Pain in the annual: Fuck it. Just fuck it.

There is other stuff I liked this year, but I am tired from hating on bottles for awhile. Tomorrow I start my spree of lazing and cable, so why should I write then?

My favorite thing of the year, I must tell you, with no doubt, is the genre Pitchfork called "boring" in their paragraph on their least favorite favorite single of the year. It be dubstep. And I like to be bored by it.

Yup. Digital Mystikz/Loefah/Skream/Twitchy Droid Leg/Shackleton/Appleblim/
Milanese/Kode 9 & the Spaceape... this is what made me finally decide to smile at some point in time some months ago.

My overall fave of this fave was no doubt Burial, though. I wrote some stuff on Burial sometime. He made it onto a few Pitchfork staffers individual lists, and I think both Dusted's Crumsho and Igloo Mag's Luca Maini (sic?) loved this shit, making it officially enjoyed by the people with the best names in criticism. Dig on.

I think next year I may for the first time in my life attempt to do a standard top ten countdown thinger, 'cause this made me keep forgetting stuff and was just kind of rancid.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to browse Tectonic plate 10"s on Forced Exposure. See you later.

Pain in the annual: The more I like it, the less I write about it. Which is why I never talk to my friends.

I'm running outta time to finish telling you how awesome my rekkid collection and worldy experience expanded this partially fine year. I shall enter this final week of probable posting prior to an extended holiday scotch-nogg hiatus with the intention of arbitrarily listing as much arbitrary stuff as I can. Actualize!

Dogfish Head expensive-ass beers: At first I totally balked at dropping $13 on four beers. Then I saw the magic number: 15%! That's a lot of percent. The drunk made me feel kinda stoned, and after two beers I was pretty much done for, My Name is Earl being beyond my grasp.

John Cale NY in the 1960s reissure box/Angus Maclise Counter Culture Chronicles: Birth of the drool. The Maclise day-names that Blastitude posts w/ their frequent updates are better than any webcomic in existence, except possibly Achewood.

Choubi Choubi on Sublime Frequencies: Iraq has crazy drums. I am submit.

Uusitalo - Tulenkantaja: I felt quite like a sexy lady, wrapped in silks and such. I touched myself and was dissapointed. I touched someone else and it was on.

Various Productions - The World is Gone/Junior Boys - So This is Goodbye: A couple of melancholic cirquit torchsmiths here. I want both these bands to do covers of Never Land (A Fragment) (or other Floodland track of their choice) on a split whitelabel 10". If you know how to speak with Canadians and reclusive Britfolk, please inform them as such.

Pain in the Annual: Satisfaction, Confusion, anything ending in a good shun.

But on a personal note, did I mention that I've finally stumbled into the fake real world this year? I've hid out ruining my credit rating whilst still munching government cheese for over half a decade, and I finally broke (hah!) into the big time this year. Man, whatta waste.

Yeah, yeah, real rough, sure. I really did figure that having some embossed paper would in fact help me make just enuff to keep me in food, rekkids, beer, and quality outerwear. Well, shit, looks like I haven't figured everything out quite yet. But I'm working on it.

Funny thing: I've got a few applications out there. One to help usher in a cleaner fuel economy via komplicated katalytic kemistry, and one to build a better mousetrap. Ok, rat poison. Just somebody gimme something.

I mean, I really oughta be able to do more than just sit gape-eyed wishing I could hear Bone Awl and licking gifs of Skull Disco 12" artwork. Dammitall, somebody just cut me down.

On a side note, do not mix tap beers and americanos and tuna melts.

Pain in the Annual: Short and sweet, but I do dig Loren Connors

Two more hits for you, my sweet rooks. I keep this short 'cause I just don't have the concentration. For which, I suppose, I oughta include Rogue brewery on my year-end list.

Loren Connors -- Night Through
A New York avant blues institution or some such, hadn't really heard anything from this chappy until last year. Late to the ballpark, my hotdog is cold. Lucky for me Family Vineyard put out this three disc set of many of his impossible-to-locate assorted-format releases. My penchant for abused slides throbs with glee. Now I gotta check his Haino collabos...

