Henry was a good blogger, and a good man. He was one of us.
He was a man who loved music, and biking, and as a blogger he explored the streets of Pittsburgh from the New Hazlett Theatre to Thunderbird Cafe, and on up to Brillobox. But he quit--he quit, like so many of his generation, before his time. In your wisdom you took him, oh Internet, as you took so many bright, flowering young men. These young men gave their wireless hours. And Henry, too. Henry who loved blogging (for a little while anyway).
And so, Henry Kerabatsos Kleber, we now commit your archives to the bosom of the World Wide Web.
Others have done a much better job than SITKOT of covering the Pittsburgh scene of late, so, that thou canst never once reflect, let's turn it over to them for the day:
-YEP notes that a track from their best local release of 2009--MOIP's self-titled debut*--will be featured on the new Real World tonight. (Also, tune in Thursday at 10 a.m. for Cindy's Local Year in Review show.)
- And finally, Speed of the Pittsburgh Sound has promised (but not yet delivered) a Top 20 Steel City Tracks of 2009. Keep an eye out. Hopefully this will give him the kick in the pen he needs to get that one together.
See you next year.
* I'm way late to the party, but have been really digging this album this week. Also, you might note that they're performing with GNS tomorrow at First Night.
Not much is going on this week, and I’m still feeling fat and lazy with a happy holiday behind me and another on the horizon. So why not mine the sphere for some re-bloggable content?
Tomorrow I’ll go local on yo' ass. Today, I rake through the muck of Hipster Runoff.
If you can get past his obsession with tweeny textspeak and stomach his self-aware misogynist/ racist/ classist/ pseudosatirist tone, you will occasionally be offered a gem of modern music and/or indie culture criticism ‘via’ Carles (pictured above). His end-of-decade post, fittingly titled “The Most Authentic/ Relevant/ Successful Artists of the Decade (The Best Albums/ MP3s/ Songs/ Artists/ Bands/ Humans of the Decade)” is HRO’s opus of sorts, and is very likely to crash your browser in all its bloating glory. Dare risk that click, however, some stimulating statements on the decade in music are waiting to be found among the fluff. And at the end of it all: a surprisingly reasonable (if tongue-in-cheek) defense of John Mayer as artist of the decade.
Anyhow, from that post I've mined a few thoughts (or perhaps 'feelings'?) which seemed to resonate, or at least to provoke...
Re: Fleet Foxes: "I feel like ‘indie rock’ would have been totally different if these bros had released their hit album in 2k3.5ish. Instead of so many bands trying to sound like the Arcade Fire, more bros would have grown beards and written soothing forest tunes."
Re: Grizzly Bear: "I feel like Grizzly Bear is the Most Authentic Band of the second half of the decade. Somehow, their latest album ‘charted’ at #6 on the mainstream charts. That seems pretty successful. I feel like the thing most music critics hold against Grizzly Bear is ‘not being from the first half of the decade.’"
Re: Girl Talk: "Wonder how this bro built such a solid brand for doing what the majority of all DJs do. I guess it was because he talked about ‘digital rights’ and other ‘issues’ like that. Then he had an absurd live brand that invited alternative people who just started to illegally drink on stage, which was something the world probably needed."
Re: The Shins: "'New Slang' seems very earnest, like I might cry while listening to it if it didn’t directly remind me of Garden State."
Re: Dirty Projectors: "I think bands like DP are indicative of new markets of ‘people who have listened to way too much music’ in their lifetimes. They need something that sounds s0 different that it potentially blows, but it is also possibly ‘genius.’ I sort of wish I could Teach for America, and play this in a class full of inner city minority kids, and then experience them making fun of me for listening to it. I would have had the intention of ‘making them more cultured’, but then they would give me a swift reality check, letting me know that maybe I should assimilate to their culture, and stop living in my pseudo-relevant indie dream world."
Re: Nickelback: "Understanding the power of Nickelback means understanding the power of Wal Mart Rock. No matter how ‘authentic’ you think your taste in music is, you always need to remember that you are in the minority. There are tons of poor people in rural+middle America who still buy CDs."
Re: Deathcab for Cutie: "Deathcab seems to have followed a predictable career path. They were probably better in the middle of the decade, but as they ‘got more popular’ the appeal+quality of their music continued to go down the shitter. Really want to build a time machine and listen to meaningfulcore indie before the world got all jaded/snarky/meaningless."
Re: Rob Thomas: "Worried that this bro will be around for 30+ years, generating similar songs over and over again."
Re: The Killers and K.O.L.: "I feel like the Killers and the Kings of Leon are possibly the decade’s most ’successful bands.’ Somehow, they have both transitioned into festival headliner-status bands. This must mean that their music is ‘good’/they appeal to a lot of ppl. Both bands are not afraid to write ‘massive/epic ballads’ that are meant to fill arenas/festivals. Feel like I possibly respect this existence/career path as a band more than the ‘trying 2 stay authentic’ indie band."
