My Favorite Albums of 2010

My normal year-end favorite albums list usually tends to favor the bands/artists who I saw live in that year. This is only somewhat true for 2010. While The Hold Steady, The National, Drive-by Truckers, and Justin Townes Earle all had killer live gigs in Toronto this year, I just couldn't get into their 2010 releases (I didn't write a review of The National at Massey Hall on June 8 because every other blogger in Toronto did). Turns out that I tended to like some of the opening acts better than some of the headliners, which makes me sound like an even bigger music snob than I already am. And this list makes me sound worse! Only three pseudo mainstream indie records made the cut. I also noticed that the albums I favored this year leaned towards the Bruce Springsteen/Tom Petty-style of rock. I'm not sure why, but that's just what tickled my fancy, or something, in 2010. If I could, I supplied links to buying the albums directly from the band's/artist's web site (more $ for the band). Go buy these records! Most have cheap shipping, and it's only like $1-2 more to ship to Canada. All of these records are worthy of being in you collection.

1. The Fox Hunt - Long Way to Go

This modern bluegrass quartet out of Martinsburg, West Virginia, put out the best album in 2010. From my original review posted in September: The band has two primary songwriters, John R. Miller and Matt Kline, who both cover a range of human emotions in their music. Women, sinning, drinking, misery, temptation, you know, the happy subjects, are covered in depth in their lyrics. Their music is mostly uptempo country/folk, filled with vocal harmonies, and lots of banjo and fiddle, rounded out with acoustic guitar, mandolin, and upright bass. And the musicians frequently rotate instruments and share lead vocals. Now that's talent!

Long Way to Go spans an entire range of roots music, with a mid-tempo opening track called "Screw Me Up" which is about a woman messing with a dude's head. Later, a snappy song called "It Suits Me" which is ostensibly about a one night stand (the instrumental outro kills me). One of the best songs on the album, "Four Horses" is a slaying meditation on life and death. "No one said that life was easy. No one said that life was fair." Gulp. One of my favorite songs on the album, "I'll Drink Cheap," is about breaking the bank to please your lush of a woman. I listened to and enjoyed this album more than any other record released in 2010. You should be doing the same.

Third runner up to song of the year:
Four Horses.mp3
Buy: Long Way to Go

2. Glossary - Feral Fire

Remember when The Hold Steady released their first few albums and everyone, including me, said they were the second coming of Thin Lizzy? Wrong! Ladies and gentlemen, I present Glossary. Feral Fire is such a killer rock album. It takes its name from a line in the Cormac McCarthy book, The Road. Apparently this is their sixth album, but I am just hopping on the bandwagon now. Can't wait to listen to their back catalog, some of which is free on their web site. If you like Bruce Springsteen/Tom Petty/Drive-By Truckers kind of rock, then get this album pronto.

Second runner up to song of the year:
Save Your Money for the Weekend.mp3
Buy: Feral Fire


3. Matthew Ryan - Dear Lover (electric and acoustic)

I got a copy of Matthew Ryan's Dear Lover back in October 2009, and I have been dying to put it on my top 10 list for the last fourteen months. From my original review from February: The entire record revolves (evolves?) around the theme of a romantic relationship. Relationships are complicated, wonderful, confusing, stressful, exhilarating, scary, empowering, and even lonely, sometimes all at the same time. "I could be your super hero. I could be your biggest disappointment." Ryan is telling stories in his songs, but the stories are vague enough where each listener can interpret the song in his/her own way. The mark of a great songwriter is the ability to let his audience decide what the song is about, and Ryan thrives in this aspect of musicianship.

The songs on Dear Lover are power pop anthems, indie rockers, soft ballads, and electro/synth tracks you could hear in a Manhattan martini bar. Some people may be turned off by the ambient/electro-sounding songs, but I think they really add to the overall feel of the album and show Ryan's willingness to experiment with diverse sounds. In fact, one fan called Dear Lover "Matthew Ryan's synth/techno/electro Nebraska."

