Best Music of 2007

This may or may not be my complete list for best of '07. It's 11:59 p.m. and I'm very tired. I didn't realize it was going to take me this long to put this together. I've been working on it for like three days. Maybe I don't really want to write about music for a living.

Folk



Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog

Iron & Wine, aka Sam Beam, became a folk cult hero after just one album, The Creek Drank the Cradle. But anyone can grow a beard, play an acoustic guitar and sing pretty. It was The Woman King EP that really set Iron & Wine apart. The record felt like the soundtrack to oldie-timey saloon brawl, all brown teeth and chairs breaking over dudes' backs.

The Shepherd's Dog feels like a mixtape of all of the styles Beam has experimented with over the past few years. It's quiet acoustic one minute, and distortion-drenched vocals the next.Though the album can feel a bit uneven at times, the style hopping makes for a great ride.

Standout Tracks: White Tooth Man, House by the Sea

Indie



Bishop Allen - The Broken String

Bishop Allen became blogger darlings when they accomplished their goal of releasing an EP of new music each month in 2006. The band chose to rework and rerecord 10 of those songs for 2007's The Broken String. Though the result is not what you would consider tight, the looseness of the sound is endearing. "Click, Click, Click" is hands-down the catchiest song of the year.

Standout Tracks: Click, Click, Click, The Chinatown Bus

Ska



Streetlight Manifesto - Somewhere in the Between

Ska, and all of its related subgenres, had a great run in the mid-to late '90s. But just as quickly as it skanked into our hearts, it skanked back out of style. Fortunately, either no one told Streetlight Manifesto or they just don't care. Somewhere in the Between is better than anything released in the '90's, with the exception of Catch 22's Keasbey Nights - an album that SM frontman Thomas Kalnoky also authored. Kalnoky is again on a lyrical rampage, but after touring endlessly with Reel Big Fish, the tunes are a bit peppier. The album doesn't pack the same bunch as the band's 2002 debut, but certainly won't disappoint fans of the band or the genre.

Standout Tracks: We Will Fall Together, The Receiving End of It All

Hip Hop



Aesop Rock - None Shall Pass

With commercial hip hop being weighed down by the bloated corpses of predictable/crappy albums (think 50 Cent and Kanye West), it's refreshing to hear someone take the genre in a different direction - or to another world. Though Aesop Rock's lyrics rarely touch down on planet earth, he certainly knows how to spit 'em. Here's a typical stanza, "If you never had a day a snow cone couldn't fix/You wouldn't relate to the rogue vocoder blitz/How he spoke through a no-doz motor on the fritz/Cause he wouldn't play roll over fetch like a #$@#$." If the lyrics are a bit too out-there, the production and delivery should bring you right back in. None Shall Pass is definitely a bright spot in this year's dirge of rap music.

Standout Tracks: Keep off the Lawn, None Shall Pass

Christian Rock



The Almost - Southern Weather

Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug, BOOM! Southern Weather's opening track and first single "Say This Sooner" gets me every time. I start tapping my finger on the steering wheel, then my foot starts going and by the chorus I'm singing loud enough to be embarrassed when I notice the folks in the car next to me giving me an uncomfortable look.

Underoath drummer Aaron Gillespie took a break from Christian metaling to a do a bit of Christian emo-ing with his side project The Almost. Writing all the songs and playing all of the instruments on the record, Gillespie shows that he can do more than just keep the beat. He's got a knack for a melody, a solid voice and an ear for radio friendly pop structures. Mixing a little rock, a little country, and a lot of lovin' the Lord makes Southern Weather a surprisingly good record.

Standout Tracks: Say This Sooner, Dirty and Left Out

Pop Punk




Motion City Soundtrack - Even if it Kills Me

Motion City has always had the right elements - dancy punk singalongs, plenty of Moog keyboards, a singer with hair as big and out of control as his heart - but has had trouble bringing them all together. On Even if it Kills Me they finally succeeded. The album manages to be fun without being annoying, and touching without feeling contrived. And "Last Night" may be my favorite song of the entire year.

Standout Tracks: Calling all Cops, Last Night


2006 HoldOvers

For me, the best two albums of 2007 came out in 2006.



