My Favorite Albums of 2015

WOW, so I didn't post a single entry to this blog in 2015.

The total number of 2015 albums that I initially listened to in the year when they were actually released is probably greater than any other year in my life. But not as many stuck with me as in previous years. This 4th or 5th wave of garage-rock and Paisley Underground homages have kind of run its course with me. Honestly I spent more of 2015 listening to older music. The Replacements, Superchunk, Sleater-Kinney, the Kinks, Guided By Voices, and Yo La Tengo were in my rotation a lot more than any 2015 releases.  And I finally took that deep dive on some other artists I've been meaning to check out for years: Mountain Goats, Yo La Tengo, Meat Puppets, Wire, Velvet Underground, and the DB's to name a few.

Anyway, here is my dumb list in descending order:

Top 25

   25. Ultimate Painting - Green Lanes (Trouble in Mind Records)


   24. Jason Isbell - Something More Than Free (Southeastern)



   23. Yo La Tengo - Stuff Like That There (Matador)


   22. EZTV - Calling Out (Captured Tracks)


   21. Widowspeak - All Yours (Captured Tracks)

   20. Tommy Keene - Laugh in the Dark (Second Motion)


  19. Kurt Vile - B'lieve I'm Goin' Down (Matador)


  18. Mikal Cronin - MCIII (Merge)


17. Courtney Barnett - Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit (Milk!)


   16. Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer (Car Park)


   15. Torres - Sprinter (Partisan)


  14. The Woolen Men - Temporary Monument (Woodsist)


  13. Waxahatchee - Ivy Tripp (Merge)


 12. Bully - Feels Like (Columbia)


11. Mike Pace and the Child Actors - Best Boy (Self-Starter Foundation)








      10. Robert Pollard - Faulty Superheroes (GBV Inc), Ricked Wicky - I Sell the Circus (GBV Inc) / King Heavy Metal (GBV Inc) / Swimmer to a Liquid Armchair (GBV Inc)


  9. Veruca Salt - Ghost Notes (El Camino)


  8. Wavves - V (Ghost Ramp/Warner Bros.)



  7. Sleater-Kinney - No Cities to Love (Sub Pop)


   6. Protomartyr - The Agent Intellect (Hardly Art)


   5. Royal Headache - High (What's Your Rupture)



  4. Wilco - Star Wars (dBpm Records)





  3. Jesse Malin - New York Before the War / Outsiders (One Little Indian).


    2. Twerps - Range Anxiety (Merge)


    1. Beach Slang - The Things We Do To Find People Who Feel Like Us (Polyvinyl)

Honorable Mention

Dawes - All Your Favorite Bands (HUB Records)

Dilly Dally - Sore (Partisan)

The Decemberists - What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World (Rough Trade)

Houndmouth - Little Neon Limelight (Rough Trade)

The Juliana Hatfield Three - Whatever, My Love (American Laundromat Records)

Low Cut Connie - Hi Honey (Contender Records)

Mac McCaughan - Non-Believers (Merge)

The Mountain Goats - Beat the Champ (Merge)

Titus Andronicus - The Most Lamentable Tragedy (Merge)

White Reaper - White Reaper Does It Again (Polyvinyl)

The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die - Harmlessness (Topshelf/Epitaph)

Other Stuff Worth Your Time

Adult Mom - Momentary Lapse of Happy (Tiny Engines)

Advaeta - Death and the Internet (Fire Talk)

Built to Spill - Untethered Moon (ATP Recordings)

Ceremony - The L-Shaped Man (Matador)

Colleen Green - I Want to Grow Up (Hardly Art)

Deerhunter - Fading Frontier (4AD)

Joanna Gruesome - Peanut Butter (Slumberland)

Albert Hammond Jr. - Momentary Masters (Vagrant)

Hop Along - Painted Shut (Saddle Creek)

JEFF the Brotherhood - Wasted on the Dream (Infinity Cat)

Lucero - All a Man Should Do (ATO)

Of Monsters and Men - Beneath the Skin (Republic)

Palehound - Dry Food (Exploding in Sound)

Pins - Wild Nights (Bella Union)

Seapony - A Vision (Self-Released)

Title Fight - Hyperview (Anti-)

Wildhoney - Sleep Through It (Deranged Records)

Wolf Alice - My Love Is Cool (Dirty Hit Ltd.)

