Best of 2009

A month later, a new post.

A few years ago I started keeping track of my favorite shows, events, movies, and music of that particular year. Somewhere along the way I started to mix up when things came out but 2009 has been a very fun year overall. So without further opening rambling I present to you The Best of 2009!

AUSTIN LUCAS Somebody Loves You

I first heard a single demo from Austin Lucas late last year and wound up playing it non stop on a drive from Phoenix to Tuscon. This whole album is just unbelieveable. While the idea of "alt country" may be a worn out catchphrase, it does a serviceable job explaining the sound of this album. Listen below if you haven't heard Mr. Lucas just yet.



Under the Influence

Last year Suburban Home Records started a series they called "Under The Influence". The series revolved around current artists covering bands that have greatly influenced them. Some of my favorite songs of the year have come from this series. Lemuria covering The Pixies, Frank Turner covering Bruce Springsteen, Austin Lucas covering Dolly Parton, and more have opened my ears to many great bands and great songs. Take a shot with any of the tracks below, some may not be to your liking and some may be a little rough but all of them have been great.





Chuck Ragan - Gold Country
Not all of my favorite releases came from Suburban Home/Vinyl Collective, but Chuck Ragan's "Gold Country" sure sounds like it could have. From doing solo shows to the Revival Tour, ChucK Ragan has covered a lot of ground this year, much like he has the last 15 or so. "Good Enough For Rock n Roll", while not the best track on the album, gets stuck in my head atleast once a day. Don't have anything to stream so I'll throw out the myspace page http://www.myspace.com/chuckragan and this:



New Found Glory
New Found Glory: Everyone's favorite guilty pleasure and legitimately one of my favorite bands of all time put out the alleged comeback album: Not Without A Fight. This album from top to bottom is awesome. I won't go so far as to say its my absolute favorite, but it is really close. I honestly can't say enough about it, but I'll try and show you some of it here:



Thursday - Common Existence

A number of years ago I saw Thursday and was blown out of the water. They became one of my favorite bands within seconds of hearing them. Their newest album "Common Existence" was a continuation, not a return to, form for this band. While many still bemoaned that it isn't like their first few albums, I have to disagree. This album shreds from start to finish. Check some of it out here:



Lemuria - Ozzy 7in

A year without a release from Lemuria wouldn't be a good year at all. As it is, 3 new songs is still better than nothing. This album has some of the best packaging of any album in recent memory with a cardboard fold over encasement housing the vinyl itself. The songs themselves further push into indie rock territories continuing to balance the female/male vocal dynamic the band has come to be known for. You can check out the release here (scroll down for artwork of the Lemuria record) http://hanginghex.blogspot.com and you can check out Lemuria themselves here http://www.myspace.com/lemuria. Here's a live taste of Ozzy:



There will definitely be more labels, artists, shows and Best of 2009 over the next few days so feel free to come back and check it all out. Also be sure to come back for a potential Best of 2000 to 2009 if I can remember to write it up in a timely fashion.

Thanks for reading, and remember the sage like wisdom of Bill S Preston Esq and Ted Theodore Logan "Be excellent to each other!"

Everyone blogs

I am not very good at updating this blog, and anyone reading would probably say i'm not that great at blogging in general. Regardless, I wanted to take a moment and point out some truly excellent blogs for anyone interested.

First is one from the mysterious "Aicram". This is one exciting read with a witty, insightful point of view (its almost christmas, so ignore the brown nosing). In all honesty this is a great blog.

I am an unashamed fan of DC Comics and the DC Comics Animated Universe. I once considered doing reviews of their shows/dvd's until I found Justice League Revisited. This is one of the most thorough episode by episode deconstructions of any series you could hope for.

That is actually the only two I've got for the moment but you should definitely be following both. Tomorrow, or maybe later tonight, some short reviews for the massive amount of new music I've gotten since going on tour. I will also detail some of the fun of spending two weeks in a cramped van with four other people :).

My favorite moment

Tonight in a moment that reminded me why I love technology, I downloaded the movie "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist". I am not going to go through any of the reasons I really enjoy this movie (most of it involves kat denning) but it did make me think of one moment of most weekends that I love above all else: The moment before the night begins. Whether it involves prepping the band/loading the van, or making calls and scheduling, or just meeting with some friends for a few drinks, my favorite part of any night out is the beginning. There is a degree of hope, anticipation, and expectation that combines into something. Whether that something is fun or horrible is up to what the night brings you and the choices you make. I just love those beginning moments of the night.