Silversun Pickups - Carnavas

How Silversun Pickups managed to make the best album of both 2007 (I know it technically came out in 2006) and 1991 at the same time is a mystery to me. With all of its big guitar riffs and spacey keyboard layering, Carnavas sounds like it should be follow-up album to Smashing Pumpkins Gish. Outstanding from start to finish, its hard to even pick the album's best track - and it gets better with each listen.

Standout Tracks: Well Thought Out Twinkles, Three Seed

Matt & Kim - S/T

[coming soon]

Standout Tracks: It's a Fact, Light Speed

christmas yights

Paige has been loving the Christmas season. She's learned all sorts of words - Santa, reindeer, tree, snow, and snowman - and says them incessantly. She loves yights (er, lights) the best so we were excited to take her to Temple Square - even though we knew it would be a huge battle to get her to wear her warm weather gear. She prefers to wear no clothes at all.

We were given a little Christmas miracle when she didn't put up any fight about the clothes. She even wore her mittens. Though the mittens only inhibit the use of her fingers, she thought both of her arms were also immobilized. She spent the whole night moving her arms in robot motion, without bending her elbows.

Despite the millions of lights at Temple Square, she was most intrigued by the one light we could have seen from our house - the moon. "Paige, look at those pretty pink lights." Nope. She was too busy looking into the sky and saying "Moon! Moon!" I tried to get some good pictures of her in front of the lights, but almost all of them turned into neck shots as should couldn't stop staring into the heavens.

Currently Listening To...

Here's a random sampling of what I've been listening to lately.

Voodoo Glow Skulls - California Street Music
I really wanted this album to be good. VGS hasn't put out an interesting record since 1998, but I was hoping this would be their triumphant return. Instead, the result was firmly mediocre. Perfectly listenable (for those who can stand to listen to the Voodoo Glow Skulls), but far from inspiring. Though the songs are tight (and they should be - they've written the same song for the eight records), they don't quite manage to bring the passion.

Voodoo Glow Skulls - Fire in the Dance Hall [MP3]

The Hives - The Black and White Album
Though it's hard to take them 100% seriously, The Hives know how craft a catchy garage punk tune - consistently and thoroughly. On their new album they try to expand their palette a bit, adding a few quirky, synthy, haunted housey songs ("Puppet on a String," "T.H.E.H.I.V.ES.," "Giddy Up") to the tracklist - all of which basically suck. Drop those songs from your iPod and you've got yourself a half hour of good times.

The Hives - Tick Tick Boom [MP3]

It's also impossible not to love a band with a band that both a charismatic frontman and two guys who look like they should be selling used cars. Check out the video for Tick Tick Boom here.

David Bazan - Live at the Grey Eagle
I saw the artist formerly known as Pedro the Lion play at Club Sound last week. I enjoyed the ambiance of watching bums and Greyhound buses pass by the club window as David Bazan serenaded the 50 or so attendees with just his voice and an electric guitar.

To get the gist, visit at HardtoFindaFriend to download a complete live show. The Salt Lake City show was even better. There's nothing like watching a man losing his faith right in front of your eyes. I haven't been able to stop thinking about "Please Baby Please" or "Harmless Sparks."

David Bazan - Please Baby Please [MP3]

The Walmart-ization of My Heart

I am the reason why local companies don't survive. The other night I went to buy a Christmas tree. I was on borrowed time, in a borrowed truck. I normally get the tree at Smith's Marketplace, but to save time I went to the little tree lot around the corner from my house.

It was 7:30 p.m. and when I pulled in I didn't know if the place was still open. After walking around the empty lot for a few seconds, a guy came out of the house next door and greeted me. I asked him how much he was charging. $30-$50. I could tell immediately that it was going to be a little uncomfortable.

I wouldn't be opposed to paying $30 or even $50 for the best tree ever. But all of the trees looked like the Charlie Brown trees that we used to cut down at my grandpa's ranch...for free. They were all crooked, barren little things. I wanted to support this unknown gentleman and his locally owned and operated tree farm, but I just couldn't find anything at all. "Uh, I don't think you've got what I'm looking for." I sheepishly got back in the truck.

