TheMaker

Y'know, this is actually a really good stream. The mix is great, the camerawork is actually decent, etc.

And this is maybe the best live PKB I've ever heard.

NUDIE SUITS! I'm still fucking laughing!

Just like their record! Yay! One Shins is more than enough, I think. (New and Improved! Now with choral vocals and round robin singing! New, sort of, for indie pop!)

Cough. Sorry. Really not digging on the acclaim for Foxes or Bon Iver, though. So painfully standard, both of them...

Best of '08 by me looks like this, basically in order:

Alejandro Escovedo - Real Animal

The Drive By Truckers - Brighter Than Creation's Dark

The Hold Steady - Stay Positive

She and Him - Volume One

The Eddy Current Suppression Ring - Primary Colours*

MMJ - Evil Urges**

Bonnie Prince Billy - Lie Down in the Light

Ry Cooder - I, Flathead

Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!

Sloan - Parallel Play

T Bone Burnett - Tooth of Crime

The Black Keys - Attack and Release

Elliott Brood - Mountain Meadows

Okkervil River - The Stand Ins

Lumps of poo that are crappy (or, my biggest disappointments of the year to date):

Matthew Sweet - Sunshine Lies

Wolf Parade - Zommy Zoomy Zimmy (whatever the fuck, I can't remember the title)

The New Odds - Cheerleader

The Kills - Goodnight

R.E.M. - Accelerate

*Look at me, all ahead of the curve. This is a Melbourne band who sound exactly like 1977. Think Wire, early Jam basslines and just fucking amazing (and amazingly loud) real punk.

**Fuck the critics, yo.

I don't really know about either of these. I mean, Sunny Feeling is great, but guys, you've already written Walken, and while fun, it's not quite a fantastic song. No need to do it again.

One Wing is a bit of an improvement. Kind of a slow burner, I guess. I really like the melody (that bassline is wonderful) and the first little crescendo at the two-minute mark. I feel like I've sat through the "song-ending guitar breakdown" a thousand times before, though. Not every song has to end with Nels unleashing a flurry of notes. Nels all pointing his Fender at the audience, all, "Here, guys - NOTES! NOTES FOR ALL!" Me all shielding my face, like, "PTOO, dude, easy-! Watch the eyes!"

Anyway. I was a bit bored by both songs. Here's hoping they push themselves outside of SBS outtake territory sooner rather than later. I hate how disinterested in this band I've been since the damned Volvo ads (or whatever the fuck they were).

Dreamin' of You: http://www.yousendit.com/download/Q01IRkJaY3lGR0ZjR0E9PQ

There y' go! I found it a pretty convoluted system just to get one lousy song. The song isn't lousy, though; it's pretty interesting. Basically a vestigial "Standing in the Doorway," but with a slithery Oh Mercy sort of quality. Not as good as anything on TOOM, of course, but an interesting look into Dylan's creative process.

Since the previous two installments were really lacklustre, I'm excited about this BS volume. I'm totally psyched that a track from the only Niagara region show Dylan has ever played (unless you count Hamilton, which you really shouldn't) is included in the set. A guy I met at that show hooked me up with an audience recording a few weeks later, but the sound quality is quite poor, even for an outdoor show. It'll be interesting to hear what it sounds like on the official release.

TDK has leapt clear over There Will Be Blood to become the best serious film I've seen since No Country for Old Men.

Simply put, this is a fucking masterpiece. Of cinema. Not of comic bookery, nor of action filmmaking. The film's exploration of morality pushed the envelope to the tearing point, and its examination of what makes a hero is just fucking inspiring. I might check this out again already on the weekend.

Goddamn. I mean, really. Wow. This film is an astounding achievement on any number of levels.

I still think OEND is head and shoulders above the others, if only for the fact that it contains two staggeringly perfect songs in Sodom South Georgia and Naked As We Came. They're fucking stunning, almost as if they'd always existed and were simply plucked from out of the ether by Sam. Most artists will never produce anything on that level.

A girl in front of me threw a few bits into the jukebox about a week ago and one of her songs ended up being I'm the Man Who Loves You. I didn't even think to see if Wilco was on the playlist, but I did play the first three songs from the new DBTs record.

In other news, I think I have a new favourite bar!

Yeah, it's definitely one of his best straightforward songs, and also one of the more plainly beautiful.

Man, this is really, really good. That is all.

It's definitely a brilliant rock record. There's a lot of diversity re: the instrumentation (strings, backup singers and all the rest), but something about the production reminds you that you're listening to a suite a songs, not just a bunch of singles.

They really don't make 'em like this anymore. I can't get over how good this is, and I don't think that's just lowered expectations talking.

The foul taste of their best album, you mean!