Worriers - Imaginary Life (Don Giovanni)

2015 Shows

Purling Hiss/Dark Blue at Johnny Brenda's - 2/13/15
Sleater-Kinney at Union Transfer - 2/28/15
Jesse Malin at Main St Music in store show 3/31/15
Protomartyr/Amanda X at Johnny Brenda's - 4/14/15
The Replacements/Superchunk at Festival Pier 5/9/15
Soul Asylum/Meat Puppets at Underground Arts 6/19/15
Mudhoney/Pissed Jeans/Amanda X at Union Transfer 7/9/15
Archers of Loaf at Union Transfer 7/11/15
Jesse Malin at Boot and Saddle 7/25/15
Old 97's at Union Transfer 10/29/15
Jesse Malin at Johnny Brenda's 12/17/15

The Year in Music 2013 - Part 1

EPs, Singles, Live Shows, Miscellanous

If you only read one year-end music list this year, please don't read this. Read someone else's, since it'll probably be better than mine. Also if you really like music, you should probably read more than one. That would be pretty silly, right?  So in that case, you might as well read mine and read everyone else's too. Without further ado, the most least essential music list of 2013. I have a good feeling about this year's list, it's at least in my top five best year-end lists of the decade.

Miscellaneous - Worth Your Time

These releases are worth checking out and/or some highlights from 2012 that I slept on until this year.

Bad Religion - True North (Epitaph)

Connections - Private Airplane (Lost Weekend) - 2012

Diarrhea Planet - I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams (Infinity Cat)

Dr. Dog - B-Room (Anti)

The Fresh & Onlys - Long Slow Dance (Mexican Summer) - 2012

Grant Hart - The Argument (Domino)

Minor Alps - Get There (Barsuk)
My Bloody Valentine - m b v (self-released).

Kevin Morby - Harlem River (Woodsist)

Outside World - S/T - EP (Night-People) - 2012
Outside World - Seaside Nowhere - EP (Night-People) - 2012
Polvo - Siberia (Merge)
Sonny & the Sunsets - Antenna to the Afterworld (Polyvinyl)

Swearin' - S/T (Wichita) - 2012

Tegan and Sara - Heartthrob (Vapor/Warner Bros.)

Those Darlins - Blur the Line (Oh Wow Dang)

Toy Soldiers - The Maybe Boys (Rocket Science Records)

Uniform Freaks - Demo 2012 - EP (self-released) - 2012

The Vaccines - Come of Age (Columbia) - 2012
Vampire Weekend - Modern Vampires of the City (XL).

White Lung - Sorry (Deranged) - 2012
Woolen Men - S/T (Woodsist)

Some song highlights from these releases:

Connections - "Miller's Grove" (skip ahead to about 1:00 mark for song)

Dr. Dog - "Distant Light"

Minor Alps - "Waiting For You"

Outside World - "Paid in Full"

Polvo - "Light, Raking"

Swearin' - "Movie Star"

Tegan and Sara - "Closer"

Toy Soldiers - "Tell the Teller"

The Vaccines - "No Hope"

Vampire Weekend - "Unbelievers"

White Lung - "Glue"

The Woolen Men - "Mayonnaise"

Live Shows

I feel like went to more shows than this. I guess I just considered going to more and then passed on them.

