I also never expected my favorite album to come from someone who held the spot previously, but the iTunes “most played” playlist doesn’t lie. It’s a divisive one, but people who like it really like it.

I picked 15 favorites and several honorable mentions, plus a Favorite Columbus Albums list below — separate but equal in enjoyment and quality. As usual, I limit my lists to albums, so some EPs and 7”s I liked (e.g. Envelope, Sundown, Malefactors of Great Wealth, Dolfish) aren’t listed.

That is all.

15. Wussy – Strawberry

MP3: Grand Champion Steer

As Chip said about Wussy’s Chuck Cleaver, “One wouldn’t expect the heavily tattooed Cincinnati songwriter to produce his best collection of songs this late in his already highly-prolific career, but that’s exactly what he’s done.”

14. TV on the Radio – Nine Types of Light

TV On The Radio – “Will Do” by Interscope Records

13. The War on Drugs – Slave Ambient

MP3: Come to the City

12. Tom Waits – Bad As Me

Tom Waits – Bad As Me by antirecords

I’ve never been a Tom Waits fanboy, but this record grabbed me and didn’t let go.

11. Fleet Foxes – Helplessness Blues

MP3: Helplessness Blues

10. Crooked Fingers – Breaks in the Armor

MP3: Typhoon

Best songs since Red Devil Dawn.

9. Southeast Engine – Canary

MP3: New Growth

8. Centro-matic – Candidate Waltz

MP3: Only in My Double Mind

7. David Bazan – Strange Negotiations

MP3: Wolves at the Door

6. A.A. Bondy – Believers

MP3: Surfer King

5. Youth Lagoon – The Year of Hibernation

MP3: Cannons

4. Kurt Vile – Smoke Ring for My Halo

MP3: Jesus Fever

3. Bill Callahan – Apocalypse

MP3: Baby’s Breath

2. Gillian Welch – The Harrow & the Harvest

MP3: The Way It Goes

1. Bon Iver – Bon Iver

MP3: Holocene

By now, I know every moment on this album, but I’m still continually surprised by its beauty. Seeing Bon Iver in Philly would also make my Favorite Life Occurrences of 2011 list.

Honorable mention:
The Roots – Undun
The Black Keys – El Camino
Dawes – Nothing is Wrong
Joe Henry – Reverie
Ryan Adams – Ashes & Fire
Mountain Goats – All Eternals Deck
Richard Buckner – Our Blood
Thurston Moore – Demolished Thoughts
J Mascis – Several Shades of Why
Tim Easton – Beat the Band/Since 1966 Vol. 1
Thao & Mirah – Thao & Mirah
Joseph Arthur – The Graduation Ceremony

Favorite 2011 Columbus albums:
1. The Black Swans – Don’t Blame the Stars
2. Lydia Loveless – Indestructible Machine
3. Times New Viking – Dancer Equired
4. Psandwich – Northren Psych
5. Saintseneca – Last
6. Blueprint – Adventures in Counter-Culture
7. Bicentennial Bear – Lost Summers
8. The Regionals – The Regionals
9. Psychedelic Horseshit – Laced
10. The Lindsay – Deep in the Queue

Honorable mention:
P. Blackk – Blackk Friday
Moon High – Six Suns
Shane Sweeney – The Finding Time
Tin Armor – Life of Abundance
Alyosha Het – The Purgatourist

Playlists are a big thing on Spotify and I figured I’d share one that I’ve put together. My
Columbus Ohio playlist features music from as many Columbus bands that I could find (two albums max). The playlist includes Ron House, Royal Crescent Mob, Blueprint, Envelope, RJD2, The Black Swans, The Sun, Megan Palmer, Lydia Loveless, New Bomb Turks, Times New Viking, The Whiles, J Rawls, and many more.

If there are Columbus bands on Spotify that I missed, let me know in the comments and I’ll add them.

Times New Viking

Psandwich

Times New Viking

Mike Rep and Tommy Jay

Psandwich

Times New Viking ROAST

Times New Viking

Check out the rest of the photos.

Tomorrow night (Friday, 7/1) Times New Viking will play its last Columbus show of the year, which bums me out. But, a roast hosted by none other than Ron House (Great Plains, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apartments) should add some levity to the evening. House’s band, Psandwich, will also play (full-length coming soon), as will kindred spirits Mike Rep and Tommy Jay. If I didn’t have to travel out of town, there is no way I’d miss this. Details, tickets for the Wexner Center event here.

MP3: Sundown: Life’s Too Long
MP3: Sundown: Sleepy Song

Dustin White has had a presence in both Columbus and the National DIY picture for as long as I can recall.

We could take it back to his post-rock band Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.

Or we could talk South Campus punk houses like Compton and the Legion of Doom. But someone could probably
one-up that and go prior to those turn of the millenium movements.

So let me skip ahead and just say Dusty is a talented weirdo that knows the ends and outs of most musical instruments and recordings. Makes sense that he co-produced the latest Times New Viking record Dancer Equired with TNV and also acts as their soundman on the road.

