Toot Toot! Boring List, Dead Ahead!

favs of the year…

1. Hunches – Exit Dreams

I’ve always been a huge Hunches fan and I really couldn’t have asked for much more in a swan song. This record is unmatched in its ability to mix ferocity, brains and creativity. Listen to it with some good headphones to fully appreciate the amount of craft and ingenuity that went into this record. I wish there was a quadraphonic version. Exit Dreams should make boring “lo-fi” bands like No Age obsolete.

2. Eat Skull – Wild & Inside

The leap from Sick To Death to this was pretty crazy. This album runs a perfect gamut from big giant pop songs to moody introvert downers all perfectly sequenced for seemless enjoyment. The cool thing is how immediate a lot of the album was and how many layers could be found after more listens. I can’t believe two of my favorite records of the year came from Portland.

2. Fresh & Onlys – Grey Eyed Girls

Great dudes, killer band, amazing album. The pop record of the year. Being the worlds most productive band, it’s not too surprising they were able to cull together such a wonderful group of songs, but damn if it doesn’t still make for an exciting and crazy.sexy.cool record. Grey Eyed Girls plays like a singles comp with a constant slew of A sides barreling at you. It all fits together fine but many songs have their own feel to them and stand out in their own individual ways which makes the album very adaptable to whatever mood you’re in. Thanks for being so accommodating fellas.

4. Kurt Vile – Constant Hit Maker/ God is Saying This To You/ Hunchback E.P/ Childish Prodigy

The most popular man on the internet after that WaAaAaAaAaAaAwes fellow, and certainly the more deserving of the time and energy. Childish Prodigy didn’t blow me away liked i hoped it would but it was still great and plenty ambitious. He might not ever be able to top “Freeway”, and that’s ok. I thought the Hunchback E.P. was a real dominator and God Is Saying This To You has a special place in my heart too. Kurt rules, thank goodness someone is throwing gobs of money at him.

5. Blues Control – Local Flavour

The first song on the album sounds like Kraftwerk covering Hawkwind! I didn’t think that was too possible either, but then it moves on to some real dreamy drone piece and back for a track that sounds like Fela Kuti conducting Joe Meeks electronic Arkestra on Jupiter. Errr, something like that. I’m a big fan of this record, you should be as well.

Honorable Mentions: Grass Widow – S/T, Hunches – Home Alone 5, Ganglians – Monster Head Room, Mantles – S/T, Sonny & The Sunsets – Tomorrow Is Alright, Tim Cohen – The Two Sides of Tim Cohen

Killer Singles – Grass Widow – Lulu’s Lips 12″, Bitters – Warrior 12″, Little Claw – Race To The Bottom, El jesus De Magico – Unclean Ghost, Blues Control – Paul’s Winter Solstice, Nodzzz – True to Life, Rough Kids – Why So Serious?, Mantles – Don’t Lie, R. Stevie Moore – U R True, Real Estate – Fake Blues, Surf City -S/T E.P, Sic Alps – L Mansion, Wounded Lion – Friendly?

2009 was a weird year, but to the best of my recollection i had a good time. It was certainly more exciting than other years i’ve had with lots of good ups and draggin downs, which is always a positive sign if you ask me. Those type of things mean you’re going for it, and hopefully coming out on top and if not at least you’re trying. Here’s to a productive 2010. Thanks for reading this thing.

Year End Lust

In no particular Order, a few things that have defined my year.

SAN FRANCISCO: Thee Ohsees, The Hospitals, Sic Alps, Fresh & Onlys, Nodzzz, Ty Segal, Brilliant Colors, Bare Wires, Sandwitches, Grass Widow and a ton of other local bands ruling real hard. Things are moving, and it is exciting.

That Dunedin Sound: Flying Nun Records, Chris Knox is a saint, The Clean are heaven sent and there are oh so many more. Neu Zealand.

Stellar Reissues: THE CLEAN, La Dusseldorf, J.T. IV, Wipers, July, Milk’N’Cookies!, Golden Dawn, Os Mutantes, Tommy Jay, Animals & Men, DNA, Mayo Thompson, The Baroques, MISSISSIPPI RECORDS

New Releases: Catatonic Youth – Piss Scene EP, Thomas Function – Celebration LP, Fabulous Diamonds – S/T LP, Cheveu – S/T LP, Kurt Vile – Constant Hitmaker CD (gross), Woods – Some Shame (tour cassette), Hospitals – Hairdryer Peace, OhSees – everything i could get my hands on…, Sic Alps – U.S. EZ, Love Tan – S/T EP, The World Is Lousy With Ideas – Vol. 5 EP, Wounded Lion – Carol Cloud 45, Meth Teeth – Bus Rides EP, Dan Melchior – Christmas For Crows LP

Thanks to all who have supported this thing the past six months. Here’s to 2009, let’s hope it has a more positive demeanor than that bastard 2008. I’ve still got plenty of ideas for this thing, but if any of you bozos got any requests, feel free to let me know.

