Trainspotting the Decade: Music

Verb

1. hobby of collecting railroad locomotive numbers: a hobby that consists of collecting the numbers of railroad locomotives
2. looking for vein: the search for a vein that is prominent enough to inject drugs into (slang)

Connotation: Obsessively compiling lists of pop culture minutiae....Which is what I was born to do.

I think I'd secretly been waiting for the end of the decade just so I could do shit like this. Go ahead and tell me what you'd put instead or what a goddamned idiot I am for thinking this, etc. They're music related (save one) and relate to everything outside of my best album/song posts. Just add 'of the decade' to all of them.

Best Stand-Up Comedians

1. David Cross
2. Maria Bamford
3. Zach Galifianakis
4. Patton Oswalt
5. Louis C.K.
6. Dave Attell
7. Eugene Mirman
8. Michael Ian Black
9. Jim Gaffigan
10. Dimitri Martin

Top Twenty Live Acts I've Seen (by definition of the decade) (No Order)

1. Ambulance Ltd.
2. Echo & The Bunnymen
3. Metric
4. Radiohead
5. Broken Social Scene
6. Sonic Youth
7. Arcade Fire
8. LCD Soundsystem
9. Rage Against The Machine
10. Rufus Wainwright
11. Wolf Parade

12. TV On The Radio
13. Sam Roberts Band
14. Phosphorescent
15. David Byrne
16. MSTRKRFT
17. Handsome Furs
18. Ladyhawk
19. Julie Doiron
20. Bahamas

Twenty-Two Voices to Melt Your Heart And Shake Your Bones (No Order)

Or: ...no, I like Bjork, too, but she's been around for almost thirty years. What? Well, yeah Rufus Wainwright technically released his first album in 1998, but he himself said no one really knew him until after 2002, otherwise he wouldn't have done that song for Moulin Rouge. What? It's my list, bugger off!

1. Matthew Houck
2. Amy Millan
3. Tunde Adebimpe & Kyp Malone
4. Regina Spektor
5. Fyfe Dangerfield
6. Leslie Feist
7. Rufus Wainwright
8. Neko Case
9. Spencer Krug
10. Regine Chassigner
11. Nick Stumpf
12. Shara Worden
13. Sufjan Stevens
14. Sharon Jones
15. Ed Droste
16. Lisa Lobsinger
17. Matt Bellamy
18. Theo Blasko
19. Robin Pecknold
20. Larissa & Shilough Hopwood

Favorite Lyricists/Songwriters/Arrangers

1. Colin Meloy

2. John Roderick

3. Spencer Krug

4. Rufus Wainwright

5. Win Butler & Regine Chassigner

6. Sufjan Stevens

7. TV On The Radio

8. Eirik Glambek Bøe & Erlend Øye

9. Matt Bellamy

10. Kevin Drew & Brendan Canning

10 Bands With Members (Frontmen especially) Who Seem Culled From The 70s

1. Parlour Mob

2. Of Montreal

3. Besnard Lakes

4. Metric

5. Mars Volta

6. Phosphorescent 

7. Franz Ferdinand

8. Gentleman Reg

9. Eagles of Death Metal

10. Handsome Furs

Five Best Original Soundtracks

1. There Will Be Blood - Jonny Greenwood
2. The Road - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
3. Brokeback Mountain - Gustavo Santaolalla
4. Amélie - Yann Tiersen
5. Dracula - Philip Glass

Five Great Live Albums That Remind Me I Don't Have Many Live Albums

1. Wilco - Kicking Television
2. My Morning Jacket - Okonokos 
3. Richard Thompson - 1000 Years of Popular Music
4. The New Pornographers - Live From The Future
5. The Decemberists - Live At The Theatre Of Living Arts, also that live DVD they put out is pretty amazing, I don't know why they didn't release a proper live album from the master of that show.

Fifteen Favorite Electric Guitar Players Who Emerged after the year 2000

or The Devil's Hands Redux

Michael and Jordan if you're reading this, Dragonslayer is awesome and I can't wait to see you guys play some of it live. Thanks for the interview.
-Dave

1. Michael Doerksen & Jordan Robson-Cramer - Sunset Rubdown
2. Andrew Whiteman - Apostle of Hustle/Broken Social Scene

3. Jack White - The White Stripes/The Raconteurs
4. David Andrew Sitek & Kyp Malone - TV On The Radio
5. Jimmy Shaw - Metric
6. Nick Zinner - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
7. Omar A. Rodriguez-Lopez - Mars Volta/At The Drive-In
8. Tim Kratz - Honeychurch
9. Russell Lissack - Bloc Party
10. Erin Sullivan - The A-Frames/The Dipers
11. Dan Auerbach - The Black Keys
12. Kato Ådland - Sondre Lerche/House of Hiss
13. Dan Boeckner - Handsome Furs/Wolf Parade

14. Marissa Paternoster - Screaming Females

10 Fantastic Bass Players

1. Brendan Canning - Broken Social Scene
2. Carlos D. - Interpol
3. Andy Nicholson - Arctic Monkeys
4. Gordon Moakes - Bloc Party
5. Jared Fallowell - Kings of Leon
6. Jesse F. Keeler - Death From Above 1979
7. Julian Brown - Apostle of Hustle
8. Charlie Spearin - Do Make Say Think/Broken Social Scene
9. Bobby Kildea - Belle & Sebastian
10. The Arcade Fire (they all kinda take turns at bat)

12 Absurdly Talented Drummers (No Order)

1. Matt Tong - Bloc Party
2/3. Thom Pridgen/Jon Theodore - Mars Volta

4. Brann Dailor - Mastodon
5. Justin Peroff - Broken Social Scene
6/7.  James Payment & Dave Mitchell - Do Make Say Think
8. Sebastian Grainger - Death From Above 1979
9. Matt Schulz - Holy Fuck 
10. Rachel Blumberg - Decemberists/Norfolk & Western/M. Ward
11. Glenn Kotche - Wilco/Loose Fur
12. Jason Tait - Weakerthans/Bahamas

Ten Best Radiohead Songs From Their Last Four Albums

1. "Optimistic"

2. "Like Spinning Plates"

3. "In Limbo"

4. "Knives Out"

5. "Where I End And You Begin"

6. "Kid A"

7. "Life In A Glass House"

8. "Myxomatosis"

9. "Bodysnatchers"

10. "Sail To The Moon"

10 Christmas Albums That Are In No Way Christmas Albums

Albums that just put me in the holiday mood. I also used to watch Alien every year on Christmas Eve. 

1. Punches - World Leader Pretend

2. In Our Bedroom After The War - Stars
3. Two Thousand - French Kicks
4. Funeral - Arcade Fire
5. Dear Catastrophe Waitress - Belle & Sebastian
6. Asleep At Heaven's Gate - Rogue Wave
7. Without Feathers - The Stills
8. Gang Of Losers - The Dears 
9. Takk... - Sigur Rós
10. Want One/Want Two - Rufus Wainwright

Ten Favorite Hip-Hop Songs That Illustrate How White I Am

Incidentally in answer to your question (it was "you haven't heard much hip-hop, have you?", in case you don't remember asking), no, I haven't heard a lot of hip-hop, so these are basic and sheltered choices. What does it say that four of these tracks were made at least in part by white people and that four of the rest are by artists who are closely connected? I'll leave that to you. It's a cheat to put tracks by both Doom and Madvillain but...I don't care. I'm not a hip-hop connoisseur and so could only pick from the few things that have entered my periphery. So while I'm not at all the best person to ask, these songs are pretty goddamn great.

1. "All Caps" - Madvillain
2. "List of Demands" - Saul Williams
3. "National Disgrace" - Atmosphere
4. "Fig Leaf Bi-Carbonate" - MF Doom
5. "Save Me Dear" - Ghostface
6. "Gravel Pit" - Wu Tang Clan
7. "Let's Push Things Forward" - The Streets
8. "Fix Up, Look Sharp" - Dizzee Rascal
9. "Valhalla" - K-Os featuring Sam Roberts
10. "Bounce" - MSTRKRFT Featuring N.O.R.E. and Isis

Metal/Industrial/Noise Bands I've Had The Most Fun Listening To

1. Mastodon
2. Mars Volta
3. Pelican
4. Lebanon
5. Boris
6. A Life Once Lost
7. Electric Wizard
8. Baroness
9. Probot
10. Dimmu Borgir (these guys are a fucking riot!)

