Brian's top albums of 2008. . .

Love as laughter - Holy. This album is really good. I don't know it took me a while to like it, and now I put it on without even thinking about it. I know the CD art and just spot it and put it in without even realizing it. Thanks Isaac for finding this band and pushing them into the Sub Pop family.

David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything that happens will happen today. Ok, the first time these two collaborated it wasn't anything special, but now with "Everything" they seem to have found a sound that really makes sense at the time when it was made. Note to other bands try and do this, and you will be famous, or at least be noticed as that's all that really matters nowadays.

Valient Thorr - Immortalizer. This band is more rock than any band out there today. They are sweaty, denim clad, bearded, head banging rockers that will give you their kidney's if you need it. Well not really, but their lead singer Valient Himself did document his kidney removal for his own father in their—really solid music dvd—In Heat.

Titus Andronicus - Airing of Grievances. This band came out of nowhere and for some people they never came out at all. Their debut album is so visceral one might mistake it for a really good live album. The album has its highs and lows, but as a whole it is still better mix of musicianship and feeling than any album that came out this year; remember the name it will give you points.

Fucked Up - The chemistry of common life. I hate hardcore music. I hate that you have to sing in certain way to be categorized as hardcore. Point of fact, I hate tag lines for music in general; and its for that reason that I loved Fucked Up's latest. This album is not hardcore, but the lead singer sings like it is. In all the reviews I read for this album "reviewers" had problems categorizing it and that means that the band was able to accomplish something that hardly any band this year did, it made the listener think about what kind of music this exactly is. My answer: just music.

Kay Kay and his Weathered Underground - Self. Every time I get sick of local music, some band comes along and reminds me that there is a good band for all the bad ones (see: Throw Me The Statue, Jaguar Love, Grand Archives). Kay Kay features the former lead man from Gatsby's American Dream with a large supporting cast including members of the Lashes and the live band for the Blue Scholars. What they sound like is for you to determine, but should you—yes!

New Albums by Kings Of Leon, Cold War Kids, The Hold Steady, My Morning Jacket, and TV On The Radio: These bands were just buzz bands a year ago and now they are the mainstay acts to see as headliners, and sure bets for albums of the year. One look at www.metacritic.com shows just how many top ten lists these bands made with their latest releases.

Colour Revolt - Plunder Beg and Curse. This is the best band you have never heard of. Plain and simple, post-punk is a used up genre but these Mississippians do it right, and how they do it seems to be all their own. For evidence of this go over to www.daytrotter.com and search the bands name. They have a terrific sensibility for melody and timing and with those elements they excel.

Conor Oberst and The Mystic Valley Band - Conor Oberst. When you go on a road trip like I did at the end of the summer of 2008, its always good to have good road music. And, there was no better road music than the first "real" solo record from the Bright Eyes front man. This album just breathes freedom with lines such as, "when I get to moab and get my canteen filled, there's nothing that the road cannot heal."

Wolf Parade - At Mt. Zoomer. This album is a little too good; I mean not really, but seriously the players on this record know how to make music. Then I saw them live and they were young, not just out of high school, young but pretty young, and it made me wonder if hipsters had found a way to sell their souls to the devil for – all to tight – pants, and a musical style that shows a knowledge of music past ones own age and ability to absorb mass amounts of quality music.

Honorable Mentions: Oasis – Dig out your soul, Blitzen Trapper – Furr, Stephen Malkamus – Real emotional Trash, Toadies – No Deliverance, The Roots – Rising Down, The Verve – Forth, Raconteurs – Consolers of the Lonely, The Little Ones – Morning Tide, The Cops – Free Electricity, Spiritualized – Songs in A & E, Shim – Feel like a king, Scott Weiland – Happy in Golashes, The Night Watchmen – The fabled city, Mars Volta – Bedlam in Goliath, Los Campesinos – We are beautiful we are doomed, Brian Wilson – That lucky old sun, Elbow – That seldom seen kid, Common Market – Tobacco road, Annuals – Such Fun, Eagles of Death Metal – Heart On, Foals – Antidote, Jay Retard – Matador singles, The Knux – Remind me in three days, and just for Axl—Guns and Roses – Chinese Democracy.

