Filmed on New Year’s Eve at Maxwell’s in Hoboken.

Photos by Kiesha Jenkins-Duffy.

Screaming Females

It’s March Into Softness 2011, our free SXSW day party, slated for Friday, March 18 at the Mohawk. Here’s the lineup, designed for maximum aural satisfaction and assembled with great care with our co-presenters, Canvas Media and Flowerbooking:

OUTSIDE
Baths (5 p.m.)
Sharon Van Etten (4 p.m.)
Wye Oak (3 p.m.)
Ted Leo (solo) (2 p.m.)
Gentlemen Jesse And His Men (1 p.m.)
Small Sins (12 p.m.)

INSIDE
Low (5:15 p.m.)
Chikita Violenta (4:15 p.m.)
Maritime (3:15 p.m.)
An Horse (2:15 p.m.)
Tristen (1:15 p.m.)
No Joy (12:15 p.m.)

Plentiful (and hopefully free) libations and other party favors will be on hand as well; keep watching for updates on those, as well as the RSVP address which will allow you to gobble them all up. March Into Softness 2011: It’s free, it’s fun, and, more than likely, it won’t involve anyone getting smashed in the face with a can of Pepsi Max.

(thx Tom)

The biggest complaint I get about the site from people is that the music coverage is all over the place, in more ways than one. One week there’s nothing but Wilco or Times New Viking, the next week it’s all about hip hop. But while this is something some people find distracting, personally I love it. I love being surprised as to what the writers have posted on the site as much as you do. Sure, maybe we could spell check more or when we embed photos more than 1500 pixels wide for no good reason it calls for a heavy load time, but that’s just how we roll. As a famous man once told me, “My typos are a lifestyle choice.”

So after getting a few submissions from the staff, I realized that there was no good way to put all the lists together into one cohesive thing. Seriously, how do you compare Kriegshog to Kanye West? We’re still going to keep them separated because quite frankly each writer comes from such a unique perspective I can’t rank them in any way. So this is the beginning of the list parade. Hope you discover something new, or are maybe reminded about a record you meant to check out but forgot about.

So that brings us to my list, I guess. I typically keep a running list once it gets closer to the end of the year of what I really loved, and then I go to my iTunes and Last.fm libraries to see what I listened to the most…. to see, what the fuck did I even listen to this year in general? I’m getting old.

If I was being honest to myself and to you, the stuff I listened to the most this year was not music but comedy podcasts. WTF with Marc Maron twice a week, Comedy Death Ray, Ricky Gervais, etc etc. And as for live shows, I’ve seen Eugene Mirman perform more times than any other band this year… It helps that he does a somewhat weekly show in my neighborhood, but you see where I’m going with this. Maybe I should be writing for The Laugh Button.

But, music! I still love music. This blog is turning eight years old in a few weeks, I must still love music… Right?????????? Am I writing this list to talk myself into the fact that I still love music? I don’t know. No, I do love music. CANT WAIT TO SEE THE DECEMBERISTS ON MY BIRTHDAY NEXT MONTH… But seriously, I have slowed down a bit on musical discovery and have circled the wagons on albums that I really love… The idea of retaining lyrics, song titles and even melody is a novelty post-MP3 but I would love to start remembering the names of songs without having to use the Shazam iPhone App. The hard drive in my brain is getting full, and I need to make some decisions on how I approach music. If you try hard, you CAN listen to albums during your day to day that haven’t officially been released yet. (That sentence would have confused a lot more people even just three years ago).

2010 was a goddamned great year for music. Here’s my list.

#10 Grinderman, Grinderman 2
Watch: Worm Tamer

If I were 10% of the man that Nick Cave is, I would be a total badass. Right now I’m at about 0.0004 Cave, but I keep hoping that I can pull it off one day.

#9 Sharon Van Etten, Epic
MP3: Love More

This album lives up to its one word title. Simple, raw, and powerful, the record may only be 7 songs but you will hit replay till it bleeds.

#8 Phantods, Creature
Watch: Creature

With their latest album, Phantods have finally found the perfect balance of pop, heavy, and all around David Lynch spookie. This should replace most music on modern rock radio pronto.

#7 Best Coast, Crazy for You
MP3: Boyfriend

This record makes me nostalgic for my 13 months I lived in California. And the cat is cute.

#6 The Black Keys, Brothers

I always liked The Black Keys. Brothers made me love them.

#5 Arcade Fire, The Suburbs
Watch: The Suburbs

Canadians.

#4 Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Brutalist Bricks
MP3: Even Heroes Have to Die

The hardest working man in indie rock, with this album Ted delivers some of the best songs of his career.

#3 Belle and Sebastian, Write About Love

This band continues to bring me so much joy.

#2 The National, High Violet
Watch: Bloodbuzz Ohio

#1 Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Ignore the hype, ignore the tweets, this is a rare intersection of art and popular music and Kanye knew it all along.

Super cool to see my wife get shown twice in the audience shots of the new Ted Leo and the Pharmacists video.

Tin Armor

Full set

Bonus!
Everybody Wants to Rule the World  by  tedleo

After more than a decade awash in hardcore, heavy metal and emo bands, a few of them distinguished like My Chemical Romance, New Jersey is having another moment. In addition to Titus Andronicus, Vivian Girls and Real Estate, there’s also the Gaslight Anthem, soul-punkers from New Brunswick, which is home to the sly garage and dance-punk influenced outfit Screaming Females. (full story)

MP3: The Mighty Sparrow

Ted Leo and the Pharmacists (new website coming soon) is celebrating the release of the band’s new album on Matador Records, The Brutalist Bricks, with a show at The Knitting Factory. Tickets are only $5 and are on sale now. Ted & co will play a set followed by a run of live band karaoke, where you can sing with them as your backing band. Will likely be amazing and insane at the same time.