Journal

Looking back on 2009 I can’t say it was a great year. Musically, nor personally. It did have its moments though. The year brought many good records, but so far I haven’t heard one that completely blew me away. I must note here that I haven’t heard many of the critics favorites yet, so I might change my mind on 2009 later on. ;-) Today, however, I can only write about what I now know.

Not until I saw The Decemberists perform their Hazards Of Love album at the Crossing Border festival it dawned on me that this was the record that impressed me most this year. The cd is very good, but live it sounded really fantastic. In fact, the concert was one of the best I ever attended, perhaps only surpassed in greatness by those of Bruce Springsteen (2008) and Ben Folds (2007).

I also liked the new and more traditional sound Alela Diane presented on her second album. I don’t think it’s a complete masterpiece, but it contains many beautiful songs. Her concert in Utrecht was another highlight in 2009. The most pleasant surprise came from A Fine Frenzy. Her debut didn’t really caught on with me, but Bomb In A Birdcage got me hooked. Then there was the beautiful Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart by Rachael Yamagata, which was officially released in the Netherlands in 2009, though it actually dates from 2008. Also highly recommended are the records by Laïs Lenski, A.A. Bondy (somewhere between Josh Rouse and Ryan Adams), Madison Violet (two pretty girls singing beautiful folksongs), Marissa Nadler and Pearl Jam.

My hero Bruce Springsteen also made a very nice record, Working On A Dream, but since it doesn’t rank among his best work, I decided not to list it in my top 10. The same goes for John Mayer. I really like Battle Studies, but it doesn’t impress me as much as Continuum, which is one of my favorite records of the decade. Finally, Alexi Murdoch deserves a special mention here. His Time Without Consequence is not in my top 10, because it was already made in 2006, but since I didn’t discover it until its official Dutch release this year, it definitely deserves a few words, because it is one of my greatest discoveries of 2009.

10 best records of 2009

1. The Decemberists - Hazards Of Love
2. Alela Diane - To Be Still
3. A Fine Frenzy - Bomb In A Birdcage
4. Rachael Yamagata - Elephants… Teeth Sinking Into Heart
5. Rufus Wainwright - Milwaukee At Last!!!
6. Laïs Lenski - Laïs Lenski
7. A.A. Bondy - When The Devil’s Loose
8. Madison Violet - No Fool For Trying
9. Marissa Nadler - Little Hells
10. Pearl Jam - Backspacer

I didn't see as much concerts in 2009 as in previous years, because there weren't that many artists I wanted to see and I missed out on Wilco, but I attened some truly great gigs this year.

5 best concerts of 2009

1. The Decemberists (The Hague, November 21)
2. Natalie Merchant (The Hague, November 20)
3. Emiliana Torrini (Utrecht, September 24)
4. Lucinda Williams (Utrecht, July 10)
5. Alela Diane (Utrecht, July 14)

Of course, 2009 wasn’t all about new music. In my case, it may even have be more about old music. My biggest discovery of the year, for example, is a guy who has already been around for more than a decade now. For some reason or other, I just could never really get into his music. This year, however, viel het kwartje, as we say in Dutch. And that is why you can find five of his records among the cd’s I added to my collection this year. According to Last.fm Release The Stars was the record I listened to most this year and Going To A Town and Tiergarten are my Top 2 songs. Bruce Springsteen is the only artist that gained more plays in my library this year.

The two best cd’s I bought this year are without a doubt the 30th anniversary edition of Bruce Springsteen’s Born To Run and Hounds Of Love (with bonustracks) by Kate Bush, since those were already among my Top 5 albums ever. Since I already had those on lp, they are not in my list of favorite pre-2009 discoveries made this year.

These are, in alphabetical order:

The Handsome Family – Singing Bones
Alison Krauss & Union Station – New Favorite
Robert Plant & Alison Krauss – Raising Sand
Alice Russell – My Favourite Letters
Slowdive – Souvlaki
Stars – Set Yourself On Fire
Candi Staton – Candi Staton
Rufus Wainwright – Release the stars
Amy Winehouse – Back To Black
Betty Wright – The Platinum Collection

This was my year in music. If anybody thinks I missed out on some great music, please let me know! I wish everyone who took the time to read this a great 2010. The prospects for the new year definitely look good! ;-)

