it's about me, and my thoughts, and shit

i had a really hard time coming up with a top 10 this year.  it seems like every year it gets harder and harder.  i don’t know if that’s because i find more and more good music or because my tastes are becoming more honed/refined as i get older.  or maybe i should say they’re getting more narrow, so i listen to more stuff that sounds a lot alike and therefore is harder to organize into a good top 10.

with that said, here’s my list for 2009. (previous year’s top 10s here)

1. snail – blood

2. baroness- blue record

3. every time i die – new junk aesthetic

4. kowloon walled city – gambling on the richter scale

5. doomriders – darkness comes alive

6. poison the well – the tropic rot

7. them crooked vultures – them crooked vultures

8. mastodon – crack the skye

9. moby – wait for me

10. lo pan – sasquanaut

and then the honorable mentions (in alphabetical order):

cave in – planets of old
converge – axe to fall
danger mouse & sparklehorse – dark night of the soul
devil to pay – heavily ever after
del the funky homosapien – funk man (the stimulus package)
dredg – the pariah, the parrot, the delusion
if these trees could talk – above the earth, below the sky
isis – wavering radiant
jesu – infinity
julian casablancas – phrazes for the young
keelhaul – keelhaul’s triumphant return to obscurity
mellowdrone – angry bear
porcupine tree – the incident
russian circles – geneva
vitalic – flashmob
zombi – spirit animal

last night K and i went to see leonard cohen at the palace theater downtown.  let me just come out and say it was one of the best performances i’ve ever seen.  it probably tops the them crooked vultures show i saw earlier this month.  it might not have been as energetic, but the musicianship and songwriting of leonard and his band are pretty hard to match.

leonard himself is getting pretty old (75 according to wikipedia) but he’s still got the voice.  for anyone that is unfamiliar with him, he has a very raspy, soulful kind of voice.  he sings a lot of ballad type songs, but also has some more “risque” themes to some of his songs.  he also has some really great poetry if you are in to that kind of thing.  the set itself was almost 3 hours long, which was very impressive.  of course he has a huge collection of songs to choose from, but i did not expect 3 hours worth of music.

with a legendary singer/songwriter like cohen at the helm, you’d expect him to have a great backing band, and that was most definitely the case.  everyone in the band was a very solid performer, but the backup singers (a couple girls called the webb sisters and sharon robinson) and the guy who played 12 string guitar and some other crazy stringed instrumetns (javier mas) impressed me the most.

it’s not everyday that you get to see a world renowned poet, singer, and songwriter all in one night.  i also suspect this will be his final tour so it was great to get to see him.  i just really wish i could write out an adequate review of this show.  all i can say really is that it was amazing and isn’t something i’ll forget for a long, long time.