A Man In Black Christmas

Johnny Cash, Roy Orbinson, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins singing "This Train is Bound for Glory" at the Johnny Cash Christmas Show '77

R.I.P. Vic

another good one lost.

Merry X-Mas From The Pogues

It was christmas eve babe
In the drunk tank
An old man said to me: won't see another one
And then they sang a song
The rare old mountain dew
I turned my face away and dreamed about you
Got on a lucky one
Came in eighteen to one
I´ve got a feeling
This year´s for me and you
So happy christmas
I love you baby
I can see a better time
Where all our dreams come true.

They got cars big as bars
They got rivers of gold
But the wind goes right through you
It´s no place for the old
When you first took my hand on a cold christmas eve
You promised me broadway was waiting for me
You were handsome you were pretty
Queen of new york city when the band finished playing they yelled out for more
Sinatra was swinging all the drunks they were singing
We kissed on a corner
Then danced through the night.

And the boys from the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out for christmas day.

You´re a bum you´re a punk
You´re an old slut on junk
Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed
You scumbag you maggot
You cheap lousy faggot
Happy christmas your arse I pray god it´s our last.

And the boys of the NYPD choir's still singing Galway Bay
And the bells were ringing out
For christmas day.

I could have been someone
Well so could anyone
You took my dreams from me
When I first found you
I kept them with me babe
I put them with my own
Can´t make it out alone
I´ve built my dreams around you

And the boys of the NYPD choir's still singing Galway Bay
And the bells are ringing out
For christmas day.

Most Underrated Album Of the Decade

back in the summer of 2004 a little band from LA called The Icarus Line put out an album that was some kind of motherfucking kick ass good called Penance Soiree. and it totally restored my faith in the power of stripped down/feedback drenched rock and roll and also reminded me that all a record needs to do is rock you hard and you will love it forever. unfortunately not many people cared enough to follow my blind love and devotion to a band that was mostly known for being assholes and smashing glass cases containing guitars once played by Stevie ray Vaughn. (an event that i witnessed live in shocked amazement) well that was your loss America. it’s been a few years now and the Icarus Line are still where they were back then, an underground LA rock band that not many people care about. but that never changed the fact that they had made one of the best albums of 21st century rock and you should still buy it if you are into that kind of thing.

Penance Soiree sounds like Drive Like Jehu, The Birthday Party, Jesus & Mary Chain, and Black Flag all got in a fight while doing tons of coke off a strippers tits and then the survivors started a band that could only play fucked up Stooges' covers. fuck that! that’s the easy review. this shit sounds like god talking to you the first time you did really strong acid and discovered that you were stupid for being too punk to like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath so then you threw away your Jawbreaker records (which you later had to rebuy) and bought Black Sabbath's self titled album and then just listened to "The Wizard" over and over again until you fucking were a wizard.

this is so fucking heavy. like Sabbath heavy not like retarded metal from Norway heavy. which is to say the kind of heavy that kicks you in the ass. these riffs will cut down fucking trees. and it's loud, like jesus lizard loud where it splits your ear drum in two and you like it. it's the perfect soundtrack for a night of hard drinking and dirty sex with a girl whose name you never bothered to learn. i'm sure you can find it in a used cd bin somewhere or you can steal in online. it's worth the space on your itunes, trust me

What Did I Actually Listen To The Most in 2009?

thanks to Last.fm i have the answers

my top 20 most listened to songs of 2009 were:

1. The Beach Boys "Girl Don't Tell Me"
2. Creedence Clearwater Revival "Lodi"
3. The Nerves "When You Find Out"
4. Big Star "Kangaroo"
5. The Chills "Heavenly Pop Hit"
6. The Horrors "Who Can Say"
7. Shocking Pinks "End Of the World"
8. The Verlaines "Pyromaniac"
9. The Walkmen "Save The Last Dance"
10. The Jesus and Mary Chain "Up Too High"
11. Descendents "Bikeage"
12. INXS "Don't Change"
13. The Misfits "Some Kinda Hate"
14. The Horrors "Scarlet Fields"
15. The Jesus and Mary Chain "Taste Of Cindy"
16. The Jesus and Mary Chain "Everything's Alright When You're Down"
17. Primal Scream "Velocity Girl"
18. Crystal Stilts "Crystal Stilts"
19. Crocodiles "I Wanna Kill"
20. Surf City "Record Of a Flagpole Skater"

top 20 most listened to bands of 2009

1. The Jesus and Mary Chain
2. Nirvana
3. Sonic Youth
4. Nick Cave
5. The Strokes
6. The Misfits
7. The Beach Boys
8. Neil Young
9. The Replacements
10. Creedence Clearwater Revival
11. The Black Lips
12. The Horrors
13. The Clash
14. The Rolling Stones
15. The Velvet Underground
16. Joy Division
17. Shocking Pinks
18. Big Star
19. The Clean
20. Deerhunter

