music

Constant Hitmaker Kurt Vile

Not sure how I feel about Kurt Vile’s sound, but one thing’s clear: the dude is a born enter­tain­er. Had a fun time watch­ing him play with his band the Vio­la­tors last night. 

First time I met Kurt was at the first Beach House gig at John­ny Bren­da’s. He was sit­ting next to me at the bar, hop­ing to meet the guy behind Car Park Records. What hap­pened next is history.

Felt good to con­grat­u­late him last night. He played to a packed house in his home­town! Shows that Pitch­fork rat­ings aren’t the end of the world. Wish more bands got that.

All Hail Purling Hiss

Read about them a few weeks ago. Lis­tened to some tracks on their MySpace and fell in love. Hard to believe, but they’re even bet­ter live.

How to describe their sound? Does a south­ern rock-tinged Jay Reatard make sense? Skynyrd meets the Ramones?

Bought two albums and intro­duced myself to Mike, the lead singer and gui­tarist, at the merch table after the show.

Some­one please sign this band and make them famous, okay? Think Mata­dor would be a great fit. Make it hap­pen, people!

My Favorite Albums of 2010

I’m try­ing to pull these togeth­er now. A few albums leap to mind:

  • Liars – Sis­ter­world
  • The Roots — How I Got Over
  • Kanye West — My Beau­ti­ful Dark Twist­ed Fantasy
  • Tay­lor Swift’s Speak Now
  • Sight­ings — City of Straw
  • Janelle Mon­ae — The ArchAn­droid
  • Erykah Badu — New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
  • Ted Leo and the Phar­ma­cists — The Bru­tal­ist Bricks
  • The-Dream — Love King
  • Titus Andron­i­cus — The Mon­i­tor
  • Big Boi — Sir Lus­cious Left Foot…
  • Spoon — Trans­fer­ence
  • Kyle­sa — Spi­ral Shadow
  • Sleigh Bells — Treats
  • V/A Casu­al Vic­tim Pile comp

I’m still look­ing around for things I missed. Real­ly wish there were more met­al on this list, to say noth­ing of weirdo noise and psych stuff. More coun­try, too! I’m not above hear­ing ten albums in the next week and mak­ing those my favorite albums of the year. Still haven’t heard that Beach House album that came out so long ago it feels like 2009! I’m over wor­ry­ing what crit­ics think of my year-end list; none of them mat­ter so much to war­rant the cos­mopoli­tan ulcer I used to give myself come Novem­ber. Have to admit that it feels good to have reached the point in my life where I’m hap­py to nom­i­nate the main­stream fluff I used to hate see­ing in the Vil­lage Voice Pazz ‘n’ Jop poll. That Tay­lor Swift album is damn good!

What are your favorites of 2010? Feel free to drop links in the com­ments. Wow me.

The Most Anticipated Album of 2010

Can’t tell you how excit­ed I am to hear Kanye’s new album. “Run­away” just blows me away. I’ve loved every­thing he’s done so far, so why should My Beau­ti­ful Dark Twist­ed Fan­ta­sy be any different?

Feel like he real­ly turned a cor­ner with 808s & Heart­break, which I felt was unfair­ly maligned in some cir­cles as being too misog­y­nis­tic. I thought it was a painful, hurt­ful, fright­en­ing breakup album. Loved it. So did Mau­ra and Whiney. I feel like his next album is our sweet reward. Can­not wait.