Ok, we're jumping on the bandwagon here by creating yet another "Best Music of 2006..." list, but we're gonna do a few things different. First, there will not be a top album or artist or any rank for that matter because we all know how pissed we get when our fav's are ranked at the bottom of the totem pole while some schlock band we think is terrible takes top honors...better to just recognize, ya know G? I can't tell you how many times I've read Rolling Stone's Best of...and thought "man..these people don't know their heads from their arses"... do they just grab the Billboard music sales sheet and list the artists in descending order or what? Not the best way to rate music in my opinion. But then again, what the hell do I know? What makes Mahsheet and his contributing authors authorities on music? Nothing really, except our egos =]
Anyway, ON WITH THE SHOW! Remember...IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER!
Well, there it is. A compilation of our fav's for 2006. We hope you like it..go get the albums if you haven't already, or if you don't like it, well then you can (insert ridiculously lewd comment here). Happy Holidays!
Even though Sonic Youth didn't use famed avant-garde music producer Jim O'Rourke on this album as in the past, John Agnello does a great job keeping the "Murray Street" and "Sonic Nurse" vibe continuing along...which is a good thing. No, which is a GREAT thing.
Thurston Moore, Kim Gordan, Lee Ranaldo, and last but not least, Steve Shelly create yet another great Sonic album, "Rather Ripped" which has Kim Gordan opening up with "Reena" - a song which has an anthemic chorus "You keep me coming home again!" that will help you remember how cool, sexy, and just plain great Kim Gordan is. Thurston...you're a lucky man...
And on to you there Thurston..."Incinerate" is a great tune, but the last and the most mellow tune on the album "Or" just plain gets me with the last lyric... "what comes first, the music...or the words" as I imagine you've been asked that a billion times, but is also at the crux of your song writing...but most importantly the way you sing it closes out the album perfectly.
Lee Ranaldo gets some vocal action as always on a tune called "rats". I've always loved Lee's voice, textured guitar playing, and songwriting. There is no shortage of great lyrics, guitar playing, or song writing from Lee here...(or on any sonic youth album for that matter).
Steve Shelly's drumming is solid all the way through and I've always enjoyed the low-fi drum recordings he gets...I'm not sure if it's on purpose, an issue of being lazy in the studio, or just the opposite - many days of getting just the right drum tones, but they always work. The only thing is that I think it detracts from how good of a drummer Steve Shelly really is because when you see Sonic Youth in concert, Steve Shelly beats the living crap out of his kit and you realize that he is a much better player than you would think by just listening to the albums...but now that I think about it...that's kind of how the whole band is. Sonic Youth is so great live...damn them for not playing until next April!
"Rather Ripped" is everything you would expect from Sonic Youth - Moody, Textural, Heavy, Inspiring, Intelligent, Lo-Fi, A little rough....and...Great. But I use these adjectives as they relate more to a "Murray Street" type vibe as I would to say "Sister".
Here is a really great You Tube video where someone puts together Marilyn Monroe when she played the character of Sugar Cane with Sonic Youth's "Sugar Kane" from the album "Dirty" - Very Cool (Check out the Sonic Youth forum... lots of good stuff on there). Oh, and go get the album!
PODCASTS from San Francisco's own Live 105's "NOT SO SILENT NIGHT" Concert featuring The Killers, Modest Mouse, The Raconteurs, The Shins, and the winner of the local band contest - Silversun Pickups
What could be better than 10,000 people soaking wet in the Bill Graham Civic Center in San Francisco watching The Killers, Modest Mouse, The Raconteurs, The Shins, and the winner of the local band contest - Silversun Pickups? Let me think...winning the lottery? Yeah, that would be better.
The End.
P.S. BTW - if you live in San Francisco and you ever have tickets for a concert or just want to go out and have some drinks...or maybe see a play...or better yet, play with some street people...or just play in the street - and it happens to be raining on a Friday night and you think "Oh, I'll just take a cab so I either 1.) don't get a DUI or 2.) end up face down in someones living room at 4am wondering where the hell you are and who that ugly person is next to you?"...then I would suggest CALLING THE CAB COMPANY 3 HOURS EARLY or you ain't goin' NOWHERE!
