Top 10 Albums of 2009

I'm such a horrible writer, but I'm more than willing to put my ninth grade skills on display for the world to see if it means having the chance to sell you on a few of my favorite releases for the past year. And when I say "world to see," that means the 9 or 10 people that will access this entry. Let's go!

1. The xx - xx
What to say about a bunch of 20 year-olds that put out the best album of 2009? Which way does the band go? What happens next? Part of you wants to say that there's no way in hell that they could ever top this one, that it was lightning in a bottle, that the planets aligned perfectly for them to produce such a fine album... On the other hand, looking at their age? They were TWENTY YEARS OLD when they made it, so there's nowhere to go but up, right? After seeing them @ Bottom Lounge on 12/1, I can say that their live show will probably be a lot better when they come back around in April opening for Hot Chip @ The Riv and playing their own gig @ the new Lincoln Hall. Not that their set was bad in any way, I'm just saying that being as young as they are, they'll have more reps under their belt, the album, hopefully, will have gained some momentum, and they'll be one of the hottest tickets in town that week, so I'm thinking that when all those factors add up we'll be seeing a band on the rise, even more so than we did back in early December. Male/female vocals, lots of songs about sex, simple, catchy, sometimes dark riffs and melodies are just a few of the reasons these songs were so easy to get into. I thought that "Intro" set up the album perfectly, especially hearing it for the first time on the iPod walking down a quiet street at night as the weather began to turn cool in early Chicago fall, and by the time "Crystalised" finished up, I knew this was gonna be a contender for #1. They turned me into a salesman. I had to limit the spins I gave this album just to protect myself from burning out on it. I had to ration The xx! I wouldn't shut up about this album for weeks and weeks. I told anyone I knew that would listen to get it for themselves. I had an extra promo copy that I gave to a friend of mine one night and 5 minutes after she left the bar, on her drive home I got a text that read, "holy shit." It was my musical obsession for months until I finally got the Fuck Buttons album.

2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
Everyone's #1 album of 2009. When Marty Lennartz was telling me about it at the tail end of 2008, he mentioned that some people were already calling it the best album of 2009, AND IT WASN'T EVEN 2009 YET. How do you live up to hype like that? Oh, right, you're named Animal Collective. Pissed off that I missed 'em early in '09 @ Metro and then missed them again @ Lollapalooza. I can't remember what I was doing that caused me to miss their set at Lollapalooza. I sure as hell hope it wasn't because of this interview. That wouldn't have been a very good tradeoff. Oh, and not only did Animal Collective give us a legendary album in '09, they also found time to release an EP called "Fall Be Kind," that, yes, you guessed it, is brilliant. I had a blast playing "Summertime Clothes" and "My Girls" on XRT a bunch this year, and if you got sick of me slurping this album on the radio over and over again, my apologies, but if you have it, I'm sure you understand.

3. Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
WHAT?! THE?! FUCK?! I had their "Street Horrsing" release from 2008 and liked it a lot, especially "Okay, Let's Talk About Magic," but nothing prepared me for this. So many nice things to say about this band. First, their live show in November at The Empty Bottle. I mean, how interesting can two dudes pushing buttons and twisting knobs be live? When the music is as genius and as beautiful as theirs can be, to me, it doesn't really matter how they get it out. They could have the whole damn show pre-recorded on a laptop, hit the play button and fake it for all I care. Andrew Hung and Benjamin John Power floored me with this release. This band's sound is incredible. They made me smile when I'd play the '08 release for someone that just couldn't get past their sometimes shockingly abrasive sound, but with this album, someone that wasn't getting 'em before has a chance. You'd think that "The Lisbon Maru" and "Olympians" have most likely pulled some people in that weren't feeling this band before. The beauty of those two songs is immeasurable. I fucking wish I could create something like that.

4. The Raveonettes - In & Out of Control
An album that made me realize how much I liked this band. I'd always liked The Raveonettes but maybe I'd been taking them for granted. Describe to me your sound again. You're part Ronettes and part Jesus & Mary Chain? I'm so in. When the good folks at Terrorbird sent me the first single, "Last Dance," I listened to it eight or nine times that first night. I can remember that night well. It included a nice walk from my place to Liar's Club where some asshole tried to steal a 20 of mine off the bar right in front of me. Have you ever even heard of that? What a bitch. His friend then asked me to step outside, obviously part of a crew of fuckheads looking to start shit with people that night, and even though I know everyone well at that place, the thought of getting pummeled by 4 or 5 guys wasn't too appealing, mostly because it probably would've interfered with the walk home I was looking forward to later that night that would include another 2 or 3 spins for "Last Dance." That, and I'm not much of a fighter. So, I blew it off and DID get to walk home in one piece, and I DID enjoy "Last Dance" 2 or 3 more times. Also, looking at the song titles when I first got the full album, there was one that stuck out more than any other. It was, "Boys Who Rape (Should All Be Destroyed)." Huh? What were they trying to do here? Yeah, we can all agree on that, but how do they fit that message into a song? Can the song be good? Will a strong, heartfelt message be clumsily crammed into an album of pop gems? Not only did they make it work, but it happens to be one of the best songs on the album. Why was I doubting this band? Haven't I learned my lesson yet? Oh, and they're Danish. Big fan of the northern Euro bands. There are a couple others on this list. Of course there is.