Being TNV’s sounddude is somewhat like being a white noise, dub-master.

Oh yeah, and there are these MP3′s I posted above of his new project that is fronted by revered MO-BK transplant TK Webb, Sundown.

So via the emails I caught up with Dusty right as a West Coast leg of a TNV tour ended. He discussed working with them and Sundown.

How was the Times New Viking tour?

This tour has been going great. Hit some weirdness in some places, but all in all it has gone better than the last full US tour by a good amount.

What’s your role as a live sound dude for a band like them?

My role is way different than most live sound situations because I do a lot more to the sound than just make it loud. It’s more like Martin Swope in Mission of Burma, because I’m manipulating and treating what they do on stage. Sometimes to make it sound more like the lofi records, sometimes to make the guitar hurt your ears, sometimes just to make it sound fucking cool, and sometimes I am just trying to make it loud and clear. It’s actually a creative role as opposed to the typical clinician role that most live sound is which appeals to me a lot more. I also love the challenge that is trying to get interesting results in different places with different equipment and a different set of rules every night.

Any funny stories that are repeatable?

There are but its hard to verbalize them sometimes. I blacked out in Iowa City when we we doing a GBV show then fell down, broke my glasses, and turned into a raging drunken asshole. Going from 3 person gay bar karaoke to a basement rave. Being trapped somewhere because your cell phone has died and therefore you don’t have a map home. This list doesn’t sound funny at all. Just find me and I’ll tell you stories, as it’s far better as part of the oral tradition.

What is your take on the overall exeperience with the band?

My overall experience with them has been beyond fantastic. We were all good friends well before this employer/employee situation but I am treated much more like the 4th member than an employee/etc. Working with them on the new LP was also an amazing experience and one of the most creative studio experiences I have been a part of. All in all its been a great thing to be a part of.

What approach did you take when working on Times New Viking’s kindler and gentler sound?

My first thought was “how can we make what they do more in focus BUT not loose ANY of what makes them special” because what they do IS special BUT its not the lofi thing that makes them special its the fact that they write great songs and have an actual attitude and vibe in ages where attitude and vibe are totally forgotten about. Everybody these days is too worried about being professional that they are scared to be human and there is no vibe or attitude or anything real. But with them its the opposite there is so much personality there that its impossible to lose it because it’s just inherent in them as a band. So we cut demos on the 4 track but we used some of my gear and I engineered it mostly so it wasn’t they way they had recorded prior exactly. Those demos sounded great and are the stuff thats on the “Stop Digging Yourself” CDEP. After we did that we headed into CDR and used basically the gear and techniques that rock records until about the mid 70s. It was a very natural and simple process actually. Adam Smith and I just did what seemed natural to us both and it just worked.

How open to suggestions were they?

We were all down to try anything within reason. Jared played a chair, but it’s not in the final mix. There is a song on Rumours “Second Hand News” that Mr. Buckingham played a chair on which led us to try it. Didn’t work, but we would try anything. There is some drone synth pad stuff I did and all I said was “let me try something” and walked out to the studio and just did it. If we didn’t want to use it in the final mix we didn’t have to but it was there if we did. We worked really quickly but any idea we would try. I can’t remember an idea that got shot done without at least an attempt at it.

Whats your new project?

Sundown, which is a band that plays rock music.

How did you meet TK Webb?

Hanging out at a bar, like almost everybody I know in the entire world.

He said you bonded over some vintage equiptment intially?

Yeah I don’t even remember how our conversation turned into some sort of nerdery, but somehow we ended up comparing notes on some antiquated electronic bullshit and discussing both of us having spent our youth on the vegan chilli circuit. Just the sort of drunken shop talk than often happens amongst men of a certain age.

Who are the other guys and what have they done?

Blake and Grant. They were both in TV Eye with Vug (of Vug and Mainstreet Gospel semi-fame). Blake also plays in Moon High and fills in for all sort of various gentlemen, mostly of the folk persuasion.

What can you tell me about these Sundown songs that I posted?

We recorded a grand total of 7 songs at CDR with Adam Smith on 1″ 16 track in one lovely day. Dumped them all into the world of digital and I mixed them in the TNV van when I could for the first few weeks of this tour which was a bit of a challenge because the AC was busted so the windows were down 24/7 aka it was LOUD in the van. All 7 songs should be on the tape when it sees the light of day. These two songs were chosen to be the first two placed online simply because they do a good job of illustrating the left and right of what we feel we are doing at the moment.

What’s the future for Sundown?

First up is releasing a tape of the demos we just cut with Adam(Smith), expect that about the end of July. After that comes more shows, more songs, more recording, etc. The usual cycle of a band. We should have a very busy 4th quarter, y’alllz.

for more info on Sundown look:

facebook.com/thisissundown
thisissundown.bandcamp.com
thisissundown.tumblr.com

Times New Viking continues to release beautiful little film explosions for the songs on their latest album, Dancer Equired. The latest comes via directors Juliane Piecha and Ian Cook.