And because I'm looking for honorary citizenship...Eleven Reasons Canada's Better Than America

1. Arcade Fire
2. Holy Fuck
3. Constellation Records
4. Sappyfest
5. Wolf Parade and family
6. New Pornographers and family
7. Sam Roberts Band
8. Arts & Crafts Records
9. Rufus Wainwright
10. The people are nice (especially Jo-Ann Goldsmith)

11. Healthcare

Bands Whose Music Thankfully Refuse To Age

1. Sonic Youth

2. Tom Waits

3. Richard Thompson

4. David Byrne

5. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds

6. The Pixies

7. Björk

8. John Cale

9. Morrissey

10. New Order (respective members)

Bands I Liked Before They Were Cool

I mean like first EP, saw them open for Metric, was hurt by lineup changes, major label debuts, TV appearances, hate the new fans, etc. If you liked The Decemberists before blogs foundPicaresque or DeVotchKa before Little Miss Sunshine then you know what I'm talking about. I still listen to and love most of them, too. 

1. Kings Of Leon

2. Sondre Lerche

3. Iron & Wine

4. Interpol

5. Grizzly Bear

6. Feist

7. Wolf Parade

8. Langhorne Slim

9. The Black Keys

10. Múm

 

Criminally Underappreciated Bands Better Than Most Everything On The Radio

There are more, but I don't want them to wind up on MTV; These bands seem inaudible to the ears of the Twilight set.

1. matt pond PA
   
2. Cass McCombs
   
3. Blood On The wall
   
4. Tulsa
   
5. Clues
6. The A-Frames
   
7. Land Of Talk
   
8. Nat Baldwin
   
9. Julie Fader
   
10. The Besnard Lakes

50 Songs To Give, Receive and Remember Hugs By

Ok, assembled here is a list of my 50 favorite songs of the decade that do a certain thing for me. Mostly whenever I hear them I want a hug and/or think of times when I got hugs from people and then remember those times fondly. Their sense memory songs, if that makes sense. You remember intimate things about yourself and your closet friends and loved ones that are hidden inside these songs. Mostly what these songs share in common is that typically when I fall in love, I listen to them for mental encouragement the same way people play Dutch Courage before asking someone to marry them. These songs are like the alcohol I'd consult if I weren't such a pussy. They've been there when I've had to keep my feelings to myself. Now I kept it to one song per artist and they all come from proper albums, so everyone got their fair share at play, with the exception of the two tunes by Guillemots which I kept because they're two sides of the same coin; they both mention Brazil, too, so it seemed to make sense. For example "Neighborhood #1" and "Parachutes" are both beautiful songs, some of the best ever written in my opinion, but they were shorn simply because the songs I used by their creators happen to have made me feel smaller in their presence. "My Body Is A Cage", which is the Arcade Fire song I did pick, has the single greatest ending of any song ever written; again, this is my opinion, but I'll defend my choice in the thunderdome if need be. Mostly they speak for themselves but I've added a sentence where I needed to indicate a particularly poignant memory or something I feel like sharing. Play them in descending order and you have my perfect mix-tape.

1. "My Body Is A Cage" - Arcade Fire
⁃ This songs wins because it is specifically about and communicates through its very structure the ecstasy involved in being close to someone physically. Thus the ending is not only the single greatest thing I've ever heard, it is also about becoming close to someone.
2. "The Mother" - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis
3. "Trains To Brazil"/"Sao Paolo" - Guillemots

⁃ Fyfe Dangerfield's voice is perfectly suited for declarations of love. It's beautiful.
4. "Be Dark Night" - Phosphorescent
5. "Casimir Pulaski Day" - Sufjan Stevens
6. "Ultimatum" - The Long Winters
⁃ John Roderick has more than once shown me how to express myself. When I'm stuck he's always there with the words I'd been looking for.
7. "Middle Cyclone" - Neko Case
⁃ What it's like to be alone looking at two people holding hands.
8. "Flightless Bird, American Mouth" - Iron & Wine
9. "Human of the Year" - Regina Spektor
⁃ Hearing this was like hearing my friends Theo and Sarah's voices recorded for the first time; all three times I thought in stunned silence "I had no idea you could do that!"
10. "Deep Blue Sea" - Grizzly Bear
11. "So Sorry" - Feist
12. "England Will Just Not Let You Recover" - French Kicks
13. ("Fewer Words") "On The Bus Mall" - (Badly Drawn Boy) Decemberists
⁃ I can only listen to these two together ever since I wrote my first real screenplay wherein they follow each other.
14. "Sky Starts Falling" - Doves
15. "Handjobs For The Holidays" - Broken Social Scene
16. "Shiver" - Coldplay
17. "14th Street" - Rufus Wainwright
18. "Chancery Lane" - Honeychurch
19. "Window Bird" - Stars
⁃ Dear Amy,
⁃ If we were kids on a playground I'd give you a flower. Thanks for signing that post-card and I sincerely hope you're well.
-Dave
p.s. This song is awesome. You've never sounded lovelier.
20. "Hummingbird" - Wilco
21. "Hysteric" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
⁃ Have you read my screenplay?
22. "Lions Of The Kalahari" - Sam Roberts
⁃ Sam doesn't write love songs so much as he writes "thrilled to be alive" songs; he's a bit too plugged into the world to do anything but the latter, which makes him an incredible human being. This might be the best of those songs.
23. "Blue Hour" - Turin Brakes
24. "Wordless Chorus" - My Morning Jacket
⁃ So many rides to school spent wishing while Jim James sang to me.
25. "Bang Theory" - World Leader Pretend
⁃ Best played with snow on the ground...also helps if you're obsessed with someone.
26. "Burnt" - The Futureheads
27. "Family Tree" - TV On The Radio
28. "Mike Mills" - Air
29. "We Do Not Fuck Around" - Viva Voce

30. ""Yeah" Is What We Had" - Grandaddy
31. "Young Urban" - Ambulance Ltd.
⁃ The ending of this song is falling in love.
32. "I'll Believe In Anything" - Wolf Parade
33. "PDA" - Interpol
⁃ This one didn't particularly work out, but at least I got to keep the songs. Intoxicating.
34. "Like Eating Glass" - Bloc Party
35. "Quiet Houses" - Fleet Foxes
36. "Slow Night, So Long" - Kings of Leon
37. "The South Sound" - British Sea Power
38. "You Love Me" - DeVotchka
⁃ I cried the first time I heard this alone. To this day I don't know why. I wasn't particularly upset or anything. Oh well...
39. "Nice To Come Home" - Julie Doiron
40. "Know How" - Kings of Convenience
41. "Music Is My Boyfriend" - Hidden Cameras
⁃ A song about the extremes we'll go to prove our love that I absolutely identify with.
42. "Geraldine" - Glasvegas
43. "You Can't Hurry Love" - The Concretes
44. "Stadiums and Shrines II" - Sunset Rubdown
45. "All My Friends" - LCD Soundsystem
46. "Lately" - Helio Sequence
⁃ Deliciously ironic romantic sentiment; I've been there with him.
47. "Up Against The Wall" - Peter, Bjorn and John
⁃ If I didn't have this song, I'd likely not have made it through my first semester of college
48. "Your Lips Are Red" - St. Vincent
49. "Take It Easy (Love Nothing)" - Bright Eyes
50. "Saviour" - The Dears


50 Songs To Get Into A High Speed Car Chase By

These are the other fifty songs. While they can provoke a strong emotional response, really what their attacking (other than your ears) is your gut. They get you in the mood for action. So I've titled this list songs to get into a high speed car chase by. It could alternately known as music to get into gun fight, Oldboy style brawl with hammer or intense video games to (I don't play video games, so I'll just assume that the latter use applies. Oldboy style hammer fight, though, who hasn't been there?) Mostly they speak for themselves but I'll put a sentence or two where I feel a footnote is necessary. Mostly these are just great songs that do more than make you want to get hugged by....though "Bitches In Tokyo" does that everytime I hear it...come to think of it so do "Superconnected" and "McFearless", but that's it, I swear!

