i know you're all out there with bated breath wondering aloud "what are eight nine and ten going to be?" well i'll tell ya

8) the body the blood the machine - the thermals

god, the human condition and the apocalypse is more like it. from the church organ to guitar intro to every sardonically laced lyric this record explores our relationship with ourselves, each other and the desire to understand our surroundings through faith. the whole thing plays out as an epiphany in 4/4 time with slashing power chords and lashing vocals held together with backbeat precision. "Pillar of Salt" may well be the best song about the human condition since "Sympathy for the Devil" and i ain't even jokin'. the rock is pretty straight forward with a foray into early Yo La Tengo-land on "Test Pattern" which works surprisingly well. though faith and god play major roles in this cycle in no way does it seem preachy and easily translates to all manners of spiritual belief. definately for those who like a little deep thinking with their junk food punk rock.

9) rebels, rogues and sworn brothers - lucero

here's what i bet you're thinking now,"andrew? where's the whiskey? where's the roots rock that flows like blood in your veins?" well here it is kids......i generally don't go in for honkey-tonk or any sort of brand of commercially viable country prefering the guitars and band feel  "alt" country of Son Volt and the like and Lucero falls right in there.....i've known about these guys for while now and they've delivered as solid a collection of  "alt" country as i've heard. i can practically taste the smoke and whiskey in the room when i listen. this music is so powerful in it's beautifully melancholy glory it wrenches my gut and sometimes makes me want to cry. there aren't many bands that can manipulate my emotions like that...or maybe i just relate to some of the songs too much i don't know...regardless....it's a great album about love and lust and friends and rock and roll

10) the big cop-out - andrew higgins

too much great music this year to let 10 be the final number so heres a list of records that really grabbed my attention this year...in no particular order

the pick of destiny - tenacious d

welcome to anywhere - dirty pretty things

sam's town - the killers

the river and the sea - chris buskey and the high lonesome plains

another fine day - golden smog

monument to the masses - ima robot

the bronx - the bronx

rock and roll is dead - the hellacopters

an other cup - yusef

the story of the ark - the ark

first impressions of earth - the strokes

i'm sure there's more but i just can't think of them right now(but don't worry i'll post them if i feel like it) and as it is i had to force myself to not write about all those records but i think i've bored you enough...there you have it, my top ten list....will 2007 be as good? all i know is there's a new Dinosaur jr. record on the way and that's a start............

from here on out the placement is a bit more arbitrary than not and i call this the progressive middle

5) you in reverse - built to spill

unless i remember otherwise in the near future i think this is the only record to survive the early part of the year and receive significant play all year long. what hasn't been said about Built to Spill that i can say? with guitar pyrotechnics that seem absurdly textured and deceptively simple Doug Martsch has created yet another masterpiece(his forth by my estimation). songs that musically harken back to earlier records (Liar) in sound and structure to the mind blowing guitar-a-thon (Going Against Your Mind) that opens the record this is full force all purpose BTS.  the song "Conventional Wisdom" rocks so hard i have to check my jeans when the song's over i can get that excited. if you like a little psychedelic freak out guitar with really catchy pop songs hiding underneath this record is for you....however if you like to have your skull shattered and your mind laid waste in apocalyptic grandeur than this next record is for you

6) amputechture - the mars volta

fucking forget about checking your jeans after this sucker you may want to investigate your own sanity. there is absolutely zero way for me to properly describe this album no wait i take that back....it's like Yes as a sinister hardcore band with better singing.....i have no clue what any of these songs are about but they are so filled with passion it borders on faith.....it took me longer to warm up to this one than it did their previous two but i found that to be true of those as well...the second not as good as the first.....but now i realize that they all serve as companion pieces to the other.....just one long super trippy psychotic hardcore jam....incomprehensible song titles and lyrics filled with the shreik of angels.... i've definately lost control of my surroundings when this has been on.....their one infallibilty?.....slow parts that meander for too long like bad Pink Floyd or something.....trim that fat and this lp sits higher in this list.....but there was some great prog that doesn't have much fat to trim and that's