This Heat -- Out of Cold Storage
I guess this'll make this post a collection of condensed entries on expanded retrospectives. Prolly 'bout right. I went through hassle to get this beast (but you needn't!), and am now likely shitlisted by ReR head-honchos in not one but two English speaking nations. Fortunately, the lovely 6 disc package isself has convinced me to prepare to return to a prelingual status, meaning said nations needn't worry 'bout me for long. Plenty of klang and jaggedness, yup, and
somewhere they snuck int he meloharmonee to take one back to how it all should have pushed forward, if only we weren't in a place where none of this has been available for as long as I've been cognative. 'Til now! Heed. We needn't have yet another year of Bloc Monkees. Need we?

Pain in the Annual: Nocturnal emissions with MV & EE, nightmare rituals with Ultra Eczema

MV and EE are some prolific folk. I guess when you just get high on yr "fake farm", as Tony Rettman puts it, you have plenty of time to rub up against your muses. Well, must be a lotta lube or some pretty chafed muses out 'round these two and their oddly named cohorts. Fine by me, as long as they keep the bowls singing and the earholes ringing.

As usual there's been a lot of stuff coming outta their camp this year. As of late they've been performing and recording massive posse cuts with their Bummer Road affiliates. I haven't had the pleasure of hearing Green Blues yet, but I hear it is yet another "smoker". I have, however, mawed down on their highest profile release this year, Mother of Thousands, on that oh-so-lovely Time-Lag label. And guess what? I dig.

Mother of Thousands do indeed keep it deep and distant, with the inverted-folk strain that MV keeps on lock. Plenty of ghosts playing harmonicas, trees plucking strings, grassturbation, etc. A real evenin' time spinna and reverb winna. Brain massge.

The Ultra Eczema label, on the other hand, has been releasing it's unfair share of creep and lurk for when yr in that squinty mood rolling 'bout in empty, crumpled cans. The Guam River and Spykes w/ the Casket Sinkers pitcher discs stay real crackly, total Detroit action. Much less aggressive than a lot of the stuff the dudes involved are known for, more of a circling-at-twenty-paces-with-jelly-stuff-dripping shadow-tones. Tomutonttu instead decides to color everything as everything all at once, and the resultant flourescent bleed really fucks up one's screen. Jessica Ryland as Can't confesses in a way that makes you feel glory in your own damn guilt. And last on the list of what I've had the pleasure of partaking of, Edmund de Deyster's posthumous archival findings on Selectie 01 are the loneliest abused basement synth tones I can recall hearing. All this stuff really gets a dude in its own way. Ultra Eczema, you go.

Pain in the Annual: Might as well mention the Clipse as well [w/ bonus riff on criticism]

I'm putting the Clipse album on my-year end wrap-up series mainly because it got released. I probably fall dangerously close to some variant of the grotesque hipster template, midwest strain, that is rumored to be the primary component of the 70,000 or so folks that chose to buy this album within the first week of it being freed from it's long-term POW camp. A rough sketch of the characteristics of this lowly beast of turdin', as pertinent to this discussion:

1. Feels obligated to include at least one semi-arbitrary (based on critical acclaim) rap album on their best-of lists
2. For the past few years, that's probably gonna be "crack rap"

There's been chatter about Hell Hath No Fury being "underwhelming" and I would agree with that to an extent. I think it's way more consistent than their debut, but the consistency comes without the peaks that that album had, though so far it's much easier for me to listen to HHNF all the way through. Of course, I still thing both (not just vol. 2) of the We Got it 4 Cheap mixtapes are the best of the bunch, but that's that hipster strain controlling my will. But those mixtapes really (really) got me rooting for these dudes to have the chance to get this record out. And they did. So I'm happy, and yeah I'm glad to listen to it.

Since I don't fuck w/ leaks and have only had a few days to dig, it would be stupid of me to put it super high on my "awesome!" list. It is certainly not a total jump-out-and-blow-my-mind-immediately affair, but has all the makings of a potential grower, so I'm keeping it back here at December 7th status. And that officially puts me above quota for hip-hop on the list.

As a bonus tie-in best-of thinger, since I was too busy stuffing my face and downing port on some corporate dime last night to keep you fed with my advent calendar-like streak, Status Ain't Hood posted a bit on critical acclaim doing it's thang to push some of these Clipse records out, and Idolator has been doing a fair amount of discussion about where music criticism is at these days. A common point that's been brought up on both is that there's ome kinda threshold where the constant web-hype helps acts that are gonna sell below some value x, and isn't gonna matter with artists that sell above y. They didn't exactly seem puzzled by this fact, but didn't really get into the possible why of it. I figure it's that most of our nature is like cultural ground chuck that us chosen few can self-righteously form into delicious rare patties and gnash at with condescending bicu-lture-spids, but that's just my kickass chosen-one outlook.