1. Vic Chesnutt At The Cut (Constellation)



2. Evangelista Prince Of Truth (Constellation)



3. Lambchop Live at XX Merge (MERGE)



4. The Mountain Goats the Life of the World to Come (4AD)



5. Jim O'Rourke The Visitor (Drag City)



6. Kazuki Tomokawa a bumpkin's empty bravado (PSF)



7. A.C. Newman Get Guilty (Matador)



8. Hildur Guðnadóttir Without Sinking (Touch)



9. Trembling Bells Carbeth (Honest Jon's)



10. Bill Callahan Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle (Drag City)



11. The Handsome Family Honey Moon (Carrot Top)



12. Reigning Sound Love and Curses (In The Red)



13. Gareth Davis & Machinefabriek Ghost Lanes (self-released)



14. Swan Lake Enemy Mine (Jagjaguwar)



15. Future of the Left Travels With Myself And Another (4AD)



16. Adrian Crowley Season of the Sparks (Chemikal Underground)



17. Richmond Fontaine We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded Like a River (Decor)



18. Blackout Beach Skin Of Evil (Soft Abuse)



19. Antony & The Johnsons The Crying Light (Rough Trade)



20. Jacaszek Pentral (Gusstaff)

My 35,000 track was....
The Pine Hill Haints - Cuckoo Bird

As of 10.30.09:
Top ten artists
01. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
02. The Decemberists
03. The Handsome Family
04. Neko Case
05. They Might Be Giants
06. Rufus Wainwright
07. Tom Waits
08. Sufjan Stevens
09. Elliott Brood
10. 16 Horsepower

Top ten tracks
01. Elliott Brood - President (35)
02. The Handsome Family - The Woman Downstairs
03. Songs: Ohia - The Old Black Hen
04. Jay Munly - Big Black Bull Comes Like a Caesar
05. 16 Horsepower - Hutterite Mile
06. The Decemberists - On the Bus Mall
07. Youth Group - Forever Young
08. Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
09. Andrew Bird - Scythian Empires
10. Antony and the Johnsons - River of Sorrow

Top ten albums
01. The Pine Hill Haints - Ghost Dance
02. Elliott Brood - Ambassador
03. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
04. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks
05. The Handsome Family - Last Days of Wonder
06. Sophe Lux - Waking The Mystics
07. The Decemberists - Picaresque
08. 16 Horsepower - Folklore
09. The Decemberists - Her Majesty
10. Neko Case - Middle Cyclone

Top ten tracks demonstrating increasing popularity amongst Jessichaosi, aged 27 to 27
01. Bruce Springsteen - Thunder Road
02. Bruce Springsteen - I'm on Fire
03. DeVotchKa - You Love Me
04. Bruce Springsteen - Night
05. Adele - Right as Rain
06. Bruce Springsteen - Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out
07. Neko Case - Prison Girls
08. Neko Case - Red Tide
09. Andrew Bird - Imitosis
10. Sophe Lux - President

Played live acoustically at the ceremony:

Mazzy Star - Fade Into You
Bob Dylan - Make You Feel My Love
The Beatles - Real Love


Reception background music:

Adele - Make You Feel My Love
The Beatles - Something, Oh! Darling, Blackbird, Revolution 1, I've Just Seen A Face, Girl, In My Life, The Ballad Of John And Yoko, Real Love
Calexico - Two Silver Trees, Quattro (World Drifts In)
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
The Church - Under The Milky Way
Cowboy Junkies - Sweet Jane
The Cure - Close To Me
DeVotchKa - Along The Way, New World
Drive-By Truckers - Two Daughters And A Beautiful Wife
Feist - The Water, Past In Present, 1234
The Go-Betweens - Streets Of Your Town
Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Over The Rainbow
Jenny Lewis - Pretty Bird
Jenny Lewis with The Watson Twins - Rise Up With Fists!!, Melt Your Heart, Handle With Care
Joan as Police Woman - Real Life, Eternal Flame, The Ride, Flushed Chest, Anyone, Holiday, To Be Loved, To Be Lonely, Start Of My Heart
Little Birdy - Into My Arms
Little Red - So Long
Lucinda Williams - Lake Charles
Massive Attack - Teardrop
Mazzy Star - Bells Ring (Acoustic Version), Fade Into You
Midlake - Roscoe (Beyond The Wizard aka Erol Alkan & Richard Norris Remix)
Neko Case - Deep Red Bells, Tightly, Look For Me (I'll Be Around), Stinging Velvet, I Wish I Was The Moon, Star Witness, Hold On Hold On, That Teenage Feeling, Lion's Jaws, Maybe Sparrow, This Tornado Loves You, Vengeance Is Sleeping, Never Turn Your Back On Mother Earth, Middle Cyclone, Magpie To The Morning, The Pharaohs
The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - A Teenager In Love
The Panics - Don't Fight It, This Day Last Year
Phoenix - Too Young
Pixies - Here Comes Your Man
Rand and Holland - It's Alright
Rilo Kiley - Silver Lining
Ryan Adams - Two
Sade - No Ordinary Love
She & Him - I Should Have Known Better
Sia - Breathe Me (Four Tet Remix)
The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979
The Smiths - This Charming Man
The Stone Roses - I Wanna Be Adored
Stray Cats - Stray Cat Strut
Talking Heads - This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)
The Watson Twins - Just Like Heaven
Wilco - I'll Fight