Now to reflect on my previous post. Hanna Barbera has been putting out collections of cartoons from the 60's and 70's. I recently purchased the 1960's collection vol 1, and the complete Space Ghost. Some of these cartoons have not aged well but some of them are truly awesome. I'm a big fan of the aforementioned space ghost, along with the impossibles,top cat, the herculoids, and a host of others. I won't call this a review so much, but trust me when I say the dvd's are worth it. Here's a taste of the herculoids and the impossibles. (thank you Youtube)





You know you want it.

I watch terrible movies

I'm not sure when it happened exactly but I've become a fan of some truly terrible cinema. There is a certain cost effectivenes to it. Generally for the price of a rental you can buy one to two movies that will be a combination of terrifying, hilarious, and enjoyable if you look at them in the right way. So it was when I purchased the 1957 epic The Monster That Challenged the World (tagline: Instant TERROR...just add WATER!).



A rift is discovered off the pacific coast and in a shocking turn of events, its radioactive. The overall story involves a new naval sargent assigned to the area trying to make sense of giant irradiated sea slugs. There's a single mother involved also. Throw in the cute kid who happens to make one small mistake that leads to mass destruction and you have a winner! No its not within the same realm of Beast from 20,000 Fathoms or Them! (the one with the ants, not the remake) but it has a definite charm all its own. Unlike a number of these movies, you get sea slug death and destruction pretty much right from the get go.

Go get yourself some giant sea slugs :)

and now........ACTION SHOTS! (all pictures are screen captures taken from the movie and are not intended to violate any copyright laws or any laws in general)


Now I know I left it down here somewhere...


There really are no words...


Even less words...


As she stared at the monster her only thought was "man I bet shirley temple never had to deal with this"

Thats all for now. Big weekend coming up but nothing I'll write about here. Next week we'll discuss cartoons from the 60's and why its not necessary to do drugs to enjoy them.

Oops, sort of forgot about the blog

I kind of forgot about keeping a blog but I'll try and keep up a bit more and maybe someone will actually read this.

One of the original reasons I started this was to keep track of shows I've been to this year. Seems a little silly but they all tend to run together after a while. I don't remember all dates but here's the short list:

Cave Singers, Lightning Dust, Mean Creek, Old Abram Brown - TT the Bears
Cursive, Where The Land Meets the Sea - Middle East Down Stairs
Jon Snodgrass, Austin Lucas, Two Cow Garage - Middle East Up Stairs
Landmines, The Guts, Pretty Boy Thorson and the Fallen Angels, The New Warden - O'Briens Pub
The Appleseed Cast, Where The Land Meets the Sea - Middle East Down Stairs
Super Time Pilot, Walter Sickert and the Army of Broken Toys - TT the Bears

sadly thats all thats coming to me at the moment, so this list will be added to eventually.

The other new goal of this blog will be to document the impending Where The Land Meets The Sea tour in October/November hopefully with excellent stories and potential videos. We'll see how that all goes.

Thats all for now, we'll see what the weekend and the next week bring us.

A little music for the morning

Over the past two years the combination of Suburban Home Records and Vinyl Collective have helped me expand and refine my taste in music. Over the last year or so they came out with the "Under The Influence" series. Each 7in single features two artist covering music that has influenced them. As if this wasn't enough, each release comes with Mitch Clem's take on the original artists cover art. Listen and enjoy!

The (other) Rise of the Fallen

Totally stole this from superheroes-r-us.com and you can pick one up in september from bigbadtoystore.com but really, HOW AWESOME IS THIS? A few years ago there was an MP3 player that looked like Soundwave (the cassette player Decepticon below) but now this is just too much. The only downside would be the 2gig capacity but still this is such a perfect combination of technology and nostalgia.

That's all I have for now but it needed to be shared. If anyone sees this and wonders what to get me for christmas, there it is. I'd even take more than one and make a small Ravage/USB army.

Wound up at a basement show tonight with the Fake Boys, Frogball, TKC, and a few others from the burgeoning pop punk mecha of Boston (did you ever think you'd hear a phrase like that?). For those not in the know, Fake Boys are awesome in a "misfits/crimpshine/descendents/riverdales" kind of pop punk and I remembered to actually take some photos but didn't bother to resize them below. http://www.myspace.com/thefakeboys for more info

First!

First post. New blog. Content to follow soon, possibly including music, existential thoughts on giant monster movies, day to day operations of an unemployed audio engineer, and thoughts on the time travel conundrum established and discarded by the new Star Trek movie. For now, a little video of Jim from The Fake Boys having some fun in 07 ish. Enjoy!