Well, long-tail more-buying-fewer-is-better bullshit stats aside, my second addition to the list this post 'round is the sea change of the music industry, as witnessed from my awfully myopic perspective, this year. I'm having a hell of a time keeping up with the limited-run art-edition "beardo" stuff with no commercial aspirations because too much awesome stuff in that field is coming out too quickly. It's a financial Black Death for dudes like me, and I love it. Even on the higher-distribution end of the IndieCorp spectrum, I think if I squint just right I see a little drop off in the overlap that seemed to be what last year's critical consensus trafficked in. Don't get me wrong, blog servers must have some raw dicks yet from the critical circle jerk crowding their bandwidth, but I think perhaps splinter cells are sprouting up, miraculously reducing the chaffing. Fuck, I'm sorry about typing that.

What I'm getting at is some folks are actually talking about the obvious change in every aspect of the music industry. People are kind of worried that maybe music doesn't matter anymore. Nobody buys it or whatever. The overarching blandness of most levels of music coming out these days drove this fella to the subcultural depths that I generally trawl these days (stay tuned on this list, fuckers! Obscure masturbation promised!) and I really doubt I'm the only one. I don't know if there's some metaphor for that in the overarching cultural landscape of our nation. The number of pre-beaten white ballcaps I often bear witness to casts some doubt. But whatever, some shit is changing and I've heard stasis is where death lurks.

Pain in the annual: Kicking Mule Workshop makes me gay for jeans

A year ago a pal of mine bit "the bullet" and got a pair of those pricey-ass Nudie raw selvage blah blah jeans. I was pretty jealous. I dunno, to paraphrase the disco king in Freaks & Geeks, I'm not a good looking man, but I started paying attention to how I dress, and, okay, not grooming so much, and I wound up broke with a wardrobe that was outta fashion in like 3 weeks! I dunno, most jeans have those odd wear patterns pre-made so it's only conceivably "naturally worn" by you if, say, you spurt bleach-jism and have an awful habit of clawing at your clothed thighs with gardening implements.

That's why these Kicking Mule fuckers are so great. They don't even stick stitching on the back pockets for branding. Nope. Just a little hint of brand recon via some "turned up selvage" at the "coin pocket" (see, that's not so gay sounding). I feel like a fatter, shorter James Dean! I've started rolling random things up in my shirt sleeve and pretending they're unfiltered ciggies!

It gets even better, though... much like the aforementioned dude's Nudies, being raw means I'm actually not supposed to wash these things for like a year. That's great! 'Cause like everyone, I secretly love the scent of my own fart, and that is now literally woven into the fabric of these things for all time. In the sake of rock-star fashion.

As women's fashions continue to oversmoke crack to dizzying new heights of excess (this year's legging revival, especially when they started dabbling in stirrups, and next years ultra high waists, and to the person that figured out how to breed banthas for footwear-hide, good work, man [like how I used the geek reference to attempt to deflect your attention from the fact that I know about current ladieswear trends? Did it work?]) it is good to know that I am not expected to dress like Sinbad or John Leguizamo in "The Pest". I spend enough time cultivating antisocial tendencies without having to actively shun hobbled styles.

So thank you Kicking Mule, for letting me spend more than I care to admit on a pair of jeans that I really do like a lot. Because they just fit smell right.

Pain in the annual: Trae's Restless makes me uncomfortable in a way I might just like.

As a northwoods boy through and through, I know approximately jack shit on the true weirdness of Texas. Sure, I can dig on the Thirteenth Floor Elivators because they rule and appreciate the Butthole Surfers because I fear them, and yes I acknowledge that summer a year ago was Houston's time to shine in the rap game, but that's only because media sources told me so. I don't actually understand the source of all of this, why Texas is so damn looming a mindframe. I won't mess with it, be sure of that. But Trae has added a whole new dimension to my understanding of the state.

As I told y'all, summer 2k5 was a big 'un for H-Town rap. Mike Jones, Paul Wall, blah blah. I think Chamillionaire's big thing came out this year, and I loathe that Ridin' Diry song to the extent that I twinge a bit when I scroll past the awesome UGK album of the same name on my playlist in association. I think I remember reading something on DJ Screw just after he passed, but was too young to appreciate the glories of sizzurp and what have you. But in the small hunk of icy water that I paddle in, Restless seemed the go to Houston album of this year.

