Year-ender benders: 10 4 07

First, a disclaimer: These year-end music lists are wildly overdone. That very fact is what's kept me from ever doing one of these before, and what might keep me from ever doing one again. That said, it's been a very good music year for me, all around. I've seen more shows and been introduced to more new music than ever before and I've even played a little music myself - poorly but happily - on several occasions.

Basically, if you know me, you know I'm a big music fan. I'm not a music snob; not that there's anything wrong with those folks - some of them are my very good friends, and they're among the people who've introduced me to some of the best music I've come across. (Thanks, Quentin.)

So, with that said, here's my top 10 songs of 2007. I'm posting them now because I'm on vacation this week and I fully expect December to be chaotic. My twist on the traditional list: The first five are from bands I was lucky enough to see in person this year. The second five are ones I discovered, rediscovered or was introduced to otherwise this year. Clearly, they weren't all released in 2007. And they're listed in no particular order.

Whether you're a music snob, fan or novice, I hope you find something here to enjoy. It's been fun listening to all of it this year.

1. "West"
Lucinda Williams, West
June 10, Crystal Ballroom

We went to see her on the night of my 30th birthday. I don't think she played this one, but it's one of my bittersweet favorites from her latest release nonetheless. It includes these two verses, which are a fitting description of one of the driving forces - to me, at least - behind our migration here almost a decade ago now:

Come out west and see
The best that it could be
I know you won’t stay permanently
But come out west and see

Who knows what the future holds
Or where the cards may fall
But if you don’t come out west and see
You’ll never know at all

I think often of the sentiment behind those lines. In particular, it hits me each time we drive as far west as these roads go - which we don't do nearly often enough - and watch the sun sink into the Pacific.


2. "Impossible Germany"
Wilco, Sky Blue Sky
Aug. 22, Edgefield
Previous post

This was one of the songs I most wanted to hear at what was my most anticipated concert of the year. And about an hour or so into the set - in a night full of great songs - the band delivered just as I'd hoped. My favorite lines remind me of our adventure out here, alone together, each rounding out the other:

This is what love is for
To be out of place
Gorgeous and alone
Face to face

With no larger problems
That need to be erased
Nothing more important than to know
Someone's listening
Now I know, you'll be listening

Great lyrics and my all-time favorite guitar duet, between Jeff Tweedy and Nels Cline. Or as Paste Magazine put it: "(T)he two-and-a-half minutes of vocals are merely the set-up for the three-and-a-half-minute instrumental coda that delivers the emotional impact at which Tweedy’s words have already hinted. ... Their twin melodic lines diverge and converge again and again like lovers seeking both individuality and intimacy, a combination as elusive as 'an impossible Germany, an unlikely Japan.' "

Sappy? Yeah, but it's my list. Don't like it? Make your own.


3. "Your Ex-Lover is Dead"
Stars, Set Yourself on Fire
Nov. 15, Crystal Ballroom

Clearly, sappiness is out the window here - as is any illusion I'm too terribly plugged into the music scene. Although it was released more than three years ago, I hadn't heard the song until this year, and I hadn't seen this band from Montreal until this November. (Can't find an image of the concert poster from that night, so the cover of that particular album appears instead.)

Bottom line, though, is this is a great song for those odd - and here, thankfully, impossible - occasions of running into an ex:

God, that was strange to see you again
Introduced by a friend of a friend
Smiled and said, "Yes, I think we've met before"
In that instant it started to pour,
Captured a taxi despite all the rain
We drove in silence across Pont Champlain
And all of the time you thought I was sad
I was trying to remember your name...

Really, for much of the show, the band was too precious for my liking - with an almost "Breakfast Club"-like vibe full of '80s earnestness, complete with the members hurling flowers into the crowd. So that's what made it all the more delicious when the band delivers such jaded lyrics amid such sweeping, elegant, layered and almost orchestral music. And it was all topped off by what my friend Jann calls the "live-music experience moment" when Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan turned their mics to the crowd at the song's peak and hundreds of us all chanted along, joyfully:

Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...
Live through this, and you won't look back...

For those of us lucky enough to have lived through those bad ex's and moved on to domestic bliss, those lines are all the sweeter.


4. "Road to Joy"
Bright Eyes, I'm Wide Awake It's Morning
May 2, Crystal Ballroom

I was tempted to pick "Cleanse Song" from this year's "Cassadaga," which I like very much, and which was all the trippier amid the all-white stage setup/band attire and psychedelic-like video backdrop that was running nonstop at this show.

But as I thought back through the shows I saw this year, the version of "Road to Joy" (2005) that Conor Oberst and his crew closed the May 2 show at the Crystal with was the single-best show-stopper I experienced. (Wilco's "Via Chicago" was my favorite live song of the year, but it was the second to last song they played that night.)

