The year was 2007… I listened to a lot of music, but didn’t write so much about it, and for that I am remiss. In writing my “Best of 2008″ post I realized that much of the music I was listening to I had listened to in 2007. Perhaps a sad critique on the 2008 season, I’m not sure, but in any case, here goes. Listed after the jump below you’ll find some selected reviews of albums that I heard in 2007.

Add one to my “all-time favorites”, a few to the “I could listen to them anytime list” and a few from years gone by…

If this is your first time ’round with me, I would recommend reading my prior “Best Of” posts and also suffer my treatise on how I criticize music, otherwise soldier on…

(more…)

Yes, I realize I am late. I have no real excuse except for, oh, I don’t know – launching like 18 websites last year, all hand-carved and polished with fine-grit. The downside is not publishing like I’d like to, but the upside is that I had the chance to listen to a fair bit of new music over the hum of the grindstone…

The Decemberists – The Crane Wife

Explosions in the Sky – Everything they have ever released

Honorable Mention

…And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead – So Divided

Avoid the loony Zune: A just vicious destruction of Microsoft’s “Zune” media player, by Chicago Sun-Times writer Andy Ihnatko. (Update: cholly tells me he is a Mac fanboy from way-back. This has not been double-sourced.)

The Zune, for those who could give a flivver, is Microsoft’s new iPod Killer. It’s got a few things going for it, but having fiddled with a number of MP3 players, from the iPod to the Creative Nomad series to the Zune (they had one at Target), I’ve got to agree with Andy – it’s not good.

The Zune has some really intriguing ideas – like transferring music between two Zunes via Wifi and some neat interface tricks that are things that A) users want and B) the iPod doesn’t do. But when you take those innovations like the Wifi transfer and completely cock them up by crippling that innovation (in this case by wrapping WHATEVER you send to your Zune buddy in a 3-play or 3-day timebomb of deletion) you get an unnovation. Why even put that in your device if it’s so crippled? The Zune is also large, expensive, and no doubt will suck down the battery juice because it’s constantly showing album art on its screen. Nice and showy, but I rarely see my MP3 player when it’s playing.

Sigh.

You can temper Andy’s reaming of the Zune with this more positive review from Ars Technica, if you should wish: Microsoft Zune: Welcome to the social.

…It’s me you see with the funk in my walk.

Kelly and I ran the Northeast YMCA Thanksgiving Day Fun Run on Thursday. It’s a 10K (6.2 miles), but they have you guess at the distance at the end, so it’s never exactly 6.2 miles. It was the longest I’ve ever run in my entire life, and I was not being chased by a bear.

You gotta keep movin’ and you can’t say nothing

I’m a keep bouncin’ and bumpin’ and stuffin’

So, what then is the reason for the lyrics to the Beastie Boys’ The Maestro sprinkled about here? That was the song that came over the iPod strapped to my arm exactly halfway through the race. Never let the power of music to compel be a mystery to you. I’ve got this thing, you see, wherein I defeat myself the first half of the run, wondering just what the hell I am doing out there in the cold, nose all running and snotty. I beat myself down and consider stopping many times.

But then the yelling starts. In my brain. I am yelling at myself that I am weak and it is evident I will never finish. I think this is some sort of reverse-psychology play being acted out (or perhaps just directed or produced) by my hypothalamus as a survival instinct. In any case, this rarely works to much satisfaction. So then the only thing can save me is a good song with a beat to which I can pound pavement. Enter The Maestro.

Yeeeeaaaaaaaah you mother fuckers I am all that.

I see you looking at me saying “How can he be so skinny but live so phat?”

You know why?

…cause I’m The Maestro.

For those of you who know the song, that first line in all it’s filthy glory is the call-out in an album filled with awesome call-outs. It’s a rallying cry heard the world round. The Beastie Boys are back and are not to be meddled with. In short: damn. I then proceed to sprint (or at least what constitutes a sprint) the next mile or so, buoyed with that sort of hell yeah spirit so embodied in the song.

