Favorite Albums of 2011

The usual caveat applies: these are not the best albums of the year. I don’t know what the best albums of the year are, because I have a very hard time being objective about music. No, these are my favorites, the ones that hit a nerve for whatever reason, or that I listened to on repeat endlessly, critical reviews or lack thereof be damned. I sometimes try to write about why albums are my favorites but that well seems to have run pretty dry right now, so instead of explanations I’m writing short stream of consciousness-style impressions for each.

Additionally, I have twin ongoing playlists of favorite songs of 2011 in progress here on Spotify and here on last.fm that I’ll continue to add to over the next few days and/or until I feel they’re done, which is probably never.

1. EMA - Past Life Martyred Saints
Raw, immediate, and vital are the first three adjectives that spring to mind when I hear this album. At first EMA reminded me of early Hole or PJ Harvey; now she just reminds me of herself. Tales of small town ennui and dysfunction, psychic pain taken out on skin, still managing to be hopeful sometimes even though you feel like you’re losing your mind, all in a perfectly honest, no bullshit voice, all ring true. In one sense it’s captivating because I’ve been through it but there’s others out there like me, sure, and this album proves it.

2. tUnE-YaRdS - w h o k i l l
Merrill Garbus has my vote for lady musician role model. Her music is the perfect extension of herself: unique, uncompromising, important, and amazing. I saw tUnE-YaRdS live this year on the night people were saying the world was going to end. I went in expecting an apocalyptic dance party and went out feeling life-affirmed.

3. M83 - Hurry Up We’re Dreaming
Epic cinematic technicolor musical dreams.

4. Austra - Feel it Break
Katie Stelmanis’s operatic voice finds the perfect accompaniment, sounding over a pallet of synths and electronic blips. If these songs had colors, they’d be rich jewel tones glazed in frost. An album of immediate visceral thrills, instantly danceable, in constant rotation on car rides with friends or whenever I needed energy.

5. Wye Oak - Civilian
A powerful undercurrent, hidden depths. These songs quietly gather momentum as you listen to them, never seeming to hit any explicit highs or lows but still pulling you back in for more and more. One of the first albums I fell in love with this year, and still one of my favorites.

6. Laura Stevenson and the Cans - Sit Resist
I happened randomly upon this album near the end of the year and couldn’t understand why I hadn’t heard it’s praises being sung everywhere. Laura Stevenson’s delightfully quirky voice is so charming, her lyrics are so honest and heartfelt without being sappy, and the music is a perfect balance of extra instrumentation like accordion and glockenspiel with guitar, none of it overblown. Some albums I like for a brief period of time and then put away; they’re playing on a trend or whatever the current sound is, and if I listened to them a few years later they wouldn’t have the same impact. Sit Resist is the exact opposite: it has the makings of a true classic. I expect to return to it for years to come, and I hope other people discover it too, because it’s too good to go unnoticed.

7. Youth Lagoon - The Year of Hibernation
From my favorite shows of 2011 write-up: “Claustrophobic lyrics brimming with adolescent anxiety are rarely accompanied by music so tuneful and catchy” The Year of Hibernation is so remarkable because while anxiety is palpable everywhere in these songs, you can still nod your head to them.

8. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy
Strange Mercy finds Annie Clark at her most vulnerable and most weird. The title track is a rare instance when the perfect porcelain facade seems to slip, just for a moment, and it’s doubly fascinating taken alongside the prickly edges of her guitar work that hold the listener at bay, keeping an emotional distance.

9. Destroyer - Kaputt
If 2011 was the year of the saxophone, no one put it to better use than Dan Bejar. His lyrics are just as evocative and inscrutable as ever, now backed by music that transports them someplace entirely separate from anything he’s done before. Quasi-easy listening done right.

10. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake
The personal is the political, the political, personal. I like PJ Harvey best when she’s tackling sexual politics and shrieking, but this rumination on war is devastating in an entirely different way.

11. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer
Stream of consciousness summertime nostalgia and yearning in familiar locales.

12. Bon Iver - Bon Iver, Bon Iver
Out of the cabin and into the heartland. Quietly affecting.

13. Anna Calvi - Anna Calvi
Like if Jeff Buckley were reincarnated as a lady. A smoldering, passionate lady who can shred on guitar.

14. The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck
Less The Mountain Goats as John Darnielle and more The Mountain Goats as a band, greater than the sum of their parts. Yet another exemplary collection of songs from the endlessly prolific unit.

15. Zola Jesus - Conatus
Zola Jesus does epic bright just as well as epic dark.

16. The Antlers - Burst Apart
I knew I’d never love another Antlers album the way I love Hospice, with all of it’s intense personal emotional connections. And if this album were trying to be Hospice pt II, I probably would’ve been disappointed. Instead it goes off in a different direction, taking the hugeness of their live sound, expanding on it. The lyrics are still potent without the storyline, only they’re tauter, they say more with less.

17. Son Lux - We Are Rising
Recorded over the course of a mere month but sounds like it took much longer, and I mean that in a good way - this album is an intricately crafted collage of sound and rewards repeat listens.

18. Other Lives - Tamer Animals
There’s a wide range of sound here, ranging from the pastoral to nearly akin to Radiohead, all blending together to wrap you in a harmonic cocoon.

19. Widowspeak - Widowspeak
The dreamiest thing since Mazzy Star. Molly Hamilton’s lulling, lilting coo washes over you for the duration of this album, punctuated by spare, spiky guitars, before rising into a high keen in closer Ghost Boy.

20. Active Child - You Are All I See
This album is just sexy. Pat Rossi’s smooth, soulful voice over a crescendo of plucked harp strings sometimes dances close to cheeseball territory, but it’s unselfconscious and sincere, so it never truly gets silly.

Honorable Mention: Parenthetical Girls - Privilege pt III & IV: Mend & Make Do / Sympathy for Spastics
Clever lyrics of dysfunction, depression, and angst; sometimes you can even dance to them.

Favorite Shows of 2011

My final tally for 2011 in live music comes to just under 120 shows attended, and over 300 bands seen, many multiple times. I started with the intention of making my usual list of 10 favorites plus a few honorable mentions, but had to swell it to a top 20 - truly, I was lucky enough to see and photograph a bunch of incredible shows this year. The list, and links to more photos for almost all of them, below! Please note: this list is excessively wordy, superlative-ridden, and un-proofread, because that’s how I roll.

1. Sufjan Stevens, My Brightest Diamond @ Celebrate Brooklyn (August 2)
Sufjan Stevens brought out the neon for two final epic Age of Adz shows at Prospect Park this summer. 180 degrees removed from his usual introverted folk, the Adz material is, in my opinion, his strongest, and the accompanying show is a masterwork, a celebration of the body electric with lights and dancers and giant inflatable balls soaring into the audience. Take Impossible Soul, an epic length song spanning 25 minutes and incorporating a dizzying array of moods and styles, that still manages to gel together as a cohesive unit. Drop aforementioned inflatable balls into the crowd during the song’s climax. Cue a breakout of dancing, of faces split wide in ecstatic grins, a rush of positive energy. That would be the whole evening in a nutshell, where not only the music, but the showmanship, the whole spectacle, was amazing, which is what made this my very favorite show of the year.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

2. Wild Flag, Yellow Fever @ Rock Shop (March 5) (+ October 18 @ Bowery Ballroom w/Eleanor Friedberger, Hospitality)
One of my favorite live music moments ever took place at this show. It went as follows: I was standing against the small, low stage at the Rock Shop, right in front of Carrie Brownstein. This in and of itself is a cause for eye-bulging glee, as Carrie is incredible and an idol of mine going back to the days of Sleater-Kinney, who I never was able to see live. Then, as I crouched down to get a particular angle to take pictures from, Carrie leaned over me and started rocking out on her guitar right in front of my face. My memory at this point stops following a linear timeline and jumps to exclamation points of ecstatic bliss. This tiny Brooklyn show was Wild Flag’s first in NYC and it was incredibly exciting; while their debut album doesn’t always do it for me, their live show is raring and ready to go.
More photos from this show here and of their Bowery show here on BrooklynVegan.