I had to cut the first pick of songs down from over 10 hours of music to 5 hours, it sucked cause there so many songs i wanted to sneak in but there was no point, so i just picked the more well known/more appropriate stuff and leaned towards more of the fun side.

Artists i had to cut:

The Beach Boys
Bernard Fanning
Bob Dylan
Bob Evans
Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
The Cat Empire
Empire of the Sun
Gillian Welch
Gipsy Kings
The Handsome Family
Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions
Imelda May
Jeff Buckley
Justin Townes Earle
Kate Miller-Heidke
Led Zeppelin
Merle Haggard
Metric
MGMT
Patsy Cline
Patterson Hood
Red Hot Chili Peppers
Roy Orbison
Tift Merritt
Willie Nelson

As we reach the midpoint of the year, I've been putting together a brief survey of some of my musical picks of 2009. It's a pretty loose assortment of tracks, sequenced in a way that appeals to me rather than as a way of expressing any overall preference.

In case anybody's interested, here's what I wound up with. A 20-track compilation that could be tentatively titled "Year of the accordion", I guess.

Mike Park - Rise Up
The Hold Steady - Ask Her For Adderall
Justin Townes Earle - Midnight At The Movies
Roy Bailey - Anna Mae
Nightingales - I Am Grimaldi
Son Volt - Dynamite
The Low Anthem - Charlie Darwin
Clutch - Freakonomics
Neil Young - Johnny Magic
The Broken Family Band - St. Albans
Condo Fucks - Dog Meat
Dinosaur Jr. - Pieces
Isis - Hall of the Dead
The Thermals - When I Died
Brakes - Why Tell The Truth (When It's Easier To Lie)
Mastodon - Divinations
The Handsome Family - Wild Wood
Noisettes - Don't Upset the Rhythm
Wilco - Wilco (the Song)
Bill Callahan - Faith/Void

Apocalyptic is a word which sits well with the Handsome Family. The haunting traditional melodies of their songs are overlaid with words about loneliness, death and decay, in which birds (particularly birds), paper cups and urban desolation come to symbolise the transience and fragility of human existence and the ultimate victory of nature. And there has been something slightly apocolyptic about both times I have seen the band play in Leeds.
The first time was back in 2000(?) at Maguires on New York Street. A lorry driver's strike had caused a fuel shortage and for a very strange period of around 48 hours, it seemed as if the country might be on the verge of collapse.
This time, political turbulence was provided by the MP's expenses scandal and the air of apocalypse augmented by the kind of thunderstorm which brings premature night and sees the sky torn in two by mile-long streaks of lightning.

The big difference betwen the two shows was the number of attendees. Back in the day, the Family was little known in this (or probably any) country and barely twenty souls were there to watch them..Today, it seems, they are huge and the excellent Brudenell struggles to accommodate their throng of enthusiasts. So dense is the crowd, in fact, that my partner and I listen to the first half of Liz green's set whilst watching rain water evaporate off the back of a fat man's Tshirt.

As interesting as this is, it is something of a shame, because, when we finally tear ourselves away from the spectacle and force our way front of the crowd, Liz Green turns out to have been well worth the bruises we sustained in getting there. She's kind of gawky looking, an effect she achieves, in part, by wearing a plaid dress with a white, buttoned collar and, in part ,by everything else about her. She plays little jerky songs, which she accompanies with folky, finger-picking guitar and which she sings in a warbly, slightly nasal, yet strangely powerful voice. She ought, by rights, to be about 90 years old and to have grown up in the coal-mining part of Kentucky with an idiot brother called Deak. She also has a shadow theatre ("I have shadows. They haunt me.") and her CDs come in little cloth bags which she may well have sewn herself. She's quirky. In a good way. You never saw the like of her, I can vouch for that.

