A Few Definites For The Year-End CD

After going through my music files, I have settled on a handful of songs that are definitely going on the CD. There are a few good ones missing here, thanks to the total computer meltdown I had in the middle of the year, which means I'm going to have to go through the physical music files as well...and buy a new burner. Sigh.

Anyhow, when I try to sum up this year, it feels like it should be with a combination of angry punk, rocking anthems of hope, a few mellow chill-out songs, and a few other random songs that are good just because they're good. I think that's represented in this list, presented in no particular order:

The Kills - URA Fever: I think I listened to this song 100 times on repeat in my lime green rental car over the summer. Hypnotically catchy.



Elbow - The Bones of You: I woke up to this song playing on my alarm clock one morning, and by that evening I owned the CD. The lyrics are about the nostalgia a song can induce in you...I wonder what nostalgia this song will one day induce in me? Listen to a live version here.

Michael Franti - Remote Control. Heard this song live at All Points West. What a great election-year anthem.

TI featuring Rihanna: Live Your Life. This song has been stuck in my head, off and on, for months now. It should be illegal to be so catchy. I'm not even going to post it here lest it get caught in your head too.

Kings of Leon - Closer. Didn't really get into these guys until I saw them at All Points West. That, plus this song - one of the 10 sexiest ever, I think - converted me. Listen here.

Catherine A.D. - Carry Your Heart. Love the creepy minor key modulations in her voice. And the lyrics. Put one foot in front of the other and pray that nobody will ask how you carry your heart. That one, and another one, here.

Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Colour Television. I don't know anything about these guys, but this song is like an updated, wiser "57 Channels and Nothing On". Available here.

Calexico - Two Silver Trees. I love everything Calexico does, but I particularly love this windswept song.

Lil Wayne - A Milli. I had this album on non-stop for a while this summer, but it somehow feels already like a relic of the past. This live version with ?uestlove of The Roots doing the "A Milli" chorus is inCREDible. Listen to the banter at the end.

12 Cameras...None Work

This could be the coolest thing ever...but instead it is merely the most frustrating, thanks to pixellation, copyright issues, and the inability to view what other folks have done - or what you yourself have created once you close the window, despite what that handy little widget up there would seem to indicate.

Grumble. Fingers crossed for some improvements...

Was/Not Was: Picking The Best Of 2008

Every year I put together a CD for friends of my favorite music of the year. I always feel a little presumptuous about doing it - who am I to tell people what the best music is? Everybody has their own taste - but I do it nonetheless, because of...well...because of my inflated ego?

Anyhow, it's picking time. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm agonizing over whether or not some of the songs on the borderline should go on the playlist. If you like them, tell me so.

This first one I just stumbled across today on someone else's year-end best of list. I know entirely why I like it. It's the beat, which gnaws at my memory familiarly. I was thinking that it must be similar to some Radiohead song, but only at this second, as I was writing this, did I figure out what it reminds me of. The bass beat, the note sequence, the spaces between notes, sounds like a slightly rushed version of the Buena Vista Social Club song Chan Chan (video below - speaking of - Ah! What a song).

The Oaks - Masood

Gnarly Indeed

A few weeks ago, as anyone who scrolls down on this page can easily discover, I fell deeply in love with Long Island's Channing Daughters winery. Last weekend, after quaffing the sole bottle (what was I thinking!) that I purchased of Rosso Fresco in just a couple of days, I went on a hunt to find some more here in the NYC.

I was rudely deterred on my first tedious outing to crowded, grumpy-inducing Soho, to the Vintage NY outlet there, which at some point between the summer and now seems to have closed. But last Saturday, I had more luck at Gnarly Vines Wine & Spirits in Fort Greene-ish. I live not so far from it, so trekked over with a friend, and found it to be totally chill and laid-back, not So-ho-haughty at all. More importantly, they had a few bottles of the good stuff, and I did not buy QUITE all of them. But you should.

Cage The Elephant

Wherein a group of guys from the pseudo-south attempt to become the next Kings of Leon, with not insignificant success.

It Hugs Back

It kind of does.

We're Not Your Grandma's Band But She'd Like Us

Those Canadians. There's something in the water up there that generates indie pop goodness.

I intend to enjoy these guys now, because something about his voice makes me think he may not have it for long.

The Danks - Treaty Connector

A Basket Ride On A Moonlit Night

A friend once asked me if I thought the Hold Steady was trying to bring Christian Rock to the mainstream surreptitiously. My response was that I doubted it, and even if they were, I didn't care. I feel the same way about The Cotton Jones Basket Ride.

Midnight Monday And A Telescope

Somehow, This Seems Appropriate