What I listened to in 2008

Thought I'd wait until 2008 was actually over before doing a 'faves of 2008' list. And some of these aren't new...

What I listened to most
Flight of the Conchords / Flight of the Conchords - "Thnk about it," "Leggy blond"
Heretic Pride / Mountain Goats - "San Bernardino"
The Rhumb Line / Ra Ra Riot -- This is how Voxtrot should have moved from EPs to LP: tweak production but don't overload with instrumentation and increasingly arcane lyrics.The songs remain simple melodically with a gorgeous orchestral pop wall of sound behind it. SEE: every track.
Dear Science / TV on the Radio - "Family tree," "Shout me out"
Live and let ghosts / Jukebox the Ghost - Like Ben Folds & Mountain Goats & TMBG in a delicious enchilada of pop. "Hold it in"
I'll Be Lightning / Liam Finn - Saw him live in Newark, and this guy? Insanely talented. No need to worry about the shadow of Daddy. "Better To Be," "I'll Be Lightning"
Re-Arrange Us / Mates of State - I've never not liked their work, but now that it's more grown up, richer, and more dynamic, I absolutely love it. And there's some bass this time! "The Re-Arranger," "You Are Free"
Swimming / French Kicks
Once soundtrack - "If you want me," "Say It to Me Now"
In Rainbows / Radiohead - "House of cards"

Tennessee Pusher / Old Crow Medicine Show - "Methamphetamine," "Caroline"
Distortion / Magnetic Fields - "Please Stop Dancing," "Too Drunk to Dream"
Repeat When Necessary / Dave Edmunds - "Girls Talk," "Queen of hearts"
Jesus of cool [2008 deluxe reissue] / Nick Lowe - "So It Goes,""Shake and Pop"R
Seconds of pleasure / Rockpile - "You Ain't Nothin' But Fine"
Mamma Mia! soundtrack - "Voulez vous," "I Have a Dream"
Narrow Stairs / Death Cab For Cutie - "No Sunlight"
Into The Wild / Eddie Vedder -Indio cover "Hard Sun"
Firecracker People / Hotel Lights - "Amelia Bright"
American Prehistoric / Warm in the Wake - "American prehistoric"
Dig!!! Lazarus, Dig!!! / Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds - "More News from Nowhere"
Live in London & Paris / Otis Redding - Fuck it, take your pick...
Terry Tales & Fallen Gates / The Little Ones
Acid Tongue / Jenny Lewis - "Acid Tongue"; Rabbit Fur Coat is still a more solid record, but there are a couple of real gems here including the title track. And her voice is just so damn beautiful.
The Stand Ins / Okkervil River - "Lost Coastlines"
Company (2006 revival) - Oh Raul Esparza, you can do no wrong....
Make me armoured / The Scourge of the Sea - "Goodbye, Darkness"
3 Rounds and a Sound / Blind Pilot - "Go on, say it," "3 rounds and a sound"; This and Bon Iver almost brought me to tears when I listened to them back to back, and I wasn't even PMSing. So much beauty. Note to self: don't listen to at work again.
For Emma, Forever Ago / Bon Iver - Ubiquitous? Yes. Worthy? Absolutely.
Volume One / She & Him - "Change Is Hard"
Living in darkness / Agent Orange
Lily Allen - She had me at "Up the Junction" and now I'm in pop-love. The album won't be out until later 2009, but half the tracks are already out. "The Fear":

A Colbert Christmas - "There are much worse things to believe in"
The Bootleg Series Vol. 8 - Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989-2006 / Bob Dylan - "Mississippi"
Robyn [re-release] / Robyn - "Be Mine"
O / Tilly and the Wall -"Alligator Skin," "Falling Without Knowing"
Promised Land / Dar Williams - "Troubled Times"