Later in 2010 Ryan released Dear Lover as an acoustic album, with a different track order, and one new track, which makes it a completely different album. I haven't heard of an artist doing this before, except in the context of a live album or something. This approach may be a new way for indie/DYI artists to get more mileage out of one record. Screw that iTunes "exclusive" or iTunes "sessions" crap. I may be old school, but I like the physical disc in my hand, in both electric and acoustic forms.

City Life.mp3
City Life (acoustic).mp3
Buy both: City Life (electric and acoustic)

4. Joe Pug - Messenger

I saw Joe Pug open for Justin Townes Earle back in March, and I was totally taken with Pug. At the time I didn't own the album Messenger, but after subsequent listens I was enamored with his work. This is a solid singer/songwriter folk-ish, country-ish album, with brilliant lyrics and great storytelling. I don't have a lot to say about this album. The music speaks for itself.

Fourth runner up to song of the year:
Not So Sure.mp3
Buy: Messenger

Pug has a free EP out right now. You can download it for the cost of your e-mail address.

5. Tim Barry - 28th & Stonewall

I had the pleasure of seeing Tim Barry in concert twice this year: once opening for Chuck Ragan in February and once opening for The Gaslight Anthem in July, both times solo acoustic.

Barry is intense, and pissed off, but also deeply sincere and forthright. He has deep convictions, and he stands by them. You don't fuck with Tim Barry. You also don't fuck with his album 28th & Stonewall, an intersection in Barry's home town of Richmond, Virginia. I would love to know about the significance of this particular corner. This album continues with Barry's style of simple storytelling about complicated people. The characters in Barry's songs are presumably semi-autobiographical: they are fucks-up who are trying to do the right thing, but keep stumbling into people who are constantly letting them down. In addition, he's also very self-deprecating and self-aware. 28th & Stonewall is Barry's most well-written solo album, with vibrant lyrics boosting his powerful voice. But, this album is not for the timid. You may be offended by some of the content, but Barry doesn't give a shit, and neither do I.

(Memento Mori).mp3
Buy: 28th & Stonewall

6. Two Cow Garage - Sweet Saint Me

The fact that Two Cow Garage hasn't cracked the indie rock glass ceiling completely baffles me. Sweet Saint Me is their fifth album, and as I said in my November review, this album as a whole is their strongest one yet. Sweet Saint Me is nearly a pure rock album, but this time the lead singers, mostly Michal Schnabel with a few tracks by Shane Sweeney, seemed to have really concentrated on honing their songwriting technique. The entire album seems more mature and focused. But don't worry, "mature and focused" can also kick fucking ass! Take my favorite track, "Lydia;" "Lydia, you're much too young to have your teeth on the tip of my tongue. If your lips were just a little bit older…" I heard through the twittervine that when Schnabel premiered "Jackson, Don't You Worry" at SXSW, a song dedicated to Sweeney's baby son, grown men were weeping. Indeed, I took a hard gulp the first time I heard it. And I'll be damned if Schnabel didn't steal the "Insolent Youth" lyric "just because you can doesn't mean you should" from me, cause I've been saying that for years. Sweet Saint Me is peppered with hard rock anthems ("My Great Gatsby"), love songs ("Closer to You"), and stories ("Lucy and the Butcher Knife"), with the occasional lyric borrowed from Bruce Springsteen, Townes Van Zandt, and Bob Dylan. To paraphrase my reader Ron from Buffalo, Two Cow Garage has written better individual songs ("No Shame," "Swingset Assassin," "Humble Narrator," "Mediocre," "Saturday Night," "Come Back to Shelby") but this album is solid everywhere.

Lydia.mp3
Buy: Sweet Saint Me

7. The Sadies - Darker Circles

A few months ago I was listening to a podcast of the CBC radio show Q where the host was interviewing The Sadies lead guitarists/singers/songwriters brothers Dallas and Travis Good. One of them said that after their mom listened to Darker Circles she called them to make sure they were OK. You know you've made a good album when you freak your mom out.