I drove to the other side of town to the Smith's Marketplace. I went straight to the $20 bin and found just what I was looking for. And I felt completely horrible about it. Sorry, local merchant. You just can't compete with the selection and discounts of a regional chain.

On a happier note, Paige just recently discovered trees, thanks to the Christmas lights attached to them in the neighborhood. She went nuts when she saw a tree come in through the front door of her house. "Dad! What's that? Tree! Dad! What's that? Tree! Tree! TREE!! What's that? TREEEEE!!!!"

Somewhere in the Between

Best. Artwork. Ever.

The three best ska albums of the past 10 years have all been written by the same man. Thomas Kalnoky has completed the trilogy with the recent release of Streetlight Manifesto's Somewhere in the Between. I could spend forever analyzing how this record fits into the Catch 22/Bandits of the Acoustic Revolution/Streetlight drama, but I'll stick to the music itself.

The album rocks. Standouts include "We Will Fall Together," "One Foot on the Grave," and "The Receiving End of It All." It has all of the crucial Streetlight elements: great horn lines, huge singalong hooks (some songs have multiple hooks, it's like an advertising campaign gone crazy) and lots of big, dramatic decrescendos. "One Foot on the Gas, One Foot in the Grave" also contains the best intro of any Streetlight song.

The record differs from previous works because of a greater percentage of upbeat tunes, even if they are about going to hell or watching life pass you by. ("Down, Down, Down to Mephisto's Cafe," "Somewhere in the Between.")

With all of that said, this record is probably my least favorite of any of Kalnoky's work. I love it. It's solid. It's awesome. (It's got a few too many happy tracks for me, but I can deal with that.) Keasbey has set the bar so high. It would be next to impossible to beat Keasbey Nights. (Even Kalnoky couldn't beat it when he recorded it again.)

Somewhere in the Between is a must-have for anyone who loves punk or ska or any of its combinations. And the band is coming to the SLC in January. I'll see you there.

We Will Fall Together [MP3]

Daddy Daughter Time

Now that Paige is a nonstop chatterbox (she's always been a talker, now she just inserts actual words) here's an average chain of events and conversation when I'm babysitting.

Paige and I, sitting in the family room when she says, "Dah-rums?" She takes my hand and leads me to the door of the basement. We go downstairs.

Paige sits at the drumset and pounds away. She starts out with the drumsticks and I use the brushes. Every few seconds she says "trade" and we switch. When she hits the cymbals especially hard she looks at me and says "Good dah-rums?" I nod in approval. She gets bored after a few minutes and says, "Nino?"

Nino is her word for Play-Doh. We walk back upstairs and sit at the kitchen table to play nino. She sees the purple container and says "par-ple, par-ple, PARPLE!!!" I mold the play-doh into various shapes and she tells me all the names - circle, square, heart, diamond, etc. She can nino for quite a while, but she will invariably catch a glimpse of her halloween bucket on top of the fridge. At which point she says, "Can-dy?" I say no. "Can-dy?" No. "'Nacks?" (fruit snacks) No. "Shapes?" (her Baby Einstein Movie about shapes) No. "Yion?" (lion, a reference to the lion in the same movie) No. "Buh-bles?" I concede.

We go upstairs and I put her in the empty bathtub and blow bubbles at her. When she's had enough she says "Count?" which means she wants to count all of the assorted shampoos and soaps in the bathroom. I put them on the side of the tub and quiz her on the colors. She then counts each of them and tips them back over at me. She will play this game forever. The only way to make it end is for me to say to her "brush teeth?"

We stand and brush our teeth together - she will not brush hers until she sees that I brush mine. Her brushing consists of chewing on the bristles or eating the toothpaste off the brush. When we're finished, I rinse her mouth out three times (she sticks her tongue out and I put water on it), and then I pat her mouth dry. "Brush teeth" is officially done by Paige exclaiming "All clean!" At this point she looks at me and says "Nino?" And we start all over again.

