WWWhat in the World Wide Web

And now, a favorite album for each year I have been alive on the earth planet:

1972: Rolling Stones – Exile on Main Street
1973: Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy
1974: King Crimson – Red
1975: Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
1976: Joni Mitchell – Hejira
1977: Television – Marquee Moon
1978: The Jam – All Mod Cons
1979: Talking Heads – Fear of Music
1980: The Pretenders – s/t
1981: The Cure – Faith
1982: X – Under the Big Black Sun
1983: U2 – War
1984: The Replacements – Let it Be
1985: R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction
1986: Metallica – Master of Puppets
1987: Guadalcanal Diary – 2×4
1988: The Church – Starfish
1989: Pixies – Doolittle
1990: Uncle Tupelo – No Depression
1991: Slint – Spiderland
1992: Beastie Boys – Check Your Head
1993: Girls Against Boys – Venus Luxure No.1 Baby
1994: Rodan – Rusty
1995: Hum – You’d Prefer an Astronaut
1996: Failure – Fantastic Planet
1997: Yo La Tengo – I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One
1998: Don Caballero – What Burns Never Returns
1999: Trans Am – Futureworld
2000: Sleater-Kinney – All Hands on the Bad One
2001: Les Savy Fav – Go Forth
2002: Ms. John Soda – No P or D
2003: The Sea and Cake – One Bedroom
2004: Laura Veirs – Carbon Glacier
2005: Kylesa – To Walk a Middle Course
2006: Mastodon – Blood Mountain
2007: Baroness – Red Album
2008: Boris – SMILE
2009: Baroness – Blue Record / Polvo – In Prism (I CAN’T DECIDE)
2010: The National – High Violet

NOTES:

1. 1977 and 1984 (and even 2009) were banner years for good rock, which made it hard to pick just one.
2. 1991 was no contest, but there were a few trying for “close second”.
3. If I were even older, 1966 would have been another such year.
4. I recycled this post from my el-jay, just because.

Yesterday I was walking downtown, and I heard three sets of church bells go off at once. It sounded a little like this:

church fight!

I only got the last third of it, because of all the fumbling to grab my camera and set it to movie-mode. Lightning reflexes here.

December, 2003: My pal Ted says to me that I have ONE YEAR to produce physical evidence of my musical creations. This is because I had nothing new to show since he witnessed me and Dan jamming in December, 2002. Thus was the gauntlet thrown, and sure enough by December, 2004, I had one musical CD of brotherly compositions.

December, 2008: I’ve been sitting on a 2/3 finished follow-up. I started writing/recording new stuff as soon as I finished the first CD, so this is a lot of sitting. Sure, 2005 was off to a good start, but from 2006 on, it’s been either work, or recovering from work (i.e., sleeping all my free time away). It’s probably also a bit to do with not having a set deadline, because I wanted to “take my time” and all that bullcrap.

SO, I got an idea the other day: I need a deadline, and the threat of shame. I decided that if I wasn’t finished by December, 2009, I would have to put out whatever I had done, and I would have to call the album “Unfinished Bizznatch”. And to show myself I was serious, I told myself this would be the art:

Dan, we got some work to do!

UPDATE FROM THE DISTANT FUTURE (11/2009): Yeah, so I’m chickening out a little. Going back and listening to some of these songs has filled me with self-doubt and dread. They need to go back to the drawing board, or the toilet, or something. So I’ll just be leaving certain of these turkeys off “Unfinished Bizznatch”, thankyewverymuch.

UPDATE FROM THE EVEN MORE DISTANT FUTURE (1/2010): OK, you can now listen to the fruits of my labors by clicking the words “fruits of my labors”. You can also purchase these fruits. Act now, before I raise the price to $1000!

So, maybe there is a bright side to the economy being so far down the shitter it can see last year’s dinners. Maybe it will be easier to realize the True Meaning of Christmas™ without all those pesky presents in the way. Unless the True Meaning of Christmas™ actually IS about presents, then we’ll all have to… I don’t know… relate to one another?

What is the most ironic irony? When you like something “ironically” (i.e., “hipster irony”) and then you end up genuinely liking it. This post is dedicated to the wonderful sci-fi synthpop of Peter Schilling (the “Major Tom” dood).