- This Blog Is Dead. Long Live The Blog.
Surprise. I abandoned this blog a long time ago because I just have too many projects. Plus, I have nearly 3,000 spam comments I have no interest in wading through.
However, I do blog for NPR’s All Songs Considered and A Blog Supreme (both links go to my entries). You can also follow me on Twitter.
Thor’s Rubber Hammer is always in full effect, with plenty of LPs, CDs, and cassettes due out in 2009.
- Isn’t it adorable?
I am now the proud foster parent of WFMU’s Wall o’Tapes. Here are the official papers. I’m so proud!
- Let Freeform Ring
It’s that time of year again: If you believe radio belongs to music nerds, if you believe commercials have no place on the airwaves, if you believe “Give the Drummer Some” is one of the best damn shows anywhere, DONATE TO WFMU.
I just made my annual pledge, upping my donation a little bit. Looking forward to these DJ-curated CDs I’ll someday receive as a result:
- DJ premium: Scott McDowell’s Alors!!!
- DJ premium: Diane Kamikaze’s Kamikaze Kwarterly
- DJ premium: Bethany’s Let Freeform Ring
That Let Freeform Ring should be awesome: the sounds of cowbells, chimes and other beautiful clamor. Apparently, I can adopt something in the WFMU HQ. What should it be? The Ethernet Jungle? The Wall o’Tapes?
- I think Wikipedia really did just give me a new band name…
Here’s the latest blog meme via Buzzfeed. Inexplicably, you need Facebook to sign in to post your album cover. (Yeah, I don’t have Facebook. Luddites can be choosers.)
Methinks Obliqui is definitely an atmospheric black metal hermit dude living in Lapland. “Malfeasance” (his “band member name,” not to be confused with his band name) lost all of his fingers to frostbite, so he just mashes down his knubs on creepy synths until bleak vomit spews forth.
- This band needs to play outside Boston more often…
MAJOR STARS - final freakout from ZF FILMS on Vimeo.
- On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.
Washington Monument: Inauguration, Early Morning
- Total Vibration 2008 Mixtape, Pt. 2
What a good year for metal and loud music in general. This mixtape doesn’t even cover half of the battle axe destruction I heard, including the epic Hammers of Misfortune two-disc set I literally just heard today for the first time (seriously wish I’d known about this back in October). It was a good year for reissues, too: Amebix, an apparently influential metal band I never heard of, and The Rules of Hell box set featuring the Dio years of Black Sabbath, years I wrongly had ignored until then.
P.S.: Do not miss the Jex Thoth track. In fact, don’t miss her self-titled disc at all — organ-led doom-metal heavy on the psych.
Download: Total Vibration 2008 Mixtape, Pt. 2
01. Viking Skull “In Hell”
02. Made Out Of Babies “Cooker”
03. Thou “With a Cold, Life Extinguishing Elegance”
04. Helms Alee “A New Roll”
05. Amebix “Progress?”
06. Harvey Milk “After All I’ve Done For You, This is How You Repay Me?”
07. Leviathan “Made as the Stale Wine of Wrath”
08. Krallice “Cnestorial”
09. Mount Eerie “In Moonlight”
10. Heavy Hands “See Saw”
11. Fucked Up “Crooked Head”
12. Black Sabbath “Neon Knights”
13. Jex Thoth “Stone Evil”
- Total Vibration 2008 Mixtape, Pt. 1
This could have easily turned into a four-part series (I’m looking at you, Paige), but I decided to keep it simple this time around: one mix for pop/rock/dance music, the other for metal.
More and more every year, my distinction between albums and songs grows apart: experimental-leaning music gets the best albums of the year, pop and dance singles get the best songs of the year. As our culture becomes more inundated with viral MP3s, so goes the concept of the cohesive and consistent pop/rock album. Maybe the recent vinyl surge will change how people think about the album — to sit down with a pair of headphones and a glass of wine to just listen. But as long as MP3 dropcards exist, I doubt the change will occur soon.
In any case, here were some of the best pop/rock/dance songs I heard in 2008, including an absolutely beautiful Robert Forster song co-written by his old Go-Betweens mate, the late Grant McLennan.
Download: Total Vibration 2008 Mixtape, Pt. 1
01. Crystal Castles “Untrust Us”
02. Ladyhawk “S.T.H.D.”
03. Neon Neon “I Told Her On Alderaan”
04. Bodies Of Water “Gold, Tan, Peach And Grey”
05. The Gutter Twins “God’s Children”
06. Portishead “We Carry On”
07. M83 “Kim & Jessie”
08. Tracy Shedd “Remember the Time We Set the Highway on Fire”
09. Robert Forster “Let Your Light In, Babe”
10. Vic Chesnutt, Elf Power And The Amorphous Strums “Little Fucker”
11. Arthur Russell “I Couldn’t Say It to Your Face”
12. Woods Family Creeps “Twisted Tongue”
13. The Lodger “The Good Old Days”
14. Warm Climate “19th Century Blessings”
15. Women “Group Transport Hall”
16. Uncle Owen Aunt Beru “A rabbit In The Snow”
17. School Of Seven Bells “Half Asleep”
18. Invisible Conga People “Cable Dazed”
19. Juana Molina “Un Día”
- “You should have hired an Elvis impersonator…”
This one comes from Gene Janas. Made my night.
- 2008: A Year of Too Much Listening
I feel like I listened to more music than ever this year. Despite my intentions to scale back and invest more time with music, I’m thwarted by my day job as a music Web site producer, the nerdy impulse to collect limited edition vinyl that sells out way before anyone gets to actually hear it and the amount of demos and whatnot received for Thor’s Rubber Hammer. I’m not complaining… I feel like the little of what I did spend more than a couple hours with were all very good. In any case, here’s the best music I heard this year. Read more…
