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So here is the list of the albums I listened to the most in 2008. Feel free to blast away in the comments, that's what makes it fun after all. One note, while I did buy Metallica's Death Magnetic and after giving it a good week of dedicated play I have never gone back to it. The production sucks, the songs meander all over the place, the lyrics suck, and I've come to the conclusion that I am simply over Metallica. I've come to terms with this and I encourage you to do the same. Oh well, we'll always have Kill 'em All and Master of Puppets.

In no particular order...

Panic at the Disco - Pretty. Odd.

The album really wasn't that odd. It is essentially one big homage to the Beatles and ELO. But the band make the songs sound fresh and it is probably the most cheerful album I've heard all year.

Best tracks: Nine in the Afternoon, Northern Downpour, Pas de Cheval

Nine in the Afternoon


Alanis Morissette - Flavors of Entanglement

I already wrote about this album here. This was Alanis best since her breakthrough Jagged Little Pill and proved that an unhappy Alanis is the best type there is.

Best Tracks: Straitjacket, Not as We, Tapes

Not As We


The Offspring - Rise and Fall, Rage and Grace

This is my pick for best comeback album of the year. It isn't flawless, and the latter couple of tracks could easily be outtakes from Green Day's American Idiot, but after shoveling a decade's worth of shit onto the airwaves, The Offspring finally came back with a rock album that had some teeth. Hopefully it won't be another 10 years before we get another one from them as good as this one.

Best Tracks: You're Gonna Go Far Kid, Nothingtown, Let's Hear it For Rock Bottom

You're Gonna Go Far Kid


Fall Out Boy - Folie a Deux

Fall Out Boy have always (unfairly) been slagged for the poseur-riffic antics of bassist Pete Wentz when the truth is the band has consistently put out solid albums. Folie a Deux is their most ambitious to date and it succeeds more often than it fails. The band has always excelled at clever wordplay (even if the songs rarely make sense) and at least half the tracks benefit from playing at a decibel level usually reserved for 747's on takeoff. Folie a Deux is no exception. True that the guest stars like Elvis Costello and Debbie Harry, among others, are all but unrecognizable under the sonic assault, it is still an album well worth hearing even if they don't always reach the heights the band is reaching for. But they have got to retire the nonsensical song titles.

Best Tracks: I Don't Care, Sliding Headfirst into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet, Tiffany Blews

Sliding Head First Into Cooperstown on a Bad Bet

O.A.R - All Sides

O.A.R. has been around for years on the jam band circuit but this is their most mainstream album yet. The songs are tight but there are serious musical skills under the hood. Only one song is over 6 minutes long but it's a foregone conclusion that these songs will be stretched to breaking point live. In some cases, like the stunning The Fallout, I would have been happy if they had continued for at least 10 minutes more. High praise indeed.

Best Tracks: Our Town, Shattered, The Fallout

This Town


Alkaline Trio - Agony & Irony

More laid back than previous releases, Agony & Irony takes a bit to grab you but once it does it's hard to stop listening to it. A perfect album for the winter months, the lyrics are somber, the songs are not happy but there is an honesty there that is missing from a lot of rock releases.

Best Tracks: Calling all Skeletons, Do You Wanna Know, Love Love, Kiss Kiss

Do You Wanna Know?


That's it. Have a happy new year everybody!

Labels: music, TylerDFC

Most of us at one time or another have used drugs. Whether it's alcohol, nicotine, pot, or even just aspirin we have sought out chemicals to change the way our body feels. Like most people my age I have dabbled in illegal drugs from time to time. Nothing too heavy, I don't need all of my fingers to count the number of times I have smoked pot, but I HAVE sought to alter my consciousness with drugs beyond the standard alcohol. I was never a big fan of pot so I didn't feel the need to go any deeper in the experimentation of drugs. But I've never really been OPPOSED to it either. Once you make a choice to try one I think it opens up the possibility that one day you could see yourself trying others.

