I was trying to make a little CD of stuff I liked this year, which is becoming more and more difficult as the children age (Hannah Montana? Billy Ray Cyrus? on my TV…….) and my record buying becomes more strained.
So….. what are the Leppotone’s picks for ought seven? I need to fill this CD for my drive.
Here are a couple I liked:
Dinosaur Jr.’s - Beyond
Black Lips - Good Bad Not Evil
New Pornographers - Challengers
Spoon - Ga x 5
Old Time Relijun - Catharsis in Crisis.
Also…. while I am in GR/Kzoo later this month, where can I pick up a copy of the New Real People material?
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pop ambient 2008
pop ambient 2008 compilation…lush…layered….intoxicating….
out now….do buy….
Scott and Nathan have NRP CDs.
In da houses. (Or maybe just Nathan?)
cases and cases
We have a lot of NRP cd’s. A lot. Cases full of them, in fact. I didn’t realize at the time that they were ordered that they are apparently intended to function only as pricey additional clutter for the home rather than as a product to be promoted and, ideally, sold via the internets and stores.
Please, yes, please please remove one from our home.
Sincerely,
Touchy Subject McBitchalot
I liked the new Alarm Clocks
I liked the new Alarm Clocks record. After 40 years these guys still got it.
and anudda thing...
All bitching and nepotism aside, I really love the NRP album.
I am honestly just not exposed to nearly as much new music as i used to be, so I know this is a totally lopsided list. Nevertheless, here’s what I couldn’t stop listening to this year:
New Real People: DEMONSTRATION
Panda Bear: PERSON PITCH
Animal Collective: STRAWBERRY JAM
Akron Family: LOVE IS SIMPLE
Things that were not necessarily new but were new to me that I couldn’t stop listening to:
Arhoolie 40th Anniversary Collection 5-CD box (purchased at a shockingly low price at Schoolkids In Exile—discount due to damaged exterior box): Forty years of American vernacular music, encompassing blues, country, street musicians, brass bands, yodellers, eccentrics, al-variety Mexican, cajun et zydeco, gospel, a wide variety of immigrants (columbians, Indians, Czechs, Poles),etc., most recorded wherever the musicians were most comfortable (homes, front porches, store fronts, bars) and all cuts hand-picked by the eccentric who started the label and did most of the field recording. It’s really a beautiful thing.
demonstrate this, bee-otch
good on ye Dingo, you damn baby eater.
I know it might be a cinch for any of us here at the Tone to wax on about "Demonstration" because it was dropped by our posse. But that fucking record is so goddamn good. Fucking-a, kick fucking ass freaking fuckers.
I’m with you on PB AC and AF. Not a lot of chaff there.
yeah.
It really is that damned good. It’s sad that Leppotone doesn’t have an online catalog or band information pages where you can buy it or somethin’. Because I bet some people might buy it.
Love,
Harpy
Binky Griptite's GhettoFunkPowerHour
Tucked away as a bonus CD accompanying Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings’ 100 Days, 100 Nights CD release (and available as a download - the link’s included with the vinyl LP… possible it’s available at the Daptone site as well), comes my favorite release of the year. Dap-Kings’ guitarist hosts an hour-long "radio program" highlighting super-sweet soul grooves from all Daptone artists - fidelity reminds me of listening to a relatively clear AM signal, and DJ interjections and station "bumpers" all sound like they’re comin’ straight outta late ‘60’s / early ‘70’s, like you’re listening to one of those storefront stations that kept the R’n’B fires burnin’ in the big city neighborhoods back in the day. Don’t know if a label sampler featuring cuts going back as far as 2001 counts as new music (many are from ‘07), but the creation itself is certainly new (though debt is owed to The Who Sell Out). Many of the cuts are available only as 7"s - including them in the sampler in lower fidelity (and with DJ intros overlaid) is a brilliant marketing strategy - you dig the cuts enough, you’ll buy the vinyl to get the full fidelity impact. This may be the greatest label promo ever! (Binky also has a holiday 45 out - so pretty to look at…)
I didn’t think that many releases were "great" this year- lots of mid-tempo prettiness and angst offered by this year’s models has me wonderin’, "where’d the rock and roll go?", or, "is this the same kind of musical climate that birthed punk rock?"… everyone’s so full of concepts and foppery. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, just wonderin’ why it’s so prevalent? I suppose that’s why a record like the Dinosaur Jr. sounds so good (of course, it is that good too.)