THIS IS IT = MOST IMPORTANT ROCK ALBUM OF THE DECADE?

released in the US in early October of 2001 when everyone was still shell shocked over 9/11. it is easily the most loved/hated on debut album of the these last 10 years...and much like Nevermind was a decade before it, This Is It helped reignite and energise the rock scene that had become pretty stale by the end of the 90s. whether you ever liked the Strokes or hated them or liked them at first and then hated them when it became cooler to be a hater you still gotta admit that these 5 rich kids made New York cool again, brought attention back to the underground music scenes, helped bring skinny jeans back into fashion (as a guy who liked wearing his jeans tight but couldn't ever find any in my size this was a big deal), and probably helped get one of your friend's bands signed to a record label. and it's also a pretty fucking killer pop record to boot.

Six facts about this record
1. It's the reason your old roommate moved to Brooklyn
2. It's the reason you can find skinny jeans everywhere
3. It's the reason people started caring about your friend's band for a brief moment in 2002
4. It's the reason that you saw that kid in a Modern Lovers tshirt at the mall that time
5. It's the reason half the bands you listened to this decade are popular
6. It's pretty awesome

on the Old Grey Whistle Test

running from 1971 to 1987, The Old Grey Whistle Test may very well be the greatest music TV show in the history of the world. i make fun of England a lot, but it's their music shows that i have much envy.

PiL "Careering"


J&MC "in a hole"


REM "Moon River/Pretty Persuasion"


The Police "Can't Stand Losing You/ Next to You"


The Damned "Smash It Up"

New Music I Liked In 2009

10 Albums i haven’t deleted from my itunes yet

The Horrors Primary Colours
Phoenix Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
Yeah Yeah Yeahs It’s Blitz!
Japandroids Post-Nothing
Girls Album
Black Lips 200 Million Thousand
Smith Westerns Smith Westerns
Rowland S. Howard Pop Crimes
Pissed Jeans King Of Jeans


10 jams i really enjoyed in 2009

Phoenix "1901"
Crocodiles "I Wanna Kill"
The Horrors "Sea Within A Sea"
Crystal Stilts "Love Is A Wave"
Neon Indian "Deadbeat Summer"
Animal Collective "My Girls" (as much as i hate Animal Collective, i can admit that this is a pretty killer song)
The Big Pink "Velvet"
Bat For Lashes "Daniel"
Dinosaur Jr. "Over It"
Japandroids "The Boys Are Leaving Town"

2009: the year i became too old to give a fuck about music that i don't already like. which might explain why every newish band i listen to sounds like something i used to love in high school (The Horrors = My Bloody Valentine, Pains Of Being Pure At Heart = Shop Assistants/The Pastels, Crystal Stilts = Black Tambourine/ UK Dream Pop, Crocodiles = J&MC, etc...)

Awesome Movie, Killer Soundtrack

Inglourious Basterds may have been my pick for BEST movie of 2009, but without a doubt my FAVORITE movie was Adventureland.

While America was busy watching Fast & Furious the weekend this movie came out, i was going to the Theater to see Adventureland...Twice. the last movie i saw twice was The Dark Knight...so that's about as ringing an endorsement of a film as i can give it. besides any movie that opens with The Replacements "Bastards Of Young" is gonna have my love from the word go...if that movie actually turns out to be one of the best teen/young adult coming-of-age movies in years...well that's just a bonus.

Set in the summer of 1987, Adventureland is the story of James Brennan, a recent college grad with plans of spending his summer in Europe exploring the old world with his college roommate and having a transformative life experience before heading off to Grad school at Columbia. Unfortunately James learns that his summer plans and possibly his Ivy league future are in jeopardy when his parents spring on him that they've hit financial hard times and can't afford his trip or to pay for his rent in New York City next year...and so James must take the only job that his four years of comparative lit have made him qualified for...as a carny at a shitty amusement park called Adventureland.