1. "Wolf Like Me" - TV On The Radio
2. "One Armed Scissor" - At The Drive-In
3. "The Good, The Bad And The Queen" - The Good, The Bad And The Queen
4. "Super Inuit" - Holy Fuck
5. "Empire" - Kasabian
6. "Knights of Cydonia" - Muse
7. "Black Math" - The White Stripes
8. "If I Had Changed My Mind" - Tom Vek
9. "Slow Hands" - Interpol
10. "Millionaire" - Queens of the Stone Age
⁃ This was written for Dodge Chargers to get wrecked by
11. "Empty" - Metric
12. "Apostolic" - Loose Fur
⁃ This was actually the catalyst for this list. I thought to myself one day "I would fucking love to get into a high speed car chase to this song."
13. "Superconnected" - Broken Social Scene
14. "Six Barrel Shotgun" - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
15. "Svart Är Himlen" - Dungen
⁃ The modern equivalent of a Lalo Schifrin film cue.
16. "Spiders (Kidsmoke)" - Wilco
⁃ Preferably the live version from Kicking Television
17. "Phantom Punch" - Sondre Lerche
18. "The Universe!" - Do Make Say Think
19. "Justine, Beckoning" - Apostle of Hustle
20. "Single Ladies" - Beyonce
⁃ I know, I know, just trust me on this one...
21. "Remember When (Side B)" - Black Keys
22. "Helicopter" - Bloc Party
23. "Flower Garden" - Chad Vangaalen
24. "Yes" (part 2) - Coldplay
⁃ The latter half of this ONE, when it turns into an old Ride song, that's when the fun begins
25. "McFearless" - Kings of Leon
26. "Romantic Rights" - Death From Above 1979
27. "I Disappear" - The Faint
28. "Redhead" - The Fever
29. "Evil And A Heathen" - Franz Ferdinand
30. "Sacred Trixster" - Sonic Youth
31. "Wax Simulacra" - Mars Volta
32. "Dashboard" - Modest Mouse
33. "Diamond Hoo Ha Man" - Supergrass
⁃ This song has to have been written with this list in mind
34. "Absolute Affirmation" - Radio 4
35. "Radio Kaliningrad" - Handsome Furs
36. "A Life Wasted" - Pearl Jam
37. "Bodysnatchers" - Radiohead
⁃ This would also work if you were to involve speeding trains
38. "Le Ruse" - Tapes 'n Tapes
39. "Death At The Chapel" - The Horrors
40. "Y Control" - Yeah Yeah Yeahs
41. "Shine A Light" - Wolf Parade
42. "First Wave Intact" - Secret Machines
43. "Our Trip" - The Thermals
44. "Trumpet, Trumpet" - Sunset Rubdown
45. "Reptilia" - The Strokes
46. "Chicago x 12" - Rogue Wave
⁃ The last few seconds of this song are like a gun fight, car chase and breaking glass at the end of the aforementioned hammer fight. They're that good.
47. "Bitches In Tokyo" - Stars
48. "Actor Out Of Work" - St. Vincent
49. "Guns of Memorial Park" - Sparta
50. "Down On The Street" - Rage Against The Machine

Rain Machine and Top Soil at the Ship Inn

Tonight- or I guess it was yesterday...I went to see KYP play music in Milford, NJ! First of all, when I heard about the show I was like "what? Kyp's playing music in my home town? My little nothing of a town? Opening for a band I have never heard of?!" Then I was talking to him and it all suddenly made perfect sense. He was like "Well they asked me to!" and later, on stage, he was like "I'm really glad I was asked to play here tonight because I've got a lot of roots down in this place. I've been touring a lot recently doing this with a whole band and everything and it's really nice to be able to come back to one of my many homes. And it's the first snow, so that's special." and then he said that feedback was all the rage in Brooklyn right now.


He played songs from his new solo record, Rain Machine, and also, I believe, a few others that I had never heard before. Everything sounds so different live. So much more... alive! He did an awesome job. Malone is like this big bear that walks around and is really nice and croons so beautifully you think your ears are going to fall off and makes you thankful for things like Sundays and blankets and strawberry jam. And I'm just really glad that he's around.

There is something strikingly different between seeing someone play music with a full band (TV on the Radio) at the biggest stage at Lollapalooza in front of thousands of people and seeing him in this little bar in front of maybe twenty people, with one microphone, one lovely guitar and a glass with a little red straw in it. I am not really an expert on these matters, but I really enjoyed being there and I had never seen him, or anyone play guitar and sing like that. It was like that rainy afternoon in the Red Shoes, only it was 9:45 at night with the first snowfall of the season floating down outside the steamy windows. And there were shirley temples. Goodness I love those drinks.

I saw a lot of familiar, friendly faces around. It's as though Kyp just carries this bubble around with him that attracts really nice people. I saw Emily, my old boss there and a bunch of people I used to see pretty much every day at the coffee shop I used to work in before the man shut us down. And I saw Dennis Liana! and I got quite a few hugs. And I got to spend time with my dad and my little sis. It was just a really comfortable, welcoming place. Top Soil, the other band playing that night, was really jazzy and loud and danceable and oh dance people did. Mostly the Isabels. I took some pictures with my phone, not my real camera, because... well I'm not sure why I didn't bring it. But i think it was better that way..? I developed my second roll of Holga film on Friday and I messed it all up because I wrapped it around the thing backwards and only maybe two and a half pictures (out of 12) turned out. So I suppose this was one of those rare, shining occasions when I would rather not hide behind a lens when I could be out getting hugs and getting big Xs on my hand and remembering it all my myself.

On Film Punk

Scøut,
I dream that you changed the Film Punk layout without telling me first, and booted off all of the contributors beside me because you wanted me to help you fix it when you fucked up the code or something. I hope that this doesn't become a reality, and that this wasn't a mutual dream, because I think that we got a good thing goin' here.

Why would you even consider that?

much love,
Shelba

The Best Underrated Post-Punk Albums of the Decade

So as I consider myself a defender of Post-Punk (just as over at Honors Zombie I'm a defender of zombie movies to a largely unconvinced and haughty public, a professor of putrefaction, you might say. Or anyway that's how I think of it; the public has yet to really enter into the equation) I think it apt that I go back and put some of the decade's most assured and underrated post-punk albums into their much deserved spotlight. Ah, but what's post-punk even mean, you ask? Well, first off it's the term that applies to most of the music my friend Ken and I used to listen to at unreasonable volumes in our car and then would try to play in my basement when we both bought instruments. But that won't help you so let's say music influenced by the music made between David Bowie's Low and The Smiths' The Queen is Dead. First generation Post-Punk sounded typically like people trying to be David Bowie on his Berlin trilogy, largely because a lot of them were. Joy Division even asked their producer to replicate the drum sound on Low for their first EP (without access or knowledge of Brian Eno's Eventide Harmonizer they could only imitate it, but I digress). Bands like Gang of Four, Wire, New Order, Pere Ubu, The Fall, Talking Heads, Devo, The Residents, Josef K, R.E.M., Public Image Ltd. and my personal favorite Echo & The Bunnymen made a brand of minimalist, politically motivated, often danceable rock music. The typical set up was simple: bass, guitar, keyboard, drums and that was all you could hear. They eschewed the excesses of the previous decades progressive rock and the polished vocals of those who would come to be known as classic rock. They were indignant, had something constructive to say about art and social issues (though that message was often "Let's deconstruct this shit!"). The height of post-punk is, aside from today, my favorite period in modern musical history. There's nothing I love more than finding the influence of Human League or Violent Femmes in records released today. Occasionally, as in that laughable second album by The Shout Out Louds which sounds exactly like The Cure, bands go too far and sound like carbon copies of some of the best LPs of the time; Q And Not U for example sound too much like a Gang of Four cover band without the politics for me to listen to their records straight-through (apologies to Ken, Ben and Rachel...you guys liked those records, right?). The best of them synthesize their influences and make something unique. In fact some of them are so good that they're not on this list, but my best records of the decade list, like The Arcade Fire. Listen to those guys rock material from Funeral live today and you'll hear David Byrne in "Neighborhood #3", Robert Smith in "Rebellion" and David Bowie in "Crown of Love." To me, knowing where my favorite music comes from only enhances my enjoyment of it. Thus albums like Silent Alarm by Bloc Party are not just undeniably catchy, irascible and soulful but also literate and steeped in a crucial history they then carry on. They know what came before them and are paying tribute to them by reinventing the sound their heroes pioneered.