Re: Justin Timberlake: "The World needed Justin Timberlake to be successful. We needed him to help us forget about the boy band era. He stands for something more than his own personal evolution."
Re: Radiohead: "I don’t really feel comfortable with letting them be considered the #1 band of the decade. It seems like they sorta lucked out because their major label contract dissolved/ended, and they were able to let people ‘pay what they want’ [via the internet]. I think most music critic bros are close to the age of 30, and probably have a warped perception of Radiohead, since it was probably their ‘experimenting with drugs’ music from 1995-2005."
I expected to have a lot of trouble ranking these, and in the end I did struggle to sort through the top half of this list. Once I picked a favorite, though, the rest fell into place surprisingly easily. What it came down to is that I regularly listen to music in a few different settings: through headphones on the bus and walking around town, through somewhat crummy speakers in the car, and through a solid system at home. I’ve started to realize recently that while some albums may really strike me as amazing at times, few hold up across all moods and scenes. And over the course of the year, there was one album that never seemed to miss the moment.
1. The xx - xx
Is this minimalistic self-titled debut defensible as my #1 album of the year? I think so. I’ve probably enjoyed it more than any other across the board. Driving on a rainy night; driving on a sunny day; strolling down Strawberry Way in the snow; laying in bed; even sitting on the floor playing Super Mario Bros. 3, this album always strikes me as perfect. I keep my player in random/shuffle mode much of the time, and xx is the one album on this list whose songs I can’t recall ever skipping when one pops up. And so, though I’ve probably listened more this year to Farm, Hold Time and MPP, xx stands out as my go-to favorite.
2. Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
It’s not groundbreaking exactly, but its one-of-a-kind in a familiar way. Updated Beach Boys nostalgia and refined electronic dronings work perfectly to keep this one on repeat in my head every time I turn it off.
3. Dinosaur Jr. - Farm
Nothing new or surprising here, and that’s just fine. Mascis in particular is at his best in 15 years or more.
4. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
Probably the most unexpected success of the year in my mind. The contrast between songs like “Stillness is the Move” and “Two Doves” is startlingly beautiful and, with only 9 tracks, the execution is superb all the way through.
5. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz
I have to admit to disappointment when I first heard “Zero” and didn’t get the fill of Nick Zinner’s raw distortion I had hoped for, and when I heard the rest of the album it took me a few listens to get over that. Eventually, though, Karen O’s convincing melodies managed to slide this album into my top 5 for the year.
If you missed the Wiyos last month, do yourself a favor and make it out for the Hot Seats tomorrow at Calliope's new venue in the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (corner or Fifth and Shady).
The beers are cheap (relatively anyway - $3), and the Hot Seats are a ragtimey, bluegrassy good time (also rumored to be very funny).
With all of the lists floating around lately, most of which are marked by a prevalence of indie artists, it's interesting to see what actually sells out there in the marketplace. So, here are a few empirical rankings to ponder:
Billboard Top Ten Singles of 2000:
1. Faith Hill – “Breathe” 2. Santana (Featuring Rob Thomas) – “Smooth" 3. Santana (Featuring The Product G&B) – “Maria Maria” 4. Joe – “I Wanna Know” 5. Vertical Horizon – “Everything You Want” 6. Destiny's Child – “Say My Name” 7. Savage Garden – “I Knew I Loved You” 8. Lonestar – “Amazed” 9. Matchbox Twenty – “Bent” 10. Toni Braxton – "He Wasn’t Man Enough”
Bestselling Albums of the Decade:
1. The Beatles - 1 2. NSYNC - No Strings Attached 3. Norah Jones - Come Away With Me 4. Eminem - The Marshall Mathers LP 5. Eminem - The Eminem Show 6. Usher - Confessions 7. Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory 8. Creed - Human Clay 9. Britney Spears - Oops! ... I Did It Again 10. Nelly - Country Grammar
Bestselling Digital Singles of the Decade:
1. Flo Rida feat. T-Pain - "Low" 2. Lady Gaga feat. Colby O'Donis - "Just Dance" 3. Jason Mraz - "I'm Yours" 4. Timbaland feat. OneRepublic - "Apologize" 5. The Black Eyed Peas - "Boom Boom Pow" 6. Soulja Boy Tell'em - "Crank That" 7. Lady Gaga - "Poker Face" 8. Coldplay - "Viva la Vida" 9. Taylor Swift - "Love Story" 10. Katy Perry - "Hot N Cold"
Bestselling Singles (Digital and Physical) of the Decade:
1. Shakira (featuring Wyclef Jean) - "Hips Don't Lie" 2. Beyonce (featuring Jay-Z) - "Crazy In Love" 3. Black Eyed Peas - "My Humps" 4. Britney Spears - "Toxic" 5. Britney Spears - "Womanizer" 6. Britney Spears - "Oops!... I Did It Again" 7. Eminem - "Stan" 8. Flo Rida - "Low" 9. Green Day - "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" 10. Katy Perry - "I Kissed A Girl"
iTunes Top Downloads of 2009:
1. Black Eyed Peas - "Boom Boom Pow" 2. Flo Rida - "Right Round" 3. Lady Gaga - "Poker Face" 4. Black Eyed Peas - "I Gotta Feeling" 5. All-American Rejects - "Gives You Hell" 6. Lady Gaga featuring Colby O'Donis - "Just Dance" 7. Miley Cyrus - "Party in the USA" 8. Miley Cyrus - "The Climb" 9. T.I. featuring Justin Timberlake - "Dead and Gone" 10. Kings of Leon - "Use Somebody"
Umm... not sure I'm quite ready to forever make my "best of '09" of record yet. Tough stuff. Still shiffling a few around. In the end, it's obviously more of a "my favorites of '09" because, honestly, who am I to offer up anything more. A guy with a blog. That's who.