Oh yeah, and James is a virgin...the sort of plot point that would normally remind you of movies like American Pie or Super Bad (the director Greg Mottola's last film)...you know, over the top and laugh out loud raunchy teen comedies that are more fantasy than reality...but Adventureland is more in the realm of a Cameron Crowe movie, a little smarter, the laughs more subtle and relateable. Luckily James' virginity isn't part of some ridiculous quest or pact to lose it before x day or anything like that...instead its more of a way for us to understand that James is an intelligent, sensitive, over-thinker who is more interested in finding love than getting laid...a classic hopeless romantic whose wooing techniques are to talk about literature and make a girl a mixtape of his favorite "bummer songs"...so yeah, the same school that a lot of shy young men who ended up playing in indie rock bands or became writers graduated from. And so James is highly realistic in his awkward, slightly pretentious, and yet somehow self assured way.

When James begins working at Adventureland he meets Joel (smartass, Russian lit loving, misanthrope) who shows him the ropes, explaining to him that all the games are rigged and let's James know that he must never give away a Giant Ass Panda (the best prize at the park) as it will result in him losing his job. On his 2nd day some rednecks demand said Panda after cheating on a game and threaten him at knife point if he refuses to reward them...this is when we meet Em, who shows up saves his ass...setting into motion our little love story that is the heart of this movie. Later that night she gives James a ride home and the two silently listen to Husker Du's "i don't wanna know if you are lonely" on the car ride home, sharing some awkward yet knowing glances and smiles with one another...bonding over the mutual love of a great song.

Em is a NYU student working at the Park as an excuse to get away from her bitchy stepmother. she's smart, pretty, and emotionally screwed up...she's also having a secret affair with Connell (played by Ryan Reynolds), the park's handyman...an older, very married, local musician whose claim to fame is that he jammed with Lou Reed once and tells James he's planning on moving out to LA and starting a new band soon. Things become more complicated when Em and James friendship starts to become something more when James kisses her after a night spent driving around listening to "pale blue eyes" (seriously, my favorite song of all time). and so this little love triangle of sorts creates most of our drama as Em becomes more and more depressed with her current situation with Connell as she begins to open herself up to James. this of course results in causing James a lot of angst before things finally come to a head in the whole Em, James, and Connell thing.

the plot isn't anything we haven't all seen before...young man coming of age falls in love with a girl who is afraid to fall in love...but the performances by Jesse Eisenberg (who is stealing some of Michael Cera's leading geek man thunder) and Kristen Stewart (who proves that she can actually act) are what make this worth seeing, as they are both 100% likeable and believable late teen/early 20s characters. it made me jealous that i'm not 20.

the rest of the cast is great too. Ryan Reynolds plays the washed up local musician Connell as a guy who is sort of resigned to his sad pathetic life and passes the time the only way he knows how by sleeping with younger girls just to get through the day...even if he's kind of a creep, he's also completely relateable. there's also the park's resident hottie Lisa P., who ends up becoming James backup plan to Em when she becomes flaky about their relationship. Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig of SNL play a married couple who run the park, with Hader supplying most of the most hilarious moments. then there's Frigo, the idiot kid from back home that's emotionally stuck in highschool who spends most of the film supplying crotch punches. and then finnaly there is Jole, played by Freaks & Geeks uber-nerd Martin Starr, who gets all the movie's best lines and steals every scene that he's in.

the real star of the film is the soundtrack though. i mean goddamn! you've got 80s college rock heavy weights (The Replacements "bastards of young" and "unsatisfied", Husker Du "i don't wanna know if you are lonely", The Cure "just like heaven", & The Jesus and Mary Chain "taste of cindy") that help to define our two main characters. some 70s punk (New York Dolls "looking for a kiss" & Nick Lowe "so it goes") and some choice 80s one hit wonder cuts (Crowded House "don't dream it's over" & The Outfield's "your love"). then the quest to use every single Rolling Stones deepcut ever in a movie is carried on with the inclusion of "Tops" (a personal fav). and finally we've got 3 Lou Reed/Velvet Underground cuts ("pale blue eyes", "here she comes now", & "satellite of love") that make up the heart of the movie...especially "Pale Blue Eyes" that is used perfectly to reflect James' longing for Em. there's also a reoccurring joke as the song "Rock Me Amadeus" is played constantly at the park that slowly drives our young heroes mildly insane.

the way this movie was marketed was as a teen gross-out comedy/follow up to Superbad pretty much insured that it was gonna fail at the box office...if you are a fan of Almost Famous, (the highly underrated) Thumbsucker, or the class John Hughes films then you will love Adventureland too. a sweet, thoughtful, a little bit melancholy, coming of age and falling in love for the first time film that makes you long for the days when making a girl a mixtape was a big deal.



plus, Bill Hader rules.

the sad basteredest song of all

Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

The Radio Dept. "Pulling Our Weight"

file under: song i really love a lot that i discovered via a movie's soundtrack. you know, that could be the subject of a really awesome mix cd.