3. Our Concert Could Be Your Life @ Bowery Ballroom w/Ted Leo, St. Vincent, Dirty Projectors, Dan Deacon, Titus Andronicus, tUnE-YaRdS, Wye Oak, Callers, Buke and Gass, Citay, Delicate Steve, Grooms, White Hills, Yellow Ostrich (May 22)
Any show with this many bands slated to perform short sets is almost guaranteed to have some delays and organizational snafus, but from my vantage point at the stage this went down basically without a hitch. Bringing together an excellent and eclectic group of current musicians, including many of my favorites, to cover classic bands from Michael Azerrad’s book Our Band Could Be Your Life, this tribute show either looked like the greatest thing ever or a travesty, depending on your point of view - not that I needed much convincing, but at the end I was firmly in team greatest thing ever. Special guests and exciting moments were in plenty, but the number one highlight of the night was definitely Annie Clark covering Big Black. With her trademark shock of curls slicked back, Annie looked as sharp as a knife, and she attacked those covers with an animal ferocity. Major highlight number two was a medley of Nirvana covers performed by an assortment of band members, particularly Merrill Garbus’s perfect (to my ears) cover of Lithium. Then, lots of people crowdsurfed. It was really refreshing to me to see the inclusion of so many lady-fronted bands, especially considering the source material was sort of lacking in that department - hopefully this is an indicator that the landscape is shifting, that rock is becoming less of a boy’s club.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

4. Jeff Mangum, A Hawk and a Hacksaw @ Paramount Theater (October 3) (+ ATP I’ll Be Your Mirror w/Portishead, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Battles, The Horrors, Oneida, Public Enemy, Deerhoof, Anika, DD/MM/YYYY @ Asbury Park Convention Center, September 30-October 2)
I’d only been to Asbury Park once before this year-at 15, my friend Doreen and I went down to the Convention Center to see Blink 182 and Silverchair (I know, right?). Waiting in line outside on that chilly day in autumn I remember looking around at the desolate ocean and dilapidated, seedy buildings and my imagination instantly being captured. I was therefore happy to have an excuse to take a trip back down, particularly to attend my first ATP event. I’ve always enjoyed reading accounts of people’s experiences at All Tomorrow’s Parties, reportedly a haven/fantasy camp for real music lovers, but the lineups of the previous New York evens skewed mostly a little too noisy, a little too experimental for my tastes (yes I’m boring, whatever). This year the promise of performances by Jeff Mangum and Portishead were enough to get me to buy a ticket. Of course I took advantage of the opportunity to see Mangum twice, once on the first night of ATP and again at a separate but still ATP-affiliated show the Monday after. The Monday show was the really perfect one for me, which found Jeff chatty and asking us to sing along, and members of A Hawk and A Hacksaw coming out to join him for a rendition of The Fool like I’d only ever heard on record before. Traveling down to Asbury Park by train, a trip that takes over two hours for me, felt a little like a religious pilgrimage, also a little ridiculous, but isn’t an experience I would trade for anything. Then there was the point during ATP proper when I spotted Jeff in the crowd while Public Enemy was soundchecking. He was standing with some people just minding his own business in his usual plaid shirt and hat, and I walked over and kind of circled the whole group a few times trying to work up the nerve to say hi. Finally I darted in, whispered thank you, and darted away again-but not before he shook my hand and patted his chest above his heart. Cue Amanda melting on the spot.
Otherwise ATP was a mixed bag for me musically, but a really fun time in general. I saw Portishead on Saturday night right at the front and watched in awe as Beth Gibbons crowdsurfed and ran along the barricade giving hugs and touching hands. Some of the noisier bands I could only take in small portions, and left wondering what enjoyment people really got out of them aside from the deluge of painful, punishing volume. Wandering around the autumn beach, running into people I knew everywhere, and sitting by a bonfire were nonmusical atmospheric highlights, as well as the many entertaining opportunities for people-watching.

5. Sharon Van Etten @ Bowery Ballroom (January 8) (+ April 16 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg w/Megafaun, She Keeps Bees)
I had a good feeling that after selling out Mercury Lounge and The Rock Shop, Sharon Van Etten’s next step would be to headline and sell out Bowery Ballroom. This slow-burning but steady rise to success, which has now gained considerable momentum, couldn’t have happened to a more deserving person: Sharon is one of the sweetest, most genuine and gracious music type person I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and that’s aside from her gorgeous, heartrending songs. This evening at Bowery Ballroom felt like a celebration of her success, with lots of vocal friends and family in the audience, and few eyes remaining entirely dry. The ending cover of Strange Currencies was just the icing on the cake of a perfect night.
More photos here on A Heart is a Spade.

6. PJ Harvey @ Terminal 5 (April 19)
PJ Harvey doesn’t come to New York very often, so hearing she’d be playing one of my least favorite venues didn’t stop me from desperately wanting to go. I’ve been listening to the enigmatic Polly Jean since I was a teenager and had never seen her live. For the sake of nostalgia I would’ve loved for her to be in full guitar goddess mode, but PJ Harvey wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t constantly defy expectations and do her own thing. Terminal 5 can be a miserable place to see and hear a show, but from the vantage point of the VIP balcony and the thrilling proximity of the photo pit (where, I confess, I maybe almost started hyperventilating at being omg so close to PJ Harvey omg!) her quiet but commanding voice and presence were captivating. The Let England Shake material is incredible and her strongest in years, but the highlight of the night for me came in the encore during Angelene (also, the first PJ song I ever heard).
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

7. SXSW Backyard BBQ w/Erland and the Carnival, Great Lake Swimmers, Josh T. Pearson, Lost in the Trees, One Hundred Flowers, Strand of Oaks, The Loom, The Luyas, Yellow Ostrich (March 18)
I went to SXSW for the first time this year and was unprepared for the amount of activity concentrated around Sixth Street, where it seems that out of every other building you pass you get a blast of music bowling you over on the sidewalk, all mixing together into a cacophony under the sun. It’s probably not surprising, then, that the highlight of my week took place three miles north of the bulk of the maddening crowd, chilling in a backyard with a treehouse and bbq and a bunch of bands I know and love playing, organized by Muzzle of Bees and the lovely folks from The Loom. The Luyas were joined on violin by Sarah Neufeld of Arcade Fire, which augmented their sound appreciably. During Lost in the Trees I climbed up into the treehouse and shot the band from between the branches, feeling very clever and probably suffering from a certain degree of heat-stroke, but that’s okay. Last to play was Josh T. Pearson, and the setting couldn’t have been more perfect. After some good-humored sniping with a heckler (seriously Josh T. Pearson is unexpectedly hilarious apart from the somber nature of his songs) the crowd grew so quiet that the only audible accompaniments to Josh’s gentle finger-picked guitar and gravelly, emotive voice were crickets and the chirping of birds. A perfect transcendent moment as the sun began to descend and the air began to finally cool.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

8. The Antlers @ Knitting Factory (May 6) (+ May 19 @ Music Hall of Williamsburg, May 20 @ Bowery Ballroom w/Little Scream, December 10 @ Webster Hall w/Suuns)
It was difficult to choose which of the four times I saw The Antlers play this year was the best. They’ve easily become one of my favorite bands live and on record, and because they’re from Brooklyn we’re lucky enough to see them multiple times in a year as they return home from tours. The December Webster Hall show was particularly exciting as it was the largest space the band had headlined and sold out in New York, and they totally owned the large space, sounding huger than ever. Both the Music Hall and Bowery shows mid-May with the delightful Little Scream opening were great as well. But my pick has to go to the free, 1 am show at Knitting Factory, where I heard The Antlers play their new album Burst Apart for the first time, followed by the perfect emotional punch in the gut encore of Two and Wake, aka also my two favorite songs off Hospice, aka sobfest all the time. I deliberately chose not to listen to any of the leaks or streams of Burst Apart beforehand and let this show be my first experience with the songs, and was really happy I did - The Antlers sound great on record, but live they’re enormous and enveloping, to the point where on Rolled Together, while totally sober, I started freaking out about how absolutely amazing it sounded.
So many Antlers photos this year! Webster Hall show, Music Hall of Williamsburg show, and Knitting Factory show photos on BrooklynVegan, and Bowery Ballroom show photos on A Heart is a Spade.

9. The Weakerthans (performing Left & Leaving), Dinosaur Bones @ Bowery Ballroom (December 8)
The Weakerthans are one of my favorite bands ever so I was incredibly excited when they announced a run of four shows at my favorite venue, Bowery Ballroom, playing each of their albums from beginning to end plus a collection of other favorites. My first instinct was to go to all four shows, but the week in December when they were scheduled was already a busy one so I knew I’d have to settle for just one (me and my first world problems). Left & Leaving edges out slightly ahead of Reconstruction Site for the title of my favorite Weakerthans album; in my opinion, Reconstruction Site marks the point where more character-driven, less personal songs start making an appearance. Which isn’t a bad thing, but Left & Leaving, taken as a whole, is still their most personally resonant collection of songs, for me. So it was obviously a delight to stand in the middle of a crowd of fervent fans, singing along to every word like they’d done on headphones and in their bedrooms countless times. What set The Weakerthans apart for me is the strength of their lyrics; while they touch on familiar themes of loneliness, dysfunctional relationships, and transitions, they always leave off on a hopeful note, which is perhaps what makes their songs so anthemic for a certain sort of sad-tending person (like me).
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