Maybe I’m not listening in the right places. The spate of 7 inchers by local outfits (Metal Teeth, Mesa, X-Offender, the upcoming Menthols) gives me hope.
Maybe I’m also stuck in my ways. New releases that gave me most enjoyment this year included the new Black Francis, Bluefinger (practically a late-period Pixies LP, or kissin’ cousin to Teenager of the Year) and the surprise release of a new Loud Family LP, What If It Works? (m0nz, this will definitely be up your alley), easily the best thing I’ve heard Scott Miller do since LF’s Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things, containing his most joyful, uncomplicated pop songs since Game Theory’s Big Shot Chronicles. Plus, they had the balls to open the LP with a cover of the Stones’ "Rocks Off" (not a patch on the original, natch, but not bad either). Springsteen’s Magic is a big fave too (see Tree’s original post on that)… can’t get Ryan Adams’s Easy Tiger and Follow the Lights songs out of my head, either, but you have to be in the mood, the mid-tempo singer-songwriter mood. I declared Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible to be a masterpiece after a couple of listens, but I don’t find myself seeking it out (what with Cure reissues being available and all). Finally, while it’s difficult to listen to at times, I was pretty moved by Charlie Louvin’s solo debut. (Hey, has anyone tried Porter Wagoner’s Wagonmaster, or the Plant/Krauss collaboration?)
Nobody new held me in thrall, though, in ‘07 (outside of the local crew - and thanks, everybuddy, for the nice words on the NRP). Somebody hip me, dude!
Forgot about Sharon Jones &
Everything that my label put
Everything that my label put out. Even the record with Joel sans glasses.
X-Offender single is top shelf!
newish punkity rockity stuff I been digging this year:
Hex Dispensers lp
Taxi 2nd lp
Carbonas 3rd lp
Alarm Clocks lp new stuff from ye olde Back From The Gravy men! Recorded in Fred’s basement, you gotta be fucking kidding me.
Black Lips major label debut proper (1st being sorta live in Mexico) is very catchy. Still not totally my bag, but fun. "Oh Katrina" is the monster jam, even featured on Late Nite with Conan O’Brien!
Those of you who didn’t score the vinyl of the first King Khan & BBQ Show lp: In The Red re-issued it as a double lp that includes the American and German version of the lp (1 song, methinks) and has demos and stuff that didn’t make it on to either. Essential and crucial! Unless you have $50-100 to buy a real press on Goner on the eBay.
Gittin' Rid of the NRP
Dingey:
If you wanted to to some recon for NRP and perhaps move some units I might suggest winging a freebie disc over to WFMU’s "Three Chord Monte" program hosted by Joel Belock.He has a sympathetic ear towards the likes of Fortune and Maltese and hooky-pop sensibilties so I bet he’d play it to a nation of hungry earholes in a hot minute.
With that, one of my new faves this year is a band called the Make Nice. They’re hooky and poppy, too. And I heard them on ‘FMU. I also like "Dark Stars" by White Magic.
I listened to other stuff, too but brain has relinquished that info in favor of Meow Mix commercial.
Black Lips
Re: the Black Lips album, Good Bad Not Evil. I like it a lot, but I tend to like my garage rock poppy and a little silly.
The Fratellis’ Costello Music is also garagey, poppy, and silly. But Scottish. The line that hooked me was: "She was into the Stones / When I was into the Roses."
If you’ve been wondering what Jon Spencer has been up to, check out Going Way Out with Heavy Trash. I like it a lot better than the last couple of Blues Explosion albums.
The new Son Volt, The Search, was something of a return to form even though it’s an entirely different band.
