Dave's 2008 Music - Year in Review

so I was in a discussion about Jay Reatard and this flowed out of me, feel free to flush it as trash.........


Dave's 2008 "The Year in Music"



prologue and disclaimer after writing this: this was going to be a quick list but my fingers just kept writing. i am always insecure about writing music reviews since from my perspective i hate the people that get into " oh you don't know that band, oh you really should, ive been listening to them for years, these are my favorites from this year, you know nothing about music"- hipster jerkoff-... so then usually think of myself that way and I can't stand it and stop writing. anyway here goes...

I think i discovered a lot this year. I used to be a one trick pony of bluesy rock ie.. stones, white stripes, racs, MMJ, black keys, etc but now I'm open to quieter more reflective stuff, noise, electronic, indy dance, you name it. In 2008 I finally "got" Velvet Underground one night for example. I finally really "got" Grateful Dead. I discovered Pavement. Really got into Tom Waits. Got high with Eryn and now know some sick DJs. etc etc ...worlds opening up.

I truly believe each year gets better as more genres mix.....more and more people our age and younger are getting into music with more passion than ever. 10 yr olds now know entire collections of beatles, dylan, stones, zepp, sabbath. Shit I saw a little 9 r old girl at a Wilco show this summer, and this girl knew EVERY word to EVERY song. That shit blows my mind. The thirst of the hipster, jam, jazz, blues, rock, punk, you name it..every population has a hunger for new sounds and new music is bigger than ever as well. It's becoming extremely difficult to keep up with all the good stuff out there(20 music mags must have sprung up this year)...let alone the "great" stuff. You have to filter through the "great" stuff as well, since the music industry machine is still trying to feed us garbage.

having said that, this is the stuff that bubbled up for me this year and I can't stop listening to and probably never will.... (aside from the typical Racs, KOL, DEAD!, Radiohead,etc.)

My thought was these are the albums that I could get stoned with a handful of friends like you guys and listen to on NYE and I'd enjoy every minute of it.

And another thing is that I'm confident I did not have the time to figure out what the 100 albums that came out this year that were most likely better than all of these anyway. So this is my favorites from 2008 out of the 5% of fun music that I was able to get into.


Yeasayer - all hour cymbals (2007)
Akron/Family -
Bon Iver - for emma
Bob Dylan - bootleg 8 ( all of his "throwaway" songs over the last decade, blow away most anything else i listen to)
Iron and Wine - shepherds dog (2007)
Wilco - sky blue sky (2007)
Black Angels - directions to see a ghost
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
LCD Soundsystem - Sounds if Silence
Wolf Parade
Blitzen Trapper (of course)

the weird and annoying to some but can't stop it:
Holy f&ck (highlight of monolith fest)
Ghostland Observatory
Panda Bear & Animal Collective



I can truly say I'm ecstatic with 2009. Already have tix to Andrew Bird, Devotchka, Blitzen and a few Dark Star shows coming. Dead touring! so many tours.... New albums from Wilco , Pearl Jam, Andrew Bird, Animal Collective, Decemberists, Dave Matthews,

Just too much to even list and I'm sure once we get into a few new bands the tours will follow shortly.

2009 will rule and music will be a top contributor to breaking me financially

Jambase rant on what the best jamband area in the country....