How To Plan Successful Parties
by The Dipers

Erin Sullivan is one of my favorite songwriters that no one's ever heard of. Here fronting the Dipers, a band composed of Lars Finberg on Bass, Dean Whitmore on drums and himself howling like a goddamn lunatic while destroying a guitar I can only imagine looks grungy as shit, they delivered rock that I'm tempted to say is the closest thing to The Velvet Underground we've gotten since John Cale departed in '69. How To Plan Succesful Parties, their only album to date and, at 7 songs and barely twenty minutes, seems like the work of people too obdurate to follow it up, was already a few years old by the time my friend Ken, who specialized in finding esoteric rock records, found it and put it in his car stereo while he and I drove around our town hollering approximations of the lyrics at squares and people who had the misfortune to have chosen to eat outside that night. It was something of a ritual for us but no trip was quite as spastic and raucous as the night he brought How To Plan Successful Parties for the first time. Like old school Rock'n'Roll played by some bunch of barely competent yet somehow expert teenagers while their lead singer turns into a werewolf, The Dipers were peerless for the few months they existed. Who else could boast a song whose lyrics were as crazy as "I am Voltron, I am Voltron, I Am Voltron, Watch Me Grow!"

Red Bedroom/In The City of Sleep
by The Fever

Come back with me to 2004 for a second. Back then all anyone could talk about were The Killers because of their professed 80s-ness yet no love was shown to The Fever who did the 80s thing without the glittery hangover the next morning or the lounge singer in your bed you had to explain to your mom. I liked the Killers until I bought their first album...then not so much. The Fever were unfortunately forgotten as one of the many sub-Interpol bands to come out of New York around the time that you couldn't swing a dead goddamn cat without hitting a band from New York. I was torn about which record I liked better, their jumpy debut Red Bedroom or their almost ridiculously Tom Waitsy follow-up In The City Of Sleep. Red Bedroom is like a party in your head and In The City of Sleep is like a macabre children's book reimagined by an excitable kid with a full orchestra behind him. The Fever broke up soon after City of Sleep so these are artifacts now, doomed to be underrated from now until doomsday but if you want a raucous good time remembering in a time when rotoscoping your music video was considered edgy but avoid all of the backlash that comes with it, for the love of god get your hands on these two records. The production is a flawless mocking of the stuff they (and I) love and the between the guitar/bass heroics of Keith Pony Stapleton and Chris Sanchez, the sweetly unnerving organ playing of J. Ruggerio and the selling point, Geremy Jasper's truly insane vocals (Isaac Brock + Peter Hayes, maybe. Luke Jenner x Howlin' Wolf?) they were able to turn many a car ride from trip to Trip. Listen to "The Secret," "Grey Ghost" or "Redhead" for a Devo-by-way-of-The Contortions good time. Seriously, these records are so much fun!

Siberia/The Fountain
by Echo & The Bunnymen

I love Echo & The Bunnymen. Let me try that again I LOVE ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN!!!! If my house were on fire....I'd save Echo & The Bunnymen. Anyway, I love their music and have always loved it. Porcupine has been in my top five albums since I first heard it, and Ocean Rain is a close second in their catalog. I saw them at the Black Cat in Washington D.C. in 2005 following the release of Siberia, their great if slightly vacant comeback record. Though for a few years I wondered if it really was a comeback record. I hoped it was because that show at the Black Cat remains one of the best I've ever seen. They tore through some of their best songs ("Over The Wall," "The Cutter," "Lips Like Suger") and some great new ones ("Scissors In the Sand," "Stormy Weather") with a weathered but still awe-inspiring ferocity. Then in 2008 who should show up in New York to play all of Ocean Rain with a ten-piece orchestra? That's right! I didn't mind paying the 70 bucks to get in because it topped their show at the Black Cat (it helped that their opener, Glasvegas, was incredible, too). I could live a hundred years after today and still not see anything quite so humbling as Echo & The Bunnymen playing "Ocean Rain" or "Thorn of Crowns" or "Nocturnal Me" with strings at Radio City. But more importantly with the performance came news of a new album. A year later The Fountain showed up and is easily the best thing they've released since their self-titled farewell album in 1986. It captures that same production sound and shows guitarist Will Sergeant at his most athletic and the band at their loudest and most assured since 1983. Sure it's not Porcupine but it kicks ass and when so few of their sonic godchildren live up to their potential, I'm happy to have Mac and Sergeant laying it down again. And without them, a lot of my favorite records probably wouldn't have been made.

Oh, Inverted World
by The Shins

These guys pretty quickly became the band that people made fun as your go-to for Indie music. Seth Rogen even makes fun of them in Pineapple Express (troublingly roping them in with Godspeed You! Black Emperor; the two are sort of mutually exclusive among die-hards of either camp). Anyway, I remember my friend Larissa telling me that she'd seen them before they got big (read: before Chutes Too Narrow and Garden State) and she said they reminded either her or her husband a touch of The Police, I can't remember. Add a dash of the Kinks, a pinch of R.E.M. and there you have it. Sweet, minimalist songs from someone no one had ever heard of who started quiet and then got loud and produced. I put money on them following the R.E.M. model and lasting two hundred years and a billion albums. Anyway I still say that Oh, Inverted World is their best record yet because it's the most consistent and isn't trying to break your heart or fill your ears with quirk. Like Murmur it sounds like four guys just doing their best and being themselves. The idea of Oh, Inverted World bringing these guys to fame probably seemed faintly ridiculous at the time but look at them now. But seriously I'm tempted to call the thing uneventful and I love it. It's just this unassuming pop record half-whispered by a nervous front man with a band who apparently turned their amps down. Take that boybands and nu metal! Where the fuck are you now Nick Carter? James Mercer's king of the goddamned Portland-based underworld mountain! The man made more magazine covers in 2007 alone than Staind will in its entire career! They were pretty much entirely responsible for Sub Pop's resurgence in the first half of the decade! I'm not a bitter man, I just get bothered when truly pathetic movements come along and whitewash years of great music with least common denominator lyrics and generic-as-shit music videos when all you need to make great music are some unassuming guys with some earnest songs.

You're A Woman, I'm A Machine
by Death From Above 1979

For a kid like me in 2005 Death From Above 1979 was how I imagined it was in the 80s to find that girl with the mohawk for the first time. She didn't want your affection but you followed her all over D.C. anyway trying to impress her. But she's all into being a free spirit and believes marriage is just another form of bourgeoise complacency, man. But she makes out with you after the Scream concert anyway, but then won't answer your letters and you can't call her cause she doesn't have a permanent address, this was before cellphones mind you....wait. Ok, so anyway here was this super sexy and loud and bass and drum record with these two Canadians screaming at you who you never got a good look at because they were constantly hidden behind scarves and looking at the floor. I like what Sebastian Grainger and Jesse Keeler are doing now, but DFA was and remains the shit (the kids still say that? No matter). Who else could be on Headbanger's Ball and still make kids dance at little clubs in New York? NO ONE, that's who! They also had easily the best record title of the year, too before pointedly ironic sentence long titles became the fashion and totally fucked everything up. 

Sumday
by Grandaddy

I would have killed to see this band live after Sumday got released. This album is a truly wonderful trip to some depressing highway town, the kind of place you stop for gas on your way to pick up your kid from college, as Jason Lytle takes you through falling in love and finding friends over the course of a year. Because as much as he sings about the things he loves, you get the feeling that he's dreaming of bigger and better things. It reminds me of a Becket passage "Drowning in dreams and burning to be gone..."