...and the rest
Stay positive / The Hold Steady - Doesn't speak too well when the best songs on the album are the three bonus tracks tacked on the end: "Ask Her for Adderall,"Cheyenne Sunrise," "Two Handed Handshake"
Way to normal / Ben Folds - "You Don't Know Me," "Kylie From Connecticut"; Surprisingly, meh. He's lost his storytelling prowess, it seems, and the rest sounds like he's trying too hard be cute.
The Hollow of Morning / Gemma Hayes - "In Over My Head"; Also, surprisingly, meh, as she moves more and more into whispery vocals and atmospheric noodling. Not bad, necessarily, but kinda boring.
Make the Road by Walking / Menahan Street Band / - Wait. There is still new instrumental funk/R&B being made? By hipsters? In Bushwick? Whatever, dude. Whatever... (Seriously, they do the 'Rocky' theme and everything...)
Vampire Weekend / Vampire Weekend - "Mansard roof"; It's fun. It's cute. It ain't life changing, just enjoyable
Moonwink / Spinto Band
Fleet Foxes / Fleet Foxes - Gosh, it's pretty. But the way the songs end abruptly makes it sound like a collection of incomplete thoughts.
Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust / Sigur Rós - First one with pop-sounding songs which I like. sue me.
Saturdays=Youth / M83
Consolers of The Lonely / The Raconteurs - "Many shades of black" ; But when is Brendan Benson gonna release a new solo record?
Modern Guilt / Beck
Kala / M.I.A. - "Bird Flu"
Tea Partying with Ghosts / Cloud Cult
Sea Lion / Ruby Suns
Last Light & the FREEP / Matt Pond PA
These United States
Throw Me the Statue
You Me and Iowa
Fumbling Toward Ecstasy reissue / Sarah McLachlan - "Hold on" ; And her duet with Pink (?!) on the terribly overplayed "Angel" was quite beautiful and Sarah looked gorgeous as a new divorcee (looking good is the best revenge, no?)

At Mount Zoomer / Wolf Parade
The Seldom Seen Kid / Elbow
This is Not the World / Futureheads
Evil Urges / My Morning Jacket - that title song is killer the rest is kinda meh
The Diggs
Second Gleam / Avett Brothers
Sol-Angel and the Hadley St. Dreams / Solange Knowles - "I Told You So"; Sorry, Beyonce, but you're sister kicked your ass with some quality, old school (trite phrase, I know) R&B
As I Am / Alicia Keys - "Superwoman"
Vivian Girls / Vivian Girls
At the National Grid / The Bats
A Hundred Million Suns / Snow Patrol
Alphabeat - The Danish Michael Cera and the Danish Lulu bring the pop video back - dancing! color! snappy choruses! - Debbie Gibson and Wham! together at last! "Fascination":

Ida Maria - "Oh My God"


Haven't heard yet...
Bridemaid's 12" series / Decemberists
Snowflake Midnight / Mercury Rev
All I Intended To Be / Emmylou Harris
22 Dreams / Paul Weller
Harps and Angels / Randy Newman
Missiles / the Dears
Furr / Blitzen Trapper
Carried to dust / Calexico

Why are you trying so hard to *not* get laid?

Someone has got me watching Supernatural. There's not a whole lot one can say about about pretty boys Jensen Ackles traveling about the country battling demons and the like. It retreads about every other Buffy plot minus 65% of the wit. But who cares? Pretty boys! Jensen Ackles!

Even better than the show is having the excuse to read Drunken Bee's season 1 recaps. Below, her greatest hits:

The Hardy Boys Resolve to Exercise More

Praise Allah, Hallelujah, and Shalom, we pan up on Jensen as he slumbers face-down on a bed wearing little shorts. Unnecessary strings wail in the background as we hear keys fiddling in the lock, and then see a large figure looming behind this weird glass-brick wall between the door to the motel room and the room proper. Dean's eyes snap open, and the strings continue to wail even though the one-celled organisms living in the dust on my television know it's just Sam. There's no need to start every scene with a little mini...SURPRISE!, is my opinion on the subject. Sam comes into the room holding coffee and says, "Mornin', sunshine!" as Jensen pushes his chest off the bed, craning his neck backward, in a total beefcake pose. Then Jensen's thighs move this way. Then Jensen's thighs move that way. Then Jensen's thighs decide to get out of bed. I'm thinking this would not be a bad way to continue the recap. What are Jensen's thighs doing? WWJTD?

