12.23.05
2005 : Music Is The Enemy
With apologies to Mike Doskocil for unauthorized use of one of his more memorable lines, the following are CSTB’s in-house picks for the year’s finest popular recordings.
Sun Kil Moon – Tiny Cities Made Of Ashes (Calo Verde)
The Dirtbombs – If You Don’t Already, Have A Look (In The Red)
Spoon – “I Summon You” (Merge)
Bob Mould – “Paralyzed” (Yep Roc)
Sensational – Speaks For Itself (Quartermass)
Howard Hello – “More Of The Same” (Temporary Residence)
Boards Of Canada – “Dayvan Cowboy” (Warp)
Jason Forrest- Shamelessly Exciting (Sonig)
The Futureheads – “Man Ray” (Sire)
John Parish – ‘Once Upon A Little Time’ (Thrill Jockey)
Pissed Jeans – Shallow (Parts Unknown)
Tom Sharpling & Jon Wurster – Hippy Justice (Stereolaffs)
The Rebel – Kit (Hook Or Crook)
Please note that titles associated with any of CSTB™s business interests (with one exception) were ineligible. If you™d like to submit your own list via our comments section, please, feel free to do so. Unless you were planning on including the Hold Steady, in which case you can fuck off.
Since effin CD’s almost blew away my 40-year collecting habit of 45′s…the flop to MP3 was ease.
My Top 40 Indi/Undi Songs of 2005
1–Chad Vangaalen–”Clinically Dead”
2–Page France–”Junkyardâ€
3–Leroy Stagger–”Just in Case”
4–Eels–”Old Shit–New Shit”
5–Why?—“Rubber Traits”
6–Tom Fite–”No Good Here”
7–Richmond Fontaine–”Exit 194B”
8–Page France–”Chariot”
9–Jens Leckman–”Blackcab”
10–Giant Drag–”Kevin is Gay”
11–Benji Cossa–”Who Took the Rebels?”
12–Eels–”Things Our Grandchildren Should Know”
13–Social Register–”Bury Every Dream”
14–Stone Jack Jones–”Smile”
15–Magnolia Electric Company–”Leave the City”
16–Old Time Relijun–”Your Mama Used to Dance”
17–Stephen Malkmus–”Freeze the Saints”
18–13 Ghosts–”Just Got Dead”
19–Ham 1–”Broken Crown”
20–Boat–Quickly and Quietly”
21–The National–”All the Wine”
22–Page France–”Jesus”
23–The Lovekevins–”Soviet SE”
24–Seabear–”Drunk Song”
25–Silver Jews–”Getting Back Into Getting Back Into You”
26–Furtips–”Catholic”
27–The Harvey Girls–”Girls Sing”
28–Crooked Fingers–”Call to Love”
29–Cat Power–”The Greatest”
30–Jamie Lidell–”Multiply”
31–Oh, Sweet Music–”Let’s Go to War”
32–Midlake–”Balloon Maker”
33–Capstan Shafts–”Sarasota Vs. The Concrete Poets”
34–Kelly Jean Caldwell–”Reinventing Our First Kiss (And All the Parties That You Missed)
35–Capstan Shafts–”Your Hipper Default Settings”
36–Mazarin–”Another One Goes By”
37–Elk City–”Cherries in the Snow”
38–Boat–”Holding All the Globes”
39–Alden Penner–”Ghost of Creaky Crater”
40–M. Ward–Green River (CCR cover)
top lp’s off the top of my hungover head:
the king khan & bbq show -king khan/bbq (goner)
s/t- the lamps (in the red)
home for orphans- reigning sound (sympathy for the record industry)
let it bloom- black lips (in the red)
billiards at 9:30- dirtbombs/king khan and his shrines (sounds of subterrania!)*
7″s:
angry angles- things are moving (shattered)
the busy signals- love and dust (douchemaster)
the final solutions- my love is disappointing (shattered)
the golden boys- got no home (perpetrator)
knaughty knights- death has come over me (goner)
the preacher’s kids- french blues (and spanish boots) (kid twist wax!!)