5. The Pains of Being Pure At Heart - The Pains of Being Pure At Heart
Who likes pop? Uh, I do. Who likes Teenage Fanclub? Who likes James? Who likes Ride? Uh, I do, I do and I do. They liked the cornbread muffins I hooked 'em up with @ Pitchfork, too. What kind of hack needs props to interview a band? Uh, I do.

6. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love
"Talks of future with you caves me in." Uh, did I write that? No, and I'm not a huge lyrics guy, but lines like that one and, "As soon as I love her it's been too long," and, "You call out my name for the love you need, which you won't find in me," hit a little close to home in '09. Let's just move on.

7. Japandroids - Post-Nothing
Excellent set from this band @ Schubas on 10/9. What I remember most about it was having a light bulb, smack in the face moment, realizing during their set how nice it is for bands to come along now and again that remind me how much I actually like rock. What's going on here?! No synth-pop? No shoegazing psychedelics? An audience that isn't completely silent and motionless at their live show?! What is this? Oh, it's just a rock 'n' roll band. I almost forgot how rad they can be.

8. Fever Ray - Fever Ray
Speaking of live shows, Fever Ray played Metro on 10/3 and it took me a few songs to remember something about her. About the third song in, amidst the smokescreen and lasers, I remembered that as part of The Knife, Karin Dreijer had this thing about not being seen. Apparently, that carries over to her live performances under the name Fever Ray. Once you get past the fact that there isn't too much to look at, it's becomes about settling in and enjoying the brilliance of her music. And root for Sweden! Abba, I'm From Barcelona, Refused, Peter, Bjorn & John, Shout Out Louds, Lykke Li, The Cardigans, The Sounds, Jens Lekman, Air France, The Legends, The Concretes... Wait a second. A little research shows that the Consulate General of Sweden states that "Sweden is the third largest exporter of music worldwide, behind the U.S. and the U.K." Well, alright! Like I said, root for Sweden!

9. Miike Snow - Miike Snow
Another Swedish export. The Consulate General wasn't fucking around. A band that made everyone smile at the Empty Bottle back on 9/25. That was actually the first time I'd seen them, and it was only because I was there to see the opener, Jack Penate, who actually just missed this list. He's crushed, I'm sure. Not only does another Swedish act make my list, but another Swedish act that's been known to wear masks onstage! (Fever Ray being the other) Whoa! Swedish mask wearers are taking over. More electropop, too. Japandroids and The Big Pink almost had this looking like a rock 'n' roll album list. They'll be back in Chicago on 4/5/10 @ Metro, and do yourself a favor and find the Treasure Fingers remix of "Animal." It's a jam.

10. Grizzly Bear - Veckatimest
I can honestly understand if someone wasn't getting this album. Grizzly Bear isn't for everyone (maybe a little too sleepy, I guess?), but if some of those same people got to see their sets at Metro at the end of September, they could've been had. The crowd was silent, courteous, and appreciative on those nights. Like, Old Town School quiet. They were there to see and HEAR the band play their songs. The first time I heard "Two Weeks," which was almost assuredly on KCRW w/Mr. Bentley, I stopped what I was doing, found it online, downloaded it immediately, burned copies for Norm (my Program Director), John (Music Director), and Marty (who had it already, I think) and said that we needed to play it ASAP, and that it was the best song I'd heard so far in '09. We did play it a few times, but "Cheerleader" ended up being the song that we spun the most. They played the Pitchfork Music Fest in Union Park back in July and re-recorded one of their songs with Michael McDonald, for crying out loud! How can a year get any better than that?! Oh, and another remix alert... The Fred Falke mixes of "Two Weeks" are incredible.

Top 10 Movies of 2009 coming soon! And if I get off my ass, a top 10 or 25 albums of the decade list, too. Oh, and top 25 songs of 2009 will be up in the next day or two.

Enjoy the winter.

Facebook/Twitter

I've been way lazy lately with longer posts (but not as lazy as the asshole above). I find myself posting more stuff on Facebook and I'm just getting the Twitter going, so if you're actually interested in the few, simple thoughts I have from time to time, see below.