10. Zola Jesus, Panopticon @ Le Poisson Rouge (October 19)
With the release of Conatus, Zola Jesus traded her mop of black hair and drape of black clothes for bleach-blonde and white, but lost none of her intensity. Under kaleidoscope lights she paced back and forth across the stage, belting and moaning, all the while holding the audience spellbound. It’s unusual for me to see such a memorable single performance amidst the noise and activity of CMJ, but this show was so good that while it ended fairly early, with plenty of time to head down to the Lower East Side and cram myself against more little stages in the sweaty dark, I chose to call it a night instead and let my elation sink in.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

11. St. Vincent, Cate le Bon @ Webster Hall (November 3)
There’s always been something a little cool, a little removed about Annie Clark. She shreds away at her guitar with eye-widening technical skill but behind that porcelain skin and those red lips you can feel something being held back, a set of sharp teeth waiting to devour you if you get too close. There’s undeniable power in the dichotomy between appearance and the maelstrom of sound and noise that sometimes issues from that guitar, and Annie certainly exploits that well, but I’d never really seen her cut lose. Until, that is, in the climax of her Webster Hall show she flung herself from the stage during Your Lips are Red, crowd-surfed with her guitar, then returned to her feet to sing “your skin’s so fair it’s not fair,” cool as can be as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Is it any wonder we’re all so fascinated by her?
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

12. CSS, MEN, EMA @ Webster Hall (October 22)
By Saturday, the final night of CMJ, I was fading fast and questioning whether I had the stamina necessary to make it through a high energy set from CSS. Pushing your body to its limits is just what you do at a music marathon, though, and I reasoned that escape to the balcony was always an option if getting caught up in the dancing throng up front proved too exhausting. A short but powerful set from EMA kicked off the night, and I was happy I hadn’t wimped out of coming for nothing else than being there to witness it. At the end of a hectic string of CMJ performances herself, Erica M Anderson still brought her set to an epic climax with an extended version of Butterfly Knife, taking the aggression a self-injurer would unleash upon her skin and attacking her guitar with it instead, holding it out for a girl in the front to touch. It was an extremely emotionally resonant thing to me, as many of her songs are, but not something I feel I can explain much better than that - if you know, you know. MEN were energetic and fun and thought-provoking as ever-seriously, their set led to me having a conversation with the ladies next to me, strangers, about trans-identity politics which is certainly not a conversation you usually have with strangers at a show, but I digress! Then CSS came out and blew us all away. Lovefoxxx is one of the most supremely confident performers I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing, belting out slightly off-kilter party anthems for weirdos between cartwheels, tumbles, and splits. It’s impossible not to be caught up in the spectacle, and all previous thoughts of tiredness and early escapes upstairs were put aside.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

13. Lykke Li, Grimes @ Webster Hall (May 18) (+ November 17 @ Wellmont Theatre)
Lykke Li is a mesmerizing performer, and one who understands the value of bright and dramatic stage lights, much to my great glee as a photographer. I shot two of her shows this year and both were totally visually thrilling, as well as sounding amazing. The Webster Hall show with Grimes opening was perhaps a bit more energetic, but later in the year at Wellmont Theatre I saw the lovely ladies of First Aid Kit join Lykke Li onstage to sing Silent My Song together and almost exploded from squealing with joy. The moral of the story is see Lykke Li whenever you get the opportunity, and prepare to dance.
More photos from the Webster Hall show here, and the Wellmont Theatre show here on BrooklynVegan.

14. Rock & Roll Circus w/Ariel Pink, Amazing Baby, Saint Motel, Aska @ Damrosch Park Bandshell (January 4) (+ January 3 w/Japanther, The Pharmacy, Voxhaul Broadcast, The So So Glos, Electric Tickle Machine)
January is typically quiet for shows, but I started my year in live music off with a bang in 2010 with back-to-back nights at the Rock & Roll Circus. Held under the big top at Damrosch Park Bandshell in Lincoln Center, the Rock & Roll Circus was an utterly unique and unfortunately unsuited venue for this assortment of bands and fans, but there’s undeniable entertainment value in a good shitshow, which this certainly was. Night 1 was free and found bands like The So So Glos and Japanther urging a thin but enthusiastic crowd out of their seats and into the ring, much to the chagrin of security, who I doubt knew what to make of the scene. Accusations of rioting were tossed around but that’s an overstatement by far, just the usual moshing and rowdiness that accompanies loud bands at small DIY shows, now moved to a location where reasonable expectations for behavior were totally at odds with the aforementioned status-quo. Night 2 started off much more calmly, with paid tickets and bands kids were less likely to come lose their shit for. Kind of boring, actually, but for the circus setting and the presence between sets of circus performers. Aska was accompanied by both Nick Zinner of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and a troupe of contortionists, a woman flew on silks, and the highlight of the night happened when a herd of white ponies trotted around the ring to a soundtrack of Keith Urban. Ponies, you guys! Then Ariel Pink came out and did a bizarre, half-assed karaoke caricature of a performance while two girls hula-hooped in the ring. He walked through the crowd, climbed some scaffolding, and after a half hour or so just walked out and didn’t come back. It may seem strange that given all the weirdness and poor organization I’m ranking these shows in my top 20 of the year, but they were really two of the most amusing show-going nights I’ve had all year, albeit not always in a good way. Also, ponies!
More pictures from night 1 and night 2 here on BrooklynVegan.

15. Wye Oak, Callers, Caveman @ Bowery Ballroom (April 14)
With the release of the amazing Civilian this year, Wye Oak graduated from being a band you catch and are intrigued by in opening spots tons of times to a band that sells out Bowery Ballroom, aka my favorite venue in the city, and sounds absolutely sublime doing so. It’s easy to lose focus of everything but Jenn Wasner as her hair billows about with the force of her guitar playing, but it’d be criminal to ignore Andy Stack doing some truly masterful multitasking, to the tune of simultaneous drum and keyboard playing.
More pictures here on A Heart is a Spade, also, pictures from Wye Oak’s Rock Shop show here on BrooklynVegan.

16. BrooklynVegan Holiday Party w/Anna Calvi, Eleanor Friedberger, New Moods @ Music Hall of Williamsburg (December 13)
The first of three BrooklynVegan Holiday Party shows, two of which I went to, was definitely my favorite. New Moods were one of the bands I caught for a few hurried minutes of shooting at SXSW and filed away as uninterested, but they were quite good this time around, when I caught their full set. My fourth time seeing Eleanor Friedberger was not much different than the first three, but every time I’m charmed by her perfect stream of consciousness pop songs and quirky fashion sense. Then a powerhouse performance by Anna Calvi, who I was slightly underwhelmed by when I saw her earlier in the year at Bowery Ballroom. Some time on the road appears to have given her much more confidence onstage, because now she melts hearts and weakens knees as she smolders and shreds away at her guitar. Hello, I’m a little bit smitten.
More pictures here on BrooklynVegan.

17. Yann Tiersen, Breathe Owl Breathe @ Highline Ballroom (February 19)
I remember waiting in line outside Highline Ballroom for this show on a terribly cold evening in February with lots of Francophiles, and how the moon was full and shone through a bare tree branch when I looked up. Breathe Owl Breathe played us some of their enchanting folk-pop, at times with props including a wolf mask and hand-puppets, to open the night; then Yann Tiersen delivered a set of strange and beautiful music from violin and electronics, mostly without words, worlds away from the whimsical fare that soundtracks Amelie. Then, turned out into the cold again, the moon still shining down on our heads, diminishing otherworldly reverberations echoing in our ears.
More pictures here on BrooklynVegan.

18. The Raincoats, Grass Widow, No Bra @ Warsaw (September 16)
Most of the time when I think of nostalgia or reunion acts I think of aging dudes playing songs that, whatever their importance in years passed, whatever new sounds they heralded or new bands they inspired, are irrelevant to me, now. Not so with The Raincoats! So many feminist friendly folks flocked to The Warsaw, which is strongly reminiscent of a highschool gymnasium, to see proof that older ladies can still rock out. Oddly, and sadly, it’s one of the only true examples of that I’ve seen in my prolific show-going.
I shot this show for BrooklynVegan but sadly the pictures have yet to make a post, so if you’d like to see them, bug BV about it!

19. Youth Lagoon, Young Magic @ Mercury Lounge (September 12)
I first saw Youth Lagoon after hearing only a couple of his tracks off Bandcamp, but I knew right away he was something special. Claustrophobic lyrics brimming with adolescent anxiety are rarely accompanied by music so tuneful and catchy, and Trevor Powers charmed the crowd at his sold-out NYC debut from the get-go.
More pictures here on BrooklynVegan.

