In like a lion

March has started off all right.

Footloose was pretty good. It dragged a bit at the beginning but picked up pretty hard and was down right impressive. Not as good as last year's production, but definitely worth the price of admission. The problem was just that it's not that great of a musical. But they did an amazing job with it.

The Gogol Bordello concert was, well... Mixed. The opening band, some shitfest called Skin Dred, was bad enough that it made me consider just leaving then. I'm also not much of a fan of the mosh pit. I'm just not okay with people touching me without advance notice and me being able to see them. It was okay at first, people shoved, I shoved back.

When GB finally took the stage, it was a different story. They are really good live. It's obvious enough that everyone in the band is up there playing because they love doing it. Eugene is one hell of a showman.

Sunday I went into the city with Rachel. She's got a huge school project coming up, and being the stand up fellow I am I volunteered to help. The project is to do a (condensed) claymation version of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. I didn't do much of the actual sculpting, but I helped take photos and some other grunt work. It was a surprising amount of fun.

Not much has happened this week. Just sorting some stuff out with college apps, making sure colleges have everything they need. I can't wait to be able to move on from this stuff.

A Fragile Friday

The past week or so has been extremely busy, but I'm going to take a bit of time and write about Friday before last. I will in particular focus on the Polyphonic Spree concert that night.

Friday was a mixed-up day. I had a lot of trouble getting us out on the road, but we did manage to make it to the train station in Albany on time. There I found out that I had to take two trains, not one, and I was going to get in an hour later than I had been told (5:30 instead of 4:30) because, or so I was told, it was a Friday. I had already been wanting to have caught an earlier train so I didn't take the news all that well.

When my train finally did come, it was ten or so minutes late. Not a big deal, though it made me a bit nervous since I now knew I had to make a connecting train, but I've gotten pretty used to late trains. Unfortunately, because of the tardiness and all of the track-work that Amtrak has been doing, we got stuck behind a local train. I ended up getting into Penn Station an hour after I was supposed to.

I did my best to take it in stride. There was an Acela I could take at five that would still get me in at six or so. But the Acela was sold out! And so was the next regional, at 5:10! I finally managed to get a seat on the next available regional at 6:20, after pleading with the ticket agent; I had no government-issued photo ID on-hand, just my student ID and driver's permit. I suppose something of my desperation must have shown through as she let me slide. The train was on time and I finally, finally got in to Philly at around eight.

Rachel met me at the station and we went and picked up our Polyphonic Spree tickets from my sister who was holding them for me. By that time I was totally burnt out, but cheerfully so. The stress and energy of the day had taken its toll on me, but I was excited for the concert. We got to the Fillmore and managed to get reasonably close to the stage. We bought some merch and I wondered if my legs would hold out the night.

The opening act was a woman named Jesca Hoop. I felt bad for her because she ran into the same problem that Joan as Police Woman did at the Andrew Bird concert: Being a lone, relatively quiet performer, she just couldn't command the attention of the audience. As the background sound of talking grew, she too grew obviously more flustered and irritated. Still, she had a good voice and played the guitar well, and I'd consider picking an album up except for the abortive R&B song she played at the end of her set.

I'll be honest. I'm not sure I would have previously had the Polyphonic Spree in my top-five artists. I've enjoyed them since The Beginning Stages..., and their most recent album, The Fragile Army, is fantastic, but I didn't have anything beyond average expectations of awesome from the show. So it was a surprise to me when it turned out to be probably the best concert I've ever been to. I've been to a fair amount of concerts, and this one still really stood out, in every aspect.

There's a couple of components to judging live shows. It's not just about how well people are playing, and it's not just about the spectacle. Don't get me wrong - The Spree were playing the songs dead-on, and the while the spectacle wasn't quite up to the Flaming Lips, the confetti and lights were good. The thing that was unique about the Spree is that I've never seen a band so into it. They'd got around two dozen people up there, each of whom clearly loved being there. And beyond that, I've never seen an audience give a band so much love, and I've never seen a band give so much love back.

Pretty well emblematic of that was one particular concert-goer. He was dressed like a fancy kind of sailor and was immediately and obviously wasted. Normally that's the kind of person I fantasize about punching. And I soon was; his comportment was lacking, with him shoving people aside and shouting at the lead singer, and trying to shove the sailor cap in his face. To his credit, the frontman did take the hat and pranced around on stage with it for a bit. But what made it impossible for me to hate the drunken sailor was when he turned around after Tim DeLaughter took the hat and I saw his face. It was an expression of such pure, innocent joy that it made further contempt impossible.

It was like nothing I'd seen before. It was an amazing experience. What was even more amazing was that it seemed like it was for the band, too. At the end, DeLaughter thanked us, and it seemed like he was truly sincere about it. Like I said, I've never seen an audience like that, but maybe it was unusual even for the Spree. Apparently there was an earlier, free show that I missed, which makes me sad, but I'm so glad I was there for that. I don't think that's going to be a show that can be topped. You can read the first part of Rach's post for her take on it. But it was great.