Rennie ( the female half of the Handsome Family) must be one of my favourite people in the whole world. I used to be on the band's mailing list and, when I wrote to her, she always wrote something funny back. She's honest, modest and, well, just plain nice, in a way which rehabilitates the word and makes it something noble. Her gentle banter with husband Brett (a charming, lurching bear of a man with a fantastically mournful voice) and her wry and surreal asides create an instant intimacy with the audience which transcends the setting (i've seen her do it at Manchester University and I'm confident she could bring life even to the dreaded Faversham). She sings harmonies, plays autoharp, bass and melodica and OK, so I fancy her, that's not a crime, surely?

Tonight, any way, the band are on cracking form. Their sound is bossted by an additional guitarist and a drummer and they seem to have grown in confidence musically, giving an extra bit of verve and swing to old favourites such as "Weightless" and "So much Wine". The set is dominated by songs from their new album "Honey Moon", which on this evidence, is even better than its predecessors and Brett is particularly clumsy, sweaty and beaming and the rain and collapsing government and credit crunch and global warming all seem like good things in a sad and poignant and cosily shambolic way. A member of the audience had earlier requested a song whose name I forget about saying goodbye to all of the animals you have accidentally killed in amusing ways and this is an excellent choice and the final encore is "Don't be Scared" which is my favourite HF song.

Excellent.

The Handsome FamilyLiz Green

My 30,000 track was....
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - I Had a Dream, Joe

As of 05.09.09:
Top ten artists
01. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
02. The Decemberists
03. The Handsome Family
04. Rufus Wainwright
05. Neko Case
06. They Might Be Giants
07. Tom Waits
08. Sufjan Stevens
09. Elliott Brood
10. 16 Horsepower

Top ten tracks
01. Elliott Brood - President 35
02. The Handsome Family - The Woman Downstairs
03. The Decemberists - On the Bus Mall
04. Songs:Ohia - The Old Black Hen
05. Jay Munly - Big Black Bull Comes Like a Caesar
06. ALEX FULLER - Mr. Handsome Shapes
07. DeVotchKa - Head Honcho
08. 16 Horsepower - Hutterite Mile
09. Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
10. Antony and the Johnsons - River of Sorrow

Top ten albums
01. Elliott Brood - Ambassador
02. Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
03. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Kicking Against the Pricks
04. The Decemberists - Picaresque
05. The Handsome Family - Last Days of Wonder
06. Pine Hill Haints - Ghost Dance
07. The Decemberists - Her Majesty
08. 16 Horsepower - Folklore
09. Toadies - Rubberneck
10. Black Kali Ma - You Ride the Pony I'll Be the Bunny

Top ten tracks demonstrating increasing popularity amongst Jessichaosi, aged 27 to 27
01. Neko Case - People Got a Lotta Nerve
02. Sophe Lux - Lou Salome
03. Pine Hill Haints - Cuckoo Bird
04. Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You
05. Sophe Lux - Lonely Girl
06. Sophe Lux - Target Market
07. Pine Hill Haints - Catfish Angels
08. Teddy Thompson - Can't Sing Straight
09. Lavender Diamond - Oh No
10. Lavender Diamond - Side Of The Lord

Boah, der Frühling hat echt langen Atem diesen April, wo ist denn das berümte April-Wetter? Nicht, dass wir's vermissen würden, aber da wird uns ja Angst und Bange mit Blick auf den Mai. Aber lassen wir das und widmen uns lieber unserem kleinen wöchentlichen Update.

Viel Spaß ;)

REVIEWS:

Scott Matthew - There Is An Ocean That Divides And With My Longing I Can Charge It With A Voltage Thats So Violent To Cross It Could Mean Death - KLICK
The Handsome Family - Honey Moon - KLICK
The Veils - Sun Gangs - KLICK
Super Furry Animals - Dark Days / Light Years - KLICK
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career - KLICK
The Virgins - The Virgins - KLICK

LIVE:

James Yuill - live in Osnabrück KLICK
Dear Reader - live in Köln KLICK
Dartz - live in Lüdenscheid KLICK

INTERVIEWS:

James Yuill - KLICK
Dear Reader - KLICK
Langstreckenläufer - KLICK

NEWS:

Metric verschenken Song KLICK
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Jarvis Cocker - verschenkt Song KLICK
Sonic Youth - verschenken Song KLICK

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