20. Puro Instinct, John Maus, Geneva Jacuzzi @ Mercury Lounge (June 29)
The most entertaining evening I’ve ever had at Mercury Lounge started off with an old woman called Amazing Amy doing yoga poses onstage. Then Geneva Jacuzzi, a young woman dressed as a mime, paced back and forth and performed a variety of theatrical hand gestures over an iPod backing track. These were both amusing spectacles, but they had nothing on watching John Maus. He also sings over a backing track, although when I say sing, I really mean an assortment of shouts and strangled yells. I was standing at the front of the stage, directly below Maus, and was treated to a shower of spit as he yelled in fury, clutched at and pounded his chest like a man in agony, jumped up and down, sometimes on chairs, and stared out at us all with the wide-eyed gaze of a madman. I was a little afraid that he’d take a swing at me, crouched down beneath him, but mostly I was riveted to the spot. It’s a bit of a schtick on repeat viewings but you definitely need to see it once. Puro Instinct was a letdown after all that intensity, but this show still ranks as one of the most amusing nights I experienced all summer.
More pictures here on BrooklynVegan.

Favorite Albums & Songs of 2010

(archiving selected content from my old Wordpress blog!)

Copypasting last year’s caveat, as it still applies:
I’m always hesitant to make lists of the best albums, in particular, in a given year because I never listen to as many new releases as I want/plan to. Those I do listen to take time to grow on me, be digested, and oftentimes it won’t be until months later that I decide, hey, this __ album is really freaking awesome, why was I not loving it a year ago? In the same fashion, an album I loved at first listen can sour or get boring quickly on subsequent ones, or become inextricably associated with unpleasant memories. Finally, the albums and songs I really loved this year, again, just like any year, are almost certainly not the objective best in a sea of releases, but they’re the ones I loved the most, that I made some sort of personal connection with or that remind me of people, places, times. Frankly, I’m the wrong person to ask which were the “best,” anyway; I couldn’t tell you. So instead I call this a list of my favorites and have done with it.

I made a concentrated effort to listen to more, and a wider variety of new releases this year than in year’s past, but there were still many many albums that I just didn’t spend the time with, even though if I had I probably would’ve come to love them. However, as the last few hours of 2010 are upon us, it’s now or never for listmaking, so I finalized my decisions.

1. Lost in the Trees - All Alone in an Empty House
TRACKS: Fireplace, A Room Where Your Paintings Hang
This album came along at just the right time in my life for me to clutch to like like a drowning man to a life raft. My mother had broken her hip and I was living alone in our apartment for the longest extended period ever, thrust back into the caregiving role that I thought I’d finished with when my father died. These songs were my constant companions on walks to and from work and visiting my mother in rehab, walks through the woods with my camera trying to sort out the tangle of my emotions over what my life was now vs five years ago vs fifteen. Overly personal associations aside, it’s a beautiful album, full of stirring string arrangements and cathartic lyrics that stray to the near embarrassing at times, but in the best possible way.

2. Beach House - Teen Dream
TRACKS: Take Care, Silver Soul
The most perfect dreamy pop songs, evocative of melancholy beaches on overcast days, bonfires as the sun goes down, pervasive wistfulness, mellow sunshine fragmented in a crystal splaying rainbows on a wall that you only see for a minute passing by.

3. Sufjan Stevens - The Age of Adz
TRACKS: I Want to be Well, Impossible Soul
Last year I saw Sufjan at Bowery Ballroom. His set was dualistic in nature; he would either play one of his lovely gentle folk songs, or the sketch of something brimming with noise and electronics and instrumentation that sounded like nothing of his I had heard on record, except for hints of in You Are the Blood on 2009’s Dark Was the Night compilation. You know the rest - this year saw, surprise!, not one but two releases from Sufjan, the All Delighted People EP and The Age of Adz. I really feel like Adz is the best thing he’s ever recorded. I Want to be Well is such a fantastic stylistic romp-around, ending up in Radiohead territory, who would have guessed? And to pull off something like Impossible Soul should be impossible, 25 minutes long, how self indulgent can you get, but instead it’s captivating. All I can say is well played, Sufjan, and I’m really sorry I missed your Beacon Theatre shows.

4. Sharon Van Etten - Epic
TRACK: Don’t Do It
Short and sweet and with a sucker punch to the gut. You listen to Sharon’s beautiful voice and it’s lovely and you lose yourself in it, and then you listen to the lyrics, and really listen, and you never know how much they’re affecting you until you’re out walking on a windy day and there are tears in your eyes but you listen over and over and over again anyway. This album was part two in my had it on repeat all summer long series.

5. Arcade Fire - The Suburbs
TRACKS: We Used to Wait, Rococo
It took me some time to get into this album. It doesn’t come on with the initial brilliant intensity and bombast of Funeral or Neon Bible, but I had been looking forward so much to a new Arcade Fire album, so I kept at it. Little by little, I got it. How Rococo is not annoying at all and is in fact pretty freaking brilliant, how We Used to Wait is on par with any of their best anthemic songs. The more I listened to it on headphones walking around the suburban town where I grew up, restless and discontent, the more it fell into place. I wish I could’ve heard this for the first time when I was fifteen, I probably would’ve thought it a totally spot on social commentary.

6. Owen Pallett - Heartland
TRACKS: Lewis Takes Off His Shirt, E is for Estranged
Owen Pallett’s precisely lush strings and incisive lyrics in the form of an ambitious concept album years in the making? Yes, please. Everything about this is amazing, climaxing in what’s probably my favorite musical moment of the year in Lewis Takes Off His Shirt. The refrain of “I’m never gonna give it to you,” repeated, growing ever stronger, against those trilling violins, is a kind of defiant bliss.

7. Joanna Newsom - Have One On Me
A rich layered epic that demands you lose yourself for hours in it, and rewards you with some new detail each time. Ambitious and immaculately executed. I haven’t spent enough time with Have One On Me as I would’ve liked to, and it’s certainly an album that demands time and attention, but already after a few listens I can tell there are murky depths and pristine heights yet to uncover.

8. Villagers - Becoming a Jackal
TRACKS: Home, Pieces
I have a love/hate relationship with singer-songwriters. When they’re good I totally adore them but sometimes I’ll encounter some male musician singing alone with his acoustic guitar and something in the lyrics will totally turn my stomach, I can’t even explain it. Villagers, happily, falls very neatly into the first category. This album reminds me of Lifted-era Bright Eyes. It has that certain indescribable quality that I will now attempt to put into words: the lyrics are simple but not stupid, the mood is melancholy but not self indulgently maudlin, the music is rich and stirring without being overblown.

9. Janelle Monae - The ArchAndroid
Hugely ambitious concept albums are totally relevant to my interests, regardless of what loose musical genre they may fall under. Stylistically this is so here, there, and everywhere anyway, and the most amazing thing is Monae pulls it all off like she isn’t even breaking a sweat. Had I been trying to make a list of the objective best albums of the year rather than personal favorites, this one would’ve been at the very top. It’s lower here because I simply didn’t spend a lot of time listening to it; I was so blown away at first that I barely felt the need to.

10. Phantogram - Eyelid Movies
TRACKS: Mouthful of Diamonds, When I’m Small
Electronic music at its very best, tempered and augmented by Sarah Barthel’s crystalline vocals. You could never guess that they made all this glorious racket in pastoral upstate New York, far from the thrum of city life; perhaps that’s why it sounds so refreshing.

11. The National - High Violet
TRACKS: Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks, Runaway
This is an album by The National. It isn’t a departure, or a new direction, but a continuation of the things the band does well, anxiety-ridden little portraits of songs narrated in Matt Berninger’s distinctive tenor. And that’s enough; The National aren’t really a band I look to for sonic experimentations coming out of left field. I look to them for good, deeply affecting songs, and they consistently deliver.

12. Perfume Genius - Learning
There’s little in the pretty piano melodies to the soften the blow of the stark, blunt lyrics in Learning, but alongside the pain lives hope. Copypasting from my live writeup, “there’s (…) something cathartic about laying bare such painful and personal things in front of a roomful of people. Abuse thrives on secrecy and shame; sometimes telling true stories to strangers is one of the most powerful things you can do to strike out against it.” I’m not positive if that’s what this album was intended as, but I’m pretty sure it is, and that’s why I love it, even if I don’t necessarily listen to it every day.

13. Shout Out Louds - Work
TRACKS: Walls, Show Me Something New
My feel good, anthemic album of the year. I read a lot of criticism of Work, how it doesn’t live up to Shout Out Louds’ previous releases. I honestly hadn’t listened to them really before this, so maybe my opinion counts for less, but at face value this is a damn fine collection of songs, infectious and catchy and infinitely listenable.

14. Dark Dark Dark - Wild Go
TRACK: Daydreaming
Gorgeous haunting multi-instrumental folk music rarely sounds so sweet. Another case where I happened upon the band live, loved them, got the album, and loved it even more.

15. Broken Bells - Broken Bells
TRACKS: The Mall & Misery, Sailing to Nowhere
This collaboration from James Mercer and Dangermouse whets my appetite for new Shins material while sounding totally unlike my old beloved Shins albums, Oh Inverted World and Chutes too Narrow. It’s a nice difference. I can listen to this over and over without getting tired of it, which is generally a good sign. This little review makes me sound pretty ambivalent about the album, but I really just don’t have much to say about it; it’s pretty solid and doesn’t require much explanation.

