playlist 2008
(engineering note: apologies for not getting around to balancing levels, you may benefit from using the ’soundcheck’ feature of your player to even things out)
I enjoyed creating a holiday year-end playlist last year. I enjoyed it not only as something interesting I could send to everyone during the season of giving, but also selfishly as an exercise in looking back on the year’s music and thinking about what really made a lasting impression on me. There are plenty of more comprehensive and less idiosyncratic year-end lists to be found, but here is what moved me this year:
1. Waxwing, Black Swan Green
If you’ve been in touch with me at all this year you know I spent the good part of the first half of 2008 producing Black Swan Green’s debut record The Ruin Gaze. Hugh Crickmore, the band’s leader, guitarist, singer and songwriter, was a very influential musical mentor for me during my formative years, feeding me carefully crafted mix tapes of bands that I hadn’t yet discovered and might not have ever sought out on my own. Many of these bands became very important influences on my own work, and a mutual love for these influences created an instant chemistry in the studio. “Waxwing” is undeniably one of the record’s singles. I slaved over the guitar and vocal sounds in here and consider it my proudest moment as a producer. Fittingly I pass it along on a virtual mixtape.
2. Nowhere Near, Yo La Tengo
I rediscovered YLT’s Painful when it was referenced on a recent conference call. It came out my first year of college and I reviewed it for the Cavalier Daily. Beautiful stuff.
3. Quiet Houses, Fleet Foxes
Fleet Foxes’ self-titled record came with alot of hype, so I naturally avoided them. But I couldn’t have asked for a better record listen to on a long run in the country.
4. Creature Fear, Bon Iver
Last year I might have listened to ten new albums a hundred times each. This year I listened to one new album a thousand times. If I had For Emma, Forever Ago on vinyl, I would have worn out the grooves by now. One of the most interesting voices I’ve heard in a long time.
5. Headphones, I’m From Barcelona
Not alot of buzz for their new record this year, but I like it just as much as the last one. Great, happy stuff.
6. I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris, Morrissey
Merry Christmas! Here’s Moz’s new single, a bright pop tune with some guitars that recall Queen is Dead era Smiths. We heard this on his tour last year but the recording cleans it up nicely. “Only stone and steel accept my love” is a classic line.
7. The Headmaster Ritual, The Smiths, Live in Rome 1985
This song is special for two reasons this year. Radiohead taped a spot-on cover of the song in their basement and put it online for their fans as a special treat. And for me personally, this was the song that kicked off the NYC marathon on my iPod. I have posted an obscure and absolutely raucous live version from Rome, 1985. If you want to know why I play Johnny Marr in a tribute band, listen to this recording.
8. Push, The Cure
Speaking of my Smiths tribute, we did a show with a Cure tribute. The Cure are a band I abandoned in my twenties. They represented all of the adolescent angst and high school insecurity that I was happy to have moved on from. Boy was it fun to return to these records with some critical distance. For me, The Head On The Door is probably their most succinct and complete artistic statement, and nothing gets me going more than the beautiful extended instrumental intro of this song.
9. Guest Room, The National
Great band from Brooklyn. Hadn’t heard them before. This track’s from their latest, Boxer.
10. Town Called Malice, The Jam
I finally took the time to check out The Jam, a big Smiths influence, and realized they did one of my favorite Tiswas dancefloor songs of old.
11. Language Without A Past Tense, Paul Damian Hogan The Third
Paul Hogan is talented composer and musician whose band Frances is bound to break out this year. I’ve included a track from a yet-to-be-released earlier project called “The Hut.” I just love everything about this track. Everything.
12. Nude, Radiohead
My Smiths tribute has also been playing some shows with a Radiohead tribute. This has been the year for me when I became probably the last rock musician on earth to officially “discover” Radiohead. I mean I’ve always known their music, but this year I really took the time to enjoy their records in depth. In Rainbows is a nice return to form and this track may contain the only vocal performance to top Bon Iver this year.
13. Semaphore, Black Swan Green
This is the final track on The Ruin Gaze… and the final track on my playlist. We called it “stairway to semaphore” in the studio… it was our grand, indulgent rock anthem, and I loved the song so much I saved much of its recording for last, as a sort of reward for getting through the record. Sad, defeated, yet somehow hopeful… I think that’s how many of us feel after 2008.