The problem, however, is that The Maestro is only three minute long. At this point in the race, I’m at something like 28 minutes in, with another 28 to go. Luckily, the iPod knows this all too well and kicks in another excellent brainpan-shattering song, the all-to-undervalued and under-played Black Sabbath tune Supernaut. All alone on the course, between the masses that seem to form during a race, it’s all too fitting:

Got no religion, dont need no friends

Got all I want and I dont need to pretend

Dont try to reach me, cause I’d tear up your mind

I’ve seen the future and Ive left it behind

Couple that with a certifiably fierce hook and the acoustic bad-assery that occurs near the end of the song and you’ve got metal brilliance. When my ashes are fired into space, this song will be played. (Followed shortly by The Wizard).

In the end, I managed to keep my time under an hour (56 minutes and change) and I felt good. Kelly was proud of me, and I was proud of me as well. All thanks to The Maestro.

Jackson, Medina, Kelly and I went to see Wilco last night at the gloriously re-vamped Iroquois Amphitheatre here in Louisville. I had never seen Wilco live, though I really fell in love with them on our honeymoon back in 2002, shortly after their now-classic Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was released. I was extremely excited to see them, as was Kelly. Together, we are big fans.

The Iroquois Amphitheatre is located in the South End of Louisville. In a classic display of just how little Louisville hipsters have reason to visit the South End, Jackson and Medina met Kelly and I at one of the few reasons to venture south – the incredible edible Vietnam Kitchen – and it was packed to the rafters with hipsters! You’d be hard-pressed for a ‘Ville indie dude to give you the name of another restaurant in the ZIP code, so I guess it was only natural for the Wilco crowd to flashmob the joint.

We finished up there and headed down to the venue, which is just inside of Iroquois Park, the “Yellowstone of Louisville”. The amphitheatre was recently renovated, and I had never been inside of it before or after the renovation. It is just absolutely magnificent, and judging by the oohs-and-ahhs heard from the crowd as they entered, I’d assume that the local rock crowd will be clamoring for more shows to be held here. Call in your Vietnam Kitchen reservations now, scenesters!

The Early Day Miners opened for Wilco with no less than 5 guitarists and two drum kits and proceeded to blast out some AYWKUBTTOD / Explosions in the Sky-esque instrumental jams that came to an absolutely crushing end. Must be something about that Texas/Louisiana area that makes people want to elevate their rock to orchestral heights!

Wilco was excellent, and Jeff Tweedy was a jubilant and engaging frontman. At one point during “Hummingbird” he had panties thrown at him while he was hamming it up at the lip of the stage. Later, he would claim to wish that he was David Lee Roth, which was immediately followed by a qualification of “David Lee Roth from, like, 30 years ago”. Wilco’s music and lineup over the years has evolved in any number of different ways, but at the very core of it has always been Tweedy with his lyrical and rhythmic ventures, which have never strayed too far into the bizarre. Undoubtedly catchy hooks in his songs linger on my mind for days at a time, like a pop song, but with a lyrical depth that somehow strikes deeper.

The crowd was intense, with Wilco coming back for 2 encores. I overheard a photographer (whom I assume to be travelling with the band) remark that “these last two crowds were really great” (the other being a show at Michigan State) and I can’t argue with that. Wilco is one of few bands with a decade’s worth of work that is equally adored by fans – and judging by the wide, wide age range in the audience, they are at once retaining old fans and making new ones as they continue.

After the show wrapped, we walked back to the cars and I saw a sign that said “HONG KONG FAST FOOD”. Thanks to the curvature of the window on Jackson’s car, I managed to read that as “HONK HONK FAST POODLE” instead. That, Kelly decided, would be the name of her production company. Mine? Well, it would clearly be “Ferret with a Hat“.

Yeah, sure, satellite radio is all the rage and now you can listen to NASCAR or the Major Leagues or what-have-you in crystal-clear sound from coast-to-coast. Podcasting is the big dumb trend of the moment that has people boxing their ears with excitement. Audio itself surely isn’t in it’s last throws, but do you remember when rock radio actually MATTERED? Shit no you don’t, unless you lived through the 60′s and 70′s, the hey-day of free-form radio where DJ’s weren’t just monkeys in glass cages. I’ve longed for something like that to make a comeback for a long time, but I’ve seen any number of “indepedent” radio stations (most notably WLRS and WQMF here in town) go the way of the dodo and be sold out to ClearChannel because they just couldn’t make money.