16. Land of Talk - Cloak and Cipher
TRACKS: Color Me Badd, Quarry Hymns
Lizzie Powell’s abstract lyrics, distinctive voice, and fierce guitar shredding are in fine form here. Color Me Badd’s plaintive, dissociated refrain of, “where did my body go, where did I leave it?” is particularly lovely.

17. Anais Mitchell - Hadestown
I love ambitious concept albums. I love mythology. This album should’ve been a top five shoe-in for me, but I just haven’t felt like returning to it often, as excellent as it is. Anais Mitchell enlists a whole host of guests for her Orpheus retelling, gets in some keen historic and current economic insight, and just generally kicks ass all over the place. If I have one complaint it’s with Ani DiFranco’s Persephone. I’m pretty attached to the Persephone myth, but having listened to Ani DiFranco so much as a teenager hearing her voice there is totally jarring and takes me right out of it. Which isn’t to say that she doesn’t do a good job, but I just can’t make the association.

18. Holly Miranda - The Magician’s Private Library
TRACK: Slow Burn Treason
To me this is a mood piece, sensual and meandering with no particular destination, but it sounds so, so good in the process. Holly Miranda’s voice is divine (and even better live - wow!) and dueting with Kyp Malone sounds pretty much too good to handle.

19. Allo Darlin’ - Allo Darlin’
TRACKS: The Polaroid Song, Kiss Your Lips, If Loneliness Was Art
So silly and delightful and buoyant, I loved these guys live, and they’re almost as much fun on record. How can you resist a song about polaroids, or one that unselfconsciously quotes Weezer, all punctuated by joyful “sha na na”s and ukulele strumming? If this sounds all too twee for you, oh, it is, but that’s precisely the point. My interest wanes a bit during the slower numbers, but all in all this band and their songs are just far too much fun.

20. CocoRosie - Grey Oceans
CocoRosie are one of those bands that you love or hate, which is easy enough to understand; there’s less simple sonic enjoyment and more layers of lyrics and sounds and meanings, a little girl’s collage of feminine artifacts laid out in a closet full of dust mites or some muddy field. I feel like CocoRosie have interesting things to say, and I’m interested in how they say them, but it’s certainly not something I listen to if I want to dance or sing along. Still, there’s a lot that’s worthwhile here, if it’s to your taste and you have the patience for it.

Some more favorite songs, from albums not listed here:

Avi Buffalo - What’s In It For?
Broken Social Scene - World Sick, All to All
Laura Marling - Goodbye England (Covered in Snow), Hope in the Air
Los Campesinos! - The Sea is a Good Place to Think of the Future
The New Pornographers - Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk
Ra Ra Riot - You and I Know
Spoon - Trouble Comes Running
Stars - Wasted Daylight, The Passenger

You can also find most of these songs in a last.fm playlist I’ve been making.

Favorite Shows of 2010

(archiving selected content from my old Wordpress blog!)

Around mid-December my show-going schedule slows to a crawl and then a full stop, which means it’s time to take a look back on the year that was and do some tallying. This year’s final count came to around 110 shows, and a little over 200 different bands - some multiple times, of course. These were my favorites.

1. Jeff Mangum at the Chris Knox Benefit at Le Poisson Rouge, May 6, 2010
It’s unfair that this show should claim the top spot on my list on the strength of one artist’s five song set. So many excellent, notable musicians performed at this benefit, yet while I, along with many others, may have watched and listened to them, our anticipation was mainly centered on one appearance. Everyone has a story about how they first started listening to Neutral Milk Hotel; mine involves trips to Tower Records as a teenager, picking up their free in-store magazine, and seeing In the Aeroplane Over the Sea all over the issue’s list of reader’s desert island discs. I bought it, listened, was hooked, and then heartbroken to discover that bandleader Jeff Mangum had basically become a recluse, no longer releasing music or touring. Still, I came to consider Aeroplane one of my very favorite albums ever, bought into the mystique surrounding Mangum, and kept an ear to the ground for chances to hear these songs performed live. When the Chris Knox benefit was announced with Mangum at the bill was announced, I jumped at the chance, ignoring the pricetag (anyway, it was for a good cause!) and the incredibly likely possibility that I was setting myself up for disappointment. And against all odds, it was all I had hoped for. No, angels didn’t descend from the heavens and lift me up in some moment of ultimate transcendence, but Mangum started off by playing Oh Comely, unamped, in a room of concentrated attention and appreciative silence, followed by a thunder of heartfelt, sincere applause. I wept. He played three more songs. We cheered him back out for an encore, which wound up being a singalong of Engine. It was not the phoned in, one or two song throwing us a bone deal which I had half expected/feared. It was the real deal. I left shortly after, knowing I was missing lots of other great acts but at the same time that I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on them or really appreciate them. On the train home from Penn Station, I saw a familiar orange wristband from Le Poisson Rouge on a stranger and struck up a conversation with him about Jeff Mangum.
The organizer had a strict no photo or video policy for this event, so the only photo I have is the one above, taken outside Le Poisson Rouge afterward. I was pretty miffed about that originally but in the end it was better to be able to focus all my attention on the performances, and not have part of directed to exposure and composition. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t bring my camera anyway, just in case the opportunity arose to use it. I did. But it stayed in my bag until I was back outside. It would’ve felt too wrong to interrupt a rare and precious moment with trying to sneak a picture or two.

2. The National & Buke & Gass at Bell House, March 12, 2010
It’s always a treat when you get the opportunity to see one of your favorite bands, who are big enough to sell out multiple nights at multiple-thousand person rooms easily, play in a cozy little room on a rainy night, or on any night, but this night was rainy and windy, and that walk through Gowanus in the weather past quiet warehouses suited the show to come perfectly. The National played a mix of older favorites and new songs from the at that point yet to be released High Violet, and they all sounded wonderful. I was close enough to really notice Matt Berninger’s tics while singing, the way he sort of punches his hands together, how his gestures grow more expansive as he drains more wine from the bottle. I was also close enough to get sort of tangled in his mic cord when he came out into the crowd during Mr. November, typically. My love seeing The National live is rooted less on the strength of their performances and more in simple love of the songs, so seeing them far removed from the action in places like BAM or Prospect Park (the other places I saw them this year) just doesn’t have the same magic as one of these quasi secret warmup shows.

3. Perfume Genius at 92YTribeca, July 20, 2010
I saw Perfume Genius two other times this year, at the Knitting Factory and at a semi-private party in someone’s living room in Bushwick, but this was the first time and in many ways the best. 92YTribeca was the perfect room for this show, comfortable and spacious while still being intimate, dimly and simply lit, a low stage, chairs and ample room for people to sit on the floor and soak it in. Soak it in they did; the room was dead silent while Mike Hadreas played his deceptively simple and beautiful songs of a veritable laundry list of heavy topics. Performing these songs seems to cost him a lot, emotionally, which is unsurprising, and I spent the duration of the show trying in vain to hold back tears, but there’s also something cathartic about laying bare such painful and personal things in front of a roomful of people. Abuse thrives on secrecy and shame; sometimes telling true stories to strangers is one of the most powerful things you can do to strike out against it. After, I found Hadreas outside smoking, wrestled briefly with my usual shyness, and approached him and thanked him for the beautiful set before dashing away. He seemed just as awkward as I felt, but I was glad I said something.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

4. John Shade, Britt Daniel, Annie Clark, Justin Vernon, Shara Worden, Songer Singwriter at the BrooklynVegan & Bowery Presents Benefit for Haiti at Music Hall of Williamsburg, January 23, 2010
It’s sort of a copout to include a benefit show on a best of list, isn’t it? From the get go you’re bringing together musicians who probably aren’t already touring together, and the opportunities arise for collaborations that wouldn’t otherwise be possible. It’s too easy. Actually, it really isn’t, and while I’ve attended my share of benefit shows, for the sake of the causes they support, the musicians who are playing, or both, the performances themselves don’t always stick out in my mind. This was one of those rare near perfect ones, beginning to end, with the only sour note for me personally being some of the comedians (but I’m not really a comedy person, so whatever, take that with a grain of salt). Annie Clark’s cover of Mistaken for Strangers was hauntingly beautiful, but the real highlights of the night came whenever musical MVP Justin Vernon took the stage. He, Annie Clark, and members of Megafaun came together to form supergroup Songer Singwriter for one night only (alas!). They played a gorgeous cover of Harvest Moon, a version of Jolene full of epic guitar shredding, and ended with Annie Lennox’s Why, featuring Vernon pushing his vocal skills to their height.