7) the crane wife - the decemberists

 this record is a bit more old school in it's proginess bringing early Genesis more to my mind than anybody else i can think of because some of these songs have a tricky kind of quiet slowness to them. before you know it your chooglin your ass off and you think "how the fuck did this happen?". the songwriting is very literate and each song plays out as a coherent(more or less) story unlike the Volta who don't seem to care about that.  each story takes on an exponentially bigger life of it's own...the Romeo and Juliet tragedy "o valencia" with it's bounce to the ultra moody seafaring pirate epic "the island" ...there's the civil war to contend with and three beautiful songs that make up the title track based on an old japanese fable i wish i was more familiar with....the decemberists were a pleasent surprise for me this year and i look forward to exploring their back catalog

well it's now 2007 and it's time to post my top ten list. 2006 was the most fantasic year for music that i can remember in ages....maybe the best ever(? i don't know though i have to think about that one) as far as i'm concerned so here we go:

1) Endless Wire - the Who

ok, now there were better records than this one but it gets my top spot for several reasons the least of which is that it's been 13years since Pete put out a full length and thats cause for celebration enough....but to put the Who brand on it made me not so interested in this one thinking he and Roger were going to embarass themselves.....i couldn'tve been more wrong.....starting right off with the song "Fragments" and coming to grips with the inescapability of that Baba O'Reilly keyboard riff and the theme that we are all connected(a theme Pete has been working nearly his whole career) to the starkness of the retort on "a man in a purple dress" to those who pass judgement, to the recognition of our lives as TV in  "Mike Post Theme"  and dealing with the emotional responses of love, loyalty, death and fan expectation as he does while closing out the albums first half) Pete has crafted a strong artistic statement that can only be a Who album with Daltry sounding sharper than he has any right to.  the second half  "rock opera" "Wire and Glass" for me personally doesn't hold up as well as the first half but has many high points in telling the semi-autobiographical story of three friends forming a band and making it big.

perhaps the biggest factor in putting this record at number one really is that after 24years i thought it would be inconceivable for there to be a new Who record that i would like at all let alone fall in love with the way i fell in love with the rest of their music....a truly remarkable feat in my book and most deserving of the top spot.....will there be another? i can only hope so and that it doesn't take 24years.......

2) Dog Problems(2006) Interventions and Lullibies(2004) - the Format

the only thing keeping the Format from the top spot is that i was just too fucking blown away by the 24year gap phenomenon of the Who.  musically for me no other band encompassed what 2006 was for me than these two Arizona kids that make up the Format.  My buddy Greg passed along a copy of Dog Problems saying he listened but didn't care for it....god bless him and his immovable set of standards that dictate what he likes because i haven't stopped listening since.....never before  have i heard(and doubt i will hear again) such happy sing-along pop songs with intensely maudlin subjects. Dog Problems verges on the surreal with its carnival atmosphere and Fleetwood Mac type melodies the album creates an atmosphere of joy built on a foundation of heartbreak unmatched in all my years of listening. Nowhere in my past can i recall singing and dancing to a record the way i do with this one.....every song is great and makes me move in ways that i didn't know i could move. that's not even bringing "Interventions"(their first) into the picture. after having my mind and body scrambled by "Dog Problems" i had to get their first....and at the beginning i thought it was like "DP"-lite but it wasn't long before it it revealed itself as the monster it is...rocking a little harder and with even darker subject matter(listen to Tie the Rope kids) "Interventions and Lullibies" is a masterpiece. everyone should listen to the Format as far as i'm concerned and should go out and get these records immediately....that's an order.......the best band of 2006 bar none...............

3)....is a real boy (2004 with a 2006 re-issue)- Say Anything

this is the album i most related to in 2006 as an emotionally detached thirty something teenage wanna-be....the themes of isolation while chasing the rock star dream, fending off emotional attacks from lovers, friends and your own damaged psyche resonate with me. it's as if i had any real talent and was a much younger man, this is an album i like to imagine i would have made.....loaded with guitar anthems and as the album goes on increasingly insightful, sarcasticly pointed lyrics directed at everything you encounter in everyday life........this is undeniably the best hard rock record i heard this year.....i can hear people whining about the emo-ness of it all but i would tell those people to do unspeakable things to themselves....."Alive with the glory of love" may be the best song i've heard all year and "i want to know your plans" the best power ballad(if it even is that) ever. there is not a weak song on this album. the closer "Admit it" is such a strong indicment of fashion as society you'd think this kid actually believed in the punk rock aesthetic.....amazing....i can't recommend this one enough