I wanted to wear a cape but all the other Aces just made fun of me…

If you have 20 minutes on your hands, I recommend watching these two videos…

It’s not always easy being in a band with yourself

Yeti #6

I had never heard of this magazine (it’s a book, really) before this issue came out, and looking through the contents of their back issues, #6 does seem to be of unprecedented levels of radical. A really extensive interview with the almighty Clean, The Vivian Girls, Times New Viking, Sic Alps and Eat Skull interviewing each other, paper cut works from David Fair, awesome drawings from Mingering Mike and a whole lot more including a cd with live clean rarities, Times New Viking and Crystal Stilts covering the Clean and Great Unwashed respectively, Eat Skull, Blank Dogs, Sun City Girls, Vivian Girls demo, and local wundergirls Grass Widow got the first track! Awesome for them. For any SF locals Needles and Pens have a handful of these for $12.

It’s Rock and Roll and the Message is, Do It!

http://yetipublishing.com/

Poor Turtles!

1994

1965

Teen Dance Music From Malaysia & China

Similar to the stellar Cambodian Rocks and Thai Beat A-Go-Go series, this comp very literally titled Teen Dance Music From Malaysia and China is chocked full of absolutely brilliant bandwagon hopping fuzzed out surfey R&B pop hits interpreted through traditional regional music that makes this stuff a genuinely unique pleasure to listen to. I once had the bizarre experience of listening to this while driving through shitty, desolate, lost and never again to be found, west Texas and it was probably the reason I didn’t lose my mind and was instead transported to a steamy Singapore Han joint where all the kids were doing the Watusi.

Anyone that has read my drivel from the beginning will remember The Brothers Hawk, who kicked off each volume of my Summr Jams compilations, and this comp is where those songs came from. Also anyone who enjoyed the Cherry Viewing A-Go-Go and Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys albums will be equally thrilled by this comp. I’d write that this is Highly Recommended but that would be silly since I think everything i post here is totally awesome and your life is incomplete without it.

Sample: The Brothers Hawk: Funny Funny A-Go-Go

Man Chau Po Orchestra – For A Few Dollars More

Download: Teen Dance Music From China and Malaysia

Jay Reatard + Record Dweebs = Hilarity

OK, You know who Jay Reatard is right? Well you should, the guy is crazy talented and twenty years from now when his (currently yet to be written) No. 1 single is on the classic rock radio station, you’re beaming in on your hover car, your kid is going to ask you if you ever saw, partied, got kicked in the face by the always controversial Reatard. Well he’s upset the masses again – this post is a link to a message board thread that is truly remarkable. It’s an epic tale full of twist and turns, squirming, seething, ferociously unstable records dweebs who have been put through the emotional ringer leaving their remarkably out of perspective view of the world on display for all to piss on and laugh. Uncontrolled emotional outbursts, physical threats, rising mob mentality, and honest comparisons to Presidential Election scandals are present in 27 pages of internet glory.

The premise of the thread is Mr. Reatard is about to release his fourth and increasingly limited 7″ for matador records which is going on sale at 3pm Eastern on Matador’s website. What follows is pure comedy and/or tragedy. I’ll go through a primer so you can look and read along so as to not have to browse the whole thread. Let’s start the fun…

Even from the start this whole thing is fucked, the sale was intended to start at 3, but it goes up at 1:30. Orders start flooding in, completely ruining all fair and honest consumerism forcing Matador to cancel all early orders and asking everyone come back and try again at 3. People are already pissed (see page 2) Even Matador head honcho Dave Martin is unwisely trotting around in the middle of this shit fit trying to hold order. 3pm comes and Matador’s site is getting it’s guts beat, drilled, pigroasted, by an onslaught of nerds and resellers who are clawing and scratching for a shot at this record. Of course Matador’s credit card support system eats shit canceling orders automatically siting fraud ridden credit cards. The dweeeeebs are wild in the streets and out for blood. Matador decides to cancel ALL orders RE-DO the preorder the next day, same time. YIKES. Well amazingly enough the sale goes up early again and the dweebs pounce, but this time in even greater numbers! Again the site is crippled, being pummeled at every orifice. Shit sells out quick, NATCH, and most dweebs didn’t get the precious record and well, you should see for yourself how they reacted. In the end Matador plays peace keepers and vows to fulfill every order that was successful on either day, even if it was later canceled silencing a majority of the dismayed, possibly ruining the eBay resale market for the record, taking years off of the life of many people who probably shouldn’t live much longer anyway, and unintentionally exposing the wretched reality of greed, self entitlement, myopia, and ignorance emotionally unstable dweebs with truly nothing better to do than collect rare records for the single purpose of ownership. The last thing i will say to put this whole ordeal in a greater perspective is Matador has long ago announced that this record along with all the others in the series will be comped on a single LP in the near future in unlimited quantities for a very nice price. WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?

Read The Thread Here

Hear: Jay Reatard – Always Wanting More

Jay Reatard – Hammer I Miss You