Half Yearly Top 10

There's been some pretty decent releases in the the first half of 2008. While we have yet to come across to this year's Person Pitch, there's been no lack of quality albums. Here are my favorite 10 records so far this year:

10. The Black Angels, Directions To See a Ghost

9. The War On Drugs, Wagonwheel Blues
(out 6/19)

8. Atlas Sound, Let The Blind Lead Those Who Can See But Cannot Feel

7. BSS presents Brendan Canning, Something For All of Us
(LP out 7/22...digitally available now right here.)

6. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, Lie Down in the Light

5. Fleet Foxes, Fleet Foxes

If you don't like this album,
you are a jerk.





4. No Age, Nouns

Perfect for sunny day cruises with the windows down and the yearning for rock & roll music has ensued.





3. The Dodos, Visiter


Two dudes that sound like eleven dudes, and also put together an excellent freak/psych/whatever folk(ish) record.




2. Beach House, Devotion

If you have a wine cellar in your basement, or better yet a dungeon, play this record there. I have done neither, but am pretty sure it would be to your benefit.




1. The Ruby Suns, Sea Lion

This album consists of truly blissful musical elements from the entire world, by way of a band from New Zealand.





Honorable mentions include, but are not limited to:
Saturday=Youth by M83, Third by Portishead, In Ghost Colors by Cut Copy, Welcome by James Pants, and Heretic Pride by The Mountain Goats.

The Mixtape About Nothing

Need I say more? Go get it for free right here.

Nude

Big Ideas (Don't get any) from 1030 on Vimeo.

Falafel and Drum-Surfing

In light of my recent travels, I present you with Monotonix. They are from Tel Aviv, and they kinda rock. If blending the Black Lips with a little Sabbath and maybe some Spoon sounds good to you, then they are probably your thing.

Still not convinced? Testimonials like this one just might get your attention:

"You hit my girlfriend in the head with a trash can, and as much as i love her, you were still the best fucking band i've seen in ages." -Siobhan, Raliegh NC

They have an EP out now on Drag City, check out the title track on my playlist. The band just ended a European tour with the Silver Jews, who reportedly spent the tour explaining that they were not the band from Israel. Monotonix will be in Baltimore June 17th.

His Songs Are Better Than Yours

Sir Brian Adam Ant makes the trek down 95 to play stuff for us. This Saturday. At the "new" Talking Head. Go and talk obnoxiously about how honey bunches of oats are the new frosted flakes while he plays. He loves it.

Game On

I'm back in the country, and have been subjected to nothing but Israeli tunes and Bedouin tribal jams for the past 10 days. But, it looks as if there have been some local events stirring up during my adventure abroad.

Whartscape 2008 will take place July 17th-20th at various locations throughout Baltimore. Last year included the likes of Spank Rock and Mr. Deacon, and this year shall fail to disappoint as well.

The initial lineup includes Celebration, Jana Hunter, Beach House, Dan Deacon, Ponytail, Double Dagger, The Death Set, The Mae Shi, WZT Hearts, Matmos, Ecstatic Sunshine, Greg Gillis, Videohippos, and Black Dice.

Wow. And, supposedly 50 more will be added.

This is one of the first pics google image search gave me when I typed "hiatus". No idea. I'm heading out of the country for a couple weeks. In the meantime, enjoy some groovage.

Bells Will Be Rocked

Rock the Bells hits Merriweather this summer on July 27th. Headliners include Tribe Called Quest, Spank Rock, De La Soul, Pharycyde, Mos Def, and Santogold. There probably has not been this much hip hop in Howard County since MC Hammer wore pants like this.

Spank Rock Endorses Vinaigrette?

There is currently a plethora of major corporations using decent music to cash in. In recent commercials Bud Light used a Santogold track, Acura used a Spoon song, and the NBA rocked some Radiohead. But the one I came across this morning gets the award for the biggest WTF moment of the week.

Spank Rock's track "Bump" has been used to advertise salad dressing. Yes, salad dressing. Wishbone Bountifuls Vinaigrette claim their dressing is loaded with chunky pieces of vegetables and luscious pieces of fruit. However they make no claims of their genitalia tasting the best, like Amanda Blank does on her verse in the song.

Rest Of Virgin Announced

The entire Virgin Festival lineup was revealed this morning. Those who had hoped for some quality acts to balance out the mediocrity of the headliners, kinda sorta maybe got what they wanted.