Something for Those Quiet Moments: Ruminations on Missionary Music

After the Utes gave up a 40 yard pass on 4th and 18 I needed some cheering up. I found some solace in downloading some new music - The Hippos' self-titled, The Rentals EP and two Get Up Kids albums. The irony being that I don't think there is any group that makes me feel more sad than the Get Up Kids.

As the stream of consciousness continues, I am thinking about the contraband music I listened to on my mission. There was a Virgin Records by our apartment in The Hague (I'd never seen a Virgin Records before) that had a big going out of business sale. Even though we weren't allowed to listen to music, I thought it a shame to pass up such great blowout prices. I picked up a copy of "Something to Write Home About" by the Get Up Kids, even though I'd never heard the band. The artwork, the name of the band, and the name of the album were so awesome that I couldn't pass it by. Like a good boy, I refrained from listening to it until I got back to America.

I would say, all things considered, I was pretty good at abiding by the no music rule. However, here were a few that slipped by the goalie:

Something for those Quiet Moments Mixtape

What a funny mission memory. I was at a zone conference in my first area. I'd only been in Holland a few weeks. I was happy to learn their was a fellow punk rocker in my zone, Elder Josh Ligairi. (Ligairi somehow managed to keep his tongue ring a secret his entire mission. He even created a new way of laughing that kept his tongue hidden. Huh, huh, huh, huh.)

I was in the church bathroom when Ligairi approached me. He slipped me a cassette tape and then disappeared. I shut the stall door and inspected the booty. It was a mixtape titled Something for Those Quiet Moments. Ligairi had included hits by all of the punk rock legends - NOFX, Bad Religion, Millencolin, MXPX. I put the tape into the pocket of my suit and went back to the conference. I felt like I was walking around with a dimebag of marijuana.

Many months later I finally listened to the tape. I think I only listened to it once or twice, but the memory of Ligairi sneaking it to me was priceless.

Ace of Base and the 5BX

Even though he's not a Mormon, my friend Rhett was super supportive of my mission. One day, a couple of months into my mission, I got a package from him. It was an Ace of Base cd. Because my friends always teased me about liking the Swedish dance quartet, I was always too embarassed to buy any of their music. Rhett included a note with the CD: "I saw this in the $1 bin and thought of you."

The CD made its appearance 18 months later when I was introduced to the 5BX workout program. My friend Jonny Wix discovered a photocopied workout program in his missionary apartment called the 5BX (a cool, hip way of saying 5 Basic Exercises). Since we had all grown fat from eating french fries with mayonnaise for every meal, I asked him to send a copy to me and my housemates down in Antwerp, Belgium. Every night we'd do our exercise routine, which included some move where you lay on the floor and pretend to be a fish or something. The best part was that we all agreed we could only work out properly if we had some great work out tunes. Enter Ace of Base. Beautiful Life, Lucky Love, Never Gonna Say I'm Sorry, man, those are awesome songs. The rest of the album sucks, but those tracks were perfect for the 5BX.
....
The list goes on, but time runs short. Many great songs trapped in the time warp of '99-'01, but I guess it I'll have to save that for the next time I'm depressed about sports. There's a story about Enya and other New Age hits, a bad run in with Tom Jones' "Sex Bomb" and many, many more. I'd really like to write a book about my mission, but Traci ensures me no one would want to read it.

The Kooks - All That She Wants [MP3]
Ace of Base - The Sign [MP3]

Two Years of This Kid

Today our little monkey turns two. Here's Paige through the ages:



Fresh out of the womb [Post 1 | Post 2 |



One year birthday party [Post 1 | Post 2 |



Halloween 2007



November 2007

Even after two years, we still like her.

New Streetlight

Streetlight Manifesto just released their first-ever video - "We Will Fall Together" from their forthcoming album. I pre-ordered it and if all goes well it will be in my mailbox when I get home from work today. I've basically been waiting four years for this record to come out. Can't wait.

Sunday Afternoon

Paige is looking happy in her church dress, but that's only because we're home from church.

iFly?!

So I went to the iFly Utah center on Friday. I had big plans of posting the video, but it wasn't that great. I wasn't really that great either. (I was certainly nothing like the promo video.)