I thought, perhaps that the little radio station that could, WOXYup the river in Cincinatti was my shining example of indie radio that worked. I’ve written about them a number of times, and you can read all about WOXY’s history here: About WOXY, so I won’t bore you with the fine print. All you really need to know is that they sold out of the radio business back in early 2004 and went Internet only and now in 2006 even the Internet-only option is coming under a serious financial strain. So much so that they are making a last-ditch effort at securing listener funding for the station – with a deadline of March 6th.

Radio lost me years and years ago. It’s something that I have a serious beef with nowadays. While NPR is near and dear to my heart, there is no reason why I, a 27 year old male of “alternative” music tastes should spend 99.5% of his radio listening time on National Public Radio. NO REASON. Radio has lost me forever, and I am not going back. I’ve got the Internet, I’ve got my iPod(esque) device, I can have ad-free music via satellite. Radio – you fucked up and you fucked up big time. I’m sorry if this is the first I’ve told you of this, but I’ve had this conversation with myself many times. I am a market, and I am crying out for programming, and I know I’m not alone.

I don’t know if the Internet is really the answer for radio. There are many things against it. It’s land-locked, it requires a computer, it isn’t solely local. For radio, which by it’s very untamed and radiative nature is not bound by anything but the size of your radial, that’s terribly restrictive. I can’t listen to you in my car. I can’t buy an appliance for $1 at the Dollar Store and flip it on and hear you. WOXY is in a tight spot for any number of reasons, and while I think it’d be worthwhile to see them continue on living, I just don’t know if it’s possible. If you haven’t listened to WOXY before, go and lend and ear, and then maybe pitch some folding money in the virtual hat.

TO ALL OUTLETS, BUT SPECIFICALLY THE DISCOVERY CHANNEL

I would like Mythbusters to attempt to bust something i like to call “the Stevie Wonder effect“. That is, of course, the uncontrollable urge to do the “Stevie Wonder groove-sway-thing” when listening to a Stevie Wonder song.

This would of course entail a “blind” study of humans in a private and yet comfortable atmosphere. Having friends in the book- and music-selling industries, I’d have to suggest listening stations equipped with Stevie Wonder. A “control” sample would most likely involve Streisand.

Of course, now that you, gentle reader, know of this effect, such as it is, you cannot participate in the study. Go and acquire some Wonder and attempt to influence your friends, family and co-workers. Get back to me with results.

That is all.

NOTE: This is not to be confused with the Ray effect, which is entirely un-related as it causes movies that had been shelved to miraculously come back to life after an actor wins a major award. See: Stealth.

Each year I think “I’m going to post my top ten albums of the year before Pitchfork posts theirs,” and each year I’m too late. And then I read their list, thereby skewing my own perspectives, right? Right. Well – truth be told I am constantly re-shuffling my own list inside of my head, and I’ll be damned if my top two albums of the year didn’t match theirs. But hey, at least I know what I enjoy. So, without further ado, my list for 2005 (in ascending order):

Sleater Kinney – The Woods

I’ve made mention of The Woods previously and even previously-er, and in the intervening 6 months, my love of that album has yet to wane. Sleater-Kinney have always been on the cusp of something – always consistently at the top of the indie heap, but they never seem to be able to escape the orbit of the underground. Perhaps that is what spurred their self-imposed exodus from their native Washington State to the East Coast to record this album in the woods, quite literally. What came out was an album heavy with conviction and the best album of their 10 year career.