"Road" kicks off fast and only gets better, with Oberst coming ever-closer to losing it as he runs through versus like these:

So I'm drinkin', breathin', writin', singin'
Every day I'm on the clock
My mind races with all my longings
But can't keep up with what I got

And so I hope I don't sound too ungrateful
What history gave modern man
A telephone to talk to strangers
Machine guns and a camera lens

So when you're asked to fight a war that's over nothing
It's best to join the side thats gonna win
No one's sure how all of this got started
But we're gonna make 'em goddamn certain how it's gonna end
Oh yeah we will, oh yeah we will!

Then everyone pauses to catch their breath, some militant-like drums come in and then it leads to this:

Well I could have been a famous singer
If I had some one else's voice
But failures always sounded better
Let's fuck it up, boys; make some noise!

Then they did just that, all hell broke loose and the Crystal's floating floor was bouncing like I'd never felt it before as they ran through the song's final verse. My friend Quentin said as we were walking out that he was initially surprised to hear "Road" as a closing song, but I came away thinking it was just about the perfect rock 'n' roll finisher.


5. "Spitting Venom"
Modest Mouse, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
March 15, Crystal Ballroom

Image from stop.down @ Flickr

Another great show-stopper, but this time it's from a show I - like many others - remember entirely too little of, unfortunately. Opens with these great lines:

We were spitting venom at most everyone we know
If the damned gave us a road map then we'd know just were to go

From that oh-so-happy opening, the song builds to a near frenzy before coming to an almost complete stop about halfway through. Then the band introduces some horns, then drums, then some Johnny Marr guitar, then Isaac Brock comes back in with these decidedly more optimistic vocals:

Cheer up, baby
It always wasn't quite so bad
For every venom then that came out
The antidote was had

And then - on that night - they pushed everyone the rest of the way into that full-on frenzy before walking off the stage and leaving us all to somehow make our ways home.


6. "Just Like a Woman"
Jeff Buckley, Live at Sin-é (Legacy Edition)
Previous post

My favorite musician covers Bob Dylan. I bought this late on a Friday night in January as my qualms about the impending arrival about 30 began to set in. Was up reading about Buckley and his short 30-year life. Now, here in December, I see it has been covered by Charlotte Gainsbourg and Calexico in "I'm Not There," the new Dylan bio-pic. Out of all the versions - from the original on down - I've since heard, this is far and away my favorite.


7. "Crayon"
Caribou, Up in Flames

Sugary-sweet electronica by mathematician-turned-musician Dan Snaith of Ontario. His group has a new one out this year - "Andorra" - but this 2006 song was my introduction do the band, and it still makes me smile whenever I hear it.




8. "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi"
Radiohead, In Rainbows

My favorite band from college returns with its groundbreaking, screw-The-Man, pay-what-you-want epic album that's sure to be on many best-of lists for the ballsiness of that move alone. I loved "OK Computer" back in the late '90s, and while that one is unsurpassed in overall concept, I have to say I've been wearing this one out from Day One. Especially this track, and the one after it, "All I Need." The layers of sound, led by wave after wave after wave of guitar are almost enough to put you in a trance.




9. "Heretics"
Andrew Bird, Armchair Apocrypha

This one's been stuck in my head since the day I got it as a free download for buying tickets to a now-canceled Decemberists concert. Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else hear a little Lou Reed in Mr. Bird's voice?



And this from a guy who was once associated with the Squirrel Nut Zippers, those swing-dancing, jazz hipsters of the late '90s fame.

10. "We Winter Wrens"
Dolorean, You Can't Win

This little Portland band - recommended by my friend Quentin a few months back - is my favorite find of the year. Their music is, as I wrote a recently, something I can listen to for hours. I'm no man of great faith in any traditional sense, and while their music is full of religious overtones it's still enthralling stuff, to me, at least. Classic lo-fi alt-country. The occasional Wilco-esque sounds don't hurt, of course.

I've been listening to song after song of theirs as I've put this listing together and their selection has been the toughest choice, hands down. They're just all good for the listening. It's a album to put on, hit play and walk away. If I had to pick favorites, I'd go with "We Winter Wrens," "Beachcomber Blues," "33-53.9°N / 118-38.8°W" and the title track - the only and prettiest song I know of to have simply one line and repeat it over and over. In doing so, though, it somehow shifts from a resigned acknowledgment of defeat to a beautiful acceptance of life's unending challenges. (Again, sappy. But it's my list.) All three of their albums, though, are well worthwhile and all too overlooked.

So, for good or bad, that's my list. All of these are available from your favored sources online. Check them out. And let me know what you liked this year.