Los Campesinos put out a couple of great CDs in 2008 – CDs that had I spent more time with, would surely have garnered consideration for my “Favorites of 2008” list. It’s always my luck to discover a band just 48 hours after their touring vehicle has pulled out of Columbus, but I was pleased to learn that I hadn’t missed the Los Campesinos date and even had a couple more weeks to familiarize myself with their stuff. With this extra time, I’ve also had the chance to check out Titus Andronicus, the opening band on the tour and while I know they made a lot of year-end lists, my first exposure to them came after the clock struck midnight in the new year.
These guys have pulled one over on me just like The Black Lips did at SXSW in 2007 when I was thoroughly convinced they were a British punk rock band. Jersey? Titus Andronicus is from Jersey, home of The Boss and … there must be something else from Jersey that I could reference but nothing springs to mind? Check out this song and tell me they don’t sound like an Irish punk band, the type where the lead singer is missing a front tooth or two due to a drunken barroom brawl.
Jan 15 Ottobar w/Los Campesinos! Baltimore, Maryland
Jan 16 Cat’s Cradle w/Los Campesinos! Carrboro, North Carolina
Jan 17 The Earl w/Los Campesinos! Atlanta, Georgia
Jan 19 Jack Rabbits w/Los Campesinos! Jacksonville, Florida
Jan 21 Club Downunder w/Los Campesinos! Tallahassee, Florida
Jan 24 Exit-In w/Los Campesinos! Nashville, Tennessee
Jan 25 Hi Tone w/Los Campesinos! Memphis, Tennessee
Jan 27 One Eyed Jack’s w/Los Campesinos! New Orleans, Louisiana
Jan 29 Walter’s on Washington w/Los Campesinos! Houston, Texas
Jan 30 The Parish w/Los Campesinos! Austin, Texas
Jan 31 Club Dada w/Los Campesinos! Dallas, Texas
Feb 3 The Bottleneck w/Los Campesinos! Lawrence, Kansas
Feb 3 The Bottleneck w/Los Campesinos! Lawrence, Kansas
Feb 4 The Gargoyle w/Los Campesinos! St. Louis, Missouri
Feb 6 Der Rathskeller w/Los Campesinos! Madison, Wisconsin
Feb 7 Logan Square Auditorium w/Los Campesinos! Chicago, Illinois
Feb 10 Calvin College Ladies Literary Club w/Los Campesinos! Grand Rapids, Michigan
Feb 11 Wexner Center for the Arts w/Los Campesinos! Columbus, Ohio
Feb 12 Swarthmore College Olde Club w/Los Campesinos! Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Feb 13 Paradise Rock Club w/Los Campesinos! Boston, Massachusetts
Feb 14 Bowery Ballroom w/Los Campesinos! New York, New York
Feb 15 Bowery Ballroom w/Los Campesinos! New York, New York
One man’s trash is another man’s treasure. I find it impossible to stay away from a $1 CD bin and thankfully have discovered that there are a few prime locations to come away with huge scores if you’re willing to put the time in to digging through piles and piles of junk. This feature will focus on CDs that I’ve plucked out of dollar bins.
Ratt – Reach for the Sky (Atlantic Records)
Original release date: November 1988
Purchased at: Half Price Books, Worthington, Ohio location
This was the fourth full-length Ratt release in 4 years and the last they did with producer Beau Hill. If I remember correctly from VH1’s Behind the Music special on Ratt, there was a lot of tension among the band members and with Hill during the recording of this album and in hindsight, the album isn’t as strong as the three that came before it. But, there are still a few MTV hits among the batch of songs, including “Way Cool Jr.” and, my favorite from this CD, “I Want a Woman”. Back when this was released, CDs were still more of a novelty than they were the norm, so when you look at this thing split into Side A and Side B, the first side (or the first half of the CD, if you will) is actually pretty strong with the two aforementioned hits as well as “City to City,” “Don’t Bite the Hand That Feeds,” and the power-ballad “I Want to Love You Tonight”.