Parties

Saturday morning I made sandwiches and went on a picnic with Rachel in Valley Forge. Even though I think I've always lived less than an hour away from there, I've never spent more time around it than it takes to drive past it. It's beautiful, although it was bothersome when we were looking for picnic spots and half the place seemed to have "Danger: Buried Asbestos" signs. I don't know what the deal is with that. We ended up finding a nice spot not too far from the Welcome Center, so we'd hear the occasional cannon-fire in the background.

Afterwards, we drove out and picked up Gabo to go to a concert/party held at an acquaintance's mansion. And I do mean mansion -- this place was big enough to hold all of the places I've ever lived. Walking up to it you could have thought you were walking up to a town hall. It was huge. We really only came to Meat Rainbow, and even though we showed up about an hour after the show was scheduled to start, we got to see them setting up.

It was not a very big audience. It was me, Rachel, Gabo, and the drummer's girlfriend most of the time. It was sort of depressing, but kind of cool, too. It made it a much more private affair. We got to talk with the band and they said that next show we show up to, they'll let us in free if they can, since we're such good fans. Their set was good, but after they were done, there wasn't much for us to hang around for. We ran into a friend we made at the last Meat Rainbow show and ended up following her into West Chester.

We hung out at a coffee shop for a while and then somehow ended up at the top of a parking garage. By some freak coincidence, we ran into some friends of mine from school -- Pat, Sharif, and Eric. They were there just chilling with some of their friends, and we all hung out for a while. Eventually we headed back to the party, but we took Sharif and Eric with us, and dropped Gabo off on our way. It was a pretty good party, I didn't know many people there but they all seemed pretty cool. When it was time Rachel dropped me off and gave Sharif and Eric a ride into Philly with her.

Sunday was Father's Day. My sister and I went out to brunch with him. We gave him his presents -- DVDs of Good Night, and Good Luck and For Your Consideration, and a picture of something that we got for him on eBay but it hadn't arrived yet. Afterwards we went to the movies. I wanted to see Knocked Up but they seemed against it so we ended up seeing Ocean's 13. It was actually really good the second time, a lot of things that didn't make sense the first time were clearer this time around.

Monday I went to the birthday party of Sam S., a friend of Rachel's. I'm pretty terrible at parties, doubly so at pool parties, so the first half or so of the time that I was there wasn't great. I resent being called anti-social; I'm just not social. I didn't go out of my way to strike up a conversation with anyone, and, to be fair, none of them tried to talk to me either. Not that I can blame them. I knew I had a problem when I realized that I was narrating current events in my head from third-person perspective. The second half was better. I ended up talking to two people I didn't know. In the end I was glad I went.

Today I've got my place to myself. The rest of the folks are on a train going somewhere. I'm taking a train tomorrow out near to Quiggy's. I'm going with his family to Stone Harbor for a week. It's going to be pretty great. I was hoping that the Nintendo DS Browser that I ordered would have been shipped by then, but I'll still have my laptop and cellphone. I'll be taking the chance to test out the Opera Mini 4 beta. I'm sure I'll be Twittering while I'm gone.

May Day

Last Monday I had an orthodontist appointment. I ought to be getting my braces off in two weeks -- just in time for prom. I'm extremely excited. It took a lot longer than they initially said it would, but it's worth it to have my teeth be nice and straight.

On Friday I took Rachel to my school's Evening of the Arts. It's their annual shindig where they hang up or otherwise display people's visual arts and erect a stage for visual and aural performances. It runs the gamut; there's the usual traditional, stunning artwork mixed in with the lower-schoolers' crayon drawings, a suit of chain mail, a motorcycle, paper-craft, there's just all kinds of things.

It's much the same with the live performances. There's the lower-school performances, the occasional spoken word or interpretive dance (neither of those this year, thank the gods), and then all the singers and bands play. There's the misinformed singers (they were informed they could sing and that anyone liked the songs they did), the amazing singers, and then all the bands where you just know they could have been good if maybe they had rehearsed (that's where I fit in). Anger Core performed again, and sure enough, they had improved.

On Saturday, after we dropped Rachel off at the train, I went to see my friend Chris. We chilled out at his place for a while and ate dinner, and then we went to see his old school's production of High School Musical. To be fair, I can't really fault the performance based on their choice of a terrible musical. I never saw the movie but I'm judging it anyway. The performance itself was underwhelming. The lead female role was pretty good, she could sing well. The male lead was adequate, although a little perturbing since his voice was higher than the lady's. There was one other female part with a good singer, and the rest was not really where it should have been. Prop-wise and so on it was good. Great stage-crew, too. It was awesome seeing Chris again.