5. Extra Lens, John Vanderslice, & Dan Mangan at Mercury Lounge (CMJ), October 21, 2010
I had a fun, extremely busy CMJ this year. I took the week off from work and ran around back and forth from the Lower East Side to Williamsburg shooting day parties and nighttime showcases for BrooklynVegan. I saw a lot of bands (obviously) and enjoyed some of them quite a bit, but when you’re that oversaturated in music and seeing mostly abbreviated sets it’s hard for anything to really stand out amidst the clamor. This show was the antithesis to all of that, and in some ways a very not-CMJ showcase; I doubt that very many people turned up halfway through, or left early, and if they did, they missed out. I was unfamiliar with Dan Mangan but totally charmed by his set, in particular when he led the audience in a singalong of “robots need love too, they want to be loved by you.” John Vanderslice was delightful and personable. He asked if we were going to any showcases after this one, and suggested we all meet and hang out in a park instead. Even stacked against the many tempting showcase options scheduled all night, it sounded like an incredibly good idea. The Extra Lens brings together powerhouses John Darnielle and Franklin Bruno, and as you can imagine, they kicked ass. I didn’t try to find John Vanderslice in a park afterward, but I abandoned the showcase I had planned on going to, knowing it just wouldn’t come anywhere near this, and not wanting to spoil the good feeling.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

6. Belle & Sebastian & Teenage Fanclub at Williamsburg Waterfront, September 30, 2010
Hurricane conditions were in the forecast leading up to this show, and Williamsburg Waterfront, as it is a state park located right on the East River, is notorious for pulling the plug on shows as soon as the weather looks like it’ll turn sour. All day I monitored the situation with some trepidation - I’ve been listening to Belle & Sebastian since I was a teenager and had never seen them live, and had looked forward to this show for months. Also, I was supposed to be shooting, and the prospect of bringing my camera and lenses into the wet and windy elements comes with a certain amount of anxiety and consideration of the merits of various weather protection (aka glorified plastic bags). Well, the show went on as scheduled (mostly - the set times were pushed up by half an hour) and while the sky remained a threatening grey, no rain fell. That element of uncertainty, of knowing that the sky could open up and things could be shut down at any time, made the music sound all the sweeter. And even though, as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been listening to Belle & Sebastian for ages, I had no idea how unabashedly fun they’d be live. It took serious force of will not to start dancing and singing along to I’m a Cuckoo, which they played during the first three songs in the photo pit. After that, though, I found myself a space off to the side to watch from, and let loose during Sukie in the Graveyard.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

7. Jens Lekman at The Green Building, December 10, 2010
My first time seeing Jens Lekman, and it was just as lovely as I had hoped. Jens is just a delightful human being. I think it’s impossible to be in close proximity to him and not fall totally under his charming spell. His first two shows in NY in ages were, as he put it, an attempt to fall back in love with the city, after a vaguely alluded to heartbroken experience in Coney Island that made him hate it. Hopefully the rapt attention of the enthusiastic crowd convinced him that NY still loves him, and he should come back, preferably often. I only wish I would have stayed after, when Jens made good on his promise to sing any songs he didn’t play to fans into their ears. Jens, It Was a Strange Time in My Life next time, please!
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

8. Au Revoir Simone, Class Actress, & Alexa Wilding at Highline Ballroom, January 7, 2010
The first show I went to this year, and still one of my favorites. A sort of ladies night at Highline Ballroom, headlined by Au Revoir Simone performing wearing poufy white dresses under the dreamiest lighting, feathers, and fake snow. So so pretty. To close out the night, the ladies of Au Revoir Simone brought Elizabeth Harper or Class Actress and Alexa Wilding back onstage to sing Can’t Get You Out of my Head, acappella.

9. Owen Pallett, Extra Life, & The Luyas at Webster Hall, April 22, 2010
I consider this the first time I really saw Owen Pallett, even though it was actually the third. On both previous occasions circumstances led to abbreviated performances, and I left slightly disappointed but still determined to see an actual Owen Pallett show not compromised by injury or illness. No disappointment this time! Owen’s Webster Hall show was a glorious display of his ridiculously precise violin playing, in front of one of the most respectful crowds I’ve ever experienced there. He played my favorites from Heartland, the wistfully melancholy E is for Estranged and anthemic Lewis Takes off His Shirt, older favorites recorded under his previous Final Fantasy moniker, and ended with a Mariah Carey cover, Fantasy. Truly, the guy has a great sense of humor. As an added bonus, The Luyas opened this show, their first official one in NY, and thus my love affair with them began - so wonderfully quirky, I made a point of seeing them again two nights later.

10. The New Pornographers, The Dodos, & The Dutchess and the Duke at Terminal 5, June 19, 2010
The first of the three times I saw The New Pornographers this year, and definitely my favorite. Neko Case and Dan Bejar were both in the house, and I wasn’t shooting, leaving me free to find a spot in the balcony with my friends and sing and dance along to my heart’s content. Sometimes like attracts like, and my friend Theresa and I wound up dancing the set away with two awesome ladies we met by chance, culminating in an ecstatic run through the balcony during the climax of Bleeding Heart Show. It was undoubtably the most fun I’ve ever had at T5, and even the small intimate set at Bell House the next night paled in comparison.
I only brought a point and shoot camera to this show, which I barely used, but more photos from The New Pornographer’s December show at Terminal 5 with Ted Leo & The Pharmacists opening here on BrooklynVegan.

Honorable Mentions

11. Shout Out Louds & Freelance Whales at Webster Hall, May 5, 2010
Feel-good Swedish pop is best experienced live. I was in a shitty mood going into this show, and had my spirits totally lifted by it. It also helped that I wound up with some of my favorite photos that I took all year from the super pretty lighting.

12. Lost in the Trees & The Loom at Mercury Lounge, August 23, 2010
A rainy, stormy night suited an intimate show of beautiful folk music enriched by strings perfectly. Lost in the Trees lovingly recreated the songs from their haunting album, All Alone in an Empty House onstage, finally winding up playing in the middle of the floor at Mercury Lounge, surrounded by the crowd, unamped. If I were rating individual moments of the year, in terms of sheer goose-bump inducing magic, this one would be right up near the very top.
More photos here on BrooklynVegan.

13. Ra Ra Riot & The Antlers at Brooklyn Academy of Music, February 5, 2010
It’s always a thrill to see some of your favorite very deserving local(ish) bands blow up, and play to huge enthusiastic crowds in an elegant, ornate theater, like BAM. So enthusiastic, in fact, that many left their seats to stand in the orchestra pit in front of the stage, which honestly I’ve never seen done at BAM - it’s just not that kind of place. Separately Ra Ra Riot and The Antlers are two of my favorite bands to see live, so bringing them together on the same bill was just gravy.

Bands I saw this year that didn’t make the above list, but who may have flown under your radar and you should definitely make an effort to go see (in alphabetical order):
Alcoholic Faith Mission, Allo Darlin’, Arms, Basia Bulat, Braids, Dark Dark Dark, First Aid Kit, Glasser, Lia Ices, Little Scream, Lower Dens, Miracles of Modern Science, Mountain Man, Peggy Sue, Pepper Rabbit, Prince Rama, Ravens & Chimes, Scary Mansion, Sharon Van Etten, She Keeps Bees, Think About Life, Woom, Wye Oak

A few bands I’m disappointed I missed seeing this year (in alphabetical order):
Arcade Fire, Janelle Monae, Jonsi, Sufjan Stevens, Villagers

Favorite Live Music Photos of 2010

(archiving selected content from my old Wordpress blog!)

This gallery is too large and too inconsistent in quality for me to truly call it my best of the year, but over the past few weeks I went back through the photos from all the shows I shot this year, tagged my favorites, and wound up with this. Some of these made it into my portfolio, or were serious contenders; others had certain lighting or details that I really liked at the time, or that caught my eye as I was going back through them. The full gallery is available here on flickr, and comprises some 140 pictures, in chronological order. A few of my best of the favorites are below. Real lists, like my favorite albums, songs, and shows of 2010, are coming shortly!

Jens Lekman at the Green Building - for BrooklynVegan.

The Loom at Bowery Ballroom - for BrooklynVegan.

Suuns at Bowery Ballroom - for BrooklynVegan.

Sharon Van Etten at The Rock Shop - for BrooklynVegan.

Wild Beasts at Highline Ballroom - for BrooklynVegan.

Fucked Up at Newtown Barge Park - for BrooklynVegan.

Florence + The Machine at Le Poisson Rouge

The National at Bell House

Favorite Albums & Songs of 2009

(archiving selected content from my old Wordpress blog!)

A caveat before I start: I’m always hesitant to make lists of the best albums, in particular, in a given year because I never listen to as many new releases as I want/plan to. Those I do listen to take time to grow on me, be digested, and oftentimes it won’t be until months later that I decide, hey, this __ album is really freaking awesome, why was I not loving it a year ago? In the same fashion, an album I loved at first listen can sour or get boring quickly on subsequent ones, or become inextricably associated with unpleasant memories. Finally, the albums and songs I really loved this year, again, just like any year, are almost certainly not the objective best in a sea of releases, but they’re the ones I loved the most, that I made some sort of personal connection with or that remind me of people, places, times. Frankly, I’m the wrong person to ask which were the “best,” anyway; I couldn’t tell you. So instead I call this a list of my favorites and have done with it.

