Music Favorites and Music Crap of 2008

Many of you may or may not know I was a live sound engineer for a majority of my life. I ran sound for hundreds and hundreds of bands over my tenure. It was fun and certainly developed my taste in music I suppose. There isn't too much out there I won't listen to, but I thought I might make a nice list of things I find myself listening to over and over. My one soap box - Jimmy Buffet, Dave Mathews, any hippy/dead band, celine dion, any country they play on the radio for the last 10 years, any big mtv artist, the strokes, hives (lame hair) and all that rip off crap can all go get their own island and play for each other so I don't have to be subjected to it.
Well, here's my list. If you want to hear a song or two let me know.

Metallica-Death Magnetic > The best of the best. I have been waiting for this since 1986.
AC/DC – Black Ice > like Back in Black all over again. Reminds of me of walking with my jam box in 8th grade listening to High Voltage – funny.
Leona Lewis – Spirit – a few stand out tracks here. A few are staples in my workout/running/riding mixes.
Death Cab For Cutie – Narrow Stairs > amazing – I love this. It’s so syncopated.
Keane – Perfect Symmetry > finally the singer gets sober and the band is back. One of the best three piece bands around. Never get tired of that clavinovia piano.
Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns > Check it out. It's solid. Louder and more rockin.
John Mellencamp - Life, Death, Love, And Freedom > John is still a genius.
Honeybrowne - Mile by Mile > virtually unknown Alt country twang.
Carolina Liar- Coming To Terms > a fairly unknown band, I think they had a song from this on the radio. I got it before that. It is so cool, new, and fresh. I hope they do not break up. Great rock.
Shinedown - The Sound of Madness – yeah yeah –its riffy or riff rock but it is dark and loud. It fires me up and gets my legs moving on the bike. Almost anthem rock. But good – better than nickleback.
Coldplay – Viva La Vida – This is good in a melodic, space driven piece of work.
Minipop – A New Hope > over and over and over this has been played. A top 10 fav of mine for the year.
A Fine Frenzy – One Cell in the Sea > Alison the singer has a neat voice – breathy and I would compare to Cincy’s own, Over the Rhine for sure. Folksy, pop stuff – ‘Borrowed Time’ is the hit here. Calming – I suppose it is a good early effort, but I would pull out the Over the Rhine/Ohio CD for repeated listen’s over this. Let us see what they can do on the next release.
Augustana - Can't Love, Can't Hurt > I fairly enjoyed their freshman effort - but waited for a second CD to see if the maturity in the music and writing was going to happen – it did – I like it. Really great under rated band.
Endrick Brothers - Attraction Versus Love > I am going to cheat on this one. It’s not actually a 2008 release – but I found it in 08, so it counts for me. With their roots rock sound and au-natural alt-country rhythms and melodies who would know, they are from Glasgow.
Kasey Chambers & Shane Nicholson - Rattlin' Bones >-easily a top fav of ’08 – Shane is a well-known Australian musician and well, Kasey is just plain amazing.
Stereophonics – Pull the Pin >I can ride my bike for hours and hours and hours while listening to the entire Stereophonics catalog, this album is no different. One of the most under appreciated bands out there. Funny part too, they played locally here a few years ago in a small club. They are huge in Europe.
Ryan Adams & the Cardinals – Cardinology > Ryan is so dark and whine whine whine. Nevertheless, this band is great and there are always twists and turns.
Ray Lamontagne - Gossip In The Grain > Ray is a dark Tom Waits type of fellow, but a songwriter. Not a cd to listen to repeatedly, but cool for a solid listens all the way through.
Sharon Jones – Naturally > the throwback CD of 08. Wow, this is great. Supremes meets Al Green’s band.
Really cool old school Motown stuff.
Blue Rodeo – Small Miracles > another brilliant release. They seemed to have dug deep for this release.
James Morrison – Songs for You, Truth For Me > like this quite a bit. His first one still is an often played cd.
The Old 97’s – Blame it On Gravity > these people can play and write. The guitar work on this is stunning.
Jason Mraz – We Sing, We Dance… > as much as I did not want to like this – my wife loves it. It has grown on me.
Kings X – XV > if you have never heard of this band, you are missing out. Go buy this one and Gretchen Goes to Nebraska. It’s riffy.
Reckless Kelly – Bulletproof > it is twangy; it is hillbilly Alt country. I like this guy’s voice. They do a good job with harmonies.
Bodeans – Still > yeah they are an old 80’s ish band I suppose, but great songwriters and great musicians. They were one of the first artists on Slash Records if you remember that label.
1997 – On the Run > Chicago’s own. They are a mix of this and that – but pretty unique really – like a rock band but a bit haunting in places. Uplifting in others – their sophomore effort – good things to come.
Filter - Anthems For The Damned > no big radio hits here – but good stuff non-the-less. Melodic and loud.
Susan Tedeschi - Back to the River > Susan plays and sings blues that will make your cat cry. She also can play the guitar better than half the guitarists out there. Her voice has soul-enough to give you the chills.
R.E.M. - Accelerate > That is right REM did come out with a CD and you did not even know it. It is good, not super great or outstanding. But there are some really cool guitar songs and Michael is still a freak, but entertaining a such a writer. He would be on my list of celebrities to have coffee with for sure.
One Night Only - Started A Fire > Funny this is SO not big – it’s not even on iTunes. I might compare them to a rockin-er more British pop version of Keane. Many of the songs sound somewhat similar at first listen, but the music is neat – U2 like, The Fray or similar, the songs build and build. Lots of good future here.
No-Man - Schoolyard Ghosts > This is an interesting listen. Slow, dark, melodic, light and nice. A good find a nice piece of music on a slow day at home. It IS on iTunes.
Marie’ Digby – Unfold > I am a big sucker for sing songy chick singers. I guess the mousey voice is part of that too. But this is good, the band is strong. Plus one of the sassiest CD covers of the year.
Lenny Kravitz- It Is Time For A Love Revolution > Funny, I remember when Lisa Bonnet was dating him during her Cosby years and she was talking about how her boyfriends band was going to be bigger than big. Well, he is big and still putting it out there. I also remember him rambling on in Rolling Stone about never going digital since it was so sterile and cold sounding – guess what – now’ he is Mr. digital Pro Tools man. But particularly with this cd, he’s really done a great job getting those 70’s sounds down solid.
Counting Crows - Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings > This is last on my list for a reason. TO make it closer to the other list below. It is interesting and there are some strong tunes here, but overall just not the developed project that the other or last few cd’s have been. Adam needs to lay off the weed and come back to planet earth – stop trying so hard with his vocal technique sometimes. It gets annoying. But the band is so great; guitar work, keyboards and rhythm section are strong.