We frigging missed The Shins because we couldn't get a cab. THE SHINS DAMMIT! Yellow cab - busy. Luxor? - maybe they will be there in 15 min, if not then call back (What the hell is THAT?) We even tried to flag down cabs by jumping up and down in the puddles waving our arms like new born storks learning to fly, but nothing. nada. zilch. THE SHINS I TELL YOU!!! Damn you Yellow Cab! Damn You Luxor Cab! (And thank you S.F.P.D. for not pulling me over).
As you can see I snagged Ler's set list from the show at the San Jose Civic Center Primus show on Dec 5th. It's cool not only to remember the tunes Primus played that night...but you can see which songs run into one another with the brackets as well as the guitars Ler LaLonde plays on each tune.
The show was, of course, nothing short of incredible. I don't think we saw Les's face all night except to catch a breath from underneath his Pig, Elvis, and Circus Freak costumes...not to mention his stellar bass playing and stage antics.
Ler was in standard form teetering on the edge of brilliance and floundering while Herb the Ginseng Drummer looked a lot like Neil Peart up there with his skull cap, huge kit, and flawless playing.
Also, as you can see above the night went something like this:
To Defy the Laws of Tradition
Mr. Know it All
Sargent Baker
Damn Blue Collar Tweekers
South Bound Pachyderm
Sailing the Seas of Cheese
Mr. Krinkle
De Anza Jig
Over the Electric Grapevine
My Name is Mud
Harold of the Rocks
Now you are probably saying to yourself...No Jerry? Are you kidding me? Nope. NO Jerry. Which is quite alright considering all the great tunes we heard. I've seen Primus many times and can do with out Jerry was a Race Car Driver at this point in my life. It's all good in da hood.
The crowd was killer and as you can imagine the standard bouncing and mild to moderate moshing was about. And there's always that one drunk dumb shit (besides me) wobbling around in the center of the pit getting pummeled from every angle only to be knocked down viciously and then helped up by a few helping hands. It was kind of fun to watch this happen over and over again, but dammit if it didn't detract me from watching the stage instead of this human tackeling dummy.
So all in all, Les, Ler, and Herb still got it. Great show. Oh, many thanks to Ler's guitar tech for the set list and a large apology goes out to the bartender at the Mission Ale House I so un-intentionally offended. Really.
First and foremost, apoloiges to YLTWatcher... for not seeing his earlier post on the latest YLT release prefer hamming it up with an open letter to Henry Rollins.
Anyone ever hear that a lot of serial killers come from the northwest? I think i heard that somewhere.
Anybody know of or remember the heavy driving more-metal-than-sludge topped of with shrieking razor-sharp-vocal tearings of KARP? I recall first hearing it stoned out of mind and realizing that everything else in the world was bullshit. EVERYTHING!
Alas, KARP is gone with the passing of one of their former members. But Big Business carries the energy forward.
Anybody remember the grunge-ploitation of the early nineties? No? Didn't think so. How about when King Buzzo from the Melvins dragged the MTV cameras around to look for a new house, since being a fore-runner of that flannel-clad sound, he figured his name alone could get him a mortgage (or the melvins interviewed by the french).
I do not remember too much from the show personally except that it was fucking insane. The force of thick and heavy head-smashing waves of guitar grinding were only amplified by the insane peaks of dual drummers... one of the melvins... the other formerly of the murder city devils... now of big business. just wanted to give a shout in case any yall find your way to some of their stuff... unfortunately it looks like i missed posting before the SF gig.
"Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...
Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast for it is a human number, its number is Six hundred and sixty six."
Doesn't that just make you want to start humming Adrian Smith's opening riff to "Number of the Beast" right away and then sing the opening lyrics only to end in Bruce Dickenson's blood curdling scream....YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH HA HA HA HA! of which I can only think of one heavy metal scream that might of been better (Geoff Tate on Queen of the Ryche?) Holy crap if Iron Maiden isn't one of the best Heavy Metal (if not one of the originators of Metal) bands in the world!
Iron Maiden was first formed in 1976 by galloping master bassist Steve Harris, who would soon join up with rhythm guitarist Tony Parsons, drummer Doug Sampson, and drunkard vocalist Paul Di'Anno who was the vocalist for only the first 2 albums, Iron Maiden(1980) and the 1981 follow-up, Killers.