Albums

1. Hospice, The Antlers
I need to talk about how much and more importantly why I love this album so very much, but it’s too long and wordy and personal and thus is getting a post of its own. Watch for it; should be up in a couple of days. Suffice to say: LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

2. Actor, St. Vincent
Annie Clark is so fascinating to me. She has a little porcelain doll’s perfect, delicate face, and when you see her live she spends a lot of time shredding on her guitar like a champ. I adore her. Marry Me is great, but Actor is even better, with tons of quirky songs and epic arrangements.

3. Noble Beast, Andrew Bird
I really enjoyed the experience of reading snippets from Andrew on NY Times’ Measure for Measure blog during the making of this album. He said from the get go that he had a texture in mind for this, warm, woody, mossy, fecund, and either the power of suggestion works wonders or he really achieved what he set out to; I’m thinking it’s the latter. In particular, Natural Disaster encapsulates the whole album, sound and content-wise. On the other end of the spectrum, Not a Robot, But a Ghost sounds more like Radiohead than your typical Andrew Bird song, and is totally mind-blowing. To finish the whole thing off there’s the loveliest bittersweet instrumental, On Ho!, which I gushed my love of to Martin Dosh and Mike Lewis (of Andrew’s band) when I met them briefly after a show. Like everything Andrew does, I adore this. I might be slightly obsessed. I don’t think it’s a bad thing.

4. Lungs, Florence + The Machine
Florence Welch is out of this world amazing. I fell totally and irrevocably under her spell after seeing her live this year. The huge impact of The Dog Days Are Over gets your heart racing, and it just doesn’t stop from there. Sometimes I try to sing along with this for fun, but usually I just sit stunned and let the sound wash over me. It’s that good.

5. The Life of the World to Come, The Mountain Goats
This one took some time to grow on me. The sound is very spare and minimal, and although I’m a lyrics freak at heart I do also have a weakness for pretty strings and that’s generally the first thing I have an ear out for. Once I familiarized myself with the lyrics for this, though, I was totally sold. So many of these songs hit really close to home for me in a way that very few other albums have; between this and Hospice, it was, for me, the year of albums that tell you the story of your life! And make you cry! And then you see said bands live and you get weepy then as well! Too much relevance! Who am I kidding, I love music this affecting.

6. Reservoir, Fanfarlo
There’s a lot of obvious sonic inspiration from the huge epic sounds of Arcade Fire, as well as their menagerie of instrumentation. But Fanfarlo isn’t a carbon copy, and it’s unfair to peg them as such. I can’t help but love the similarities, anyway: any band that takes the things I love about Arcade Fire’s sound, and adds their own twist to them? Awesome! This is such a charming album, I really can’t get enough of it, and the more I listen to it the more I like it. As a bonus, they’re amazing live, go see them and be prepared to dance and have a lovely time.

7. Two Suns, Bat for Lashes
Natasha Khan is incredible. Her albums and songs exist in this universe with their own imagery and mythology. We get glimpses of what it’s like there, we may get to visit for a little while, but ultimately we’re just visitors. Which is a shame, because I want to live in these songs, be wild and strong and free.

8. Middle Cyclone, Neko Case
See also: best album cover of the year. What strikes me about Neko Case, once I get over her awe-inspiring voice, which usually doesn’t happen–is her lyrics, which are unusual and strange and lovely. She has a very different way of saying things, and I’m frequently reminded of snatches of dreams, primal bits of the collective unconscious.

9. The Bachelor, Patrick Wolf
Patrick Wolf is a total character, one of a kind. There’s a little bit of everything on this album and that’s pretty well representative of him as an artist and performer. A couple of songs, I could do without, but the rest are so amazing they more than make up for it.

10. Bitte Orca, Dirty Projectors
Hyped to hell, and with good reason. This has no right to sound as good as it does; challenging and experimental generally are not good bedfellows to catchy pop music. Somehow, this straddles the line perfectly, while maintaining just the right amount of tension to stay interesting.

11. Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix, Phoenix
Whenever I want to bounce around my house like a maniac, I play this album and commence the dancing and geeking out. It’s really feel good perfection. For some reason, live, I wasn’t feeling it, but that’s okay, because on record it has yet to lose its magic. Hopefully it never will.

12. Dear John, Loney Dear
Lovely, intimate, melancholy. I spend a lot of time with this, and I always am touched by some different aspect.

13. Merriweather Post Pavilion, Animal Collective
I downloaded the leak of this after hearing all the hype, and wanting to roll my eyes at how ridiculous and overblown it all was. The first version I downloaded was actually eleven tracks of Never Gonna Give You Up, and the first time I’ve ever legitimately been Rickrolled. It was pretty funny. Then I found the real thing and was impressed, in spite of myself. Best album of the year? Nah. But right up there.

14. The First Days of Spring, Noah and the Whale
Classic super depressing breakup album. Heartbreaking.

15. Get Guilty, A.C. Newman
Deliciously catchy little pop gems.

Songs

1. Two, The Antlers
Again, watch this space for an explanation and expression of my love for this. All I’ll say now is that Two, along with Wake, is more or less the story of my life. Two = me at 17. It’s uncanny and slightly frightening and destroys me just about every time I hear it.

2. You Are the Blood, Sufjan Stevens
Epic.

3. In The Flowers, Animal Collective
This song grabbed me immediately the first time I listened to the album and never let go; twelve months later, I still get a bit of a rush when hearing it. Totally relevant lyrics for myself and anyone who’s wished to just leave their body for the night, followed by that enormous musical leap – it’s a stunner.

4. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up), Florence + The Machine
I was discussing this song with Theresa, what it means and why I love it so much. There’s a vast well of emotional truth behind the lyrics, but I have a hard time explaining any concrete literal interpretation. (If, indeed, mine is the correct one, which it probably isn’t.) To me, it’s a song about the trade-off on having any sort of talent or gift, particularly of an artistic sort: that there’s always a balance, and in exchange for this ability, you have to use if, you have to offer yourself up, sacrifice yourself in a way. Which is something I’ve often thought about/felt like. So when I heard this for the first time I felt an immediate connection with it and proceeded to listen to it on repeat, a lot.

5. Laughing With a Mouth of Blood, St. Vincent
This song sneaks up on you and bowls you over. It’s practically perfect, I can’t explain much more than that.

6. Anonanimal, Andrew Bird
Swoon-worthy violin. “I will become this animal, perfectly adapted to our music halls.”

7. One Wing, Wilco
I listened to this on repeat a lot this summer. Usually while attempting to sing along with the harmony line.

8. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid, The Decemberists
I was pretty lukewarm on The Hazards of Love as a whole; the story doesn’t hang together as well as it’s intended to, and without a premise to link them the individual songs aren’t nearly as strong as The Decemberists’ usual fare. Except for The Wanting Comes in Waves, that is. Becky Stark and Shara Worden lend their vocal talents and blow this thing into the stratosphere.

9. Stillness is the Move, Dirty Projectors
It’s impossible to listen to this and not dance around a little, at least for me. Irresistible.

10. Prison Girls, Neko Case
A particularly potent slice of Neko Case’s dreamscapes, narrated by that huge incredible voice.

11. Siren Song, Bat for Lashes
“My name is Pearl and I love you the best way I know how.” Chills, every time!

12. So Far Around the Bend, The National
Another standout from Dark Was the Night. Dear The National, I love you, could you put out a new album, like, yesterday? Also, a tour. If that’s not asking too much, or anything. Ok, thanks. PS: I know, it’s my own fault for only getting into you guys this past year.

13. Finish Line, Fanfarlo
Fanfarlo are so incredible. Right now this is my favorite song of theirs, but that could always change.

14. Damaris, Patrick Wolf
The repeated “rise up”s in the end give me chills.

15. Blood Bank, Bon Iver
For Emma, Forever Ago didn’t blow me away the way it seemed to for many others. I mean, I enjoyed it, but something seemed to be keeping me from embracing it wholeheartedly. Whatever obstacle, real or imagined, stood between me and that album was nowhere in sight when I listened to the Blood Bank EP, particularly the title track. It’s incredible how such simple and direct lyrics can be so devastating.

16. House of Diamonds, Bowerbirds
So much fun. This track is a particular standout in another strong album from these guys. Folky + boy/girl vocals + delightful lyrics = I like it.

17. Love of an Orchestra, Noah and the Whale
I wasn’t sure how well this song would translate live, but I was pleasantly surprised. Quite an epic break in an album of lovely quiet melancholy songs.