On Sunday my sister and I went out and had lunch with my dad. It was good and then afterwards we went to the nearby Eckerd and I got some awesome dart guns and some better juggling balls. It's great because they're much better than the tennis balls I've been using. I can actually juggle better with them. There's stuff that I couldn't do at all well before that I'm doing now. So that's promising.

Spring broken

I realize it’s actually been closer to two weeks since my last post. No worries, not a whole lot has actually happened since then. Nothing happened the rest of that week or over the weekend. Easter was pretty tame. The only things to differentiate it from any other day is that I ate a lot of chocolate and candy, and was thus more disgusted with myself than usual, and dinner was a more formal affair. My sister and I also had lunch with my dad at one of the few places that was open. It was nice place, more so for not being as crowded as usual.

Wednesday was my dad’s birthday. I don’t even get home until eleven on Wednesdays, so I wasn’t able to see him. I called him up of course. So a shout-out to him, I guess.

On Friday I went into Philly after school. I hung out with Rachel. We were going to maybe check out something showing at the Film Festival but either there wasn’t anything particularly captivating or what was started too late before I had to leave. Instead I introduced her to the magic of Transmetropolitan, the best comic book I’ve ever read, with some of the best art I’ve seen, and just plain one of the best books I’ve read. As a Friday the Thirteenth it wasn’t any more unlucky than any other day in my life. I missed my van in the morning so I had to walk an extra mile. But then I almost missed my train out of Philly because I screwed up the times, and it was pretty damned lucky I was there in time.

Saturday night Gabrielle, Rachel, Mike, and I all went to see Anger Core and Meat Rainbow play. A few other bands were playing, too, but we weren’t there to see them. Anger Core was good but not great. It was their first performance and they hadn’t rehearsed much, but it’s clear enough that they’re headed for greatness. Meat Rainbow was on usual good form. Of the other bands, Space Jams blew, When Cars Ascend had good instrumentals but a terrible singer, and Univox was just all around good. I bought an exclusive, one-of-a-kind Anger Core shirt that I’m going to treasure for years. We also ran into Tucker which was pretty weird but for whatever reason not as awkward as what I would have imagined.

On Sunday my sister and I went out and had lunch with my dad. We wished him a happy birthday and distributed material goods and suchlike. It was good.

A pox upon me

The past week has not been very eventful. Last Tuesday (not yesterday) I woke up itchy, with what appeared to be bug-bites littered around my body. I looked at myself and thought, wow, I know the weather turned warmer recently but I didn't think bugs would have hatched that quickly. I didn't think much of it and just tried to avoid scratching. The next day at school, I overheard a kid mention how he'd been absent for chickenpox. And I thought, oh, damn.

Sure enough, I had contracted the 'pox. I had supposedly been immunized against it when I was younger, but it's evidently not a 100% thing. I was fortunate in that I got it very mildly. Benedryl helped a whole lot with the itchiness, Tylenol helped with the feverishness and headaches, so I really just had to deal with feeling really tired and generally kind of gross. Today will be the first time I've left the property in a week. Luckily it's spring break so I haven't missed much school.

I passed the majority of the time watching movies, playing video games (really just Soul Calibur III), and reading. So here's a few movie micro-reviews.

• Lethal Weapons 1 & 2 - Mediocre. Maybe I would have liked them better if I had watched less Law & Order as a lad and wasn't taking a law class in school. So little respect for protocol or due process, to such an unbelievable extent.
• Total Recall - The best, and only, movie I've watched with a main character named Doug. That made it kind of weird for me when I was watching it. I enjoyed it though, really decent sfx given when it came out.
• Office Space - A classic. The third time I've seen it, and it's just as good.
• Andy Barker, P.I. - Not actually a movie, but a new TV show. It's good though. I like Andy Richter and Tony Hale, the actors are good, and the writing is too.

I have also listened enough to the new Modest Mouse album, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank, to pass judgment upon it. I don't like it as much as their last two albums, but it's still pretty good, and I think it's worth picking up if you like them. I don't find the melodies in it as compelling, and the vocal style is more often of the kind that I disliked in their older stuff, but that's really a taste thing. Of any song on it, I'd recommend "Missed the Boat" to listen to.

On Monday Rachel came by and dropped off some headphones I had left by accident at her house last time I was over. We walked around a bit before she had to go. Then yesterday she came over again for a little bit. We would have gone out, but there were circumstances preventing me (I wasn't feeling very good and it was part of my punishment from last week). It was a nice day so we sat outside on my balcony and talked. It was last week or the week before but she asked me to escort her to her prom this year and I agreed. So I've got that to look forward to.