Facebook

Twitter

I'll still post longer stuff here, but for the quick hits, those two are the way to go.

Grizzly Bear!

Song from the new album, "Veckatimest."



Pretty catchy remix, too!

And a free download from their website! It's called, "Cheerleader."

KKFOS

Can someone tell me why I've never seen "Killer Klowns From Outer Space" before? I dig B movies. "Death Race 2000," "Evil Dead 2," "The Warriors," "Escape From New York," "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls" (The clip describes Russ Meyer as "240 pounds of creative energy." Top that!)..... So, why the hell have I never seen KKFOS?!? Came across it tonight on Chiller (257 on DirecTV, don't know about Comcast). Ray guns that shoot lethal cotton candy? Say no more, I'm in.

The trailer is here.

Some of the best scenes are here.

Ace Man

If you've heard Adam Carolla on the radio before, you know how good his rants and goofy ideas can be. He did "Crank Yankers," "The Man Show," and had a morning show, but I really think this guy's at his best when he can just BS with someone with no structure or time limit or anything like that. He recently had a syndicated morning show that was heard mostly on the west coast, but CBS cut him loose. Why? I'm not sure, but now, as I understand it, CBS pays the remainder of his contract as long as he doesn't accept another paying gig. What does he do? He sets up a daily podcast that you can download for free, every day. Some of the guests are a little obscure, but they're almost always entertaining, and sometimes it seems like they're really only there to provide Adam with new subjects to go off on. Have a listen. The Joe Rogan one was pretty good. The guy likes psychedelics. A good quote from Joe, "A heavy psychedelic experience is like pressing CTRL+ALT+DELETE for your brain, and your brain reboots, and now you have a fresh new desktop, and there's one folder on the whole desktop, and that folder is labeled, 'My Old BS.'" The point is that you never know where it's gonna go, or what's gonna come up. Interesting and funny are good things, right? Oh, and most of the newer ones open with Lord Sitar covering "I Can See For Miles." Good stuff.

http://carollaradio.com/

Iceland

I know a ton of people that are all about seeing pictures from the vacations of others. I'm not really one of those people. I mean, I'll look at a few pictures if they're around, but I don't go out of my way to ask them about it, and nothing against you if you are one of those people, I'm just saying that's not really me. I recently went to Iceland, and maybe because the average person doesn't really know anyone from Iceland, or know too much about the country, I seem to be getting more and more requests for pictures. So, if you wanna see a few pics from a beautiful place full of beautiful people, here ya go.

Oh, and a very interesting read from Vanity Fair on the state of the Icleandic banking system and economy. You know, maybe you're curious about what happened there last fall? It's 7 pages, so get comfy.

Irony?

The gym I go to is on 3 different levels. You come in off the street on the middle level, the locker rooms are downstairs on the 1st and pretty much all of the equipment is on the 3rd floor. Something I see quite a bit are people downstairs that have just changed and are ready to work out waiting for the elevator to take them up to the third floor where they can work out. The stairs are right next to the elevator, so it's not like you have to walk 300 feet to use the stairs. They're right next to one another. WTF?

A few new tunes for ya

"1901" is a new song from French band, Phoenix, and it's a free download on their website! Yay for free! The song starts playing right away and the download links are right there.

"Walking On A Dream" is from Australian band, Empire Of The Sun. Yes, like the movie. Well, not really. Nice video. Shot in Shanghai, I believe.

"Happy Up Here" is a new song from Norwegian duo, Röyksopp. This song definitely reminds me of their first album, "Melody A.M." which was catchy as hell. "Eple" is from that album. See what I'm sayin'? Listen to every song from their new album here.

"Titus Andronicus" from Titus Andronicus. Play loud.

And don't forget about Animal Collective!

I've been watching Kraftwerk videos on YouTube for the past 47 minutes. Any band that makes a song about finding love through a computer in motherf'ing 1981 deserves ultimate respect, no?

"Computer Love (Liebe)"

"Trans-Europe Express"

"The Robots"

"Radioactivity" (present day Kraftwerk)