Here's how it works. After watching a short instructional video, you get two one-minute sessions in the air tube with a flight instructor. The wind blows 160 mph and if you do things right, you'll hover anywhere from four to six feet above the ground. If you don't position your body right (like me), you spend most of the time being repositioned by the instructor and bumping into the walls.

While it was definitely a noteworthy experience to be pummeled by 100 mile winds, it wasn't really what I expected. I thought it would be more like the weightless feeling of riding a rollercoaster or bungee jumping. It just seemed like a lot of hard work.

At least I looked really good in my jumpsuit.

Get Your Wind Tunnel On!

Tomorrow afternoon I will be going to iFly in Ogden. I'm taking my camcorder. Hopefully I don't return with a video of me peeing my pants.

Thanks, Japan!

I was listening to the new Britney Spears CD on my way to work the other day (because that's just how I roll). I browsed through the liner notes and couldn't find one song that she actually wrote or even co-wrote. Though I have no way of knowing this, I would imagine that someone calls her up in the morning and says "Hey Britney, it's time to record an album." She rolls out of bed and drags herself to the studio where someone hands her the lyrics, teaching her the tune, and tells her how to sing it. She lays down the track. They auto-tune it and voila! a new Britney record.

It seems weird for a musician to be so disconnected or uninvolved with her own music. Its one thing to sing someone else's lyrics about universal topics like love or the dance floor, but it seems strange to have someone hand you the words you're supposed to be thinking. (i.e. "I’m Mrs. ‘Most likely to get on the TV for slippin’ on the streets/When getting the groceries, no, for real") Weird. It's also gross when mother of two sings "I just wanna take it off, I just wanna take it off." Leave it on, please!

All of this brings me to my experience with Japan. I ran into the myspace page of a Japanese artist called Alone Together the other day. I was interested in the piano protege vs. spastic japanitechno vibe but much more intrigued by this statement:

My wish is to have many people in the world listen to my music.
If you need my CD, please send an E-mail to myspace email or my hotmail.
I send CD for you.
A money is not necessary.
THIS CD IS FREE .
(If you write your address on an E-mail, I send a CD for you soon.)

So I sent my address. Just a couple of days later I got a package from Japan (the cardboard CD sleeve is shown above) with a personal note from Yuki himself. It's cool to see a guy who's willing to shell out shipping costs to anywhere in the world just so people will check out his tunes.

Yuki is a very talented artist. However, the EP felt the musical equivalent of those Japanese cartoons that give American kids seizures. I'd like to give it a few more spins, but I think I might turn into an epileptic. That said, I can't get enough of the opening track, Human Beings. Very Awesome.

So, Britney Spears, if you don't get your act together and work a little harder, this is going to be the new face of American pop music.



Human Beings [MP3]

Blah, Blah, Blah, and So Forth

The way Paige repeats words back to us makes me really wonder how we must sound to her. Most sentences start with a lot of unintelligible sounds and end with the one word we understand. Example: Garble, garble, noise, sound, "chair." That means either she's now sitting in the chair you just vacated (her favorite game) or she wants you to sit by her on the chair. Maybe that's why this video of this kid saying the blessing on the food is so incredibly funny to me. [Thanks, Brian.]

T-Shirt Hell

Traci and I have been in our new house for 4 months and we've probably only unpacked 3/4ths of our boxes. (Those boxes have just moved from the garage to the basement. We're not what you'd call, uh, "organized.") Realizing that I have more crap that any sane person would need, I'm trying to get rid of unneeded items.

I started going through my clothes last night. I have so many clothes. And it's not like I have good taste or anything, so it's just piles and piles of band t-shirts and ugly Old Navy jeans. (The fact that I refuse to try clothes on also results in a lot of items briefly worn and then shoved in drawers or closets.) I got rid of a few garbages worth of stuff and made another bag of band t-shirts that I don't wear anymore that I can't bear to get rid of.

My mom said that Danny Ulrich's mom is taking all of her kids high school sports t-shirts and sewing them into a quilt. My first response was "time to let go of high school sports." But then I quickly realized that would idea be great for a guy who can't let go of the memories of concerts and bands he liked in high school. So the big bag of t-shirts is going to my mom's where I need to trick her into helping me make a quilt. It will be the coolest rock 'n roll quilt ever.