Per my May review: Darker Circles is a very different album from their 2007 release New Seasons, although both were produced by Jayhawks member Gary Louris. Darker Circles is, well, much darker than New Seasons, with lyrics like, "it won't be long 'til all your hopes and dreams are dead and gone," ("Another Year Again"), and "I turn to oblivion night after night," ("Tell Her What I Said"). The songs have themes of isolation, regret, remorse, and ponderances of "what could have been." There is even a country-rock killin' song ("Violet and Jeffrey Lee," not quite a murder ballad). The entire album has a very psychedelic feel to it, like a 2010 version of The Byrds. Especially my favorite track "Postcards," (listen below) which sounds like it could be straight out of Roger McGuin's 1960s catalog.

This is not an album that will cheer you up on a bad day, but it is a killer country-rock psychedelic folk bluegrass record (its damn impossible to categorize The Sadies). As my friend Whiskey Devil said, "Dark Sadies might just be the best Sadies."

Postcards.mp3
Buy (Maple Music): Darker Circles
Buy (Amazon): Darker Circles

8. The Gaslight Anthem - American Slang

I was apprehensive about The Gaslight Anthem's newest release until I saw them live back in July. They totally lived up to the hype. Blew me away actually. They blasted into the title track "American Slang" and never looked back.

American Slang and The Gaslight Anthem are filling in a much needed niche in music right now: they are a solid rock band. They don't fart around with pretentious new sounds, or have weird outfits, or feel the need to do namby-pamby acoustic folk songs (and I like namby-pamby acoustic folk songs). American Slang is essentially following the same Tom Petty/Bruce Springsteen rock formula that they have been using since their 2008 debut album Sink Or Swim, except that they have become better singers/guitarists/musicians in general. I'm hoping that the Gaslight Anthem will get today's teenagers interested in rock and roll. God knows that popular music needs it.

Stay Lucky.mp3
Buy: American Slang

9. Kasey Anderson - Nowhere Nights

Nowhere Nights came out in early 2010, and as I predicted in February, it set my standard for the year in rock music. It contains eleven tracks of solid rock songs: some slow, some fast, some you can dance to, some that will make you think, and some that will just make you rock out.

Anderson's rock influences are all over this album. You can hear Tom Petty in "Sooner/Later," Bruce Springsteen in "Leavin' Kind," and Mike Cooley-penned Drive-By Truckers songs in "All Lit Up." "Real Gone" is an obvious nod to Tom Waits, but it also seems like it could be Anderson's "Desolation Row."

"I Was a Photograph" is the song of the year. Anderson wrote this song about Lance Cpl. James Blake Miller after reading an article about the Iraq veteran in Rolling Stone. You can read Anderson's thoughts on the song on a post he did for Ninebullets.net.

While the album is largely autobiographical, the themes and stories easily resonate with everyday folks (in other words, me). Two songs specifically hit home for me. The first track, "Bellingham Blues," reminds me of never feeling at home in the town where you grew up. Similarly, the song "Home" reminds me of my home town. I'm assuming that this song is also about Bellingham, a city similar in population to my home town. "That's how it goes in a town this small. You either play your hand a little closer to the vest, or you don't play at all." Great lyrics, and so true.

Song of the year, easily:
I Was a Photograph (Blake's Song).mp3
Buy: Nowhere Nights

10. The Black Keys - Brothers

The Black Keys do it again with a killer blues-based rock album called Brothers. This album makes me want to tap my feet, shake my ass, and drink hooch like an old blues man on Maxwell Street. Some have compared The Black Keys to The White Stripes in terms of a blues-based rock duo, but The Black Keys has a deeper, more restrained and disciplined sound, as opposed to blues-spaz-rock and bizarre lyrics that sometimes spews from Jack White. For Brothers itself, the recording is raw and uncomplicated, but you can also hear a bit of punk rock and hip-hop influences throughout the record. The songs are catchy, fiery, and sexy, and will get stuck in your head. This is a good thing.

