Brian Turner's Top 10 of 2008

2008: Chock it up to my RSS-feed-damaged, music-blogs-as-crack, zero-attention span brainblock for long term absorption. For me it's been a continued pile of damaged releases of no-fi metal/HC hybrids, gauzy, garbage-guitar form destruction, frayed electronic confusion, lost-soul chanteuses with echoplexes, heavy and poetic sludge, gorgeous evocations of Arvo Part in crappy basements. I remain a sucker for it all when turned inside out and presented in new ways (not an easy task, I also waded through tons of mediocre 'out' crap) especially when one has the luxury of a radio show to flip the sound channels and string 'em together and/or make even less sense of it. Not to say that I have lost faith in the English song form all together: the warm/fuzzy Wounded Lion 7", the Skip Spencian beauty of the Sic Alps LP and the slapback-vox anthems of the Cheap Time all kept lots of hooks buried deep within my brainbulb. And if Elvis Costello needs some people to talk about the craft on his talk show when Elton and Lou stop coming by, he could do a lot worse than Kurt Vile and Daniel DiMaggio. Needless to say, I remain surprised more in '08 than ever.

In no particular order, or maybe in ascending order of lyrical coherence (and click artist to hear Real Audio):
Ancestors - s/t (Youth Attack)                                                 
Nuit Noire - Fantomatic Plentitude (Armageddon)                                 
Futurians - Jawol, Tivol 7" (Soft Abuse)                                          
Puffy Areolas - Sweat Edition (Layaway Butch)                                  
Animosity + Drumcorps - Altered Beast (Man Alive)                              
Mlodrs - s/t (No Label)                                        
Squim - Zephyrus LP (Olde English Spelling Bee)                                 
Mayyors - Megan's LOLZ 7" (Gomerdome)                                          
Angst Hase Pfeffer Nase - Glistening Inn (Ultra Eczema)
Evans/Fei/Smith/Walter - s/t (UgExplode)                                       
Darkspace - III (Avant Garde)                                                   
Ryoji Ikeda - Test Pattern (Raster-Noton)
Teenage Panzer Korps - Games for Slaves (Siltbreeze)
Wounded Lion - 7" (S-S)
Cheap Time - Cheap Time (In the Red)                                           
Harvey Milk - Life...the Best Game in Town (Hydra Head)
Sic Alps - US EZ (Siltbreeze) + United 7" (Important)
Maxine Funke - Lace (Nextbestway)                        

Reissues: Soggy (watch), Better Beatles, Jean-Pierre Massiera, Ravjunk's Uppsala Stadshotell Brinner, Tommy Jay, Gore, Cultural Amnesia, the Songs of the Broken-Hearted: Baghdad comp on Honest Jons, the Messthetics Greatest Hisses collection, Jason Willett's retropective on Megaphone, Operating Theater's mid-80's collection, Dust-To-Digital's Victrola Favorites, the Yoshi Wada titles on EM, the pre-Dead Moon Rats thing on Mississippi, sure I am forgetting a bunch. It's not surprising there is still a veritable treasure of stuff that is still streaming forward into reissues. I am also heartily encouraged for the CD format by the fact that there is an actual current reissue of the Growing Pains soundtrack complete with liners notes (actually, it's Growing Pains and other Steve Dorff themes like Murphy Brown and My Sister Sam.)

Live shows: Heaven and Hell/Motorhead/Judas Priest at Jones Beach (sitting at the top of the amphitheater while dark clouds and lightning rolled by south of Long Island accompanied by the voice of Dio), Sightings/Dead C at Bowery, Blues Control at Johnny Brenda's, Mike Rep at SXSW, Information opening for Teenage Jesus and the Knit, Spectrum at ATP, the whole FMU SXSW jam, Fab Diamonds/Rot Shit et al at Asterisk, Brothers Unconnected at the Knit, Huutajaat at PS1, the Issue show with Heathen Shame, Kelley/Jewell, Cooper-Moore, and of course the FMU freebie concerts for 08: SY/Feelies, Ex/Getatchew/Mahmoud & co., Wire/Times New Viking. All the live radio show jams: Los Llamarada, Hank IV, Killdozer, Jerusalem & the Starbaskets, Crom, Times New Viking, Kemialliset Ystavat, Ignatz, Negative Approach, the Rebel, Amazements, Wildildlife, Cheap Time.

Other WFMU DJ Year End lists for 2008 can be found here.

Crom live at WFMU, feel the wind:

Comments

[thearea]

That's a great top 10.
Only one thing:
Could you PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE STOP POSTING AUDIO in Real Audio.
That is so not done.
Thanx Thea.

[doron]

all of the above are streaming links to actual shows which is why they are in RA. If we posted downloadable mp3s of all the above tracks I don't the labels would be too happy.

all the same, we are going to be moving off real audio as our legacy audio format real soon. storing, archiving and hosting 365 days (24 hours) of audio is not as easy as you might think. in any case, keep an eye out.

[Tyler Dunnahoo]

Rad list, Brian...

[Jason]

Awesome list, wow lots of stuff to check out. You can download the Drumcorps/Animosity 10'' here: http://www.aaronspectre.com/alteredbeast/, free and legal .flac and/or mp3s

[jeff]

damn... you just reminded me i was pissed for missing the heaven & hell/priest/motorhead gig when they came to the pnc arts center.

grrrr...

[Rebekah]

BT is solely responsible for me spending too much time on the computer.

[james]

oh and don't forget

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2008/12/post-1.html

[james]

ugh

i meant this

http://www.oberlin.edu/student/jrowell

[emile]

Some good stuff on here... cheap time, wounded lion, the conventional is now experimental. Thank black dice. And uh, M.E. Smith. Still up for some good skronk/drone though. BT delivers.

[emile]

Oh yeah: SOGGY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Vince]

This is an awesome list Brian, you can post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and then link back to your site. We are looking for content and in return our users will track back to your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.

[Bubb]

The ‘Best Music’ of 2008 (Part 1)

(1.) TODD RUNDGREN - ARENA
(2.) JEFF BECK - LIVE AT RONNIE SCOTT’S JAZZ CLUB
(3.) STEVE WINWOOD - NINE LIVES
(4.) WALTER BECKER - CIRCUS MONEY
(5.) GUNS N’ ROSES - CHINESE DEMOCRACY
(6.) NADA SURF – LUCKY
(7.) NICK CAVE & THE BAD SEEDS - DIG!!! LAZARUS DIG!!!
(8.) DIDO - SAFE TRIP HOME
(9.) PORTISHEAD - THIRD
(10.)BUDDY GUY - SKIN DEEP

* (BONUS) DAVID BOWIE - LIVE IN SANTA MONICA 72

** BONUS (BEST CHRISTMAS CD 08) KARL MORASKI - WHAT IS CHRISTMAS? – This exceptional Christmas cd can be purchased at
http://www.karlssongs.net