The Heartless Bastards – Stairs and Elevators

I first heard from these guys on a great album called Sunday Nights – The Songs of Junior Kimbrough, doing his “I Done Got Old”, and it blew my mind. Like a two-ton Janis Joplin — frontlady Erika Wennerstrom just stomped my brainpan with equal parts rock and blues. Between these guys and The Black Keys, is there anything that Akron, Ohio can’t do? Is there? Keep an eye on their website for tour dates and go and see them up-close before they are playing bigger venues. (ealier mention: the listening hour – fall 2005)

Blind Willie McTell and Buell Kazee

Death from Above 1979 – You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine

Explosions in the Sky / …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead

Sufjan Stevens – Illinois

Kanye West – Late Registration

Honorable Mention

Franz Ferdinand – You Could Have It So Much Better With…

Bloc Party – Silent Alarm

Wilco – Kicking Television (Live in Chicago)

The Decemberists – Picaresque

M. Ward – Transistor Radio

Think Differently Music Presents: Wu-Tang Meets the Indie Culture

It’s just about that time, cats and kittens for another installment of “What has Ben been listening to?”. I’ve been getting good response from a number of folks about my past installments, and I’ve got a backlog of stuff to dump now. (Update 2005/10/03: see end of post)

First up, I can’t say enough about The Heartless Bastards, a steady and loud trio from up-river in Cinci. Fronted by a diminutive straight-up hottie chick name of Erika Wennerstrom with a just huge voice. As with fellow Fat Possum alums, The Black Keys, their sound is the pounding blue-collar-and-denim romp that comes out of so many great industrial towns (think White Stripes out of Detroit / Black Sabbath from Birmingham UK). You couple that with Wennerstrom’s strong, steady and yet expressive voice and you get something that is truly great. I suggest you find out their debut Stairs and Elevators and give it a spin. (Also, they are playing at Uncle Pleasants on October 14th here in Louisville. Ticketweb will get you in.)

The Matt Pond PA was something I stumbled upon thanks to Pitchfork’s free MP3 singles a few years back. That section of the site I came to find out as a dumping ground for small labels (like Polyvinyl). You can imagine there was a lot of listening for the ultimate rewards, but I did manage to find Mclusky and the Matt Pond PA in there, and considering my appreciation for both bands I’d say it was worth it.

The Matt Pond PA single I picked out was “Fairlee”, the excellent opening track on their 2002 release The Nature of Maps. At the time the MPPA were just a really good multi-piece conglomerate band that rarely toured outside of their home-base of the Northeast. But now, they are opening for Liz Phair on her tour and have readied Several Arrows Later, their 4th or 5th full-length album, for release. Thanks to the wonders of the intarwebs, I have managed to get a listen to this new album.

On Several their songs still remain as yarns about the changing seasons, or perhaps snapshots of wasted fall afternoons, but now with a bit more polish and weight. Something that originally drew me to MPPA was their obvious talent with the modest arrangements to match the subject matter in the songs. A good match, and having been to Vermont, I guess I’m pining for such humility. With Several Arrows Later they’ve made a heavier, more lush album. This jump in production and sound might ordinarily strain other indie bands, but the Matt Pond PA have the talent and patience to take on that load, and do it well.

Self-references: 2003.01.07 – Rainer Maria Rocks, mclusky breaks up, mclusky.

A few weeks back, I joined Brad and Hunter to go and see Clutch in Indianapolis. I was already hyped to see Clutch (though I’m not the biggest of Clutch fans) because of their “awesome live show” reputation. But, as we were driving up, Brad and Hunter told me of the opener (which they had seen at the Louisville Clutch show) — a band called Stinking Lizaveta, fronted by a bearded man-beast named Yanni Papadopoulos.

Milling around before the show, Brad would occassionally point to some dark corner off-stage and say “That’s him! That’s the YANNI.”. Glancing in that direction, I only say a dark mass of hair above what appeared to be a Hawaiian shirt. Some sort of dark yogi not on a hill-top but in the dingy green room of the Vogue. Still, I had not been witness to the Lizaveta.

Finally, the show began and out came someone who appeared to be a young Edgar Allen Poe (actually Alexi, Yanni’s younger brother). His weapon of choice? Upright electric bass. I knew this was going to be good. Behind the drums sat a woman who Brad described as having “huge guns!” – her name is Cheshire Augusta. And then, out from the shadows behind the stage – pot-bellied, unshaven, shirtless, haggard and wearing ripped jeans came… Yanni.