Echoes
by The Rapture

Ok, so if you heard this record...scratch that if you heard the song "House of Jealous Lovers" you knew whether The Rapture was for you. I saw them live at the Curiosa Festival with my friend Ken and loved every second of it. It helped that Muse, Mogwai, Interpol and the fucking Cure were also playing, but still, great time. Loud, brash, bouncing dance-rock from New York. Add to that Luke Jenner's voice (like nails on a hip chalkboard that hurt so good) which is almost as jagged as his guitar, the bands propensity for old keyboards and simple but effective bass and metronome-like drums...I mean, you either love it or hate it, no? Well I love it. I danced like a goddamned idiot in a mostly empty amphitheater to it and I'd gladly do it again.

Wet From Birth
by The Faint

Before Saddle Creek Records became a bedroomhold name, they were a fledgling label run out of Nebraska. One of the first bands that got signed early days was The Faint, a dance-rock band with no ties to New York city. Just before they got 'big' one of their members quit to go write songs on his acoustic guitar about how miserable and cold he was and how the Bush administration was really dropping the ball. Anyway, their first real release was called Blank-Wave Arcade which is six kinds of  awesome and sounds exactly like you'd imagine it does, like kids playing a show in an arcade and using the Asteroids and Centipede machines in their songs. Jump ahead a few years to 2004 when they put out their much clearer, much hipper Wet From Birth about the basest of sexual urges set to Giorgio Moroder-esque backbeats and music that sounds like it could either be samples from some forgotten Lomax collection or the band actually rocking out like Bauhaus or Scritti Politti in modes from several different nations. But beyond that it's super catchy and rocks every minute. I defy anyone who's heard the bass riff that kicks off "I Disappear" to forget it anytime soon. Also, it has a song called "Drop Kick The Punks" on it.

The Futureheads
by The Futureheads

This was the ultimate car in the middle of town album. I'd like to take a moment and apologize to anyone who went outside in Doylestown, PA between 2004 and late 2005 as I'm sure I made your life a little less pleasant at some point or other. Gang of Four for the 21st century, granted a little easier to swallow thanks to the much less sharp edged issues tackled, but still a great raucous record for late nights. Got the whole man-becoming-machine thing from the late 70s thing down pat and then evolved and released one of the best records of all time in 2006 which apparently everyone but me hated and so then they released a totally boring album last year. You Goddamn non-sophomore-album liking sons of bitches! Not you, reader, this isn't your fault.

Stealing Of A Nation
by Radio 4

Possibly named for a Public Image Ltd. song, these guys had the dance-your-ass-off-for-socialism thing on lockdown (the kids still say that?). They wrote political songs that sounded halfway between Talking Heads and The Clash but for whatever reason haven't become quite as well regarded as either, not even in post-punk circles. I'm perplexed. I love this record.

Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

That goddamn bass! Jesus, just listen to it. Ushering in a new era of ultra-hip slacker rock, these guys were the kings of not giving a goddamn what you think of them or anyway that's how I felt listening to Alex Ounsworth's rootless drawl. I saw them live once and they were awesome. Minimalist rock that somehow transcends time and place. It's weird and off-putting on paper but somehow in your ears it becomes endearing. (inside joke: I take my pills to get my thrills...)

The Back Room/An End Has A Start/In This Light And On This Evening
by Editors

The Editors are like a critical punching bag for all the reasons I love them. Their super emotional, they sound like the best records from 77-84 England, Tom Smith sounds like Ian Curtis, each records has a uniformity that they rarely diverge from. That is until In This Light And On This Evening. People were bummed when this came out, I love it. I love the synths and the Gary Numan direction they went in. Granted it got zero fanfare when it came out and you were lucky to know that they'd even done another album. Anyway, their records have evolved sonically like this: The Back Room = Joy Division + Echo & The Bunnymen. An End Has A Start = Interpol + Jesus & Mary Chain. In This Light And On This Evening = Underworld + New Order + Depeche Mode. But all the time they remain easy to listen to, cold, dramatic, emotional, virtuosic, yet always consistent. What's not to like?

It's Never Been Like That

by Phoenix

Wheras everyone else assumed that nothing worthwhile had ever come from Phoenix before Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, their admittedly good fourth record, I kind of like the one before it better. It's a bit sweeter, a bit catchier, a bit more like Orange Juice and R.E.M., a bit more autumnal (I'm all about that, in case that hasn't been made clear up to this point). I like all of these tracks, especially "Sometimes In The Fall," "Rally," and "Consolation Prizes" but I think the standout for me is always going to be "North," an inward looking trip via soft guitar and drums and no words. It's the most introspective the band has ever gotten which is all the more impressive considering no one says a word for five minutes. I truly love that song and the album that houses it is pretty special, too.

We Have Sound
by Tom Vek

I really wish Tom Vek would put out a second record and fulfil the potential he displayed on We Have Sound. He sounded like a one-man PiL. Guy was awesome! Dude was like John Lydon + Elvis + Elvis Costello - whining. Anyone remember the video for "I Ain't Sayin' My Goodbyes?" It was awesome. Go look it up.

Whatever People Say I Am That's What I'm Not
by Arctic Monkeys

These guys qualify as Post-Punk only in that there are four of them, they sneer a fair amount, are super english and make a lot of noise. This was a great record, wasn't it? And Alex Turner's put out a record every year since. Gotta admire that. He's like Atom Ant! Anyway, they were a touch like the British Clap Your Hands Say Yeah in that they didn't seem to care about what you thought. I was sold when they appeared prematurely (in that they hadn't quite tamed U.S. audiences yet) on SNL and in the soft part of "A Certain Romance" Turner looked up into the audience, saw some bored punter and screamed "That Man Just Yawned!" before bursting into the solo-laden ending freak-out. Every strange element comes together beautifully. Andy Nicholson's fluid and memorable dub-like basslines, their fast-pace and Alex Turner's insolent Sheffield accent announced that they were to be taken seriously. Also, some people got up in arms because of the cover of this record and I just wanna share what their manager said in response to the criticism that it reinforces the idea that smoking is ok, cause it's pretty fucking brilliant: "You can see from the image smoking is not doing him the world of good."

Give Me A Wall
by Forward Russia

I hear Pere Ubu, Mars and DNA and love the frantic energy and of course the guitar tone. Put that guitar tone on anything and you've got at least one fan.

Strawberry Jam
by Animal Collective

I got into a huge argument with a friend of mine because I said that all the music he really liked was made possible by Brian Eno. I didn't mean to negate the contributions of those artists, I liked a good many of them too (he can keep Dan Deacon, though. Goes right over my head, it does), my point was that it helps to know where those bands were coming from. I would argue that Yeasayer and Department of Eagles would be the first to tell you the bands they revere (unless they're total dicks) and just because they don't sound like anything else today or yesterday for that matter, doesn't mean their anomalies, it just means they're quite good. I like hearing influences in music because I'm not one of those assholes who negates someone's achievement if it bares a passing resemblance to something else; I tend to love that, in fact, unless you're plagiarizing. Anyway, my friend asked me who I thought Animal Collective owed their sound too and other than Vashti Bunyan I have to admit I was stumped. But I mean there's David Byrne and Thomas Dolby if you listen for it. My point is that being the product of your influences aren't a bad thing, in fact without them, where would you be? Even Daniel Johnston had heroes; so don't get all up in arms because I know where your bands came from. But what I really wanted to say was that while everyone else is so taken with Merriweather Post Pavilion, I'd like to say here and now that Strawberry Jam is their best album and considering it's their last as the full band, I'd say it has more right to classic status. I like Merriweather but it's not as unique and listenable as Strawberry Jam is to me. I love this record. "Fireworks," "#1," and "Cuckoo Cuckoo" are fucking mind-blowing and I don't think Merriweather matches Strawberry Jam for intensity or inventiveness.

