while a maiden is a walkin’ one bright may morning …you get the idea.
9.International Tall Dwarfs – “In The Dying Days Of Helen Young”
Radio session toss off casual brilliance and a celebration of life’s natural decay.
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10. Animal Collective – “Feels”
Now that everyone likes them, I don*t. My band. Mine mine mine. You know, I did the same thing with Peter Frampton and Cheap Trick when their live albums came out. I’m more mature now. Really.
11. Oneida – “The Wedding”
12. Freakwater – “Thinking of You”
13. Jackie O Motherfucker – “Flags of the Sacred Harp”
14. Dave Douglas – “Mountain Passages”
15. Bassholes – “Bassholes”
16. The Silver Mt Zion – “Horses in the Sky”
17 .Alexander Tucker – “Old Fog”
18. Arizona Amp and Alternator – “s/t”
19. Acid Mother Tempie – “Just Another Band From the Cosmic Inferno”
20.A Hawk and A Hacksaw – “Darkness Before Noon”
Mike Ladd – “Negrophilia”
Devendra Banhardt – “Cripple Crow”
Cerberus Shoal – “The Land We All Believe In”
Akron Family – “s/t”
The Boredoms – “Seadrum”
Nagisa Ni Ti – “Dream Sounds”
Climax Golden Twin – “Highly Bred and Sweetly Tempered”
Jennifer Gentle – “Valende”
Debashish Bhattacharya – “Calcutta Slide Guitar”
The Wedding Present – “Take Fountain”
Reissues and the like:
Richard Hell – “Spurts”
Sonic Youth – “Goo Deluxe”
Nick Cave – “B-Sides”
Various Artists – “No New York”
Funkadelic – a whole shitload, but especially “Funkadelic”, “Maggot Brain” and “Free Your Mind”. They DO sound better
Various Artists – “Cult Cargo: Belize City Boil Up”
Robert Wyatt – “In Concert”
Current 93 – “Thunder Perfect Mind”
Patti Smith – “Horses” live version is great, probably one of the few things Flea is on that doesn’t suck ass.
Betty Harris – “The Lost Soul Queen” Jesus Fuck. Toussaint/Meters backed raw soul but hopefully someone will find the masters and write better liners.
The Ex – “Singles. Period”
Let downs:
Richard Thompson – “Front Parlour Ballads” His work on “Grizzly Man” is far better and I forgot to put it farther up.
Aimee Mann – “The Forgotten Arm”
Neil Young – “Prarie Wind”
What the …?
My Morning Jacket, Death Cab, Sufjan Stevens
Best Shows:
Hawk And A Hacksaw, Olivia Tremor Control and the magnificent Tall Dwarfs at the Bowery Ballroom.
The Pull Outs at the Colony Cafe
Shows I missed:
Micheal Hurley at the Colony and the Volcano Suns at Maxwells.
Films:
“Mysterious Skin”
“Me You and Everyone We Know”
“My Summer Of Love”
“Kings and Queen”
“Squid and the Whale”
“Capote”
“16 Years Of Alcohol”
“Junebug”
Best brown~nose job with some brilliant footage but no mention of Rambling Jack but gains a point for no endless prattle about life on the road from Robbie Robertson: “No Direction Home”
Pretty good:
“Good Night and Good Luck”
“Syriana”
“History of Violence”
Worst High School Civics Lesson Disguised as a Movie:
“Crash”