Top 100 Albums of the Decade (2000-2009)

01. The Strokes- Is This It
02. Radiohead- Kid A
03. Spoon- Kill The Moonlight
04. Fugazi- The Argument
05. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Fever To Tell
06. Wilco- Yankee Foxtrot Hotel
07. The Walkmen- Bows & Arrows
08. White Stripes- White Blood Cells
09. Interpol- Turn On The Bright Lights
10. Outkast- Stankonia
11. Radiohead- In Rainbows
12. TV On The Radio- Young Liars EP
13. The Faint- Dance Macabre
14. The Strokes- Room On Fire
15. Ted Leo & Pharmacists- Hearts Of Oak
16. Jay Reatard- Blood Visions
17. PJ Harvey- Stories From The City Stories From the Sea
18. Deerhunter- Microcastle
19. White Stripes- Elephant
20. Q and Not U- No Kill No Beep Beep
21. Spoon- Girls Can Tell
22. Primal Scream- XTRMNTR
23. Black Lips- Let It Bloom
24. Broken Social Scene- You Forgot It In People
25. Hot Snakes- Suicide Invoice
26. Radio 4- Gotham!
27. Elliott Smith- Figure 8
28. ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead- Source Tags & Codes
29. Yo La Tengo- And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
30. M83- Saturdays = Youth
31. LCD Soundsystem- Sound Of Silver
32. The Unicorns- Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?
33. The Stills- Logic Will Break Your Heart
34. The Icarus Line- Penance Soiree
35. The Warlocks- Phoenix
36. The White Stripes- De Stijl
37. Jay Z- The Blue Print
38. The Shins- Chutes Too Narrow
39. Ted Leo & Pharmacists- The Tyranny Of Distance
40. The Rapture- Echoes
41. No Age- Nouns
42. Converge- Jane Doe
43. Comets On Fire- Blue Cathedral
45. The Fucking Champs- IV
46. Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
47. Liar- They Threw Us All In A Trench and Stuck A Monument On Top
48. Shocking Pinks- Shocking Pinks
49. Black Mountain- Black Mountain
50. Lightning Bolt- Wonderful Rainbow
51. High On Fire- Surrounded By Thieves
52. The Ponys- Laced With Romance
53. Arcade Fire- Funeral
54. Yeah Yeah Yeahs- Show Your Bones
55. Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds- Abattoir Blues/ Lyre Of Orpheus
56. TV On The Radio- Return To Cookie Mountain
57. Pleasure Forever- Pleasure Forever
58. Sonic Youth- Sonic Nurse
59. The Horrors- Primary Colours
60. The Pains Of Being Pure at Heart- Pains Of Being Pure At Heart
61. The Walkmen- Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone
62. The Libertines- Up The Bracket
63. The Lilys- Precollection
64. The Radio Dept.- Lesser Matters
65. The Shins- Oh, Inverted World
66. Whiskeytown- Pneumonia
67. The Exploding Hearts- Guitar Romantic
68. The Flaming Lips- Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
69. !!!- Louden Up
70. Kanye West- the College Dropout
71. Modest Mouse- Moon & Antarctica
72. Grinderman- Grinderman
73. Dead Meadow- Dead Meadow
74. Les Savy Fav- Go Forth
75. Dinosaur Jr.- Almost Ready
76. Albert Hammond Jr.- Yours To Keep
77. Spoon- Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga
78. Danger Mouse- The Grey Album
79. The Reigning Sound- Time Bomb High School
80. Vampire Weekend- Vampire Weekend
81. The Drive By Truckers- Decoration Day
82. Crystal Stilts- Alright Of Night
83. The Hives- Veni Vidi Vicious
84. Daft Punk- Discovery
85. Spoon- Gimme Fiction
86. The Murder City Devils- In Name and Blood
87. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club- Howl
88. The Panthers- Things Are Strange
89. Dismemberment Plan- Change
90. Death From Above 1979- You're A Woman and I'm a Machine
91. The Kills- Midnight Boom
92. A Place To Bury Strangers- A Place to Bury Strangers
93. Devendra Banhart- Rejoicing In Hands
94. Pissed Jeans- Shallow
95. Blonde Redhead - Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons
96. Beck- Sea Change
97. Franz Ferdinand- Franz Ferdinand
98. Boris- Pink
99. Lil' Wayne- Tha Carter III
100. Out Hud- S.T.R.E.E.T.D.A.D.

Crime & The City Solution - I Have The Gun

Merry X-Mas From the Cure

Great Songs Of All Time: "I Fought The Law"

"Because it's better than Monopoly."

interview with Lou Reed in 1974.