The blog Culture Bully asked if I'd like to put together a Top 5 list for their end of the year extravaganza. I didn't think I'd have much new to add to the lists of favorite albums/songs already out there, so I went with a looser approach and just came up with 5 music-related things that I discovered, experienced, or just plain enjoyed in 2008. The official posting is here:

http://www.culturebully.com/top-musical-moments-of-2008-part-one-guest-list

...or you can just read below. Happy New Year everyone!

Five of My Favorite Music Things in 2008


1. Dave Tompkins

Dave Tompkins is a music writer I found out about this year. I was at the Printers' Ball, a once-a-year Chicago event where you can check out bands and DJs and load up on all the free magazines you want. I picked up an copy of Stop Smiling, their "Hip Hop Nuggets" issue, and there was a story in it by Mr. Tompkins called "The Night Time Master Blaster." He starts by talking about the time his friend collapsed on the front lawn from an asthma attack, then explains how this led to his discovery of electrofunk. It's a personal essay that also doubles as a brief history of the Vocoder. Which, of course, couldn't be more appropriate reading in 2008, the year of the Autotune. You can read it online here:

http://www.stopsmilingonline.com/story_detail.php?id=788&page=1


2. "Playing the Building" by David Byrne

This was a musical instillation that David Byrne set up in the Battery Maritime Building in New York this year. He put an old church organ in the middle of an empty warehouse and ran wires from the back of the organ to the windows, radiators, plumbing and other surfaces inside the space. The organ was set up so that any time a key was pressed, an electrical signal traveled down one of the wires to a little machine that would tap on a window, buzz in a radiator, or blow air through a pipe like a giant flute. Anyone could come in, sit down at the organ and literally play the building. There are photos and video of the piece on his website:

http://www.davidbyrne.com/art/art_projects/playing_the_building/


3. Cassette From My Ex

Jason Bitner, one of the guys who started Found Magazine, has a new website project he's calling Cassette From My Ex. The idea is simple and great: he asks various musician/artist/writer types to pull out that mixtape from an old flame that's still tucked away in the bottom of a shoebox or the back of a desk drawer and share it with the rest of the world. Each mix is streaming in its entirety on the website, along with the homemade artwork and handwritten tracklistings that make these things still beautiful for the ears and the eyes. And the person sharing gives a guided tour behind the events that led to the tape being made in the first place. Mostly, they're stories of young love, when relationships are funny and sad and awkward and wonderful and summed up perfectly in pop songs. The website is right over here:

http://www.cassettefrommyex.com/


4. Mark Ronson's Authentic Shit show on East Village Radio

This isn't a 2008-specific thing, but it's the first year I started listening regularly to this podcast. Mark Ronson is a big time producer (Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Kaiser Chiefs), but there's absolutely nothing slick or professional about his radio show, and I mean that in the best way possible. He hardly ever lets a song play through without breaking in to make some comment, and sometimes when he realizes he's been talking too long he'll just start the track back at the beginning. I know this sounds like it could be completely annoying, but I find it really endearing- he's just so damn excited about the music he's playing and he wants you to be excited, too. It's like that friend you had in middle school, the one who'd come over with a new record for the stereo, put in on, and proceed to give a riff-by-riff analysis, never missing a note on his air guitar. The podcast is available here:

http://eastvillageradio.com/modules.php?name=evrshow&showid=69


5. Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell

I moved to New York this year, and one of the first things I did was head over to the MoMA for a screening of this documentary about Arthur Russell. I first got into Arthur Russell's music through his cello songs, where he uses his cello to accompany his voice the way most people would use a piano or a guitar. It's such a beautiful and unique sound, but it's only one of the musical personas he came up with in his short but very prolific life. I don't think he saw many boundaries when it came to genre, and he seemed to think it was perfectly natural to float between pop, rock, disco, folk and modern classical. There's a scene in the film of him walking around New York with his Walkman and I can only imagine how excited he'd be if he'd lived long enough to have an iPod. A whole world of shuffling, blurring genres, all of it equally exciting and good. The film's website where you can watch the trailer is here:

http://www.arthurrussellmovie.com/