Best SNL Performance of All Time

Well, I don't want to overstate it too much, but when I was a young lad, one of the best shows on TV was Saturday Night Live. Right around 1990, the cast was loaded. Hartman, Myers, Carvey, Lovitz, Hooks, Miller, Rock, Nealon, to name a few... I'd record the shows on the family VCR and watch 'em a few times so I'd be able to recite some of the lines with my buddies at school the following Monday. One episode that was stellar from start to finish was one with John Goodman as host. He's hosted a billion times, but the one I'm thinking of was December 1, 1990. The skits were good (Wayne's World and their screening of the new Madonna video, "Justify My Love," and I think that was the first time we were introduced to Pat), but what made that episode my favorite of all time was the musical guest, Faith No More. I was 12 at the time and didn't really know what to make of Mike Patton weirding out the crowd with his bizarre stage antics. "Dude, is that Mike climbing up into the giant ventilation fan that's just there for show and serves no purpose as far as I can tell? Did he just smash the bass drum with his mic stand?" The more I watched it, the cooler it got. At the end of the first song, "Epic," notice how the applause isn't really there. After a few seconds, I think someone hit the applause light or something because it starts to pick up. You can feel the crowd thinking to themselves, "WTF was that?" And in the second video, "From Out Of Nowhere," Mike's crazy headbanging coupled with his cool polka-dotted red shorts is a winning combo. I bring this up now because SNL or NBC, I'm not sure which, is pretty famous for not letting their videos appear on YouTube or anywhere else legally, as far as I know. I just dug a little deeper and found 'em. Enjoy these two before they get yanked.



CRAP. I couldn't embed "From Out Of Nowhere." Click here to see it. Oh, and if Fear's performance is your fav, this blog has that video and a few other excellent ones.

Who wants to ride a bike 175 miles with me?

Here's the deal... I'll be leading Team XRT in the annual Tour De Farms, a ride put together by the good people at the National MS Society Greater Illinois Chapter. The ride happens in DeKalb on the weekend of June 13 & 14. Oh, and you don't have to ride 175 miles, you can do 35, 50, 75, 100, 150 or 175. Come on! It's super do-able, I don't care who you are. There are rest stops along the way, and you can ride at your own pace. The important thing is to raise awareness and money for the MS Society. We'd LOVE to have you as part of Team XRT. We'll all be hanging out at the event and I'd really like to help put together an impressive team.

General info is here.

Register for Team XRT here. Yes, just scroll down to "XRT."

These look promising

Should be out by late March, I believe...




And this one? Let's see. Picture a real life version of Spinal Tap. Throw in a few tears and you have "ANVIL! THE STORY OF ANVIL." Yeah, the more I watch the trailer, the more it seems exactly like Spinal Tap, but whatever, it looks decent. The movie opens at Music Box on 4/24, but on 4/22 the movie will be shown at Metro WITH a live performance from the band.

Records?

OK, I have to clear something up here. When I'm on the radio, I use the term "records" quite a bit. I just received an email from a listener that doesn't seem too down with it. That's fine. I really do appreciate her response and the fact that she cares enough to drop me a line, but I had to state my case...

So here's the email. (name withheld, of course)
"individual songs are NOT records. In fact, I doubt much of what you play even comes from actual records. Get this straight: you play TRACKS off of CDS."

And my response.
"Record" can also be short for "recording," so a record can be an individual song. Also, at the Grammys, there is an award given for "Record of the Year," and that is an individual song. From Wikipedia, which, I know isn't ALWAYS spot on, but still.... "Record of the Year is awarded for a single or for one track from an album. This award goes to the performing artist, the producer, recording engineer, and/or mixer for that song. In this sense, 'record' means a recording of one song, not the composition or an album of songs. Often, the nominees and winners of this song represent the most successful songs of the year."

And with XRT having a massive vinyl library that we still use, I really do enjoy using the term "record." I know it's an older term, but DJs making their own playlists is an older concept as well, so it seems to fit. I've thought about this long and hard. If you say "CD," that's not entirely correct, because many people now download digital files, so, like you suggest, if I talk about the new "CD" from U2, that wouldn't be entirely correct. If someone bought the physical CD at Best Buy or wherever people buy those things nowadays, then yes, "CD" would be the right thing to say. But if someone downloaded "No Line On The Horizon" from iTunes, then they wouldn't have the new "CD" from U2, they'd have the new "release," or preferably the new "album" from U2 in digital form.

When I first came to XRT, I thought it was so cool being at a place that still let the DJs make the final call on what they play and when. It seems like such a throwback, but at the same time, we still play bands that other commercial stations won't touch, like Animal Collective, LCD Soundsystem, and Fleet Foxes to name a few. It's old school AND forward thinking at the same time, so maybe me using the term "record" as much as I do is a tribute to the classic format and style that still prevail at XRT.

Thanks for caring enough to write...

Your thoughts?

Letterman/Phoenix

This is awesome. Is it an act, or is Joaquin whacked out on pills? Who knows? It's extremely entertaining and Dave just goes with it. He does show a little frustration and takes a couple of shots, but I guess he just did what he had to do. 5 minutes of quality TV. Almost takes you back to this.

Forget about Clapton. Colbert is God.

A chicken wing shortage?!?! Stephen is on the case.

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