Don't I Know You From Somewhere?

At the Jamboree Music Festival:

Traci and I were sitting on our blanket watching the boringness when a middle-aged lesbian sitting behind us as gets my attention:

MAL: You look really familiar. Are you on the news?

Me: Um, no. Not that I know of. (I decided not to recount the one time I hung out with Shelly Osterloh. Here and here.)

MAL: Oh, well, where are you from?

Me: [Skipping through all of the 'where could I know you from's] Where do you do your banking?

MAL: Uh, America First.

Me: I worked at Cyprus Credit Union for five years and usually that's where people know me from.

MAL: Oh, I have an account there. That must be it.

Me: Yep, that must be it.

I wonder how often news anchors are approached and asked if they are bank tellers.

---

The day after I got home from my mission I was I was meeting some friends at Temple Square. (Talk about nerdy and predictable for a returned missionary.) I could see two girls looking at each other and giggling.

Were they checking me out? Doubtful, I thought. As if on a bet, one of them approached me.

"Uh, hi, are you, uh, Lance Bass?"

"Sorry to disappoint you ladies, but you've got the wrong guy."

I wonder if people ever ask Lance Bass if he is the purveyor of the Sutherland Manifesto.

TV: Spencer vs. Traci

Shows that Spencer likes that Traci doesn't:

-Prison Break
-Football
-Gossip Girl

Shows Traci likes that Spencer doesn't:

-Scrubs (I even hate the theme song)
-Girls Next Door
-America's Top Model (Urge to kill Tyra Banks. Growing. Growing.)

Lame things currently on our DVR:

Legally Blonde the Musical (Traci)
High School Musical 2 (Traci)
Mad Hot Ballroom (Traci)
Gridiron Gang (Spencer)*
Step Up (Spencer)*

*I haven't watched either of these yet and I know Traci won't watch them with me. If anyone wants to come over, let me know.

New Tracks on the Manifesto Radio

For a music snob such as myself, it was a bit embarrassing standing at the check out stand at the county library holding both a Sum 41 cd and a New Found Glory album. I don't know what inspired me to listen to NFG as I dismissed them immediately after I first heard them back in '01, but I wanted to hear Coming Home. I'm glad I did. I haven't stopped listening to it in a week, despite the worst lyric in the history of time. "You smell how angels oughta smell." Awful.

I've posted some new songs on the Manifesto radio (on the right side of the blog). I also love the new Motion City Soundtrack album, but that could change with more listens. For the time being, I think it's the best of their three releases. The new Iron & Wine will probably end up on my best of 2007 list.

Paigey Monkey

Couldn't have asked for a better Halloween. We were very worried that Paige wasn't going to wear her costume again (last year she was in her lady bug costume for about 2 seconds. To justify the purchase, we had my mother work a lady bug role into her version of the nativity) because she ripped it off the first time I tried to get it on her. But after she saw her best friend/nemesis cousin Ryan in his costume, she decided she could wear hers.

She chased her cousins from door to door during her first trick or treating experience. She would knock on the door (she only knocks once, despite always saying "knock, knock") and then with a bit of prompting say "tricktreat."

She loved carrying around her little pumpkin candy bucket. We eventually had to come back home when the bucket became too heavy for her to carry. She refused to let me hold it, so she switched to holding it with two hands, but then she'd fall over when she started running.

When we got back to my sister's house Paige would help answer the door when trick or treaters came by and greeted each one with "Hi guys."

Best. Halloween. Ever.

Circle, Square, Fruit Salad

In addition to loving animals, Paige also loves shapes. She can identify a circle, square, triangle, diamond, star, rectangle (pronounced 'rectal') and her favorite shape - oval. But for whatever reason, when she sees a crescent she says, "fruit salad!" Every time. And not just with actually toy shapes. She'll see a moon shape on a blanket or something and immediately say "fruit salad." And because she watches so much Wiggles, she'll often follow "fruit salad" up with "yummy! yummy!"