LISTING
So this year, I want to do a really nice year-end music wrap-up. To make life a lot easier when that time comes, I'm just going to make a list of all the bands that have caught my ear in the past ten months. This post has absolutely no importance to any of you, unless, for whatever reason, you're just REALLY interested in what I've been listening to that's new.
2008:
Auktyon
Shearwater
Fleet Foxes
Racebannon
Marnie Stern
Department of Eagles
Burning Star Core
Antony and the Johnsons
Fight the Big Bull
Castanets
Deerhunter
The Hold Steady
C. Spencer Yeh and Aaron Dilloway
I Heart Lung
Flying Lotus
TV on the Radio (not yet convinced, but I'm trying)
Flying Lotus
Grails
The Hold Steady
Women
Dredd Foole
DJ Scotch Egg (I have NO clue how I feel about this, yet I keep listening to it bits at a time)
Sonic Youth + Merzbow + Mats Gustafson
The Music Tapes
Paavoharju
Pocahaunted
Harvey Milk
The Dodos
Evangelista
Steven R Smith
Coldplay (second half of the album only)
We Vs. the Shark
The Mountain Goats
The Breeders
Bonnie Prince Billy
Vampire Weekend (though only for moments at a time; I'm very fickle with them)
Torche
The Weird Weeds
The Last of the Shadow Puppets
Jeremy Jay
Drive-By Truckers
Dead Meadow
Found sounds:
Clouddead (the Peel Session)
Steely Dan
Sam Cooke
They Might Be Giants
Leonard Cohen (I know, late on the boat for that one)
The Soft Boys
Uncle Tupelo
Ry Cooder
Pere Ubu
Miles Davis (In a Silent Way, specifically)
The Jesus Lizard
The Dead C
David Sylvian
Current 93
Frank Zappa
The United States of America
My '08 list has a lot more correlation with higher ranking Pitchfork picks (meaning 7.0 or greater) than last year, which surprises me. I feel like I've deviated more from what is generally thought of as the Pitchfork catch-all, but perhaps...so have they. It seems like they've been more aggressive than ever to not appear as the promoters of typical "canned indie", so perhaps there is still hope for those bands out there who REALLY deserve the kind of sales a good review from them can provide (though I am still pissed about them not giving Grails a "Best New" status).
I eagerly await this weekend: I'll be going on my first ever field-experience for geology, a field-trip for my Mineralogy class. It's all kinds of lame that I'll have to spend Halloween in the middle of podunk shit Missouri (there are lead and aluminum mines there for us eager students to gaze upon), but at least there will be drinking. This much has been confirmed by no less than our AI, which I find exciting; I've always wanted to get a beer with a professor.
2008:
Auktyon
Shearwater
Fleet Foxes
Racebannon
Marnie Stern
Department of Eagles
Burning Star Core
Antony and the Johnsons
Fight the Big Bull
Castanets
Deerhunter
The Hold Steady
C. Spencer Yeh and Aaron Dilloway
I Heart Lung
Flying Lotus
TV on the Radio (not yet convinced, but I'm trying)
Flying Lotus
Grails
The Hold Steady
Women
Dredd Foole
DJ Scotch Egg (I have NO clue how I feel about this, yet I keep listening to it bits at a time)
Sonic Youth + Merzbow + Mats Gustafson
The Music Tapes
Paavoharju
Pocahaunted
Harvey Milk
The Dodos
Evangelista
Steven R Smith
Coldplay (second half of the album only)
We Vs. the Shark
The Mountain Goats
The Breeders
Bonnie Prince Billy
Vampire Weekend (though only for moments at a time; I'm very fickle with them)
Torche
The Weird Weeds
The Last of the Shadow Puppets
Jeremy Jay
Drive-By Truckers
Dead Meadow
Found sounds:
Clouddead (the Peel Session)
Steely Dan
Sam Cooke
They Might Be Giants
Leonard Cohen (I know, late on the boat for that one)
The Soft Boys
Uncle Tupelo
Ry Cooder
Pere Ubu
Miles Davis (In a Silent Way, specifically)
The Jesus Lizard
The Dead C
David Sylvian
Current 93
Frank Zappa
The United States of America
My '08 list has a lot more correlation with higher ranking Pitchfork picks (meaning 7.0 or greater) than last year, which surprises me. I feel like I've deviated more from what is generally thought of as the Pitchfork catch-all, but perhaps...so have they. It seems like they've been more aggressive than ever to not appear as the promoters of typical "canned indie", so perhaps there is still hope for those bands out there who REALLY deserve the kind of sales a good review from them can provide (though I am still pissed about them not giving Grails a "Best New" status).
I eagerly await this weekend: I'll be going on my first ever field-experience for geology, a field-trip for my Mineralogy class. It's all kinds of lame that I'll have to spend Halloween in the middle of podunk shit Missouri (there are lead and aluminum mines there for us eager students to gaze upon), but at least there will be drinking. This much has been confirmed by no less than our AI, which I find exciting; I've always wanted to get a beer with a professor.