rowdyroddy

Posted: 1/7/2009 08:17PM

Been to all cities and LOVE the NY scene. very different from the CO scene though, might even say Brooklyn and around are ahead and pushing varying musical limits more than us here in Denver/Boulder. However, the jam scene pushes limits here and thrives with fans. New amazing dead bands are all over the place (denverdead.com, is there an active nydead or asheville or bostondead.com?) We have the equivalent of 5 Orange Peels all withing a mile of eachother, each with their own heady twist. ( I lived in NC too and respect the Asheville scene, its just bigger here, more heads.). Sanchos is a lynchpin of Dead memoribilia and a complete history of Dead, Phish, WP, MMJ, you name it occupy the jukebox. a must see if you are ever in Denver... http://www.cervantesmasterpiece.com/Shared/Images/schedule.jpg I am overwhelmed and cannot afford the music scene here, as I miss 3-4 concerts a week ( and I go to 1-2 shows per week).....like I said, its just overwhelming the amount of all music here within a few square miles. Boulder gets it all too for a college town, music is a priority there). Anyway, let's forget opinions here, we have the tools here to make a case. Do the jambase analysis and compare the amount of music for January 2009 in the search box, for your city. Compare vs Colorado. I was going to post the entire Denver/Boulder area list but its like 500 bands long... January highlights including Shakedown Street, Reel Big Fish, Harmonius Junk, Rocky Mountain Grateful Dead revue, Wailers 2 nights, George Clinton, The Radiators, --- that was just the next 3 days ---,Tapes and Tapes, Femi Kuti,Umphreys 2 nights, Garaj Majal, STS9 2 nights, Tim Reynolds 2 nights, North Mississippi All Stars, Rev Horton Heat, Moe 2 nights. Tried to leave out nonjam bands,and again, thats just January. This place will break any music budget. (sorry if this post was smug and too long, colorado is just like nothing ive experienced and it gets me excited, and tonight is rare off night for music)

Yelp being sued over negative review and other Yelp comments

So I've become a yelper......even though my hatred of facebook and myspace make me cringe at the thought of becoming part of a social site, I do enjoy Yelp Denver. Dammit.

some recent posts

Elite '09

16

40

5 minutes ago Dave W. says:

We have to attempt be objective here. Family owned restaurants pouring their heart and soul into a restaurant for years. Then a hipster scene-ster foodie decides to trash them since its not their cup of tea nor in their "cool" neighborhood. You have to admit there are some undeserving harsh reviews out there.

You could come back and say, a business provide really good product and service at a great price and the other reviews will outweigh the negative. I'm not certain that's true though, one bad amateur review for a small place in a suburb could mean disaster for a tiny business.

Since business owners can't protect themselves here, what controls are there from someone like me writing lengthy bad reviews on everything that isn't cool, in my opinion? There are some yelpers that have more negative than positive reviews, which I believe it a problem. Maybe its confrontation avoidance on my part....but I sincerely don't believe bad yelp reviews are going to incent businesses to actively change their practices.

This site trashes every cheesy lodo establishment (I'm guilt of doing it as well) but they do serve a purpose and there are some hard working people down there doing their best to make a living.

Luckily we have some pretty chill reviewers and Elite here in Denver and I think we all try to give objective reviews. That's the tone TIffany has set. What about the other cities that don't have TIffany C to set an example?

I guess these are growing pains due to exponential growth of this site, which hopefully Yelp HQ has a master plan for. It would be cool to see a quarterly statement or something from these guys, addressing key concerns. If we are "Elite" and get to promote this site, how can they make us feel like we are part ot things and our voices are heard?

Elite '09

16

40

11/11/2008 Dave W. says:

agreed Colfax is a mess but you can go north up to 23-26th don't you think? Plenty of friends that live around city park and uptown that have never had issues.....anyway, City Park West along with Bluebird District over to Park Hill is cool and safe I think. Affordable duplexes and houses abound. just don't rule it out....

surprising that the "What is the best neighborhood in Denver?" conversation is so different than this one. That went back and forth between S. Broadway and Bluebird district. What about around Cheeseman too? Heaven for singles, plenty of houses with less crowded streets than Cap Hill....for $1300 you could get a decent house, unique duplex or large condo on craigslist....I'm jealous now....

Overdue

Ok due to random posting all over my message boards, I decided to reel them back into this blog. Since May 11, 2007 I successfully moved to Denver, met a girl, got engaged and am currently planning bachelor activities and a wedding Feb 13, 2010. More details to come...

Summer Weekends

The big one is July 27-30 in Myrtle Beach. Get fired up for chrissake. Currently we have 1 White Stripes ticket left. HOB in Myrtle is a small General Admission venue that will kill.

New White Stripes June 18
http://cache.idolator.com/assets/res.../mp3/thump.mp3

El Topo

Blog is back on. Play with it, call me a douchebag, see if you can post pictures, etc. I have started to use imageshack for easy posting of pics.

The Red Room

This blog has been created as a bastion to hold ideas, conversations and general cool shit. The Red Room was a real place yet symbolic in nature.