***

And it's dialogue like this that make me love my job. Listen, I subbed in for Al Lowe on an episode of Deadwood and I'll take Padalecki's ungrammatical grunts over Ian McShane's iambic pentameter any day. This show is a recapper's dream: 30 minutes of grunted dialogue, 15 minutes of walking around corners in spooky places, done.

The Lord God Your Hardy Boys

Back in the car, Plain Jane and Rich keep smooching. I'm sorry I have to keep saying "smooching," but I think it is the most accurate description of what they are doing. This time Rich reaches up behind her neck to try to untie her slut sack's halter tie. Plain Jane pulls back and is like, "listen, I know you receive lots of mixed messages about what women want from men -- and about seventy-five percent of those messages are indeed somehow connected to Julia Roberts -- but I'm here to tell you that women do not, in fact, want to get paid for having their naked ass pressed onto piano keys, nor give up satisfying careers as sleek fashion photographers to take care of your kids, nor find some man to rubber mallet them into the wedded bliss they've been running away from for years, nor have very public breakdowns about their cheating husbands, nor act completely nonsensically about their "best friend's" totally nonsensical wedding all while sporting the very prominent shoulder pads common to food critics (WTF?), nor do ANYTHING ELSE that Julia Roberts spent doing in the '90s, and ESPECIALLY we do NOT want to endure a boob fondling like that totally gross one Jason Alexander attempts to unleash on Ms. Roberts in Pretty Woman, the one that UNFORTUNATELY made us cheer in relief when Richard Gere came riding up in white pleather to the tune of mothereffing Roxette. Those are some things we do. not. want."

The Hardy Boys Go Off To See the Wizard

She seemed somewhat cute, but only before her mouth started moving, because once she starts talking you notice that she has an incredibly short upper lip, one that makes it impossible to look at her and not think about that little piece of skin that connects your lip to your gums and nobody wants to think about that, ever, right? They make hitchhiking chit-chat, and the more she talks the more awful it gets. She has completely wooden delivery, so much so that I'm wondering if maybe I simply fell asleep for a few years, woke up to find that Padelecki's career did not turn out exactly as he had planned, and am now watching a porno. I mean, her real name is Nicki Aycox, which has a certain, well, Just Add Lube quality to it.

The Hardy Boys Get Religion

As Dean wakes up, he looks up at The Rev, who stands there with his Blind Man's smile, and beyond whose shoulder lurks a nattily-dressed demon with the face of a Shar-Pei and also pretty much the same face of the villains developed for a critically-acclaimed episode of that critically-acclaimed television show that I certainly don't want to have to bring up week after week, and so will just leave unnamed because we all know what I'm talking about, and, yes, it does rhyme with "Huffy the Cast-Iron Conveyor."

The Hardy Boys Get Some

Cassie continues to run around shutting shutters, which, whatever. This goes on for a while until she grabs her phone, dials it, and then yells, "Dean! Deeeaaaann!" into it. "Dean" what? "Dean, come save me from a posturing truck"? I don't know. And I know this is a silly show, which is fine, but this scene really bugs me because, you know, African Americans lived for decades with the horrible spectre of there appearing out of nowhere the blazing bright light of a cross on fire in the front yard, followed by the possibility of being dragged out of their homes and beaten or killed. Is it really in the best taste to revise this awful cultural history into one involving...a killer truck with really bright headlights?

[I just couldn't understand why she didn't run down to the basement...]


The Hardy Boys 2.0
The boys swamp through the lush and verdant Texan landscape on their way up to the front door, remarking on how run-down the place is. Dean taps on his tiny little machine, which unfortunately does not reside in his pants. The EMF reader isn't working due to some interference that I don't care to recap since it, too, has nothing to do with Dean's pants.


