Tunage

At some point I guess you must admit defeat. I imagine that you are then asked to relinquish your “Hipster ID Card” to the hulking stud behind the velvet rope, turn yourself around and come to terms with the fact you’ll just have to get you’re cultural guidance from NPR. Well this is how it felt for a few icy moments when I realized that at least a handful of songs from bands on the below list were featured on “the hip new Fox TV show ‘The O.C.’” What makes this even scarier is that in order to have made this connection I would have had to actually watch the show myself. Admission: although I do not watch reality television I do watch ‘The O.C.” So this means one of two things: 1) I am losing my edge or 2) the music supervisor on the show has supremely good taste. I’ll stick with the latter, and hope they look me up if they ever need a replacement. In any event there was lots of good tunage this year. I guess there always is if you look hard enough, but for me most of what I had time for was good old-fashioned indie rock/pop. If you don’t have it, go buy it, burn it, or if you’re nice ask me to rip you a send of the accompanying “Bestest 2003” CD. (more…)

1) Carter Beats The Devil – Glen David Gold
The epic saga of a magician honing his craft in pre-depression era San Francisco.

2) Dream Brother: the Lives and Music of Jeff and Tim Buckley – David Browne
The tale of two of the most tragically parallel lives in the history of modern music, starting in the suburbs of Southern California and ending in the muddy Mississippi river.

3) Poker Nation – Andy Bellin
A light-hearted, report on the subculture of high stakes tournament poker.

4) Fast Food Nation – Eric Schlosser
The addictively muckracking saga of the rise and demise of the fast food business.

5) Almost: A Novel – Elizabeth Benedict
A recently separated women, now living in NYC, returns to the anonymous east coast island to attend the funeral of her ex-husband where her whole seems to converge upon her.

6) How To Be Good – Nick Hornby
Hornby’s take on the psyche of a modern woman dealing with the banality & lethargy of mid-life.

7) Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
The cleverly overachieving novel written by a 24 year-old genius about his fictional Eastern European ancestors.

8) John Henry Days – Colson Whitehead
The story of a reporter on a record breaking PR junket that ends with a weekend covering the celebration of the life and times of the mythic John Henry.

It’s pathetic - I know. This list is three months late and still not as complete as it should be. I have no excuse, but I’m hoping that it’s still “better late than never.” This was a very good year for “good” stuff, and an average year for “great” stuff. But thank goodness for the “good” because everything else in 2002 was just kind of weak (politics, economy, the stock market). So without wasting another second, here it is … (more…)

Tunage

So many records to hear in year, and so many more to miss. The imbalance becomes greater every year, but to find 20 that you really like at least constitutes a good effort. So with a shrug, I am happy to present 20 very nice records … (more…)

I am not a book expert by any stretch of the imagination but I read a few
epic novels this year. I recommend them all to avid readers:

1) The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles - Haruki Murakami
2) The Ground Beneath Her Feet - Salman Rushdie
3) The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon
4) The Sleep Over Artist - Patrick Beller
5) Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain
6) Cruddy - Lynda Barry

The Music That I Just Kept Playing:

For the first half of the year, I thought I wouldn’t even end up with enough
stuff worthy of filling up a list. But by the end of my tenth year compiling
a list of records that most people will never end up hearing, but might
enjoy reading about, it occurred to me that although this might have been
one of the weakest year’s for music in a decade, there were certainly ten
recordings that I will hopefully be listening to a decade from now which is
my usual litmus test.

With electronic music finally reaching an inevitable commercial corruption,
indie rock suffering from an inability to find an resuscitate and bygone
era, and true rock music seeming in need of a real torch bearer, it is no
surprise that this (more…)