As you’ll discover in this column, I’m a sucker for hair metal releases that I find in the dollar bin and among the ones I’ve found in previous shopping trips, I suspect this one will get more spins than the others. It was definitely worth the dollar spent to purchase it and it’s very indicative of the hair metal scene of the late ’80s.
Without further adieu, here are the 24 CDs that I listened to the most in the last 12 months.
1. The New Frontiers – Mending – Militia Group
My music-swapping buddy Jason turned me onto these guys saying that they reminded him a bit of The Damnwells. I don’t take the comparison lightly but he was right and I was instantly hooked on The New Frontiers’ road-weary Americana rock filled with spirituality and emotion. The live show turned things up a notch and revealed an ethereal Brit-rock layer (ala Doves, Coldplay) in the guitars that I hadn’t noticed when listening to this CD but made it all the more enjoyable on further listens. It figures, just when I decide that this is going to top my list due to the massive amount of airplay it got on my iPod, the band announced they were breaking up! If any of the guys go on to new projects, you’ll be able to read about it here.
2. Darker My Love – 2 – Dangerbird Records
Perhaps the greatest live show I saw in 2008 was Darker My Love’s night-before-Thanksgiving show in front of 25 or so people in Columbus, Ohio. The album blew me away as it recalls everything I loved about early Dandy Warhols, BRMC, Ride, The Beatles and the Beach Boys but the live show was even more incredible – fuzzy guitars channeled through reverb pedals, echoey vocals shared between Tim Presley and Rob Barbato and rich harmonies that were even more pronounced live than on CD.
3. Blind Melon – For My Friends – AdrenalineRecords
I had mixed feelings when I heard Blind Melon was reforming around a singer that nobody outside of Texas had ever heard of. I was happy that the guys were able to find a reason to get back together to record new music but wasn’t sure anybody could fill Shannon Hoon’s shoes. Rogers (Blind Melon guitarist) sent me 3 MP3s recorded early on with new singer Travis Warren and I could hear the magic. I happened to be at the show where Shannon’s mother met Travis for the first time and seeing the two of them hug made me think that everything was right in the world. Unfortunately, Blind Melon’s future with Travis is on shaky ground right now, we’ll have to see what happens in 2009 but if nothing else, I’m glad that the guys gave it another shot and left us with this album. Continue reading “Favorites of 2008”
I didn’t know anything about De Rosa before reading the Matador Recordsyear-end blog entry in which anybody/everybody associated with Matador weighed in on their favorites of 2008. Maybe an eighth of the way down the page, Barry Burns of Mogwai listed his number 1 of 2008 as: “Promo of Scottish band De Rosa’s new album called Prevention on Chemikal Underground Records. If I like it, it’s bound to sell literally hundreds, of downloads.”
A Scottish band on a label which never fails to deliver as recommended by a member of Mogwai? I had to check it out and was pleased to discover – albeit twelve months late – that De Rosa had a number of songs they had recorded but for one reason or another weren’t right for Prevention. Starting in January ’08, they released a new song every month on their site, effectively making a 12-song release available by December AND available as FREE downloads.
As the offer for free downloads for an album that De Rosa has dubbed Appendices will be removed on Dec.31, I’d highly suggest you grab these songs NOW if you’re into the post-rock indie stuff ala Mogwai and The Delgados.
If this stuff has you excited, you can pick up De Rosa’s debut, Mend, on the cheap (as a used CD) on Amazon while waiting for the March release of Prevention. Hopefully some U.S. touring will happen next year (SXSW????).
Bob Duffy over at Sunken Treasure Records has opened the vaults and through the end of the year is GIVING AWAY digital copies of ALL the releases he’s put on his little record label. Duffy also runs Donewaiting.com, a site I regularly contribute to (and the site where Atomic Ned first debuted), and this collection of music represents some of his favorite Columbus based bands. Whenever somebody is giving away something FOR FREE I recommend you check it out, but I’ll go so far as saying that it’s worth downloading every one of these CDs while you’ve got the opportunity, each is special in it’s own way.