The band is on tour. Keep reading for dates.

June
7 Austin TX Mohawk
9 Santa Fe NM Corazon
10 Tempe AZ Sail Inn
11 San Diego CA the Casbah
12 Los Angeles CA The Satellite
14 San Francisco CA Rickshaw Stop
15 Eureka CA Little Red Lion
16 Portland OR Bunk Bar
21 Seattle WA Sunset Tavern
22 Vancouver BC Media Club
24 Calgary Sled Island
25 Calgary AB Sled Island
27 Fargo ND The Aquarium (Dempsey’s Upstairs)
28 Minneapolis MN 7th St. Entry
29 Chicago IL Empty Bottle
30 Bloomington IN The Bishop

July
1 Columbus OH Wexner Center for the Arts
22 Pittsburgh PA The Warhol
23 Brooklyn NY Celebrate Brooklyn!
24 Albany NY Valentines

TNV premiered its new stop-motion, Brandon Reichard-directed joint over at IFC.com and had this to say about it:

When’s the first time you remember working on the song “Ever Falling in Love”?
That was the one song on the record that felt different than the rest of the songs. It was a little slower, and Beth [Murphy] played guitar on it. It was one of the first songs that is a story song for us. It worked out because Beth and I sing different parts on the song. She wrote lyrics, and I wrote lyrics separately. Somehow, they really worked together.

The story of the song is the idea that people meet, they hook up, and then, the next day, you have to deal with the girl waking up and thinking the guy has left. But the guy comes back for her, and then they just say, “Fuck it,” and go off together. For the video, we actually had a movie idea from a long time ago, so then we thought maybe we could work that into the video. The video is kind of like the song, except they live in a land where there are no images because the king is blind and took all the images. Then this guy and this girl meet in a bar, and then the next day he leaves and goes into this hall of images where all the images in the world are. He steals them all and brings them back.

How does the video concept work with that song conceit?
It works good, because there are two characters in it. And in the song, Beth is singing, and I’m singing. I sing the boy character, and she sings the girl character. My lyrics and voice are the actual story, and then her lyrics are kind of what the girl is thinking. We knew we needed a video for that song, and we knew that, after our last video, we wanted to step it up even more and try to do the stop-motion idea. We tried to make a little French New Wave stop-motion. Breathless was kind of an inspiration for the video.

Read the rest of Grayson Currin’s interview at IFC.

MP3: Ever Falling in Love

Keep reading for tour dates….

May 26 Boston, MA Great Scott
May 27 Brooklyn, NY Knitting Factory
May 28 Hoboken, NJ Maxwell’s
May 29 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda’s
May 30 Washington, DC Black Cat
Jun 2 Carrboro, NC Local 506
Jun 3 Atlanta, GA The Earl
Jun 6 Dallas, TX Club Dada
Jun 7 Austin, TX Mohawk
Jun 11 San Diego, CA Casbah
Jun 12 Los Angeles, CA The Satellite
Jun 14 San Francisco, CA Rickshaw Stop
Jun 16 Portland, OR Bunk Bar
Jun 21 Seattle, WA Sunset Tavern
Jun 22 Vancouver, BC Media Club
Jun 24 Calgary, AB Sled Island Fest
Jun 25 Calgary, AB Sled Island Fest
Jun 28 Minneapolis, MN 7th St Entry
Jun 29 Chicago, IL Empty Bottle
Jun 30 Bloomington, IN The Bishop

TNV’s new video provides a quick tour of small-town Ohio, and it’s also a preview of sorts for the Columbus band’s upcoming album, Dancer Equired. You’ll hear pieces of “It’s a Culture” and “Somebody’s Slave,” wrapping up in Musicol’s Studio A with Beth Murphy doing an acoustic rendition of “Try Harder.” Adam Elliott described the video to NPR’s All Songs Considered this way:

“hello, we are times new viking from columbus ohio” was shot by jo mccaughey in and around the small hometowns of the band. adam is from troy, ohio. jared is from new lebanon, ohio, and beth is from gahanna, ohio. intended to be a snapshot/vignette of where we came from before we moved to the big college town of columbus, ohio. the “roots” of our upbringing. our music somehow fits perfectly, no need for voiceovers. highlights include the landmark k’s hamburgers in troy and snicker’s bar in new lebanon, home to the karaoke in dixie county. please visit small town ohio. shot on a beautiful and very cold winter day.

Dancer Equired is out on Merge Records April 26 in the US, Wichita in the UK. (ht: Wumme)

Over at the Wexner Center, Times New Viking will participate in a discussion with the filmmaker of Putty Hill after the screening tonight. Details:

After Friday night’s screening of Putty Hill, director Matt Porterfield will be joined in conversation with Adam Elliott and Beth Murphy from the Columbus band, Times New Viking. They’ll talk about the film, making art on a minuscule budget, and will field your questions.