An I-POD vibrator, what the F!

So I have always been concerned with the human race becoming more and more "connected" or as it should be more accurately described, disconnected. By this I refer to many things, including: Issolation from our natural environments, issolation from other members of society, addictions to television/computers/or other personal electronics. Things that have worried me recently are cell phones and how they have evolved ideas of what is acceptable; ie, conversation on a blackberry while doing your banking, or talking on phones while driving, or interupting person to person communication to answer a phone call. I could go on forever how rude I think poeple really are as to what they think is acceptable behavior for using a cell phone. The latest electronic device that has troubled me--not only as a very entrenched fan of music, but also as a human being who greatly values inter-personal communication--is the use of mp3 players and thier most popular seller--the I-POD. My reasons for disliking this device in particular range from a broad spectrum of complaints: From the death of the listening to a record from start to finish, to favortism of singles over artists, to consumer money going to Apple's I-Tunes and even further from the artists pockets, to things as simple as loss of quality from vinyl format all the way to the MP3. I might sound like a purist--or even a pretentious bastart--but I must remind you I don't have an MP3 player, cell phone, or any other techno-device that I have mentioned above. So I guess I'll get to the point. Today I saw an add for a device from a company called OH-MY-BOD! that has put a new twist on the use of the I-POD. This company's product is a splitter that attaches to an I-POD and on one end attaches the headphones for the user to listen to his or her favorite band, and on the other attaches a vibrator that is calibrated to vibrate to the beat or pulse of the music being listened to. And while I am attracted to the notion that poeple can finally "get off" on the bands that they love. My problem with this device is that--one, I can't get off on a standard vibrator--and secondly, I don't really want the gals that are using this "all new" adapter for the I-POD to be pleasing themselves to the kind of mass consumed, over produced, lacking in substance--crap (insert genre here)! I know this isn't much of an argument; but shit as much as I want liberated women to masturbate as much as men have during thier maturations, I don't think crappy musical artists deserve thier first and following orgasms. So as humans become less connected with thier fellow humans and more connected with this all so everpresent techno-crap, all I have to say is--hey OH-MY-BOD! make me a fucking male vibrator, or sleave, or love doll, or whatever (and make it cheap)--so I can finally get off on every Led Zeppelin record and finally feel every John Bonham triplet ever played. Bring it bitches!

Questions for robots on saving the world: Pirating!