Brothers also has the worst/laziest album art of 2010.

Apparently The Black Keys are driving some of my US peeps crazy because several of songs are licensed for TV commercials. But those licenses didn't reach Canada, so I can't complain!

Next Girl.mp3
Buy: Brothers

Americana Music Awards

My blogging colleague over at A 50 Cent Lighter & A Whiskey Buzz is doing a really nice job of previewing the Americana Music Awards, to be announced on September 9. Unfortunately for the AMA, I am not nearly as nice or as sober as Mr. 50 Cent Lighter. If you want reasonable, balanced commentary, go read his page. If you want to see a music snob at her worst, keep reading.

According to the AMA website, the Americana Music Awards are, "Selected by members of the Americana Music Association, the 2010 nominees reflect the genre's affection for innovative and inspiring artistry. The nominees' eligibility is based on work released between May 1, 2009 and March 31, 2010." So if the awards for 2009 had the same eligibility period, and you released an album in April 2009, you are not eligible. To become a member of the AMA you have to pay a $75 annual membership fee. In theory, as a blogger I could be part of this group. In practice, I have better things to spend $75 US ($78 Canadian) on, like beer. Keep in mind that I currently get paid in Canadian dollars, so yeah, I'm cheap, and with Ontario beer tax $78 doesn't go all that far. And, who am I kidding, this blog is a total vanity project. I'm not out to impress anyone.

Starting at the top of the list of awards with "Album of the Year." The first nominee is Rosanne Cash's The List. This album is lovely, and I really enjoyed it, but it bothers me that a covers album is nominated for "Album of the Year." Shouldn't this award be for original songwriting? Similarly, nominee Patty Griffin performs a bunch of traditional songs, plus some originals, on her album Downtown Church. Dave Rawlings Machine's tremendous album A Friend of a Friend covers both Neil Young and Ryan Adams! The final nominee, Ray Wylie Hubbard's A. Enlightenment B. Endarkenment (Hint: There is no c), seems to be the only one of all originals.

Dave Rawlings Machine - Ruby.mp3
From (Daytrotter): A Friend of a Friend (2009)

I know that there is a great tradition of reinterpreting folk and traditional music in the Americana genre, but there were so many great original albums released in the last year that it just seems lazy of AMA members to select covers albums, regardless of how good they were. In fact, I challenge the AMA to come up with a better list of albums than a group of Americana bloggers did last year (see The Bird List). Although The Bird List and the AMA have different time frames, isn't it telling that only one of the AMA's nominees (Dave Rawlings Machine) made the top 20 of the Americana bloggers? Yes, three of the top ten on The Bird List were AMA nominees for 2009, so I am probably comparing apples and oranges. But you get my point. Or not. Leave me alone, I've been drinking.

The next category is "Artist of the Year." The nominees include: Ryan Bingham, Patty Griffin, Levon Helm, Steve Earle, and Ray Wylie Hubbard. I don't know what to make of this category. I go to a lot of shows and only Steve Earle and Levon Helm played Toronto in the last year, and I was out of town for both shows. Ryan Bingham should take this category, given both his album Roadhouse Sun and his work on the movie Crazy Heart. He's been one busy dude this year.

Ryan Bingham and the Dead Horses - Tell My Mother I Miss Her So.mp3
Buy: Roadhouse Sun (2009)

For "Duo or Group of the Year" I have no objections to any of the nominees. I saw The Avett Brothers late last year, and Dave Rawlings plays Toronto tonight (Edit: Dave Alvin was actually playing that night. I get confused when I am drinking.). Carolina Chocolate Drops and Band of Heathens are the dark horses of this group.

I am pretty clueless when it comes to instrumentalists, so for the category of "Instrumentalist of the Year" I'll go with what the AMA picks. The nominees are Buddy Miller, Dave Rawlings, Sam Bush, and Will Kimbrough. I may not know much about this category, but I do know that Will Kimbrough rules.

