Best of the Oughts: Albums 31-40

Now, this is a nice mix of new and old. I'm still not 100% about the Flaming Lips album, but this is where it stands today. I was late to the Strawberry Jam party as with Okkervil in general. Oh, and Deerhunter as well. However, I was on time, if not early, for TVOTR and The White Stripes.


40. The Flaming Lips - Embryonic
After The Soft Bulletin, I didn't care much for any of the work put out by the Lips. That is, until this fall. I felt some urgency and excitement returned to the band. They feel punk again. It may be the newness or the hype, but I'm liking what they've done here.


39. Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
I picked this up long after all the press lavishly proclaimed it great but a while before their next greatest album. It's bigger and fatter than Merriweather, so it sits in the top half of my list. With their string of critically acclaimed records (including this one), Animal Collective could soon be the new REM/Radiohead/Wilco/TVOTR hybrid monster of the future or something.


38. Okkervil River - Don't Fall In Love with Everyone You See
I fell in love with the first Okkervil album I ever owned. It may not be the epic concept album its successors have all been, but it hooked me into Will Sheff - The Most Dynamic Performer in Indie Rock Today.


37. Dearhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.
I cut my indie teeth (or ears) on shoegaze and lo-fi. This dude has combined both aesthetics to create a sound that is unstoppable.


36. TV on the Radio - Desperate Youths, Blood Thirsty Babes
This was back when TVONR were the cool doo-wop punk band on Touch and Go. Thems were the days.


35. Elliott Smith - Figure 8
Before he released a plethora of posthumous material, Elliott Smith was a living, breathing pop master. And I mean pop in the Beatles sense, not the Black Eyed Peas.


34. The White Stripes - De Stijl
Awesome. Led Zeppelin. Back in the day. Before the Legos video. I have to go listen to this again. Right now.


33. Sonic Youth - NYC Ghost and Flowers
New York albums are always good. Free-form poetry over experimental noise should not normally be attempted, but somehow SY knows just how much is just right.


32. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
Somebody's going to tear me apart for this one. It's a great record. Sure, some of the newness has not worn off and provides it a lofty spot on my list, but you will dance when I put this thing on. Oh yes, you will dance.


31. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - Superwolf
Matt Sweeney played and wrote most of the songs with Will Oldham. It's a perfect pairing, apparently never to be tried again. It's dark and dirty and dingy...and somehow beautiful.

The Weekend

These things happened this weekend...

• You may or may not know about my deerslayer/Chingachgook experience Wednesday night, but I finally received a new, sweet ride from the rental place: Chevy Cobalt.
• Lucia and her friends were locked in the nanny's car while at the park. The nanny freaked and was nearly ready to break a window, but was talked out of it by one of the kid's grandmother who was along for the ride. It took COMO's finest TWENTY EFFING MINUTES to arrive on the scene. Come on. This was an emergency. What's going on in this town that kept the police from getting to the nanny's car? I guess if it doesn't involve a taser it isn't worth the cops' time.
  
• Happy Hour at the 'Tag happened. Funny thing: I haven't seen you there in a while. What's up with that? I'm beginning to think you don't like me. Don't sweat it. Plenty of regulars did show.
• Saturday was primarily spent bottling. JM came over to continue in his role as homebrew guru. In all, we bottled 48 beers. Now, I wait five days, try one to see if it's drinkable, and repeat every two days until the batch is ready.
• While bottling, we were able to drink an Avery Maharajah (LOVE IT!), Stoudt's Double IPA (OK, doesn't feel like a double), Dogfish Head Raisin d'Etre (always good, I tasted raisins), and a Sam Adams Longshot Double IPA (Pliny the Elder clone, so you know it's good).
• Just before bottling, the hose to the faucet (it's one of those pull-out spray doo-hickies) busted. Lowe's didn't have replacement parts without ordering, so we opted to buy another faucet. I don't know that I've ever cursed anything as much as I did the old faucet for refusing to come out of the sink. Luckily, friends brought over some dinner and relatives. Our friends' brother-in-law had just fixed three of sinks in the past couple of years and had an inkling of what to do. He tore it apart and we now have a new facet.
• I took R and Lu to Bleu (pronpounced "bleh", I believe) for Mother's Day brunch. Bleu is a rather swanky place and featured an interesting menu. Then the food came. R's smoked lox and eggs Benedict was cold and the eggs were overcooked. My French toast made with Brioche was also cold. This place has been really hyped over the past several months, but it really disappointed this morning. We'll give it a try for dinner some night, but I'm not hopeful.
• Our garden received some new additions. In addition to the mixed greens, red lettuce, herbs, and strawberries we already planted, R added some tomato, pepper, and eggplant...er...plants.
• I tried out my newly purchased, Craigslisted running stroller today in my ongoing effort to split the difference between my high school weight and my current girth. (Is it really possible to gain forty pounds after high school?) We thought maybe Lu would sleep for the entire ride. However, she squealed and babbled for the entire 35-minute run.
• The faucet leaked tonight.
• We ate fillet wrapped in bacon for dinner. Happy Mother's Day to me.
• Speaking of which, I called my mom.
• Oh, and I'm listening to Japandroids, Matt & Kim, and Dark Was the Night with new releases by Conor Oberst, Camera Obscura, and St. Vincent to consider.
• Shows I will probably miss because of a baby: The Dears (5/14 @ Mojo's - They're Canadian.), Malone w/ Ptarmigan (5/15 @ Mojo's - EP release night), Willie Nelson (5/20 @ 9th Street), White Rabbits (6/9 @ Mojo's - Kewl.), Conor Oberst (6/29 @ Blue Note - Actually, I'm going to this one. Tickets arrived this week.), and a bunch of stuff in STL.
• Oops. I forgot to mention this is going to happen. You crazy kids.
  