Proof that technology is an unstoppable force to be reckoned with can be shown in the actions taken by the music and movie industry concerning piracy. When the first personal CD burner was put into a personal computer the music industry has been scrambling to find ways to keep its empire intact. From possibly illegal software (RCA) on CD’s to stop a CD from being “ripped” onto the hard drive or “burnt,” to sealed Discman’s delivered (Sony) to music journalists to stop unreleased albums from leaking on the internet. No avenue has not been explored to protect this multi-billion dollar industry’s from going the way of history.
The “bad guys” entrusted in protecting their benefactors in music buisness is an organization known as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). The RIAA has done everything from enlist musicians to condemn “pirating” such as the now hated Lars Ulrich of Metallica, to busting children from starting (Napster), or simply using file sharing networks on the internet. This ten year effort started in the mid nineties and has continued it way all the way up to the Supreme Court; which ruled in 2005 that an individual can not be responsible for the user’s actions on his/her file sharing network. This essentially sealed the fate of the record industry and was indicated by a drop in album prices, the closing of record store giants (Tower Records), and a jump in online sales from sites such as I-Tunes.
While the record industry scrambles to find new ways of making money off of underpaid “true” artists, and overpaid “industry” artists; the movie industry is starting to fight their own war over pirated DVD’s that would signal a drop in DVD sales a large portion of their—an even bigger multi-billion dollar industry. And once again the big studios have an acronized face to hide behind the Motion Picture Association of American (MPAA). And, as the MPAA is taking the same route the RPAA took by busting kids who are utilizing already existing technology at their disposal. Certain differences in both cases should be pointed out.
In the music business the main problem was that albums were being leaked before their release date via the internet; by journalists and music rags with advance copies of the album. Sometimes consumers would have early copies of albums a month or even two, before an album’s scheduled release date. And, what this did in terms of sales was decrease the anticipation sales and first week numbers, a period that is the largest percentage of sales typically for any mainstream record. In contrast, while “bootlegs” of movies have existed for twenty years on street corners of New York, these low quality camcorder copies of already released films have never posed any threat to the movie industry. As well, it is unheard of for movies to leak onto the internet before they are ever to be released, which should send a message to the music industry concerning how they treat the way promotions and early copies of records are treated.
Essentially what this means is that box-office numbers are not being affected by DVD “ripping;” which doesn’t even become and issue for a film until it is released in a format that can be copied sometimes a year after it first appeared in theaters. So what this means is that while the record industry has only one method to make money from a record, the movie industry profits both from the initial release of the film and the DVD release. As well, unless the home computer user has some knowledge of the technology he won’t be able to “rip” a purchased or rented DVD onto a blank medium. The user can try and download the movie but with large file sizes it takes at least a couple of days of uninterrupted broadband downloading, and once the file is on the computer the user runs into the same problem of how to get the movie onto a playable DVD.
What this debate really does for me more than anything else is feeling sorry for the “true” musicians who are loosing money in this battle; not for the four giant record companies, and not the Best Buy’s or Target who have other ways to make profits. Even if a movie tanks in the theaters and falls victim to DVD piracy, the actor in the movie—as long as it’s from a big studio—still gets paid for his/her performance. Albeit, these “true” musical artists I keep mentioning can make their money by touring and selling merchandise out from under the pressure of their label. In this regard “true” fans and artists of music will find themselves escaping the Titanic sinking ship of the over bloated record industry to the small and safe comforts of independent labels that distribute mainly through their partners in independent record shops.
So why is the MPAA fighting by shutting down sites that are distributing “ripping” software, and going after—once again—kids who are simply making copies of their favorite DVD’s so they don’t have to pay for a movie they probably have paid two other times to watch. Greed kills kills again, and then dies itself; all you have to do is wait!

My regrets for the year of two-thousand and six: in non-sequential order!

--Not having met and made love to Charlize Theron during the filming of the movie about WTO that I was supposed to be an extra, yet didn’t because of bad meeting info.

--Not having sold one of my many inventions for hundreds of thousands of dollars; come on – every guitar player needs a pick dispensing pez-holder with rock star head of choice!

--Not having sent out that demo for my solo work with Voith Retarder. That shit is good! And that Pho’ Kindai hasn’t been making the soundtrack that every Seattle hipster has been searching Pitchfork for three times a day: To Poop On!

--Not developed a massive heroin habit to cope with Seattle’s massive attitude problem.

--Not having cut off my dreads after making a promise at the Chupacabra, and then to make sure I would follow through with by blacking out from the tequila shots; Whoops!

--Also along those lines: Not getting beat up by the cops after blacking out from tequila shots, walking home three miles, all the while dressed like a wolf. Did you have fun pigs?

--Not having discovered the Silversun Pickups, The Hold Steady, The Cold War Kids, The Sword, Mclusky, and I’m from Barcelona earlier, shit!

--Not seeing the Murder City Devils at their show at the Showbox and instead seeing it at the Capitol Hill Block party with every other drunken asshole is Seattle, thanks guys.

--Not going to Burning Man once again for the third year in a row and instead going to the Oregon Country Fair the third year in a row; ok it was still fun just without FIRE!

--Not having quit smoking earlier – who the fuck has the nerve to only smoke part-time, only in the evening, and while drunk. Next time I smoke it will be for real, I promise.

--Not having finally broken down and purchasing a cell phone. I swear I probably missed out on countless fun—friend-filled—activities because of my stubbornness on that issue!

--Also for not telling everyone in my life that cares for me how much I treasure the fact that I am blessed to have them in my life; you all know who you are and I love you all!

--Not having joined a gym, ate better, exercised more frequently; along with all those other things that everyone and their grandma uses for their new-years resolutions; suckas!

--Not having moved to Ballard when I first planned on it—before that scene had a hip shoe shop, bar owned by Linda’s, and all the other post-cocaine hipster moved there; oh yeah and not following Eli and Heather to Portland so I didn’t have to bitch about Seattle.