Plague Park
by Handsome Furs

Face Control is better, but I think this got mentally filed under "Wolf Parade but less" by everyone when it came out in 2007. Shame on you, imaginary group of lazy rockophiles! This record's great and was a useful insight into what specifically Dan Boeckner brought to the Wolf Parade table. Also, he made it with his fiance; that's like my dream job. I think Face Control is better because they got married and were able to craft a wholly new feel for the record, but Plague Park is still a lot of industrial goodness.

Live It Out
by Metric

These guys owe as much to post-punk as they do actual punk and new-wave but Emily Haines is a force free from the constraints of any influence. Sneering seductively about ejaculation and giving in to desire with a candidness and blasé attitude that not even Debbie Harry managed, plus Haines also has a really amazing singing voice when she isn't doing the female Colin Newman thing. And the band kicks ass. Did I mention that? Well, they do. James Shaw's one of my favorite guitar players yet his virtuosity is all in the rhythm and Justin Winstead and Joules Scott-Key provide some of the most memorable backing around. Also, they're all gorgeous. It doesn't really seem fair, does it?

Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?
by Of Montreal

Giorgio Moroder, Georges Bataille, Bowie, Prince, New Order...I could go on speculating, but this is Kevin Barnes and co's best record to date. A lotta shaking follows. The 12 minute centerpiece almost always gets my blood boiling. It's a throwback but also totally alone and timeless and I love the hell out of it.

Missiles
by The Dears

A little Bowie, a little Smiths, a little choir, a little atmosphere, a lotta rock geared toward getting people to hold hands while the world falls to pieces, which might just stop it from doing so.

Walk It Off
by Tapes 'n Tapes

Ok, so I admit that I don't quite know if this should be considered post-punk but I'd say these guys probably listen to their share of Wire and Mission of Burma, but what do I know? This record was rudely under-appreciated and perplexingly the band's limping debut record was held aloft as their high-water mark. This is wrong. No offense to Tapes 'n Tapes but The Loon has nothing on Walk It Off's ball-out energy and kick-ass rock grooves.

Some Are Lakes

by Land of Talk

Though there are probably those who disagree with me, I'd say that Land of Talk are indeed a post-punk band, albeit one who's sound is a touch hard to pin down. When I place it here it's because of Elizabeth Powell and her devil-may-care guitar playing. Her SG is always a step or two to the left, which on top of putting her in the Sonic Youth godchild category, makes her otherwise ambling rock songs into something more in the early 80s mold. There's a bit of early Scritti Politti in the rhythm and the jagged playing, a bit of Wire in the attitude, a bit of R.E.M. in the vocal delivery/harmony, a bit of Gang of Four in the minimalist dynamic, a bit of The Feelies in the sun-going-down laid back feel, and a bit of The Pretenders in Powell's bad ass rawking. Really though I just enjoy the hell out of the songs; "Yuppy Flu," "Corner Phone," and especially "Young Bridge" are fucking excellent. Have you seen them live? They're awesome.

Never Cry Another Tear
by Bad Lieutenant

What better way to celebrate the influence of Bernard Sumner and his ilk than with a record by Bernard Sumner and his ilk. The former New Order/Joy Division guitar pioneer releases a palatable selection of songs that sound like castaways from the last 20 years and are just as nice as any post-Technique Sumner-related project you're likely to find. He's not reinventing the wheel, but first of all he already did that, and does anyone want him to? That's what I thought.

Juan Hamilton

here's the song I just wrote and recorded in about an hour:
http://www.adrive.com/home/downloadfile/262746492

Some people write about music/Some people play it

So let's do it you guys!
You are just driving me crazy, crazy, crazy! You know I can't do this by myself.
I can't even get my hair washed on a regular schedule. I've got all these half written songs but I don't like any of them and I don't know how to strum more than maybe three different ways and I can't, can't, CANNOT do it by my lonesome. Not that I haven't tried. I did! I do!
I am terrible at teaching myself. I found this out a long time ago. This is why I'm still in high school and home schooling sucks for a lot of kids.
And I honestly I don't care about making CDs or playing shows or whatever else. I only started recording stuff so I could remember how to play it later. So no pressure!
I'm all itchy! (but in all fairness this could also be due to the shampooing situation.) and playing music by yourself is just no fun on top of all that.
don't you miss that feeling of togetherness? Of making something really cool with your friends? I do. I had that in dance too, in the corps. Now I gots nothing. and it's just no good. Also, I'm not blaming anyone for this lack of face to face music. Just wondering if anyone else feels the same way.

I started watching Catch 22 last night and then fell asleep. This not a bad reflection on the film, mind you. I do this a lot. It's a trend.
Take tonight pour example: Lord of the Rings: Rivendale! ASLEEP!
I ate a lot of food today.
and I walked a lot of adorable doggies.
and I listened to some pretty adorable songs by this chick. So that's what made me want to say all this. I was originally going to post another song but then I realized it's GARBAGE. So... yes. People need to start taking me up on my song writing/coffee drinking/dating/twilighting/getting drunk on cherry vodka invitations.
But maybe that's a story for another day.
cheers

Best Non-Album Songs of the Decade

The AV Club released their best albums of the decade list the other day and aside from my disagreeing with a lot of them (though we had some common ground) what I took issue with was the idea that some of the writers had clearly put aside personal preference in favor of a consensus. As if because they agreed on some of them, that made them the objective choice. That's wrong - these kinds of things are always going to be opinion-based and any ambition to the contrary is just wrong. Anyway, I'm gonna be doing some of my own year-end shit as Rolling Stone and Spin and everyone else unveils theirs (of course, no one will actually read mine, so, whatever...) just to point out that the internet makes all their asses totally goddamn irrelevant cause anyone's opinion can be found to counteract their big old goddamned consensus culture. Fuck that Christmasy Bullshit!

Best Non-Album/Strays/Compilation-Related Music Of The Decade.

Soundtrack Related Original Material:

Special Soundtrack Award to Rufus Wainwright

Rufus Wainwright has given us more single track contributions to soundtracks than perhaps anyone else in the last ten years. He's done covers of some really excellent songs and some super terrible ones, which he then made better. Anyway he gets an award. What's the award look like, you ask? Fuck you for being so materialistic! If you were nicer maybe you'd get a made-up award like Rufus Wainwright. I'm sorry....times are tough...this damned economy.... Specific Songs:

"I'll Build A Stairway To Paradise" - Rufus Wainwright - The Aviator

Martin Scorsese's The Aviator had a shit-ton of cool period specific stuff but Rufus Wainwright's performance was the best bit of pastiche they concocted. Wainwright does a winking/straight rendition of this excellent song at a party while Howard Hughes asks Johnny Weismuller and David O. Selznick if they want to have threeway sex....or something...the movie was a long time ago, the details are blurry.

"Malaguena" - Brian Setzer - Once Upon A Time In Mexico

Brian Setzer's rocking version of the old guitar piece is a touch like the movie it came from: it rocks at first, then gets dull, then Johnny Depp shoots some people even though his eyes have been cut out...you know I don't remember much about this movie, either, other than it sucked, but christmas what an awesome goddamned song!

"To Be Surprised" - Sondre Lerche - Dan In Real Life

Sondre Lerche scoring a romantic comedy made a lot of sense, actually. He does a sort Elvis Costello via Cole Porter impersonation on his less successful records, so to ask him to come up with a half-dozen playfully sad trumpet themes was like asking Damon Albarn to do something unexpected on his next album. Anyway, sandwiched in between some old tracks and a bunch of great snippets that don't amount to a great album was a really excellent pop song that could have been a single in any country if whoever handles Lerche had a goddamned brain in his head. Seriously, how is this guy not an international celebrity? Not that I probably wouldn't hate him if he got famous, but I feel like someone's dropping the ball in the Lerche camp....unless....are you staying unfamous for me...? Sondre....I'm....I'm touched, I don't know what to say....you truly are my hero! (Note: I love Sondre Lerche and would love to see him succeed but remain glad that no one knows him. I'm kind of impossible).