CRAP & DISAPOINTMENTS OF 2008
Madonna – after one of my favorite Madonna CD’s (Confessions…) comes out she puts out Hard Candy – only worthwhile tune is Devil Wouldn't Recognize You. Amazing, if you care, how much Kylie Minogue and Madonna sound alike.
Guns n’ Roses – Chinese Democracy >The long awaited 200 years in the making – snore snore and more snoring.
Jakob Dylan Seeing Things > Jakob goes solo and puts together a lame duck recording. I know it’s ‘acoustic’ but it’s so dry, sparse, and boring.
Shawn Mullins – Honeydew > what a bummer, I waited and waited for this to come out. A few strong songs, but what happened. It is as if the producer and Shawn were in different studios when this was put together. The electric guitar work and organ stuff is great though.
Sheryl Crow – Detours > Same thing here, was the producer and engineer out to lunch when these tracks were chosen and the vocal tracks were cut? Sheryl has always teeter tottered on the fence of singing off key, and it shows here more than any of the last few releases. She is a great songwriter and has learned to put things together really well - So disapointed here about this I wonder what happened. The Wildflower CD was an amazing album and a big fav of mine in 2007. This is just plain annoying in a few places. Call me Sheryl, I'll pick out the tunes for your next one. My friend Andy is your guitar tech. He can put in a good word.

Rock is not dead

Back in the day when I had to write code by hand for my first webpage (<0000> actually equals black I think) I kept a nice webpage with short reviews about every CD, cassette, vinyl I bought or had. It was pretty extensive, I would bet that it's even saved on a floppy disc somewhere. I think one of the things I miss the most is the liner notes, production notes, band members, producer+engineer names that were included in the packaging. I would go make the rounds to all the used shops on OSU campus to seek out the best used deals - looking for familiar bands, familiar producers, familiar musicians. Sometimes I would leave Used Kids with about 15 cd's on a good day.
Sept 4 - days later, I finish the post - my point here is I wanted to praise this new 2008 Kings X cd. It rocks like only Kings X can rock it. Yea yeah they have been known as a 'christian band' but who frickin cares. They can play and hard - the tempo changes rule. They played once or twice a year at the Newport when I worked there and valued the day when they showed up to get their riff on for soundcheck to light up our PA system. They always had a Front of House engineer, so I was on stage running monitors - even better to be within feet of them to watch them throw down those tight vocals and reproduce the songs better than a majority of big label bands. This CD rides like a roller coaster, up and down, slow and low, but brings me back to their early CD's Gretchen Goes to Nebraska and Faith/Love. Great song writing, great musicianship.
Rock bands and not rock bands I am also listening to new Theory of a Deadman, Old 97's, Jonatha Brooke, (old) Big Black-Atomizer, Shinedown, Carolina Liar, Honeybrowne, Reckless Kelly, Jakob Dylan (solo), Bodeans-Still cd.