Holy crap, this album is just HUGE. I'll admit that I positively disliked The Boxing Mirror - just felt like Al on autopilot to me, and none of the songs were anywhere near as good as what was on A Man Under the Influence - but I think this could well be the best solo record of his career. He's just unbridled here, kinda putting me in mind of the Boss circa The River, and the songwriting is hitting it out of the park on every level. Quite possibly the best album of 2008. I can't wait to listen to this 100 times. Y'know? It's having that effect on me.

I had the EXACT same reaction to Kot's review. You took the words right out of my head. Seems to me as though most of the negative reviews are rooted so deeply in preconceived notions that they aren't even feigning a sense of objectivity. Maybe I'm being a dick, but it seems like there are two general schools of fan when it comes to EU: those of us who realize that it's the best summer album in years, and those who are whiny fucking crybabies with a swollen sense of entitlement.

I maintain two things about this record: 1) it's easily one of the best MMJ have delivered to date, and 2) it can barely be considered a departure at all, except by listeners who frankly haven't been paying any attention to the band's actual music. (People who use stupid terms like "silo rock" and "reverb" EVERY time you talk about MMJ, I'm looking in your direction...)

Two Halves can be traced back to The Dark using nothing but a straight line. EU and Highly Suspicious both have a forebear in Cobra, etc., etc. The rockers from this record could have appeared on Z, for Christ's sake. The R&B flavoured songs - which Kot is surely borderline retarded for daring to criticise - are wonderful and have been a long time coming, at least if MMJ's choice of covers over the years have anything to say about it (Curtis Mayfield, Prince, et al).

I just don't get people sometimes. Just... Christ, pay attention to the band you've been tasked to evaluate. That's the bare minimum I expect from critics, and most of the EU naysayers haven't even been able to rise to that meagre task.

I downloaded At Dawn on a lark after reading a review shortly after its release. This was in the days of Audiogalaxy, when I'd just download new stuff for the sheer novelty of it. Anyway, I loved the album immediately and they've been one of my favourite bands ever since. I've only seen 'em twice, but that definitely needs to change (although I just missed their Toronto show, so I guess it'll be another year or two before I get another chance... d'oh!).

Play some Elliott Brood and chase it with the first track from Twilight Hotel's Highway Prayer album! It really shouldn't be a chore to find great roots rock from this country.

Wow, very cool news. I loved their first album and EP, and hadn't even heard of this one.

Well, that's a trumped up statement, to be sure. On one of my less civil days, I might say the same thing about Times They Are A-Changin', to which fans seem to have a similar love/hate relationship, but I probably wouldn't.

Seriously, there's a lot to dislike about Another Side. Start with the just plain ugly Ballad in Plain D and go from there...

Another Side..

Definitely my least favourite of the '60s records. Some of the individual songs are classics, but the recording itself is the opposite of compelling, IMO. Plus, from late '63 to the end of '64, Dylan had this truly irritating shrill quality to his voice that I just can't stand. I mean, I own Bootleg 6, of course, but I've never actually listened to it.

1. Blood on the Tracks

2. Highway 61

3. Time Out of Mind

4. Bringing It All Back Home

5. John Wesley Harding

I think it'd be more interesting to make a thread about one's least favourite Dylan records. Mine'd look something like this:

1. Dylan

2. Knocked Out Loaded

3. Empire Burlesque

4. Down in the Groove

5. Modern Times

Thanks for the links!

Cripes, this is fantastic stuff. The James Brown and Bobby Womack covers are literally unbelievable. Maybe the coolest live shit I've heard from these guys to date, and that's saying something.

Across 110th Street (Bobby Womack & Peace) with Jeff Coffin and the Nashville/Louisville Horns

OHMYFUCKINGSHITILLDIEIFIDONTHEARTHISWITHIN24HOURS. My favourite band of late doing one of my favourite songs of all time. Wow, wow, wow. Recording? Please? Anybody?

Three or four months of weekly (cough, okay, bi-daily) listening later, and I still think the title track and Somkin' from Shootin' are the band's finest two songs to date. The latter is just a classy as hell pressure cooker, and the first is a flawless brick of summer rock. I'm almost disgusted that so many people just don't seem to understand.

Lone Pilgrim, from Dylan's World Gone Wrong.

1. I came to the place where the lone pilgrim lay,

And pensively stood by his tomb,

When in a low whisper I heard something say:

How sweetly I sleep here alone.

2. The tempest may howl and the loud thunder roar

And gathering storms may arise,

But calm is my feeling, at rest is my soul,

The tears are all wiped from my eyes.

3. The call of my master compelled me from home,

No kindred or relative nigh.

I met the contagion and sank to the tomb,

My soul flew to mansions on high.

4. Go tell my companion and children most dear

To weep not for me now I'm gone.

The same hand that led me through seas most severe

Has kindly assisted me home.

And of course, Remember the Mountain Bed.

My top five consists entirely of Reckoning somehow. I don't get it!

Seriously, though, that album is remarkable in its perfection. Automatic is a not-quite-close, but still beloved second-place finisher for me.