Woke up this morning thinking about laying it down, but then I couldn't get "Pigs in Zen" and "Santa Clause is Coming to Town" (the Springsteen rendition, which is possibly my least favorite) out of my head, so I figured I'll wait until I'm thinking a bit more clearly. And anyway, I've been listening to a lot of stuff lately that isn't exactly fresh, so let's deal with that first.
Top 5 Albums I Discovered in 2009 That Weren't Released in 2009:
An honorable mention only because it's a very recent release (late 2008) that was re-released in 2009, so it's sort of a tweener. In any event, this is unquestionably one of the best albums to find its way into my rotation all year (as you may have noticed, it's been in there for a while now). The Low Anthem craft amazing songs with a sound that might roughly blend two parts Tom Waits and one part Art Garfunkel. Thanks to JP for the intro to these guys.
Full disclosure: I don't actually own this album. But Henry does (you might remember him from the early days of this blog), and I have several shows in my iTunes courtesy of the Live Music Archive. After seeing these guys play the Arts Fest this summer, they briefly revitalized my penchant for instrumental jambandish tunes, though they certainly deserve more credit than to be categorized as such. As evidence, even after that taste dwindled again, their songs remain in my playlists.
I never got into Smog until he released Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle this year under his real name, Bill Callahan. While that record didn't blow me away from the start, it definitely prompted me to explore his back-catalog (which is deep and dense), and this record in particular struck me after its songs began to pop up when I would go into shuffle mode. Something like a less energetic, more organic Silver Jews, The Doctor Came at Dawn offers haunting acoustics and pensive lyrics. "All Your Women Things" is so basic in sound and structure that I'm amazed it manages to get stuck in my head, but glad it gives me a chance to ponder that one even after powering off.
This one started to get some buzz this summer. I learned of it through eMusic (which I think does a great job of recommending music based on past downloads) and bought it on a whim. Something like gypsy-jazz-folk-rock, the Mediterranean vibes pour through the speakers like sangria as this record starts out. As it plays on, it mellows the soul and makes me long to be walking through the hills above Malaga.
I may have discovered this record in 2008, but if so it was close to the end of the year. Flamenco-rock is as good a tag as you could slap on it, but the music is a bit deeper than that would suggest. With roots in traditional forms, their innovative melodies and techniques modernize a centuries-old style of guitar music. And their cover of "Stairway" is the best out there, hands-down.
Given that he's been making records for nearly forty years and just played Pittsburgh last year courtesy of Calliope, I have no idea how I never heard of this guy. It took a PBS rebroadcast of the 2008 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival and a clip immediately following Guy Clark's performance, but after seeing him play the title track from this 2006 album, I downloaded a ton of his stuff and declared myself a huge fan. His take on Peter Case's "Cold Trail Blues" is spare and perfect, and the rest of the record is pretty awesome too.
I don’t have the aural chops to rank my top 10 (read: “I’m lazy”). Therefore, 2-10 of my 2009 bestys are in no particular order. I was, however, capable of determining that Washed Out’s Life of Leisure was my favorite album of ‘09.
For the past several years I have been fixated on metal in its myriad forms. It took the “glo/fi” (or whatever it’s called these days) music movement to pull me from the mire that is modern-day metal, in particular Washed Out. It has been a long time since an album has imprinted in my ears in such way that it marked an era of my life -- like maybe since STP’s Core in summer of ’92 when I was 15 years old and secretly tortured by an inability to communicate to girls how I felt about them. Now I think I will always remember the summer of 2009 by the cooing feel of Life of Leisure. Though I think the glo/fi trend has a shelf life of like another year, Life of Leasure will long resonate with me as a time capsule.