The "New and Emerging Artist" category is completely weird. I wish I could find some information on what criteria the AMA uses to select their nominees. The only two artists that make any sense on this list are Sarah Jarosz and Joe Pug. Ryan Bingham was also nominated for this category in 2008. How can you "emerge" twice? Hayes Carll won the 2008 award for "Song of the Year." How can you win an award in 2008, and then be an "emerging" artist in 2010? And, as Mr. 50 Cent Lighter points out, Corb Lund "was playing in punk bands in his native Alberta, Canada, in the late 1980's before Sarah Jarosz was even born." Maybe Lund was nominated because his current album Losin' Lately Gambler (which is fantastic) is his first proper US release of his five (or six?) albums. But in the internet age, that is a totally lame excuse. I live in Canada and I discovered Lund's music via a friend in the US who lives south of the Mason-Dixon line. AMA members need to wake up.

Joe Pug - Not So Sure.mp3
Buy: Messenger (2010)

Side note: I discovered two other of my favorite Canadian artists via the internets. A kid in Alabama enlightened me to NQ Arbuckle, and a friend in the UK told me about Doug Paisley. Both NQ Arbuckle and Doug Paisley regularly play at a club about 2 miles from my home. Clearly I need to stop sitting at home, drinking by myself, and get out a little more. But my point is that the internet has opened up a new world to music lovers, and if the AMA can't past American releases, then I feel bad for it.

Anyhoo, in my world, I would have nominated AA Bondy, Those Darlins, and hell, Doug Paisley, in place of Bingham, Carll, and Lund. And I really love the music of latter, but they are not emerging artists. In my pickled brain at least, they are already established.

And finally, we have "Song of the Year." This category is so subjective. And honestly, I'm not nuts about any of these nominees:
1. "The Weary Kind (Theme From Crazy Heart)" - Written by Ryan Bingham and T Bone Burnett, performed by Ryan Bingham
2. "Drunken Poets Dream" - Written by Hayes Carll and Ray Wylie Hubbard, performed by Ray Wylie Hubbard
3. "Ruby" - Written by Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch, performed by Dave Rawlings Machine
4. "I and Love and You" - Written and performed by The Avett Brothers.

Here are four songs from May 1, 2009 - Mar 31, 2010 which I absolutely love:
1. "I Was a Photograph (Blake's Song)" - written and performed by Kasey Anderson (Is this Americana? I don't care, it's song of the year in any genre.)
2. "Not So Sure" - Written and performed by Joe Pug (listen above)
3. "Mom" - Written by Ben Nichols and performed by Lucero
4. "All Time Low" - Written by Carolyn Mark and performed by Carolyn Mark and NQ Arbuckle

Feel free to tell me that I am full of shit.

The Weight

This video was floating around twitter this past week. It features the Levon Helm Band performing The Band's classic "The Weight" with Joe Pug and Elvis Costello in Vancouver on August 10, 2010. Pug is so adorable in this video, so obviously excited to be along these legends. As one commenter on You Tube said, "(Pug) looks like a kid on Christmas morning." Pug (age 23) could easily be Helm's (age 70) grandson. So cool! I also love the tuba solo. If the Levon Helm Band ever needs a backup tuba player, please give me a call!



Here's another sweet version of "The Weight" by Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings backed by Old Crow Medicine Show.

The Weight.mp3
From: Live at St. Luke's in London (2009 bootleg)

Concert Review: Justin Townes Earle with Joe Pug, March 1, The Horseshoe, Toronto

I saw Justin Townes Earle nearly a year ago at this same venue. I knew I was in for a great show, and fortunately so did other Torontonians, as there were two to three times as many people at this Monday night gig as compared to the Wednesday gig in April, 2009. And, this show contained different musicians; JTE brought along Josh Hedley on fiddle and Bryn Davies on upright bass, as opposed to Cory Younts on mandolin at the '09 gig.