18. I Was Only Going Out, Loney Dear
Sunshine.

19. Lisztomania, Phoenix
Dancing! Dancing? Yes, dancing! Try to deny it. That’s right, you can’t.

20. While You Wait for the Others, Grizzly Bear
Veckatimest sounded good and everything, but most of the songs ran together to my ears, with the exceptions of Two Weeks and While You Wait for the Others. Both songs are quite excellent, but …Wait for the Others edges ahead slightly in my ranking.

10 Favorite Shows of 2009 (+3 pleasant surprises)

(archiving selected content from my old Wordpress blog!)

I started off the year with the goals of going to/taking pictures at least one show a month, and finally stepping it up and getting photo passes for things instead of shooting on the sly from the crowd all the time. Check and check! In the process, I logged way too many hours on NJ Transit (when I wasn’t missing trains altogether), attempted to battle my anxiety when dealing with pass mixups (with varying results), got crushed by masses of sweaty bodies a couple of times, learned to use my camera better, and saw a lot of really awesome music. These were my favorites:

#1: Florence + The Machine at Bowery Ballroom, October 27
Hands down, the best performance I witnessed all year. Florence Welch is beyond belief; she’s a force of nature, moving as if possessed, whipping her hair around, gesturing wildly, and beating on a drum in a fierce, hectic frenzy, all the while belting in this impossibly amazing voice. We packed Bowery Ballroom to see her at this, her first proper New York City show. Lucky thing, because I seriously doubt she’ll ever play anywhere so small and intimate again.
More photos from Florence + The Machine here.

#2: The Weakerthans at Music Hall of Williamsburg, September 17
The most fun I had at a show all year, without question. John K. Samson writes lyrics that wend their way under my skin and anchor little hooks into my heart, becoming personal anthems of sorts. I was looking forward to seeing these guys for the first time immensely, but I wasn’t sure how the experience would gel with the intense & personal relationship I have with their music. Then I was there, and the crowd around me was singing along with every word of every song and dancing, and instead of bristling with annoyance as I’d expected to I felt this vast outpouring of communal musical love, and joined in. The show ran late, I missed my train, I didn’t even care. (Note: this is remarkable because I’m usually a massive anxiety case about this sort of thing.)
More photos from The Weakerthans here.

#3: The Antlers at Bowery Ballroom, December 15
The Antlers’ album Hospice hit me like a ton of bricks, and I tried and failed to make it to their album release show at Mercury Lounge and a later show at Maxwell’s. Then I caught them at Music Hall of Williamsburg for CMJ, and while they sounded incredible the people standing next to me were pretty rambunctious and it took me out of the mood of the music quite a bit. At this, their first headlining show at Bowery Ballroom, though, The Antlers brought the full crushing power and emotion of their music and left me a quivering puddle of goo. I’ve never cried so much at a show and that’s about the highest compliment I can give.
More photos from The Antlers here.

#4: Sufjan Stevens at Bowery Ballroom, October 5
It was so quiet in Bowery Ballroom you could hear a pin drop, but for the music. I was sick and miserable with a terrible hacking cough that I tried, with little success, to muffle in my hands and jacket. It should have been a recipe for disaster, or a sign for me to call it an early night, but Sufjan and friends sounded so good I couldn’t have moved even if I wanted to.
More photos from Sufjan Stevens here.

#5: Amanda Palmer at Highline Ballroom, June 5 / Amanda Palmer & Neil Gaiman at Housing Works, June 3
Amanda Palmer always brings the goods, performance wise, but this show was particularly excellent. Maybe it was the various friends and family members who entered and exited the stage, giving the whole night the feel of a big family gathering that also happens to be totally welcome to interested strangers, so step inside; maybe it was that only two days before, I’d been present at Amanda & Neil Gaiman’s Liner Notes appearance at Housing Works, which was in and of itself an incredible, special night. I’ve been a fan of Neil’s for over a decade and hearing him read, as well as having a brief and painfully fangirly and gushing conversation with him over the signing table was a definite highlight of my year. Plus, the public revelation that night that he and Amanda are dating, thus becoming the ultimate weirdo power couple who you can look to and think, maybe there’s someone out there for me yet? All these things combined, I think, to create a vortex of supreme awesome.
More photos from Amanda Palmer here.

#6: The Mountain Goats & Final Fantasy at Bell House, December 2
Two amazing bands closing their tour together at one of the loveliest, most intimate venues in the city sounded too good to be true, and sure enough the night didn’t go off without a hitch. Poor Owen Pallett mangled his finger and, unable to play violin, was left to improvise his songs via some rough looped piano. All things considered, though, it sounded damn good, and only left me more in awe of his musical skills, even in a pinch. Then John Darnielle and his band came out to play a set of material from their newest album, older fan favorites, and some truly hilarious covers. The pinnacle of the night was when everyone in the room, John, Owen (who’d come out to join him for a few songs), the rest of the band, every person in the audience, shouted along together, “I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me!” Which was almost matched, a few songs later, with another whole room singalong to No Children. My only complaint about the night? The Bell House’s lighting is not my favorite, and I left with very few pictures I liked.
More photos from The Mountain Goats & Final Fantasy here.

#7: Andrew Bird at Radio City Music Hall, June 18
I was skeptical about seeing Andrew at a venue this cavernous, but he filled it with gorgeous looped violin and whistling better than I ever could’ve imagined, sounding the absolute best I’ve ever heard him. An encore of Why?, Don’t Be Scared, and Fake Palindromes was pure perfection. This was one of three times I saw the Bird man this year; the first, at Music Hall of Williamsburg in January, was the only one I really took pictures at, aside from a few sneaked at Radio City. For the third I went to Philly to see him with St. Vincent, and his collaborations with her there are totally worth mentioning, and tracking down audiovisual evidence of if at all possible.
Photos from Andrew Bird at Music Hall of Williamsburg here.

#8: Wilco at Keyspan Park, July 13
Jeff Tweedy looked like he was having grand old time on this stage, and his good mood was infectious. It was a perfect summer’s day at Coney Island, and this was just about the best soundtrack imaginable to close it out. And as an added bonus, guest appearances by Leslie Feist and Ed Droste.
More photos from Wilco here.

#9: Fanfarlo at Webster Hall, December 18
I missed a couple of Fanfarlo shows due to circumstances and scheduling, but the third time was clearly the charm. Fanfarlo delivered an epic tour finale complete with an escape artist and interpretive dancer (what can I say, I’m a sucker for theatrics). It was the sort of show where I couldn’t decide which I wanted to do more, dance or take pictures, so I settled for a little bit of both. Those are always my favorites.
More photos from Fanfarlo here.

#10: Ra Ra Riot at Webster Hall, April 4
Most attractive string section in indie rock? Perhaps! Of course, that isn’t the only reason to love Ra Ra Riot; they’re great on record and they’re great performers. This was a tremendous, high energy show, and Webster Hall’s weird blue lighting was really working for me photo wise. As an added bonus, Alexandra Lawn (cello) contacted me through Facebook afterward to compliment my pictures, be still my heart!
More photos from Ra Ra Riot here.

The 3 Best Pleasant Surprises:

#1: tUnE-YaRdS at Bowery Ballroom, November 18 (opening for The Dirty Projectors)
I took one look at Merrill Garbus’s band name, with its alternating capital letters, groaned inwardly, and prepared myself for a boring and/or insufferable opening act before the band I was really there to see, Dirty Projectors. What I didn’t expect was that Dirty Projectors, as great as they are, would be totally upstaged by Ms. Garbus, her dual mics, drums, ukulele, and looping pedal. After she left the stage to thunderous applause and shouts for an encore, I heard the guy behind me exclaim, “best opener ever!” I’m inclined to agree.
More photos from tUnE-YaRdS and Dirty Projectors here.

#2: The Lisps at Highline Ballroom, June 5 (opening for Amanda Palmer)
Amanda Palmer usually finds some excellent people to open for her who I otherwise probably wouldn’t have come across, and The Lisps were no exception to that. Very fun and catchy, they had me smiling: and as a bonus, they were super fun to photograph!
More photos from The Lisps & Amanda Palmer here.

#3: Arms at Pianos, October 23 (CMJ)
This was the first year I really attempted to “do” CMJ, versus just going to one or two shows during the week. It was a little bit more than I’d bargained for. After a couple straight days of working 9-5, catching a bus into the city, shooting five or so bands in some tiny club with no lighting to speak of, racing to make the last train home, maybe trying to do a little editing before falling asleep for a couple of hours and then waking up to do it all over again…my enthusiasm waned quite a bit. I had a couple of free hours on Friday before my assignment, though, and somehow I found myself in Pianos, catching a couple songs from Arms’ set. The music was quirky and tuneful and the singer was making self deprecating cracks and I felt like I was in a little oasis from the past few days’ madness. Too soon, I had to venture back out into the fray, but I remember leaving thinking & tweeting about how, well, special those few songs had been.
More photos from CMJ here.