There were some better acts added, with the stronger day clearly being Sunday the 10th. Highlighted additions by day include:

Saturday: Bloc Party, Cat Power, Chuck Berry, Lupe Fiasco, and Wilco

Sunday: Andrew Bird, The Black Keys, Bob Dylan, Lil Wayne, She and Him, and Chromeo (Nine Inch Nails and Kanye West headlining)

A nice little East Coast roadtrip weekend could be accomplished by catching Radiohead (2 nights), Grizzly Bear, Animal Collective, Kings of Leon, The Roots, Girl Talk, and The Black Angels at All Points West up in NYC for Friday and Saturday. Then heading back down to Baltimore on Sunday for the second day of Virgin. In fact, you would be oppositely following Jack Johnson's itinerary, completely avoiding him at both festivals. Bonus.

Free MP3's & Free Show

Daytrotter posted a session today from one of my favorite new bands , White Denim. Go get it. And while you're at it grab the session from Fleet Foxes they posted a week ago. Oh, and The Dodos one they did in February. Gosh that site is awesome.


TPC will be at the Talking Head on Sunday, for free.

Rolling Stone Thinks Baltimore Is Cool

Representatives of Rolling Stone were spotted gallivanting in these here streets last month. Attending an Ecstatic Sunshine and Double Dagger show at Floristree, and eating at the Golden West Cafe; dudes must have dug it, or drank entirely too much Natty Boh.

The magazine has just revealed its "Best of Rock 2008" feature, and awarded Baltimore with best scene. Apparently this means that we are a "hotbed for rap and art rock". In case you're not sure what "hotbed" actually means, the dictionary explains it as:

A glass-covered bed of soil heated with fermenting manure or by electricity, used for the germination of seeds or for protecting tender plants.

Uh, well put. While the article left out some key components, it still managed to namedrop and highlight some of our city's finer elements including David Byrne, Soundgarden, The Talking Head, and Beach House. Articles like this one have surfaced on the online wordwide web of internets for the past year or so, but this "best of" list certainly holds the most confusing company.

In the same piece there are awards for "Best New Michael Jackson", "Best Country Lolita", and...wait for it..."Best Guitar Hero Band". Granted the best country lolita is ridiculosly hot, but WTF is a country lolita? And did I really just use the phrase country lolita 4 times in a paragraph? Yes, yes I did.

Brian Adam Ant

What if I were to tell you I knew of an artist who sounded like an amalgamation of Daniel Johnston, Cass McCombs, and maybe even some Woody Guthrie. Is that something you might be interested in? Well, like Bob, I don't really care either way. Mainly because Brian Adam Ant is pretty frickin' sweet whether or not you like the dudes mentioned above.

Mr. Ant has been rocking out ever since the fourth grade when he was in a band that sang a song about white men in their yellow suits and black men in their purple suits (shameless plug: I was in this band for 3 days and sang Helter Skelter, eventually being rightfully told that I sucked).

Brian recently moved from Bmore to Brooklyn to keep on keepin' on. He played with a few different bands here, the most recent being the Dirty Marmaduke Flute Squad. He was the bassist and was labeled "The Pikesville Gynecologist". A seemingly normal name in a band that has "Captain Mediocrity", who is in charge of intimidation and tambourine.

I featured one of his most recent demos on my muxtape and expect more excellent things to come as he continues to write and record up in Brooklyn. You should probably go to Soundgarden and pick up his album Separation Celebration. Here's his video for "I'm So Bored" done by Better Hollywood Productions.

Bmore.tv

Pitchfork revealed its new beta pitchfork.tv this week, and promises that it will fill the void that MTV left when they started filming people yell at each other. In light of p4k's unveiling, I have decided to present you with some visual spectacles of local origin. Some are quite fresh, other's are more weathered favorites.

Yeasayer claims Brooklyn as their home these days, but are originally from these parts. They released this video about a month ago.


Beach House uncovered yet another video from the new record.


The Deathset's album comes out in a few weeks.

Richard Branson Named Some Bands

The third installment of Virgin Festival will be at Pimlico August 9th and 10th. The headliners were announced yesterday. Below I have provided a list that contains detailed and fully informative reviews and reactions of each artist.

Nine Inch Nails: Ok.

Kanye West: Hm.

Stone Temple Pilots: Oh.

Foo Fighters: Eh.

Jack Johnson: The link portrays my thoughts.

Half the bands might make this look like the 1998 HFStival lineup. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, and there’s room for potential I guess. There will be a lot more acts announced, and let’s hope they provoke more thought. If not, I suggest heading up to All Points West instead.