JTE took the stage wearing rimless glasses, a light blue button-down shirt, a brown coat, and matching brown bow tie (a real bow tie, not the clip-on type most guys I know wear). The trio sounded wonderful, and played many of the songs from 2009's Midnight at the Movies at a slower pace than the recordings, such as "They Killed John Henry" and "Mama's Eyes." The fiddle sounded like a train screeching down the tracks during "Halfway to Jackson," and the fiddle filled in for the whistling part on "Know Right Now." JTE also played five new songs, and mentioned that he wanted to start recording them in May or June. I made up names for these songs (see below), but they all had the classic country style that we have come to expect from JTE.

In addition to great music, JTE also puts on quite a stage know. I think he thrives on entertaining an audience with his banter as much as he does with his music. He tells the stories behind his songs, whether he's talking about his mom's 'Hillbilly Intuition,' "The last thing you need when you get your ass kicked by the cops, is your ass kicked by your mama!" Or women, "I got a knack for writing songs that the ladies don't appreciate. So does my daddy." Or bitchy women, "Never fuck with a traveling singer/songwriter cause he'll air your shit all over the world."

As per previous shows, JTE acknowledged his country roots by playing covers of some classic songs by the Carter Family, Buck Owens, and Lightnin' Hopkins. And the catchiest cover of 2009, the Replacements "Can't Hardly Wait," which JTE dedicated to the late Chris "Spacewolf" Feinstein.

Minus the new songs, the set list was very similar to the April '09 show. After a year on the road, JTE has matured and perfected his craft. For this show I felt like he was trying less to prove himself, and more to simply entertain.

Set List
1. Poor Fool - Midnight at the Movies (2009)
2. The Killed John Henry - Midnight at the Movies
3. Halfway to Jackson - Midnight at the Movies
4. I Don't Care - Yuma (2007)
5. What Do You Do When You're Lonesome - The Good Life (2008)
6. Mama's Eyes - Midnight at the Movies
7. Boy Keep Movin' (?) - new song
8. What I Mean to You.mp3 - Buy: Midnight at the Movies (2009)
9. Someday I'll be Forgive for This - Midnight at the Movies
10. Nobody's Waiting On Me (?) - new song
11. I'll Keep Wondering (?) - new gospel-style song (JTE solo)
12. So Different Blues - Mance Lipscomb cover (JTE solo)
13. My Starter Won’t Start This Morning - Lightnin' Hopkins cover (JTE solo)
14. Hard Living - The Good Life
15. Ain't Glad I'm Leaving - The Good Life
16. Lone Pine Hill.mp3 - Buy: The Good Life (2008)
17. South Georgia Sugar Babe - The Good Life
18. Working for the MTA (?) - new song
19. Mama I'm Coming Home (?) - new song
20. Midnight at the Movies - Midnight at the Movies
21. Can't Hardly Wait - Midnight at the Movies, Replacements cover
22. Walk Out - Midnight at the Movies

Encore
23. Yuma - Yuma
24. Gold Watch and Chain - Carter Family cover
25. Close Up the Hony Tonks - Buck Owens cover


Joe Pug opened the show with a set of eight songs, mostly from his debut album Messenger. His set was split between Pug solo on acoustic guitar, and Pug with Andrew Harrison on pedal steel and electric guitar. He sounded wonderful, and his songwriting and style reminded me a bit of the late Vic Chestnutt. I purchased Messenger that night, so at the time I wasn't overly familiar with his music and I didn't catch all of the names of the songs that he performed, but he did do "The Door Was Always Open," "Speak Plainly Diana," and "Not So Sure." I wanted to get Pug to sign a CD for me, but he's a cute kid, and there were lots of young chicks in line to get their CDs signed/flirt with him, so I took a pass. But next time I hope to chat with him at bit.

Not So Sure.mp3
Buy: Messenger (2010)