the days (at least) are sleepy (at least this week) in the city that never sleeps.every music office in town (practically) is closed for the holidays.
(who would've guessed that folks in the music business had families?)
the nights are a bit different.
Patti Smith's currently finishing up night two of three at the Bowery Ballroom, and Amanda Palmer is playing after her tomorrow evening (read: New Year's morning). I believe doors for the AP show open at 2.
and there's an opener.
will I be awake? most probably.
will I be there? uh, no.
(and I liked Amanda Palmer's latest album a great deal)
Akron/Family finishes off a minimum five-band night (including Deerhoof and Deertick, two of the 23 indie bands with either Deer or Crystal in their name (where oh where is Crystal Deer? or better yet, Deer Crystal?) my next band, I promise (with fingers crossed)) on the Knitting Factory's final night of Leonard Street existence.
and in recognition the Voice posted our summertime Possibly 4th Street visit with Seth and Dana and Miles, nice boys all.
this year I wrote about Magnetic Fields, Kaki King, Robert Forster, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Liz Phair, the Hold Steady and Drive-By Truckers, not quite two dozen former Mets and Yankees, Jimmy Cobb, the last remaining member from Miles Davis' Birth of the Cool sessions (now almost 50 years old itself), the 25th anniversary of R.E.M.'s Murmur and writing a song with Marnie Stern for print, Possibly 4th Street episodes with the Deadstring Brothers, Nicole Atkins, Say Hi, Kaki King (a two-for-one there), the Shout Out Louds, Peter Case, Menomena, Falcon, the Alabama 3, Amy Ray, IAMX, Basia Bulat, Someone Still Loves You, Boris Yeltsin, the Annuals, Broken Social Scene's Brendan Canning, Howlin' Rain, Bonerama and, of course, the just-posted Akron/Family, and long-form interviews with El Perro del Mar, Frank Black (a/k/a Black Francis, a/k/a Charles Thompson III), Aimee Mann, Jick percussionist Janet Weiss, Victoria Legrand of Beach House, Beth Murphy of Times New Viking, the Annuals' Anna Spence, Steinski (twice), Randy Newman, Vampire Weekend's Chris Baio, Kurt Wagner of Lambchop, Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, Stereolab's Laetitia Sadier, Exene Cervenka of X, Michael Lachowski and Randy Bewley of Pylon, Hank Jones, Chris Keating of Yeasayer and Lindsey Buckingham.
(I'm fairly certain that I may have skipped a feature or two, pretty certain that I missed at least a couple of Possibly 4th Streets and damn near positive that I left out a handful of interviews (ed. update: like Laurie Anderson, Robyn Hitchcock, Emmanuel Jal, Blondie's Chris Stein). sorry.)
no wonder I feel a bit peaked, eh?
and while getting to query folks like Robert Plant, Randy Newman and Liz Phair for the first time is a major fringe benefit of writing about music, I'm going to try to be a little more objective when it comes to singling out the best, you know, pieces of the year (I may feel differently tomorrow, and differently again the day after) in case your New Year's Eve is as slow as the music business.
my favorite self-penned feature from 2008: Robert Forster's Long Goodbye
my favorite Possibly 4th Street of the year: #18, the "better shut us down" episode with IAMX
and my favorite self-penned long-form interview: Pylon
and if I don't read any more books in the next 22 and a half hours (likely), see any more movies (questionable) or listen to any more music (not a chance in hell), then
the last book I ever read (in 2008): Elizabeth McCracken's An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination
the last movie I ever saw (in 2008): Kung Fu Panda
the last album I ever heard (in 2008): Bob Dylan's Tell-Tale Signs: The Bootleg Series, Vol. 8
have a safe, healthy and happy New Year.
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