Various - New Moon Soundtrack

If I may be allowed to say how much I fucking take issue with the whole Twilight franchise. Fucking abstinence vampire bullshit! Ok, now that I've said my piece, let's talk about this unfairly excellent soundtrack for New Moon. None of these songs are in the movie (none of the good ones, anyway) but we have not only great songs from Thom Yorke, Bon Iver with St. Vincent, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Grizzly Bear with Victoria Legrand, but great songs from bands that I thought had used up all their good song karma. The Killers, Death Cab For Cutie, Ok Go, Editors, The Magic Numbers (bonus track), Band of Skulls all give great songs as well, and each one seems to harken back to a different era of great songwriting. It's not fair, I tells ya! Why do the goddamned vampire movies get such amazing soundtracks. They don't deserve them! But you really should hear the soundtrack, it's incredible.

Various - I'm Not There

There were a handful of songs on that I'm Not There soundtrack that were just amazing. I figured out a little while ago that Dylan's songwriting is great, it's just that his execution is totally unappealling to me. So an album full of people I like doing his songs sounded like an excellent proposition. The problem with it was that everyone wanted to sound just like him at the end of the 70s, so there was almost no diversity. Luckily Sufjan Stevens, The Swell Season and Sonic Youth were there and totally goddamned rocked the house. Sufjan Stevens should be on every compilation ever, far as I'm concerned; his "Ring Them Bells" is a standout for its wierdness, something the whole record could have done with more of. The Swell Season did a pretty straight run-through of their song so I can't really explain why it works for me the way it does. Finally Sonic Youth's version of the title track is...well, it's the song they were born to play. Cool and haunting and smoky and hip as two independent coffee places, "I'm Not There" came right when Sonic Youth were rediscovering how awesome they are. Then they did that Eternal record which rocks hard enough for three albums.

Weird B-Sides

"Daytona 500 (Iron Lung Remix)" - Ghostface

Ghostface & Radiohead....if you don't go find it you've no future as king/queen of the planet.

"Everything Hits At Once (For Discos)" - Spoon - Amos House Collection Vol. 2

Really the only thing different between the two versions of this song is that instead of keyboard, the disco version used for the Amos House Collection has a thumb piano. And yet, it kinda makes all the difference.

"Eighth Station of the Cross Kebab House" - Belle & Sebastian - Help! A Day In The Life

This song was one of the few standouts from a record that boasted some of Britain's best bands Help! A Day In The Life (Radiohead's rather moody "I Want None of This" being the only thing that comes close. Elbow, Coldplay, Manic Street Preachers and everyone else had no excuse for being so bland...although Antony & Boy George did a pretty ok version of that Lennon tune). As is too often the case for charity records, the songs don't really do it for me, but I'll buy them cause I want to support the cause. This song is a creepy Post-Punk dub track and was the last great thing the band did as far as I can see. What was up with that God Help The Girl record?

"Dearest Foresaken (Live At KCRW)" - Iron & Wine - Passing Afternoon

Two songs do not a great EP make, but this one was so infectious that I let the relative suckage of the Passing Afternoon EP slide. Sam Beam's guitar playing is rarely so impressive and aggressive while never actually getting that loud. The riff in the middle is amazing.

"I Woke Up With This Song In My Head This Morning" - Bright Eyes - Lua

This song, the only thing to write home about on the Lua EP, is really about the happiest damn thing in the world. Lord knows where Conor Oberst got this burst of energy from because it was seated between his two most moody and anxious albums ever (not that I don't love the hell out of his two 2005 records). Anyway, from the chirpy mandolin riff to the scraped guitar solo in the middle, the song is all about embracing but tweaking conventions and it's a joy to hear on winter mornings.

"Satellite" - TV On The Radio - Young Liars

This girl I used to work with put on the Young Liars EP one day and then sort of had her own personal freak-out while the four songs soared through her head and into her blood. Since that day I've always loved "Satellite" and routinely freak out to it's searing guitar and hammering drum machine, not to mention the burning vocals.

"Modern Girls & Old Fashioned Men" - The Strokes with Regina Spektor - Reptilia

Back before teenage girls and the Narnia crowd fell in love with Regina Spektor, I fell in love with her. I showed her off to all my friends, listened manically to Soviet Kitsch and prayed that she'd remain undiscovered (The jokes on the masses, incidentally because her first record in the spotlight was her worst). Anyway, before all that she got herself 15 minutes of fame by appearing on the last great song The Strokes ever wrote (ok, the last one that they wrote that sounded like them). She makes a lovely foil for sleepy Julian Casablancas, wailing away like Dusty Springfield and just generally rocking the house. The music is insanely complicated and almost impossible to hum, which sort of adds to its mystique. The late 60s come back for the few minutes that this song lasts.

"Surf City Eastern Bloc"/"Broken Window" - Arcade Fire

The Arcade Fire are the best band of the last ten years. Disagree with me and we'll have words. Consequently I'm often torn as to which of their songs is the greatest. With B-sides the question is doubly hard because they're each a pretty profound statement. So I pussied out and chose two. Both are apocalyptically heavy, super catchy, driving, politically charged and flat-out awesome. Who the hell else plans a pop song with the National Men's Choir of Prague? These songs basically inspired me to write a 350 page war film that thankfully no one's ever read (good lord it's bad!) but these sons remain evocative and beautifully dark.

"Cuttooth" - Radiohead - Knives Out Single

Radiohead are so good even the songs they cannibalize make the best work of most other bands look like shit. Take "Cuttooth" as an example; fans know it as the song where the chorus of "Myxamatosis" originated. The rest of you will know it only as a truly amazing and beautiful song with an unforgettable piano riff and some of the band's best Brit-pop grooving. If I could ever hear this played in person, you could carry me out in a coffin.

"Everything I Try To Do, Nothing Seems To Turn Out Right" - The Decemberists - Billy Liar

You know, the more Colin Meloy tries to shy away from sounding like The Smiths, the more he sounds to me like The Smiths. Take this, the standout on the Billy Liar EP. There's nothing particularly Smithsy about it, yet I can't help but picture him staring at a Morrissey poster while writing and singing it. It's the ultimate rainy day bedroom song and articulates romantic malaise quite nicely. Colin Meloy doesn't speak frankly about much these days but sometimes when he puts down the book of Japanese folklore and simply lets us know how he's doing, his best work can sometimes come out. I love me some Decemberists, but I think I may have listened to this song more than anything else they've done.

"Tylenol" - Ben Kweller

I seem to like Ben Kweller less and less these days (it's not his fault, I got me a pretty good personal excuse) but one thing I'll always like is this, a stray freebie he put on the internet one day. It starts all strung out and detuned and warbly, then kicks your ass in the last verse. I could see him writing this getting more adament and then running screaming around his apartment with his SG in his arms breaking shit. It's great for driving, getting mad, or thinking about people you're mad at. It angries up the blood in the best way possible. BK ought to write some more rock songs.

"Secret Knives" - Wolf Parade - EP #1

Wolf Parade are one of my favorite bands but they can be hit or miss, their EPs most of all. The early versions of tunes on Apologies to the Queen Mary just make me glad Isaac Brock talked them out of sounding like Giorgio Moroder's evil twin. Those dirty-ass rock songs are pretty excellent, though. "Disco Sheets" and "Lousy Photographs" are eloquent rockers but "Secret Knives" is their best non-album song ever. With the simplest of riffs at the core and Spencer Krug and Hadji Bakara slithering all over the place with their keyboards and Dan Boeckner and Arlen Thompson absolutely murdering the chorus, it's a timeless, disheveled, hotel-destroying rock song.

"Country Gentleman" - Ambulance Ltd. - New English

I'm not that old, but there is now a period of time I can feel nostalgia for. There are bands who have classic line-ups that people will talk about in record stores later that I got to see live and whom I now miss terribly. Ambulance Ltd. is one such band. Between everyone getting quitting and...well, everyone quitting again, Marcus Congleton, Matt Dublin, Ben Lysaght and Darren Becket made one of the best pop records of all time and record a half-dozen great songs that wound up on EPs and in one case, a goddamned jeans website launch. Though "Helmsman' and both "New English" and "Straight 'A's" the two other standouts from the New English EP are all great, their best non-album song is "Country Gentleman" a song that seems to have fallen out of Johnny Marr's songbook. Starting with a super heavy riff on the opening to "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" Congleton croons sweetly, Lysaght's guitar creeps about in darkness and the whole misty affair is simply staggering. There were weeks when this song was all I would listen to. It's like an old pulp novel in a 3 minute pop song.