Elliott Smith’s New Moon is a great collection of unreleased songs from the 95-97 era.
The Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gram Parsons Archive, Vol. 1 collects two live shows from 1969. It’s cool. I’d always wondered why they were considered to be so revolutionary when they pretty much sounded like standard country to my ears. Was it just the long hair? This live set proves, nope, it was more than the haircuts. The pedal steel has a ton of reverb on it, and you can totally understand why they were opening for the Grateful Dead. It’s interesting. And it was recorded by "Bear" Owsley, the guy who manufactured most of the LSD in the 60s. So there’s that.
the winner is...
Everything that my label put out. Even the record with Joel sans glasses. X-Offender single is top shelf!
I had a listening party with all 4 of these singles last week - whoa! Y’all gotta get your hands on these if you haven’t… the production on all the tracks is ace, the pitchers and rekkids are fun to look at, and the bands fuckin’ rock - and I can hear vocals!!! Somebody tell Leon’s temple’s folks that K’zoo rock lives and breathes in ‘08…
crikey!!!
I only gots the Metal Teeth wax!! Where, by golly, do I get the others?
Yooey ( that’s what the neighborhood kids called me when I was 10… they couldn’t master that H-Y dipthong, I reckon), can I place an order direct with you, or do I gotta go to the UFO site?
Some that I liked from
Some that I liked from 2007:
Deerhunter-Cryptograms
Dinosaur Jr.-Beyond
LCD Soundsystem-The Sound of Silver
Battles-Mirrored
Burial-Untrue
Neurosis-Given to the Rising
If you buy direct from me
If you buy direct from me you get extra S&H Green Stamps for your booklet.I will keep my lil 45 tote filled with sampler platters of the good stuff that has dropped. Gotta get some X-Offender singles from Travvix before he sells them all.
The Burritos...
The Flying Burrito Brothers’ Gram Parsons Archive, Vol. 1 collects two live shows from 1969. It’s cool. I’d always wondered why they were considered to be so revolutionary when they pretty much sounded like standard country to my ears. Was it just the long hair? This live set proves, nope, it was more than the haircuts. The pedal steel has a ton of reverb on it, and you can totally understand why they were opening for the Grateful Dead. It’s interesting. And it was recorded by "Bear" Owsley, the guy who manufactured most of the LSD in the 60s. So there’s that.
That’s an interesting angle, Jake. I actually thought the opposite. The new live disc is the most grounded and earthy I’ve ever heard the Gram-era Burritos. Then again, Gilded Palace of Sin is the only truly cosmic-sounding record in Gram’s discgoraphy. Plus, one could make the argument that even the Burritos’ dreamy stuff is simply riffing on the Everlys’ Roots album. Speaking of cosmic country, I listened to the Sadies’ last disc, New Seasons, quite a lot in 2007, which surprised me because I’ve never really paid attention to that band.
"New Seasons" figured
"New Seasons" figured prominently in my end of the year list. Pretty confident, that record.
"Wild Mountain Nation" by Blitzen Trapper got a lot of attention, too.
I’ve been getting the chills from Tinariwen lately.
I was requested to come up
I was requested to come up with a year end list for the record store I work at here. Here goes:
v/a - A Date with John Waters
Grinderman
His Name Is Alive - Ximmer
Stars of the Lid - …and Their Refinement of Decline
v/a - Bombay Connection - Funk from Bollywood Action Thrillers
v/a - Bombay Connection - Bombshell Baby of Bombay
Howling Hex - XI
King Khan and the Shrines - What Is?!
Ghost - In The Stormy Night
v/a - Music of Nat Pwe: Folk and Pop Music of Myanmar
I’d say the Grinderman and John Waters discs were my top 2 favorites
My favorite shows were:
Gamelan performance at U of I
Electrelane
UFO Dictator show w/ VA and Menthols
ESG
Pere Ubu
and favorite show of the year was the Mission of Burma/Sinatras show that felt like a private party amongst friends at the State Theater.