Really I only saw it mentioned in a few places. Cocaine Blunts, So Many Shrimp, and then Status Ain't Hood jumped on the bandwagon mumbling some shit about "Portishead if they listened to rap" or something. I didn't really see that part on most of the tracks unless I squinted, but maybe the sliver of extra buzz in that capsule is what pushed me over the edge into buying a damn copy (though by all means Noz's approval should be all it takes to get me on the horn screamin' at some distributer to mail me their last copy of some soon to be OOP collection of bangers).

I don't know much about Trae. His posse is called Assholes By Nature, and his sorta congested-nose baritone flow makes me pucker a bit when he says "Assholes", but that's 'cause I'm a twat. The disc is a pretty big downer, with a lot of chopped vocal samples and a lot of Trae basically wanting to be left alone, which I can dig at this juncture. I used to listen to it on my way home from work towards the end of summer when my iPod still worked, and probably wound up looking salty to people just by correlation. It was great in the steamy days of August, which I assumed were the closest we got to the weather of Houston.

As October rolls around, I tend to put aside a lot of my rap for icier electronics, morbid-er (fuck you it's a word) dark jams, or freeform improvisational shit more in tune with getting my mind set for the local hibernation season. Last week I pulled Restless outta my stack when I was waiting for a phone call not to come, antsy (see the connect?) and was shocked by how well a lot of this jawn traslated to our frozen tundra clime at the moment. There were little tinkles I hadn't noticed in some songs, and the sadness really popped in a way that I could munch on as I hated on the outside atmosphere. Much as I feel when I dabble with the black metal in the bleakest of times, except with some tinge of warmth that could only be granted by everlovin' cough syrup.

In conclusion, I recommend this album if you know that everything is pretty much bullshit when you get right down to it and that whatever you might as well just stay in and re-read your collection of Sandman comix, you fuckin' goth.

Pain in the annual: I arbitrarily rate shit for the rest of the month.

Year-end best-of lists suck. If it matches up w/ your tastes, then you're a sheep, a lemming, a pathetic fuck that uses the term "indie rock" and subcribes to at least one pseudo-edgy glossy rag. Did you know that there is a coffee shop in Madison called "Indie Coffee"? I am torn, the coffee is decent but I truly wish to firebomb the signage. Whatever.

On the other hand, if the list doesn't overlap, then you're an oddish shutin outsider or an obvious know-nothing suburbanite. Freakish beard-growth or watcher of Scrubs. Take your pick.

Since I like dragging out discomfort and engaging in loss of face, I am spending the rest of this month arbitrarily selecting objects, concepts, or some other bullshit that spazzed my mind out this year and telling you all about my lowly obsessions.

First on my list is electronics and tech companies. I have loved these pungent choades for the pure amount of self-satisfaction I have gained watching their recent product launches fail miserably. I've been rooting against the PS3 for about a year for no real reason. I've never owned a PlayStation of any version number, but was more or less neutral towards them. Hell, I rarely played games on whatever obsolete system I owned at the time. The PS3-vs.-Wii matchup got me riled, though. Not because I feel any nostalgia for my heady NES days. I hate those cover bands. I hate those t-shirts. I am haunted by trying to figure out what the point of the Jaws game was when I was a child, or how anybody thought Abadox could be beaten without cheat codes. No. I just wanted Wii to win, for some reason. Sony just seems kinda like some guy with an expensive haircut that pops his collar, y'know? So thank goodness that this seems to have actually happened. The shortish Asian man in Nintendo is trouncing his ass but good (I think). I got nervous by the fanboy chatter bubbling thru my channels 'round the PS3's launch, but I think the numbers are speaking for themselves by now. Oh, and all the people that wrote articles on what a stupid name "Wii" was... fuck off. It is a great name. Not that I'll buy one, I doubt it. That is all.

I was also going to discuss the Zune, but what's the point? This is going to be a weird memory that whatever channel does what VH1 did back when I last saw VH1 will poke fun at in a sub-30 second segment 10 years from now.

Now it's about 2pm and that means time for me to start my Saturday beer-drinking regimine. Goodbye until I rate some more shit in a random manner soon. Purchase for the holidays!!!