Hell, I'm sipping on a particularly delicious bloody mary while I write this and fighting the strong impulse to get the cigarettes out of the freezer and fire one up. Having "quit" smoking a couple of years ago I do nevertheless slip from time to time. Now instead of throwing the smokes away after a night of hard partying I put them in the freezer where they stay mostly fresh and I don't waste another $5 the next time the urge strikes to flirt with lung cancer. My addiction to cigarettes is nothing to do with physical and everything to do with mental. I can go weeks without a cigarette but the moment I get in a particular frame of mind, or get more than 2 or 3 drinks in to a night of drinking, a near overwhelming clanging refrain begins ringing in my head :WE NEED SMOKES. Sometimes I can ignore it, sometimes I don't bother. It's irritating but I've mostly made my peace with it and just try not to fall into the REALLY bad old habits.

I spent a few weeks in the winter of 2002 when I was a functioning alcoholic. My girlfriend had just moved out of state, I was laid off from an extremely lucrative contract position, and I was having a serious case of "I need to make a fucking change." I was going through a bottle of vodka a day, not to mention the beer chasers, and it all culminated in one brutal night of misjudgement and a final burnout of an admittedly seriously dysfunctional relationship. And it was the wake up call that I needed to stop acting like a fucking idiot.

The point is, I know what it is like to rely on drugs to get through the pain of life.

Which brings me, in an admittedly long winded way, to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. What starts as an incredibly funny (to me) escapade through the desert and Las Vegas with our main characters Raoul Duke (or Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney stoned out of their skulls on all manner of drugs, ends up an indictment of the drug culture for being just as empty a response to the madness of the world as living clean and playing by the rules.

I have done no research on this book beyond simply reading it so I don't know how much of it is true and how much is made up. This is my first Hunter S. Thompson book and I really have little knowledge of the man beyond knowing what books he wrote and the Terry Gilliam film adaptation of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I intend to read up on him after completing this review but I wanted to get my thoughts down without being unnecessarily influenced one way or another by the "truth".

The book doesn't have a plot so much as a random series of events that are being filtered through a seriously burned out mind. Over several days Raoul Duke and his attorney attempt to cover a motorcycle race in the desert outside of Las Vegas called the Mint 400 and following that infiltrate the National District Attorney's Convention, all while ostensibly trying to find the "American Dream". The pair slash and burn their way through Vegas, trashing hotel rooms, terrifying the locals, destroying their rental cars, and ingesting enough drugs to put down a platoon of Marines. Through it all the pair are absolutely riled with conspiracy theories and paranoia that everyone is coming after them for their shenanigans.

By describing an extreme look at the consequences of drug use, Thompson forces you to look at your own foray into the world of drugs and altered consciousness. What starts as funny becomes depraved and shocking, but how many of us haven't had a night in our past where the wheels came off and we just rode a drunk or a high until its' devastating conclusion? There is plenty of time the next day for regret, but when you are in the moment and in the grip of a serious binge the consequences seem far away and impossible to recognize.

Reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas was cathartic for me to revisit my own experiences with out of control behavior and be thankful that I have left that time in my life behind. Whether it was his intention or not, Thompson made me remember why one of my favorite platitudes is "There but for the grace of God go I."

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC

I am a pretty big music freak and this is my Best of 2008 Music list. Before you all go running for the hills I'm happy to say it's not quite what you think.

No, we (meaning I) are going to do things a bit differently this year. I'm not just going to list my favorites (although I will in a later column). Nope, this is the list of the top 5 songs that according to Itunes I listened to the most from the 2008 crop. There is no hiding, no trying to bluff that I've been listening to some avant-garde navel gazer with a xylophone and a bag of marbles singing twee songs about daisies and whatever twee xylophone bands write about when they are not busy boring the ever loving shit out of me.

I tried linking to the music video for the tracks listed when it was available. Unfortunately, due to the draconian lengths the labels will go to in order to insure their artists are seen by as few people as possible I have had to resort to live tracks or music only tracks. So don't take the poorer quality of these You Tube clips as indicative of the studio version of the song. Besides, you are getting full length free previews and that's a damn sight more than the 30 second clips on Itunes so you really can't complain can ya?

1. Saints of Los Angeles - Motley Crue (29 times) - Saints of Los Angeles

This is not surprising. The song was the best the Crue has done in years and my kids requested it constantly. Believe me, the only thing missing from this song are the sprightly voices of an 8 and 12 year old singing "We are, we are the saints we signed our life away!" Luckily I can provide that myself in the comfort of my own home. Fun fact, not only is Saints of Los Angeles number 1 on this list, it is the number 5 most listened to song out of my entire 4,500 track library! Not bad for a bunch of ex-drug addict deviants and a lead singer that can't sing more than 2 words in a row on stage without hyperventilating.

