Wednesday, 20 January 2010

Reatard dead, Dimmick stuck in bed

This will be short. Hopefully many of you caught last week's show. If not, you've undoubtedly heard the news about Jay Reatard's death. I had an hour long tribute to Jay, playing songs from Matador Singles '08, Blood Visions, and a side project of his The Final Solutions - Disco Eraser. Special thanks to my friends at Misprint Records for loaning me the CD on supershort notice. I would have liked to have played songs from more records, but I was lucky enough to be able to find the material I did in the two hours prior to the show. Click here for the playlist. I saw some of Jay's show at Pitchfork Music Festival '08 in Chicago. I was way more excited to see him at The End in Nashville just a few months ago. That was such a bad ass show. It made me excited about live music. There was just a lot of energy that had been lacking from shows I'd seen recently. Jay Reatard, you are missed.

Of much less importance, The Backchannel Broadcast will not be on the air today. I am fighting round 2 of a battle with strep throat. This time, I shall prevail!

Saturday, 9 January 2010

Top ten records of 2009? Top ten records of the 00s? Who fucking cares?! Maybe I'm just pissed because my music consumption is NOT what it used to be. In my "old age" I find myself listening to NPR most of the time in the car. I don't take long trips like I used to where I'd listen to my iPod for hours. It's sad. I can sit here and make up more excuses, but I'd rather do something about it (for a change). I guess top ten lists are for people like me so we can discover what we missed out on by not being on top of the music scene like we should be. The only down side is, who the fuck are these people making lists? Why do I care what they say?

Here's an example:

Top 25 albums of 2009 from Rolling Stone

While there are a few good records on there, I've only heard them because they were in rotation at WRVU. Animal Collective, Phoenix, Grizzly Bear. All electro goodness. I did see a few good bands at shows and hear a few good records this past year. I won't bore you except for the best...

Femi Kuti at Bonnaroo, The Queers at the Sanctuary in Paducah, KY, Flaming Lips at Rites of Spring, Very Disco (Daft Punk tribute) at Exit-In, Michael Jackson Off The Wall tribute at Mercy Lounge, Teenage Whore Moans at Foobar II (while they were totally jammin', you can't find any of their shit online. there is another group of the same name from NY, but totally different), Hellfire Revival at the End, King Khan & the Shrines AND The King Khan & BBQ Show both at Exit-In, um.... shit, I'm sure I saw some other great shows, but can't remember them now. Hopefully, I'll be keeping this updated with shows this year. Haven't seen anything this first week of 20ten, but I'm sure I will soon. That list was totally longer than I thought it would've been. haha.

Onto something else. A friend of mine asked me the other day if I still liked The Lillingtons. Ofuckingcourse! He asked if I had their first record, Shit Out of Luck, which I don't.... Well, didn't until he mailed it to me! I got it in the mail today! WHAT THE FUCK?! I don't know what I did to deserve this, but I've gotta figure it out! It still has the lyric sheet AND the 7" with the Lillingtons covering everyone's first punk song, the infamous Blitzkrieg Bob. Now I have all four of their LPs!!! Time to start work on getting their 7"s and comps...

I was going to end the post here, but I totally forgot to mention my favourite album of the year...

Riverdales - Invasion USA!!! If you like Rock and/or Roll, you WILL like this record. Please listen to it. You can hear four tracks on their myspace... http://www.myspace.com/officialriverdales Here's a review that's worth reading, but it's not a track-by-track review I loved, but can't find. Arg. Anyhow, Teenage Strangler is the shit.

Until next time.