Being an instrumental band, Yanni spoke few words. He didn’t need to. He’d simply walk over to the mic, and say things like “Day of Dust” or “Caught between worlds” or “Man-day. This song is about going to work.” and then proceed to crush our souls with some of the best punk-metal-jazz fusion I’ve ever heard or seen. He enjoyed the crowd and the crowd enjoyed him. He even passes his guitar around the audience at the end of the set. We all converted to Papadopolism that night, my friends. We all agreed we’d easily pay the $20 cover just to see the Lizaveta. Hunter dropped the $10 for their album III, and we listened to it on the way home, but it lacked a certain urgency and certain visceral element that I think raises Stinking Lizaveta to another plane.

Thanks to my buddy Jackson, I managed to get a pre-release version of My Morning Jacket’s soon-to-be-released album Z. It is good.

Let me say that MMJ has all of the hallmarks of a “Southern” (read: Lynyrd Skynyrd) band – the big bearded lead singer, the drawl, the multiple guitarists, the jams. They have all of the hallmarks save for one thing: their actual music. You can’t peg it down easily, especially on Z, their most ambitious outing yet. (“Ambitious” being rock-criticism-speak for “what-the-fuckitious”) They still throw down the jams like they did on their true “breakout” album, 2003′s “It Still Moves“, but they’ve added more depth, more dynamism and more just plain weirdness “a kitten on fire / a baby in a blender” perhaps in reaction to their “Southern” label. Losing two founding members in the last year or so probably had something to do with this “ambitousness”.

Z is a great mix of the old and new – which any “ambitious” album really should have in it’s mix. The songs are varied, with enough rock jams with catchy riffs (“Off the Record”) and enough new, more adventurous fare (“Into the Woods”) to make this a good album and a good step onward for MMJ. In this creative “fanning out” that I heard in the album, I also heard some of their more varied influences cropping up — from Nirvana to Elvis Costello to the Clash to perhaps even a little Pink Floyd. And for those wondering, yes, MMJ is still friends with Mr. Reverb.

It is a time for many happenings in the MMJ world, and so the very different newness of Z seems fitting. For instance, they feature prominently in Cameron Crowe’s newest film Elizabethtown, where they play a local band and yes finally, after years of taunting by that one drunk dude in the audience, they play Skynyrd’s “Free Bird” (which they have never, ever played live). How’s that for irony? Anyway, if you get a chance to give Z a listen, be prepared for something different, something so Southern it’s un-Southern, and enjoy. P.S.: They are sporting on the front cover of Velocity Weekly this week, and Z comes out next Tuesday. Jackson is also hosting a pre-listening party at The Outlook on Bardstown Road tonight from 6-8PM.

I was introduced to Explosions in the Sky after having re-discovered and re-evaluated fellow Austintonians …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead (another post all together) at the urging of Jackson Cooper. Explosions in the Sky is such a great name — how could I not listen?

On the matter of appropriate names for bands, Explosions in the Sky is certainly at the top of the list. For that matter, Stinking Lizaveta and Clutch might be up there, too. At the bottom end of the scale, …Trail of Dead will probably roost. Explosions in the Sky do sound like the fireworks that name might invoke — both the percussive, gasp-worthy delight that a light-show and chest-thumping report would cause, but also for the falling sparks left behind and the inevitably drifting clouds of smoke. The rising crescendo of light and sound with great ends that leave you wanting for more. The dynamic impact of Slint, with a dash of the ominous God Speed! You Black Emperor, and with the silken touch of perhaps the Rachels. Careful, masterful work by a shy group of dudes from Austin, Texas.

How Strange, Innocence, their most recent release, was actually recorded in early 2000! Less that 100 pressings were made and considering their growing foothold on the indie conscience (they contributed heavily to the Friday Night Lights soundtrack — did you know that?), they’ve released this as new material. Do yourself a favor, and check them out at your earliest convenience. I’d also recommend their The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (2003) and Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever (2001)

So yesterday morning, in a fit of very rare TV-watching, made even rarer by the fact that I was watching MTV, I noticed something odd. Good ol’ Music Television had a profile of the very un-MTV Sufjan Stevens. I have also just announced to Good Ol’ Cholly Dillon that I cannot stop listening to Illinois, Sufjan’s latest creation.

More on this at The Confabulators.