4) hellogoodbye(2004)   ZOMBIES! ALIENS! VAMPIRES! DINOSAURS! (2006)

one of the rare cases where i was intrigued by the album art on ZAVD, went home and checked them out on Rhapsody and almost immediately became a hardcore geek for this band. these kids cater to the closet dance fiend i am. driving guitars? check. swirling dance beats and keyboards? check. sugary sweet melodies with sacharine lyrics that lack irony and don't seem nearly as naive as they should? check. infectious energy that makes and old man like me shake his ass? check and mate. it makes me shake my head in wonder that there is someone out there that can write cornball love songs that rock(most of the e.p) and when they don't they're liltingly beautiful("oh, is it love" and "baby, it's fact" on ZAVD) i practically weep with joy when these songs play. ZAVD doesn't fully live up to the promises made by the ep by going a bit more dance than may be needed but these kids are just beginning and if Forrest ever gets his heart broken watch out!!......that albums gonna be a monster....so kids if you like a little dance in your pop-rock you can't do any better than by starting with these guys....would i steer you wrong?

to be continued

the mighty joiners inners along with our friends three way duel  have booked  a gig in guilford on dec 29th.....see the band page for full details but i can promise lots of good old fashioned suburban rock and roll sideshow mayhem......it's possible i'll be drunk

hope to see you there

i can't speak for serious music fans across the land or anything but i fucking love music...it's pretty much the best thing going....headphones, hanging around a stereo with your friends, singing your brains out on 95, ripping power chords in your basement.....is there anything else that brings that much joy...ok i know orgasms are great(c'mon you know they're fleeting and few and far between) but if i had to choose right this second i'm choosing rock over orgasms which brings me to my point....it's getting to be top ten list time...less than eight weeks to go by whatever weird logic calender i'm using....and my list is starting to come together......now i haven't written a top ten list in i don't know, i think it was 1998....so my weird logic math tells me that's eight years and that's a long time....but i've been thinking about all the great music that i've discovered or had introduced to me this year and a list just sort of started to fall into place........so for you....the few(one maybe?) who have gotten this far.....a gauntlet is thrown! ok that may be a bit dramatic but "a friendly challenge has been cast" just doesn't have the same bite, now does it?....write a top ten list  god dammit!....write a top four list if that's all you got.......but pick some damn music that grabbed you in all the right places this year.......the rule: it doesn't matter what year the record came out in....if it's new to you then it's new to me.....that's it...the only rule......now i'm probably going to get all verbose cascading praise on all the music i've loved this year but you don't have to...a simple list would suffice.......or write away...whatever floats your boat.....we got eight weeks people...i know i'm looking for that late entry in the top ten arena.....deadline: new years or sooner...or later...whenever....make a list...it'll be cool..........

i believe it was ferris bueller who said  "life moves pretty fast, if you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it".  he was a smart guy that ferris. i'm sure at this point though that that could be interpreted to say something like "pay more attention to the random things in life because you'll never know when that moment will change your life"

a chance circumstance, an uncommon thought, an urge to do something maybe you've never done before..... take some chances.....not necessarily risks but an embracing of a minor gamble where the ante isn't high but you could hit the jackpot of a lifetime......

i can't help but to look around in wonder at the changes i've made in my life using this approach....met so many fantastic people who have all affected my life in positive ways that i didn't think possible even a year ago....some re-connected, some brand new...all wonderful.....i've never felt more alive because possibility exists....thoughts and feelings i wasn't sure were there for me are now abundant....my sense of wonder continues to expand and whether or not my jackpot has come in(though i sure hope it has) i intend to still follow ferris' advice and stop to look around because the view from where i am is beautiful and only looks to get better

and how it really sucks ass....

i'm allegedly having my hot water heater seviced today between 8 and 10 am they informed me...at 9:21 no sign of them yet...can't leave, can't sleep, can only wait

as if i don't have anything better to do with my hangover than wait for these people...had band last night...we rocked in case you were wondering...i got little drunker than usual so now my penance is a low throbber at the temples, an ungodly hour and waiting

at least i've spent my time wisely browsing my space and judging people i don't know...big fun there....i recommend it, highly

my advice on the day:listen to a song that makes you smile, maybe even one that makes you dance a little