Living - and nearly dying - in Misery

Tonight, I hit a deer on my way home from work. I'm OK, but it was pretty scary. The collision went down something like this...

I had just crossed MO-19 where it intersects with MO-54, heading east towards Mexico. (I realize that some of you might be geographically challenged. Mexico the country is actually hundreds of miles south of us. Mexico, MO is like a 35 minute drive from COMO.) As I moved along, I suddenly noticed a deer...I hit the breaks...deer against windshield...skidded...deer flew off as if it was sucked away by a tornado...I stopped in the middle of the road.

I looked around and noticed that I was not in a good spot and needed to move. The truck behind me had stopped and luckily there was no traffic coming in the other direction. I pulled forward and over to the side of the road. The car seem to move and run just fine.

I got out to inspect the damage. The hood and grill were crushed, but the wheels and engine looked pretty OK. There were four or five huge cracks in the corner of the windshield, but it looked to still be intact. There was something splattered all over the windshield - maybe blood but most likely slobber. The best part is that a bunch of the deer's fur was caught in the grill.

The truck behind me pulled up and the driver got out to see if I was OK. I told him I hit a deer. He responded, "Really? I didn't see a deer." As I pointed to where I thought the deer landed, I noticed the deer on the opposite side of the road, hopping through the field as if nothing had happened.

I checked to see that my headlights worked and the guy in the truck followed me as far as Mexico. I then drove the rest of the way to COMO.

Somehow, the car ran fine. So, I figured I'd drive home and deal with it in the morning.

Then, about a half mile outside COMO, the engine began making funny sounds. I hit the hazards and pulled into a gas station parking lot. After getting hit up for some gas money and receiving permission to leave the car overnight, R came to my rescue and took me home.

In the end, I'll have to get my car fixed right away. So, you know what I'll be doing tomorrow morning. There goes another half-day of work. Friday's happy hour can't get here soon enough.

It's just another day in Misery.

#8 of 2008: Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont.

Thirty-Two Words: A dirty shoe-gaze in the same vein as No Age and the Strokes, Deerhunter lives up to the hype that made me avoid them for so, so long with the masterful Microcastle./The bonus disc, Weird Era Cont., on the other hand is loaded with brilliance but it is rough around the edges and feels unfinished. Of course, this disc helped me "get" Deerhunter.

The Moment of Truth: I was still figuring out what I thought about this Deerhunter stuff on my way to the grocery with a crying baby in the back. I turned up the volume and she stopped crying. That's when I started to pay attention to Deerhunter.

Killer to Filler Ratio: 6:6/8:5

Best Songs of 2008

Reading this post at the bathysphere made me want to post my own list of the year's best songs. Of course, my list is limited to my own collection as I spend very little time listening to the radio and MTV doesn't play videos anymore.

Regardless, here's my list for the year's best songs, MTV-style...

10.


9.


8.


7.


6.


5.


4.

#93.6 BON IVER - Skinny Love
by lablogotheque

3.


2.

PORT O'BRIEN #1 I Woke Up Today
by lablogotheque

1.

The walkmen - In the new year
by le-pere-de-colombe