Jesse Malin - 1/16/13 - @ Johnny Brenda's

Pissed Jeans - 2/15/13 - @ Underground Arts

Wavves - 4/9/13 - @ Johnny Brenda's

Superchunk - 9/24/13 - @Union Transfer

Pearl Jam - 10/21/13 - @Wells Fargo Center

Sebadoh - 11/2/13 - @Johnny Brenda's
Deer Tick - 11/6/13 @ Union Transfer

EPs and Singles

Best Coast - Fade Away (Bratty BC). I know many like-minded indie music fans have soured on Bethany Cosentino and Best Coast in the last few years but I'm not one of them. I enjoyed last year's follow up LP and this EP is another keeper, as Best Coast appears to be transitioning more into Rilo Kiley than the Vivian Girls. You could make the case this is their best release to date.

Best Coast - "Who Have I Become"

Clearance - Dixie Motel Two-Step (Microluxe). Do you like Pavement? Of course you do if you're actually reading this and between the ages of thirty and fifty. Well, this band does a pretty good Pavement imitation (in a good way).

Connections - Tough City (Lost Weekend). This would probably win "EP of the Year" for me. But basically if Male Bonding tried to sound like Guided By Voices, the result would be something like this. "Cul-De-Sac" is on my short list for "Song of the Year."

Albert Hammond Jr. - AHJ (Cult Records). The Strokes guitarist releases his first solo material in nearly five years and it's a solid EP. And aside from that one song the Strokes had on their comeback LP a few years ago, these songs are better than anything else the rest of the band has done together recently.

Albert Hammond Jr. - "Strange Tidings"

Palehound - Bent Nail (Exploding in Sound). Another really good retro-90's lo-fi sounding release. This reminds me quite a bit of Speedy Ortiz' Sports EP from last year.

Palehound - "Pet Carrot"

Parquet Courts - Tally All The Things That You Broke (What's Your Rupture?). Another really good release from this band. Continuing their Pavement meets Minutemen sound with a little more experimentation on this EP. 

Parquet Courts - "You've Got Me Wonderin' Now"

The Pixies - EP1 (Pixies). Weren't the Pixies supposed to release "multiple EPs" this year, hence the title? Anyway, this is the only one and it's pretty solid and in a weird but good way doesn't sound all that much like vintage Pixies to me. For instance "Indie Cindy" sounds more like Oasis than the Pixies. And "What Goes Boom" has an intro that sounds like mid 90's Soundgarden. I'd be as stoked to hear an updated version of "Wave of Mutilation" as much as the next guy, but this is just different enough to sound like classic Pixies without repeating themselves.

Pixies - "Another Toe in the Ocean"

Prince - Screwdriver (single). A really great single by Prince featuring possibly his most interesting guitar work in nearly thirty years. Well, just listen for yourself.

Prince - "Screwdriver"

The Replacements - Songs for Slim (New West). This is an EP of covers to raise money for guitarist Slim Dunlap, who suffered a stroke in 2012. So it's Paul, Tommy, and Chris all making music again (but not on the same songs together). And Chris did the album artwork. It features a pair of Slim solo covers among the five songs. The highlight is "I'm Not Sayin'" - a somewhat obscure 1965 pop song written by Gordon Lightfoot and most famously covered by a pre-Velvet Underground Niko, with pre-Led Zeppelin Jimmy Page producing and playing guitar. The Replacements version sounds nothing like either of the previous versions and it's pretty great. And it's actually a fitting song to begin what hopefully is a reunion with new material, since so much of the early Replacements live shows consisted of somewhat obscure covers that the band kind of made their own. Let's face it, many American indie music fans (me included) in the 1980s and early 90s were probably first introduced to Sham 69, the Soft Boys, and the Only Ones mainly because the Replacements frequently covered their songs live.

The Replacements - "I'm Not Sayin'"

Various Artists - Songs for Slim (New West). After the Replacements reunited for their EP of covers to raise money for their former guitarist, other artists who are friends with/fans of the band got involved. So this features covers of Slim songs by Lucinda Williams, Craig Finn, Tommy Keene, and Steve Earle, among others.


Next: Part 2 - the Top 20 and Honorable Mention