2. Girls- Album 3. Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion 4. Converge- Axe to Fall 5. Baroness- Blue Album 6. Bibio- Ambivalence Avenue
7. Memory Tapes- Seek Magic
8. Isis- Wavering Radiant 9. Dan Deacon- Bromst 10. The Very Best- Esau Mwamwaya and Radioclit are the Very Best
Ok, so there are like three weeks left until the end of the year, and something great might come out in those three short weeks, but I'm not gonna sweat it. I also like to get a jump up on the competition, so before anyone can say, "you just copied [insert random blog or music site]'s list", I wanted to clear the air with my Best Albums of 2009 list. I have ranked, what I consider to be, the 20 finest albums released during the 2009 calendar year, along with the top 5 eps. Each album is ranked with the first being the best. There are also a few honorable mentions that didn't quite make the top 20, but were close, so I need to give them their props.
Top 20 Albums of 2009:
1. Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
To me, this album stands out as being far and away better than the rest this year. Now, don't get me wrong, I loves me some Animal Collective, and Merriweather Post Pavilion has some incredible tracks (and will no doubt top many a list this year); but as an album, nothing works better than Bitte Orca. The technical proficiency of the instrumentation is extraordinary and the harmonies are just absurd. I'll go out on a limb and say that this is going to fall into the realm of classic. It just works on every level and when I first listened to it, I felt like I was hearing something completely new and mind-bending. This was the feeling that I had when I listened to albums like The Soft Bulletin, Kid A and Doolittle for the first time and those have all fared pretty well in retrospect. Sometimes albums grow on you after awhile and then become your favorite, and sometimes an album is so damn awesome it just hits you in the mouth and blows your mind the first time you hear it. The former is a good album, the latter is the best of the year. Bitte Orca has quite a left hook.
7. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Self-Titled 8. The xx - Self-Titled 9. A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head
10. Sunset Rubdown - Dragonslayer 11. Cymbals Eat Guitars - Why There Are Mountains 12. Neon Indian - Psychic Chasms 13. The Big Pink - A Brief History of Love 14. Washed Out - Life of Leisure 15. Memory Tapes - Seek Magic 16. Alec Ounsworth - Mo Beauty 17. The Antlers - Hospice 18. Dan Deacon - Bromst 19. Built to Spill - There is No Enemy 20. Andrew Bird - Noble Beast
Honorable Mentions: Jay Reatard - Watch Me Fall; Heartless Bastards - The Mountain; M. Ward - Hold Time; Morrissey - Years of Refusal; Donora - Self-Titled.
Top 5 EPs of 2009:
1. Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind 2. Bon Iver - Blood Bank 3. No Age - Losing Feeling 4. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart - Higher Than The Stars 5. Deerhunter - Rainwater Cassette Exchange
Honorable Mention: Death Cab for Cutie - The Open Door
If you strongly disagree with any of my choices, I would love to hear it. Also, if there are any glaring omissions, drop me a line.
Kristin, can I just say something for a minute? Why did you have to grow up to be such a bitch? You totally carried Laguna Beach for two seasons with your mildly innocent scheming and comparatively unspoiled persona. Your drama was real(ish) and your heart was true.
Then came college. Remember when Stephen moved to San Fran and you guys would get together sometimes for those awkward, staged reunions? Those were the days. I had high hopes for you—both of you! Stephen even left SoCal. You two were really going to study some stuff and be somebodies.
I bailed on Season 3 (Tessa? Please.), and never could stomach The Hills. And then, like a dove, you returned this year, living in an impossibly awesome waterfront pad in the ‘Bu. Even so, I suppressed my envy and tuned in for you to bring a nostalgic smile to my face ever so occasionally this season. But it just isn’t the same.
First off, it appears you and young Stephen are now both struggling actors. Why, Kristin? Who am I supposed to look up to anymore? Heidi? God save us.
Then there was the matter of your newfound 'tude. I looked past it, hoping for the best, but all for not.
Even despite my disillusionment which saw this season through, I was so amped when that camera panned to those perfectly arranged blue lounges (the only ones on the whole beach) last night and we saw a shaggy brown-haired dude kicked back in one. Could it be...?
But no. It was Audrina’s dbag ex, who we both know will never make you as happy as Stephen did, no matter whether he dresses up as bro or biker. That damned Justin is the icing on my discontent.
One final thought: sooo glad LC’s gone. (H8ed her.)
Setting aside the Hines-Ben controversy or rumors about Batch shooting hoops, or anything about music for that matter, I was rather amused by this bit from the Onion this morning.
Henry was a good blogger, and a good man. He was one of us.