The Hardy Boys and the Art of Getting Laid

Commercials. Every time I see one of those Revlon ads with Susan Sarandon and Julianne Moore powdering their noses together and laughing so exaggeratedly at how beautiful they each are, I can't help imagining that immediately before and after the shots, those two bitches are rolling around on the ground, trying to rip each other's wigs off. Julianne has her teeth clamped into a pit-bull grip on Susan's ear and is all "raarrraaarr" shaking her head from side to side and the director's like, "Uh, Tony? Could you please separate them? Okay, great. Roll camera!" Then they get in their chairs, do their bit with the laughing and the powdering, until "Thanks, ladies. That's a wrap!" and then they're immediately on the ground again, Susan's broken the heel of her right Blahnik, and Julianne's hem is all ripped as she windmills her arms at Susan but Susan is holding the tiny bitch effectively at arm's length. But maybe that's just me, though.

I am currently in the first third of season 2 and I have observed the following: Jared Padelecki needs to get a haircut and take an acting class, Linda Blair is VERY bad actress, and no one does death like Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

A naked time traveler from the future, of course...

Oh, Brisco County, Jr., why did you leave so soon? See, this was the first scifi western to be canceled by Fox. (Sorry Browncoats!) And what a nutty ball of cheese it was: bounty hunter Brisco heads after the man who killed his federal marshal father, master criminal John Bly. That part I remembered. Upon watching the DVDs, it turns out there's this whole time travel, super powerful orb thing that can make one hero-strong and/or have eternal youth. (It's all kinda vague, but you gotta expect that from the guy who created Lost.)

The orb/time travel deal was clearly not thought out ahead of time, so the wonky plot holes and deus ex machinas are just par for the course. And diaglogue is pretty hackneyed, too. At one point, Bly throws up the evil jazz hands and actually says, answering for why he wants the orbs (dirty!): "So I can rule the world!" There might have been a 'BWAHAHA' too, but I'd have to check.

Of course, Brisco, is a blantant homage to the old film serials and dime novels, so the plots, both obvious and ridiculous, are almost expected. And the cast and writers delve into the show so wholeheartedly and are having so much fun it's hard to not enjoy it. Especially, the snarky, platonic man-love between Brisco and fellow bounty hunter Lord Bowler, played to the hilt by the dearly departed Julius Carry.

That said, it had moments of true wit, usually in the form of Pete Hutter:



And did I mention Brisco is played by Bruce Campbell? There ya go.

You're just two white stripes.

Finally, after years of hearing about it, I've seen Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains.

It's not a good movie. Music producer Lou Adler wanted to direct a movie so...here it is. And the script is kind of a mess (apparently, not the original writer's fault and she had her name taken off the credits for for the original release). But it's fascinating nonetheless. Fifteen-year-old (!) Diane Lane is an orphaned teen who has a punk band (with no drummer) that creates a cultural firestorm. She's angry, confrontational, and unapologetic, and amazing.


Wish we knew where she got the "We don't put out" bit - was she attacked? is it all just an act? She's not virginal as we can plainly see from her getting it on with Ray Winstone in the shower (for real naked! at 15! what the hell?). Is it a reaction to the small town-there's-nothing-else-to-do-but-fool-around-and-get-knocked-up life path? This, like Mama Mia! probably shouldn't be analyzed to closely.

I will say that I'm completely bummed that there's no soundtrack available.*



Holy crap, that's Ray Winstone! Looking all hot and dangerous without aid of CGI! And he kinda rocks as a singer too!

The bit at the end - shot two years after the rest of the film - with the Stains cleaned up as New Wave pop band? You could totally get away with Lane's outfit today:


Walk down Bedford Avenue on a Friday night and I guarantee you'll see some iteration of it.

Oh, and I don't want to forget the one bit that is actually a moving piece of cinema: Christine Lahti, playing Laura Dern's mother, speaks to a television interviewer about her admiration for her daughter and nieces making a life for themselves, 'havin' fun,' and being icons for a new generation. Lahti is such a magnificent actress, never overplays, and ALWAYS makes me cry.

And I leave you with, again, Ray Winstone:

And Ray Winstone:

I KNOW.

(Get the DVD. Listen to Diane and Laura's commentary. LOVE.)


*You can hear the songs and think of at least five bands who were clearly influenced by this movie. This year's Stains-lovers: the Vivian Girls.