If you think it's crazy
You ain't seen a thing
Just want until we're going down in flames



2. Straitjacket - Alanis Morissette (16 times) - Flavors of Entanglement

The best song on a hell of a good album. Alanis finally found her anger again and this song perfectly encapsulated the frustration of being in a relationship that is imploding through mixed signals.

Conclusions you come to of me
routinely incorrect
I don't know who you're talking to
With such fucking disrespect

Alanis' music had gotten a bit cuddlier of late with more of a "love everyone" vibe. This new album brought back the woman scorned she-bitch that we all met way back on You Oughta Know and it's her best in years.



3. Calling all Skeletons - Alkaline Trio (12 times) - Agony & Irony

I'm a big Alkaline Trio fan, and while a lot of the long timers have dissed them for writing poppier music of late, I really don't see that big a change from their earlier stuff. The lyrics are still some of the best out there and the chugging guitars never cease to lend the right melancholy to the somber sentiment. Sure, it's ready made for the Hot Topic set but these guys are more on the ball then the typical mallrat pop-punk.

It's only just begun
It's been fun
We were blind, deaf and dumb
There's a party in my closet
Calling all skeletons



4. Hell Yeah - Rev Theory (11 times) - Light It Up

Not the most original band by any stretch of the imagination but what Rev Theory lacks in inventiveness they make up for with an earnest approach to the material. Hell Yeah is a big slab of dumb rock that gets better the louder it gets and a chorus that is built to shake arenas. Sometimes that is all you want in a song. Witness these riveting lyrics:

Gimme a "hell" (Hell!)
Gimme a "yeah" (Hell Yeah!)



5. Into the Nightlife - Cyndi Lauper (10 times) - Bring Ya to the Brink

Every now and then a good pop dance song grabs me and this was the one this year. While the critics and sheep have been falling all over themselves praising Katy Perry for this year's pre-fab-every-song-sounds-the-same cookie-cutter-dance-schlock, veteran Lauper released a solid collection of dance tracks that were all but ignored by everyone. Into the Nightlife is the best on the album.

I'll take ya till you're all spun up
And in love
Into the nightlife




So that's it. The numbers don't lie. I'll be back later (probably) with part 2 of the Best Music of 2008 According to TylerDFC. I know y'all are on pins and needles.

{CROSS POSTED AT RUFKM.NET}

Labels: music, TylerDFC

"Jews with swords". That is what Michael Chabon wanted to name this book according to his afterword. And the title would not be far off. "Gentlemen of the Road" tells the tale of Zelikman, a German Jew, and Amram, an African Jew, and their various adventures in 1000AD Europe. We first meet the 2 in a tavern, staging a fight to con the oblivious drunk patrons out of some coins. No sooner are they about to abscond with their money then they are found out and have to high tail it out of town. But not before being asked to escort a boy to his uncle's fortress by an elderly fellow who unfortunately gets dead when the townspeople discover they've been conned and catch him with an arrow meant for our heroes.

With that the tale is off and running and doesn't slow down until the final page. There is action, drama, romance, intrigue, and all those other things the publishers would like me to relay to you readers.

What sets "Gentlemen of the Road" apart from similar adventure potboilers is that I needed a dictionary (preferably from 1000 AD) to figure out what the hell half of the descriptions were describing. Chabon writes the novel as if he were living in that time as well. This can take a bit of getting used to and the jarring mix of a familar tale told with archaic wordplay can be slow going.

However once you get past the first couple of chapters you figure out to stop dwelling on not understanding every third word and just going along with the flow. It's not a complicated plot so it isn't too difficult to just blow past the jargon but you still can't help but think you are missing something. The writing style brings to mind classics like "Count of Monte Christo" and "Treasure Island" and to be honest would make an incredibly entertaining movie. Each chapter ends on somewhat of a cliffhanger and keeps you reading even when you should be turning out the light and going to sleep.

It doesn't compete with "The Adventures of Kavalier & Clay" or "Wonder Boys" but "Gentlemen of the Road" is a fun (and short) book that Chabon fans should seek out.

Labels: Cannonball Read, TylerDFC