*= not sure when this came out but i know i got it this year so….
anyway that’s all i can think of for the moment. although it appears i forgot to include the latest cd from the gris gris on there too. more later? probably not.
top 13 for 2005:
blood on the wall – awesomer
cat power – the greatest 7″
christina carter – human as guitar
coptic light – s/t
gravenhurst – velvet cell 7″
kinski – alpine static
major stars – black road 7″
new pornographers – twin cinema
oxford collapse – a good ground
south san gabriel – the carleton chronicles
pelican – the fire in our throats
vashti bunyan – lookaftering
wooden wand & the vanishing voice – buck dharma
the Blood On The Wall album (social registry) is not only one of the year’s finest (and an inexcusable omission from my list) but should forever end all the unfortunate speculation surrounding Joe Gaer and Jeff Van Gundy being the same person.
and the Pelican album was really good, too.
Good songs, 2005:
Page France – Chariot
Herman Dune – Not on Top
Robyn – Be Mine
Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin – House Fire
Wolf Parade – You are a runner and I am my father’s son
Amerie – One Thing
Spoon – They Never Got You
Edith Frost – Emergency
Kanye West – Gold Digger
The Futureheads – Robot
Paul McCartney – Too Much Rain
NP’s – Broken Breads
Art Brut – Good Weekend
Good show, 2005:
The Wrens at The Borderline, November?
Good compilation title, 2005:
Besterberg: The Best of Paul Westerberg
i don’t think i loved any full-length as much as the celebration record.
i really liked scritti politti’s ‘early,’ too, but i don’t know if it can count as a ‘best of 2005′ release for me — yeah all that stuff was officially re-released this year but when my boyfriend was courting me he made me an audiogalaxy-supplied cdr of all those tracks. (everybody: awww.)
other items on my hit parade:
mary timony, ex hex
fiona apple, extraordinary machine
amerie, ’1 thing’
spinto band, ‘oh mandy’
my chemical romance, ‘helena’
spoon, ‘i turn my camera on’
wilderness, wilderness
sleater-kinney, the woods
cause co-motion!, ‘baby don’t do it’
the mountain goats, the sunset tree
… and, of course, ‘trapped in the closet,’ except for the part with the midget crapping himself.
best shows: unrest, flin flon, olivia tremor control, celebration.
already topping my best of ’06 list: love is all and young people.
best shows of ’05
busy signals/dutch masters/headache city @ cal’s liquors
all 3 nights of the horizontal action blackout but especially the saturday show @ the empty bottle
detonations/baseball furies/the spits @ empty bottle
vee dee/bbq @ the empty bottle
the gonerfest II shows @ the hi-tone, bucaneer lounge, goner store, and whatever it is they call that garage where i saw kajun ss at 3 in the morning.
cococoma/fleshtones @ the empty bottle because in the span of 3 hours i got to see everything i love about music in cococoma and everything i despise in it in the fleshtones.
river city tanlines/black lips/king khan & bbq @ subterranean
vee dee/reigning sound @ double door
popsick/moto/phenoms/dirtbombs @ double door
those are the ones that stood out, i’m sure i’m forgetting some.
I’m a little late to the party because I spent the better part of yesterday recovering from the Saints-Lions game and the Alamodome’s awesome hot dogs, but in no particular order:
Blood on the Walls – Awesomer
Magnolia Electric Company – Trials And Errors
Iron And Wine/Calexico – In The Reins
Stephen Malkmus – Face The Truth
…
Sadly, looking at my CD shelves, I can only find about a dozen more albums I bought that were actually released in ’05. I wish I could honestly put Neil Young’s newest album on this list, but it just did nothing for me. Same with the Grandaddy EP and a few others. It was a bad year for new releases for me, but a great year for picking up the back catalogs of a lot of artists.
Since you asked:
Best LPs:
Smog – A River Ain’t Too Much to Love
Tarantula A.D. – Book of Sand
American Analog Set – Set Free
Castanets – First Light’s Freeze
Cocorosie – Noah’s Ark
Mountain Goats – Sunset Tree
Best live:
Akron/Family – Angels of Light show (May 2005)
Coachwhips – “I Made a Bomb” (live)
Ben Chasny/Gary Higgins on WFMU (July 2005)
Best singles:
Dungen – “Panda” (“She was mine / but I guess you don’t give a shit”)
Skeletons and Girl-faced Boys – “Git”
Times New Viking – “Not High”
Best hoax: tie between Jada Pinkett Smith as nu-metal rocker and “J. T. Leroy,” Truck-stop ‘ho, scamming the NYT Book Review
Best band name – Gay for Johnny Depp (and yes, I am)