GIHYB best of 2008

album of the year
erykah badu "new amerykah part one"
if there was a weirder better album, then send it my way.

runner up:
she & him "volume one"
blushing

2nd runner:
black keys "attack and release"
"i got mine" righteous
fuck ike turner for turnin this shit down and RIP

highlights:

drive by truckers "brighter than creation's dark" album

the hold steady "sequestered in memphis" single

tv on the radio "dear science" album

beck "gamma ray" single

rem "accelerate" album
about fucking time millionaire pricks

nick cave and the bad seeds, "dig lazarus, dig" video

bob dylan "tell tale signs" box
how many great takes of "mississippi" you got? fucker

steve wynn, "crossing dragon bridge" album
i really was expecting to hate this out of the box, but this M'FER is on a 3-4 album tear that is unprecedented for a dude that "peaked" in 1981. and this one sounds NOTHING like the 2 that came before.

delta spirit "trashcan" single
you're on a VERY short leash

paul westerberg "49:00" album (download)
stay right the fuck where you are. it suits you.

here come ole flat top

for fuck's sake ...

Rock 'n' roll's most macabre historical artifact (ed. note, "ahem") will go on the block when the family of the late 1950s pop star J.P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson auctions his casket on eBay sometime in the next few weeks - almost 50 years after "the day the music died."

The Big Bopper's 16-gauge steel casket was exhumed last year from his original grave at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Beaumont so it could be moved to a more visible location with a life-sized statue and historic marker. The disinterment also offered forensic experts a chance - with his family's blessing - to examine the pop singer's unautopsied remains after his death in rock 'n' roll's first great tragedy.

On Feb. 3, 1959, Richardson died at age 28 in the crash of a small plane in a field near Clear Lake, Iowa, that also killed 1950s rock stars Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens and sent a shock wave around the world. The accident has since been immortalized as "the day the music died."

Richardson was buried a few days later in his Beaumont hometown with great fanfare, including tributes from Elvis Presley and others.

Jay Richardson, the Bopper's son, plans to sell the empty casket on eBay to raise money for a musical show about his father and to keep the Bopper's memory alive. Born three months after the crash, Jay, who lives in Katy, never met his father in life - but saw him for the first time at his exhumation.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to bring Dad back to life?" Jay, 49, said recently from Canada, where he was touring with a tribute act to his father, Holly and Valens.

"I have no personal use for the casket," he said. "When you get down to it, it is just a metal box. More important is what this particular metal box represents.

"In another 200 years, will people care about rock 'n' roll?" Jay asks. "Who knows? But why would I want to destroy it? Even though it was Dad's resting place for 48 years, it's also a unique opportunity to learn more about the early years of rock 'n' roll."

The exhumed casket is in surprisingly good condition after 48 years in the muddy gumbo of Southeast Texas. It bears minor rust spots and a white lime stain showing where several inches of water once leaked into the surrounding vault, but there was no evidence water had ever seeped into the casket itself.

Inside, forensic examiners found the Big Bopper's well-preserved corpse, dressed in a black suit and a blue-and-gray striped tie. He wore socks, but no shoes. Most remarkably, his thick brown hair was still perfectly coiffed in his familiar, 1950s flat-top.

best post-VU story

from elvis costello's (kinda) interesting new tv show (he's a good interviewer but the pacing is off). the guest lou reed brought the best story i've heard in a long while:

Lou Reed: "’Save the Last Dance for me,’ can you imagine writing something like that? Do you know the story behind that?” (Costello doesn’t) "On his wedding day (Doc) Pomus, who (wrote the song) suffered from polio, was confined to a wheelchair." According to Reed, "Pomus wrote the lyrics to the song on a wedding invitation while watching the guests dance with his new bride."

who's the coolest dude?

john doe + mats = something

these 2 posts are by no means definitive cuts, but shit, tunes by my (maybe fave band) by my (maybe) my fave singer of the last 20 years, fuckit. this is cool.

john doe + mats

eddie hazel revisited

godihateyourband "the t-shirt"

hey, we read our mail. every day, "where can i get my t-shirt, coffee mug, baby-t, spaghettti strap, onesie, coffee mug, etc???". well, faithful readers, in the eye of an economic meltdown, do your part to save this nation and visit godihateyourmerchandise.

you're welcome mr. prez-elect.

wow, doofus was a prophet

he saw thomas dolby!!!

the best post-VU record

our latest gift to the blogzaphere is our crack staff's attempt to find the best solo record made my a member of the velvets. as nico and cale left before the band ended, we start from their moment of departure.

we start with the newest member of the GIHYB crew, liveoakblues:

lou reed, berlin

Before describing why I chose "Berlin," I'll let you in on the additional criteria I gave myself for this choice. No compilations of any kind (Lou's consistently inconsistent studio albums would nevertheless provide for a Greatest Hits package I would put against anyone's, so that's cheating); nothing recorded before 1971.

"Berlin" is simply the most devastating album I have ever heard. Nothing even comes close, nothing by Pink Floyd (who always tried too hard), nothing by Elliott Smith (whose music becomes devastating in its connection to his biography). In college, I'm not kidding when I say I do not think I listened to this record once without the aid of drugs. By choice, I have not listened to it in years, and certainly not since becoming a father.

It is also a masterpiece and easily Lou's most consistent record (the quasi-concept album form helps this). The arc from euphoric romance to darkest tragedy is brutal and determined, each song more unforgiving than the last. By the time the listener gets to "They're taking...her children...away/Because they she said she was bad mutha" the day, nay, the week is ruined. When "Sad Song" rolls around it is a fait accompli and the listener is left with how to get out of the fetal position.

Some have said Lou dips into melodrama with "Berlin" but I say hell no...he earns every damn bit of the emotional power this album produces. Those who want redemption in their music need to look elsewhere. This record offers none. What it does deliver in spades is the kind of beautiful darkness that he threatened elsewhere.

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As much as I like John Cale's post-VU work, it doesn't approach Lou's. In fact, I've often wondered how much someone would truly dig any of Cale's albums upon first listening, if they did not know it was John Cale.

A very good case could be, by the way, for Mo Tucker's, "I Spent a Week There" but it's not a disc that "endures."