2009, Year in Review: Guest(s) Edition
BEST OF THE REST:
Parade of Flesh actually has friends, so a few of the chosen summed up their 2009:
MARK CHURCH (of Good Records): 2009 marked a return to creative endeavors for myself,both as part of the group “The Watchers”(w/Mike Chamy,Mike Maxwell,and assorted others)and as a solo performer under the name “Welby”. Both projects have afforded me a great outlet for the ideas I have about sound as art. I continue to work at a job I enjoy (most of the time) and despite the economic woes of the year the business has continued to prosper.
As far as music for the year,I don’t get out to shows as much as I would like because of my work schedule,but I did see some great shows over the year,”My Bloody Valentine” and “The Butthole Surfers” being two highlights,along with seeing quite a few good performances at Wasted Words in Arlington by lesser known local and national acts. Among the high points here I would say “Church of the Apocalypse”,”Poison Apple”,”Collossi”,and “A Smile Full of Ale” stick out.
The “Zanzibar Snails” instore at Good Records was a good night of entertainment.My birthday show which marked the first performance of “The Watchers” was also a highlight.We are doing the second annual in January which promises to be even bigger and better. I would have to say my favorite performance I participated in was at the Improv Lottery which had 4 randomly selected groups performing improv sets at the Phoenix Project,and I was lucky enough to be in a group with Aaron Gonzales,Kenny Withrow,and Stephen Lucas for a creepy electronic ambient sounding performance.
As far as releases for this year,there is not a lot of new stuff coming out that really grabs me(I know,I sound like a jaded old guy)and I found reissues to more often than not get my listening time. As for the new stuff,Nurse With Wound had a couple good releases this year, Prurient and Kevin Drumm collaborated on the terrific “All Guests In The House Of The Lord”,and the new Flaming Lips”Embryonic”
while not my favorite of the year,was a nice return to the noisier side doing away with the sickly sweet orchestration and such of the last few releases.Local release “Age of Disinformation” really caught my ear. Reissues such as Cluster and Eno 76 “Tracks and Traces”,the excellent collection on Soul Jazz Records “Can You Dig It”, and Steven Stapleton/Tony Wakefords “Revenge of the Selfish Shellfish” which comes with a second disc of remixes and unreleased tracks are great.One of my favorites also was the King Crimson “In The Court of the Crimson King” 2 disc reissue which has a slew of bonus material as well as two mixes of the album.
Throbbing Gristle also had a release of sorts with its own version of the Buddha Machine called the “Gristleism”,a sound box with loops from familiar songs and newly created sounds that has a pitch control and some really spooky sounding output,a fun little toy indeed. I have to add the thing I probably disliked most about 2009 and that would have to be the seemingly endless summer….too hot for too long.But I guess if the summer heat is one of my biggest complaints of the year it must have been a pretty good year after all.
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George Dishner (of When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth/Expensive Shit):
best thing for me: buying a house
best thing for dinos: westcoast tour 09. smoking a joint onstage in san fran and holing up in butte montana and just wanting to chill for the rest of my life
records in no order:
dub - discovered the genius of scientist and king tubby. jah be wit us all
shit and shine - 229-2299 girls against shit - drum noise jams blown out beyond recognition.
tim hecker - an imaginary country - so so pretty
jim o’rourke - the visitor -
mayyors - deads ep -
pissed jeans - king of jeans -
black dice - repo -
the jesus lizard reissues
emeralds / marc mcguire - various lps and tapes especially allegory of allergies
magic lantern / sun araw - various shit
flipper reissues
anything drunkdriver put out this year
expensive shit - powwow with chopper - LOL OMG
fleetwood mac - tusk
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Sean French (of Theater Fire/Eyes,Wings & many Other Things/Water Falls):
- The Theater Fire went on our 2nd (and best received) West Coast Tour.
- We (eyes, wings and many other things) finally got eyeswings.com up
and running, and have continued to update it regularly (2 albums in 2009
alone).
- Water Falls completed our 1st LP, for Mis Ojos Discos.
Top Albums of 2009 (in no particular order):
Kreng - L’Autopsie Phenomenale De Dieu
Sunn O))) - Monoliths and Dimensions
Black to Comm - Alphabet 1968
Saviours - Accelerated Living
Zelienople - Give It Up
Baroness - Blue Album
Skeleton Witch - Breath The Fire
Pocahaunted - Gold Miner’s Daughters
Sun Araw - Heavy Deeds
Magic Lantern (split with Hop Frog Kollectiv)- Somba/Underwater Dynasty
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And introducing… a new staff writer for POF, Nick Rallo:
Here’s my glorious (or inglorious) top ten, in some sort of semblance of an order:
The Antlers, Hospice (French Kiss)
Neko Case, Middle Cyclone (Anti)
Cotton Jones, Paranoid Cocoon (Suicide Squeeze)
Low Anthem, Oh My God Charlie Darwin (Nonesuch)
Tune-Yards, Bird Brains (Marriage/4AD)
J. Tillman, Year in the Kingdom (Western)
Castanets, Texas Rose, The Thaw & the Beats (Asthmatic Kitty)
Cass McCombs, Catacombs (Domino)
Brazos, Phosphorescent Blues (unsigned)
Neon Indian, Psychic Chasms (Lefse)