"The Specialist" - Interpol - Matador at 15

I'm seeing that disappointment and nostalgia kinda go hand in hand...sort of a theme today. Anyway before Interpol sort of lost their touch (though I still like them), they put out a few b-sides as pallet cleansers between Turn On The Bright Lights and Antics that wound being better than a few songs off their second and third albums. Notably "The Specialist" would have fit snugly on Bright Lights but I'm glad they put it aside because it's so epic and strange that it sort of needs to be its own entity. Some of Paul Banks best subway poetry gets put to use here "My love's a laboratory, I set all my pet's free, so baby you should sleep with me." Can't make heads or tails of that bit of logic but what a great, chilly song. Interpol's greatest strength is playing songs that make your breath condensate, even in the middle of the summer and this one may be the best song in their catalog for that particular purpose. Icy, moody and with all manner of tempo changes and strange moaning and razor-like guitar playing.

Wall of Ice - Radiohead

If you're a ravenous Radiohead fan, you knew about the Wall of Ice debacle. Somebody leaked conflicting news stories - that Radiohead would be putting out an EP before Christmas, and that the band would never record an album as long as they lived - at the same time. Naturally we all panicked and some people invented their own website to call us all assholes, which I thought was uncalled for. Ed O'Brien calmed us down a month or so later; they'll be doing records, in fact they're in the middle of one now. The two songs that they had released on the internet had nothing to do with that record, they were just gifts. I bet you guys feel bad about all that bogus website stuff now, don't you? All they were doing was giving your ungrateful asses a gift. And what a gift. "Harry Patch" is the most gorgeous thing I've ever heard and "These Are My Twisted Words" is like distilled Radiohead; their wierdness and coldness in a glass for you to drink like a shot. Total bliss, both of them, and free, too.

...and of course, Dark Was The Night

Yes, no tally of 2009 or it's encompassing decade would be quite complete with paying lip service to this most excellent compilation record. The names do in most cases speak for the record. The wonderfully murky tracks of the New Moon soundtrack are just an extension of the best work here. Sufjan Stevens, Feist, Grizzly Bear, The National (and their two guitarists, who catered the record), Iron & Wine, Stuart Murdoch, Sharon Jones, The Decemberists, Jose Gonzalez all turn in great songs, as do a handful of others. My Morning Jacket, Spoon and Cat Power kinda bring me down, but whatever. Anyway, it's pretty amazing and that all these guys could have phoned it in, but didn't (Spoon did) is a testament to their songwriting prowess. Sufjan Stevens gave one of the best songs he's ever written which showcases both sides of his songwriting. Simply stunning.

Best Stray Cover Songs

"Tower of Song"/"C'est Tujours La Meme Histoire" - Martha Wainwright

Martha Wainwright probably writes great songs, I just haven't heard any of them. What I have heard are her truly awesome cover songs. To turn Leonard Cohen's "Tower of Song" into a soaring, hopeful, angelic tour-de-force is no small feet and she does it with effortless grace. You can hear it on that Cohen tribute album from the film they produced a few years ago, but for my money the version she did on Letterman takes the fucking cake. What a goddamned performance. Now that was already a big deal, but then I found out she was going to be doing a live album of Edith Piaf songs. This girl's got brass, I'll give her that. She came back on TV and played "C'est Tujours La Meme Histoire," and totally killed it. Not only did she sing it just like Piaf, she also had the motions and expressions down; she was channelling Piaf. It was a blast to watch and a pleasure to hear it. Now if that goddamned live record would ever materialize I could maybe hear it again.

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" - The Frames - Live

Though it doesn't exist in record format, this must be heard. There are as many versions of Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" as there are days in a year but this is the definitive cover. Between the wistful violin taking over for the rather thin synth line of the original and Glen Hansard's dead-on Ian Curtis (but with a bit of warm Irish heart in place of Curtis' cold Manchester one) their version of "Love" really gets at why the song is so great in a way I never quite felt while listening to the remaining studio versions of the original. The Frames fill out the sound and give a fitting epic rendition of a classic song.

"Wonderful/Song For Children" - Rufus Wainwright - War Child

And speaking of that family of canadian songsmiths, Rufus Wainwright gave what is arguably the best performance on the War Child album (I do love TV On The Radio doing 'Heroes', but Wainwright's is a touch more audacious). Starting at first with just a guitar, he goes wild on the chorus and breaks out the...muted trumpet. It sounds better than it sounds. Anyway, he knocks his Brian Wilson impersonation out of the park and sort of proves that he's the Beach Boy's Heir Apparent. After you've heard it, you'll swear the arrangement was fuller because you're left so satisfied, so you keep going back for more.

Violent Femmes as played by Guster

MTV2 had some great ideas for a few years there but they also notoriously let none of them flourish and were soon showing pornographic anime and a shit-ton of commercials almost exclusively. Reviving Headbanger's Ball? Awesome. Allotting 20 minutes to indie music a week and the rest to Aeon Flux? Insulting. One of their best ideas, which they killed in infancy, was the show Album Covers. The premise: one band records a classic album by another band that they admire. As far as marquee value goes a 2004 Guster and Dashboard Confessional were not great choices (if you're asking me, and if you've read this far, you are, Dashboard is a horrible idea any year and most likely sank the project like a stone). I love Guster and they were at the tail-end of that period where they made no mistakes, so hearing them play all of The Violent Femmes first album was a fucking blast. I went out the next day and bought an acoustic bass, I was so enamored of their performance. To see melodic Newman/Simon disciples like Guster bringing the ruckus on these old songs was a blast but MTV2's invisibility and irrelevance tell me that the whole record is never going to see the light of day, which is a crime.

"Walking the Cow" - TV On The Radio/"King Kong" - Tom Waits - The Late, Great Daniel Johnston

In 2004, Daniel Johnston was still relatively underground. Some folks got together and recorded a whole album's worth of his songs, alongside the originals, and I think together with the movie The Devil & Daniel Johnston the mumbly schizophrenic's days in the dark are now over. Anyway, Johnston, it turns out, is not my cup of tea, but two of these songs stood out among everyone else's. TV On The Radio's version of "Walking the Cow" looks at Johnston under a brand new microscope, like scientists examining a fossilized mosquito; it's still weird but we now understand it. Plus their dead-pan delivery and vocal cluster bring out new depths from the tune. Tom Wait's take on "King Kong" is really a show-stopper. Five minutes of howling and jagged guitar, it was the perfect companion piece to the master's recently released album Real Gone. "King Kong" was a rare glimpse into Waits' record collection. Needless to say, I paid rapt attention and was not disappointed by his earth-rumbling performance.

"Mother Nature's Son" - Honeychurch - Save Siren Records

I await the next Honeychurch record in the same way I imagine girls in the mid-60s awaited the next time The Beatles would come to town. With every passing year since 2004's Honeychurch Makes Me Feel Better I feel more anticipation about the next record from the Doylestown whiskeyfolk revival band (Larissa and Shilough had a baby, so I of course understand why we don't have a new record to listen to). I got tiding over in the form of the Early Times compilation and their cover of "Mother Nature's Son" by the Beatles, recorded for a compilation to raise money to save Siren Records from going under. Now, The Beatles are like Dylan to me. I appreciate them and like their songs but only when other people play them. They gave us blank slates and it's up to future generations of songwriters to make truly great art out of them. The song is already nice but Honeychurch make it awesome. Shilough Hopwood's vocals on this track feel tailor made for the words and melody. This song is flooring, gorgeous, just amazing. I love Shilough's voice on a good day, but here it's just...man, oh man. Anyway, if you can find it somewhere, run don't walk. And in the meantime, I wait for a new record.

We should do the best records/films of the decade/year in the coming weeks here at Film Punk, so stay tuned.

my tablet works again! yay!

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