This is a time when a very fortunate thing happened for Iron maiden... Adrian Smith took over on lead guitar and Bruce Dickinson took over on vox (Di'Anno was booted for having the incredible ability to put away mass amounts of alcohol and royally screw the pooch) for the Metal breaking album Number of the Beast. This album is now known as one of the greatest Heavy Metal recordings of all time.
Next came Piece of Mind and 1983's Powerslave (my personal Fav!). Iron Maiden has gone through many more line up changes with Bruce Dickenson going on to record Tattooed Millionaire (blah), but they will forever be somewhere in time as their music will live on forever. Duh. Duh. Duh. Duh. DUNT.....YEEEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!
Well, in thinking long and hard about another Metal band of the 80's that deserves recognition for rip roaring, in your face, drunken, piss your parents off Heavy Metal it turns out coincidentally that it's a band started from another front man from the War Pigs themselves, Black Sabbath. That's right; I'm talking about the Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osborne.
Again, I'm not talking about Ozzy himself as the sole bringer of the Heaviest Metal, but the band he put together right after he left (or was kicked out of pre Dio) Sabbath that included the legendary guitarist Randy Rhoads, bassist Bob Daisley, and drummer Lee Kerslake.
Blizzard of Ozz, The group's first album was released in 1980 in the U.K. and then in early 1981 in the U.S. The lyrics talked about spooky stuff like the devil the occult (pretty standard Metal stuff, really). But Ozzy had an Ace in his pocket, Randy Rhodes! Randy Rhodes guitar playing was second to none (maybe to Eddie Van Halen at the time- but that's another blog entry all on its own) and the band was technically proficient enough to create great heavy music outside of the normal Metal formula. I think to this day "Crazy Train" is still played in every football stadium in America before a big series of downs or when the home team gets possession of the ball (no pun intended).
I'm not exactly sure why anyone would leave at this point unless they mistook Ozzy's drunken blubbering for "your fired" instead of "I'm wired" or something to that effect. But Kerslake and Daisley would be replaced with Tommy Aldridge and Rudy Sarzo shortly before the next release of Diary of a Madman. This is when the most legendary of Metal mishaps occurs that makes Spinal Tap look like regular scholars! A drunken Ozzy picks up what he thinks is a fake bat that a fan throws on stage and proceeds to bite the head off of it...not thinking "Hmmmm? Boy this thing feels kinda warm. And man it's sorta twitching? Anyway, A bunch of rabies shots to the stomach later and Ozzy is back in rare form.
Not long afterwards, Randy Rhoads was killed in a bizarre plane accident, bringing the band's bat eating days to a screeching halt. Ozzy fell into a massive depression and was soon let go from Jet Records. Now! all of you musicians out there looking to get the attention of a record label executive... this is how you do it. Show up drunk at an Epic Records meeting with two doves, free one, and then bite the head off the other in the same manner as Ozzy did with the bat.
Osborne got the deal and was signed to the label. Jake E. Lee became Osborne’s new guitarist (another Ace in the hole) for the 1984 studio effort Bark at the Moon. While it didn't match the consistency of Blizzard of Ozz or Diary of a Madman, the record was damn good and scared the crap outta me when I was a kid.
So there it is...3 brilliant albums during the Heavy Metal days of the early 80's. This concludes Metal blog 2 of 3. Next up...6!66!...can anyone finish this line?
Here are the exact searches done on all major search engines over the last year that mention a music artist. This list is in order from the most searches to the least with the least still receiving it's fair share of web traffic and visibility. You know they say... a keyword search is psychologically how that person thinks about what they are looking for and if society is still thinking of music as an art form then I think we are in BIG trouble!
Most of these artists have the brain capacity of a walnut and are products of the big record label machine. There are a few artists on here that are actually doing something different while also making a statement besides "I wish I were at the club grinding on you baby 'cause you make me so hornay!!! Come out yo' trailer and play with me. Teach me about the Chicken of the Sea..." If it weren't for some of these legitimate artists (particular names left out) then I would just completely give up hope on music as an art form and just call it a commodity to be abused by Wal-Mart. Oh wait, that's already happening.
Anyway. Enjoy. And feel free to buy the commodities below.