Miranda Sound – The flagship of the Sunken Treasure label, the band has released their final two CDs on Duffy’s label before breaking up this past summer. It was a terrible loss for the Columbus music community but methinks we haven’t seen the last of this fearsome foursome.
RIYL: Jawbox, The Dismemberment Plan, Sunny Day Real Estate, The Wrens, Nada Surf
The Evil Queens – Here’s what I had to say about this release when Sunken Treasure dropped it in May 2007:
Let’s not get stupid and start making flippant comments like “the best blend of metal, punk, and grunge since Nirvana’s Nevermind – or at least since Alta May’s We As in Us“, but I’ll be damned if there is a hybrid album containing these different elements that I’ve enjoyed listening to more than the latest from perennial “these guys deserve a big record deal†Columbus stalwarts The Evil Queens. Wow, that was a long and slightly inaccurate sentence as the Queens do have a deal in place for this album with Sunken Treasure. On more recent releases, singer Jacob Sundermeyer has had a bit more control over his voice than previous efforts which were basically screamfests though he certainly hasn’t become a “smooth†vocalist – there is definitely some grit and grime in his vocals. Some of the chugga-chugga guitars (â€Means to an Endâ€, “Fight Songâ€) remind me of Monster Magnet and maybe even an in-tune Mudhoney who always seemed to be on the verge of being great but never quite could cross that line. There’s also an undeniable link between these Queens and another band of Queens (of the Stone Age variety), particularly on the title track and “Into the Drinkâ€. If you’re looking for the one that’s going to truly blow your socks off (the one you should download from Napster if you’re not willing to buy the whole thing), it’s “Ditchdigger Bluesâ€, with some buried soulful keyboard playing and fucked up guitar work by Sundermeyer and Mike Eckhardt (could this be a leftover from Sundermeyer’s now-buried, never released jackshit, side project, The Killionaires?). This CD might not change your life the way Nevermind did, but if you’ve got a long summer of drinking PBR tallboys to cool yourself off from the blazing summer sun ahead of you, this is the album you’ll want to … no … NEED to … own.
RIYL: Queens of the Stone Age, Kyuss, Mudhoney, Murder Your Darlings, Nirvana, Fu Manchu
Megan Palmer – The polar opposite of The Evil Queens (which shows the diversity of the Sunken Treasure label), Megan Palmer spent the early part of her musical career playing violin in various bands. It’s only been within the last few years that she decided to put something out on her own (with a bevy of guest musicians paying her back for all the contributions she’s made to their music). While I don’t have the numbers in front of me, I suspect this is the biggest seller in the Sunken Treasure catalog.
Eric Metronome – I was a fan first, a friend afterwards. Eric led the hip-before-their time Tiara, a band that forever seemed to be on the cusp of really making it big (band members have gone on to other projects like Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s and Brainbow). All along, Eric was going the lo-fi route and recording songs on his own under the Eric Metronome moniker. I think he’s got something like 74 CDs worth of music that he’s recorded and/or handed out over the years (okay, maybe that’s a bit of an exaggeration but it’s probably close), his most recent being the Sunken Treasure release You Should Be Happy which I called the missing link between Death Cab for Cutie and Elliott Smith in an interview I did with Eric.
RIYL: Death Cab for Cutie, Elliott Smith, John Vanderslice, Hayden, The Mountain Goats
The Celebrity Pilots – Chris Sheehan is an amazing pop songwriter and always manages to surround himself with top-notch talent. Somehow, he’s involved in the whole Guided By Voice family tree though I’ve never quite been sure where he fits in (he might be a cousin once removed or something as he’s collaborated with ex-GBV member Doug Gillard on a few occasions). “Lemons from Lemonade” is one of the greatest melancholic pop songs you’ll ever stumble across – it’s got a Zombies meets Beatles meets ELO feel.
RIYL: The Zombies, The Byrds, The Smiths, Guided By Voices, Apples in Stereo