Monday night my mom, sister, and I attempted to have a Passover Seder. It wasn't flawless, but we tried. We got the food more or less right, we did what of the readings we could, and although the whole thing was pretty jerry-rigged, it was a nice night. If any of us had taken it more seriously, there would have been some serious disappointment and/or offense taken. But we didn't, so it was good.

I've also spent a lot of time working on my iBook, which I finally had fixed and got back after it broke in whatever, December. I backed up the hard drive, properly this time, wiped it, and tried to reinstall Mac OS 10.4. Unfortunately, at some point my install DVD got scratched up and so I kept getting errors during install. I bought a disk repair kit, and used it repeatedly, but it didn't help. I eventually managed to get it to work by only choosing to install the absolute basics. I'm still working on getting all of my applications and settings and such on it. It's running really nicely, especially given it's going on six years old.

I've also been working on going through and adding labels to some posts. Given the 200+ posts on this blog, I can't imagine I'll finish that task for quite some time. I'm just waiting until I find myself with a hunk of time, nothing better to do, and I'm in a nice, OCD mood.

Start of spring

I'm posting at a more or less consistent once-per-month pace, but I've noticed that the posts in question are just hideously long. I think I'm going to try and institute a once-per-week policy instead. With any luck I can squeeze enough out of a week to make a post.

Monday I got the new Andrew Bird album, Armchair Apocrypha, in the mail. I've listened to it 10+ times since then. Yeah it's pretty amazing. I wouldn't say it's as good as & the Mysterious Production of Eggs, but given that that was a pretty much perfect album, you've got to be willing to cut some slack. There's a good interview with Andrew Bird over at the Onion's A.V. Club.

There's an interesting atmospheric difference between the two albums. I don't know the proper language to describe it, but I'll give it a shot. In Eggs, when I listen to it, I pretty much picture my head as a dark parlor room with me standing in the middle and Andrew Bird playing in my ear. It's a contained, private sort of feeling. In Apocrypha, it's different. Rather than there being that sort of contained feeling, it's like I'm in that same parlor room, but the roof's been taken off and the universe is pouring in. It's something in the acoustics of the album, I can tell, that make it sound open-air somehow. It makes me almost agoraphobic.

It's an amazing album, though. It's crazy, so many bands that I like have already released albums or are releasing them later on this year. Air, the Apples in Stereo, Arcade Fire, Modest Mouse, the Shins, all have new albums out. Once I've listened to them a bunch more I'll probably post up some kind of review.

On Tuesday I finally got my learner's permit. I'm not sure what I would have done if there had been another set-back or if I had failed the test or something. Amazingly, things worked out and I walked out of the DMV triumphantly. It was made all the sweeter by the knowledge that Ben had failed his permit test earlier that day (although he got it the next).

Wednesday was the official first day of spring. I didn't get to enjoy really anything seasonal about it, but it was just a good day in general. Good things happened at school and after school and all that. Thursday was also pretty great. The weather was just beautiful and I had my first driving lesson. My mom took us over to a parking lot and I drove around it for a while and familiarized myself with the controls and habits and suchlike. This driving thing doesn't seem like it's as hard as maybe I thought it would be. Except for parallel parking, that would appear to be as heinous as I ever imagined. Then again, it was my first time actually driving, so I don't suppose I should expect too much.

Friday I went to school and hung out with Rachel for a bit afterwards. On Saturday I went over to Gabo's house to model for an oil painting. Unfortunately, I was oppressed into remaining clothed. Gabrielle is doing it for an art class but she said after the semester's over she'll give it to me. Were I to have a fireplace, I would hang it over it. I suppose I'll settle with hanging it over my bed, or across from it so I see it first thing in the morning.

After I got home from Gabo's I did some philosophy work. Fun stuff. After concentrating on that for a while, Rachel came over. We were going to watch Little Miss Sunshine with my mom, sister, and sister's boyfriend, but while we were waiting one of Rachel's friends called up and said they were going to be seeing 300 at the local multiplex. I'd watched LMS pretty recently and heard a lot of hype about 300, plus I've been fascinated with Sparta since I was taught about the Battle of Thermopylae in fifth grade. So we drove out and saw it.

I thought it was a pretty decent flick. I haven't read the graphic novel, so I can't really compare the movie to it. Nevertheless, I thought the cinematography was pretty cool. The acting was good. And it's awesome because Spartans really were as bad-ass as they were in the movie. Obviously, there were a load of historical inaccuracies, but none that I couldn't really accept as cinematic exaggerations. I did have some trouble with the gore. Not with the quantity so much as the inconsistency. There was a lot of it, but they didn't take it all the way re: decapitation etc. Not that I'm complaining, exactly.

Unfortunately, while I honestly felt it wasn't such a big deal for me to skip the pseudo-family gathering, my mom felt otherwise. I was planning on seeing Chris on Sunday but found myself grounded. I feel it's a little unfair to be punished when I hadn't knowledgeably been disobedient, but my appeal was rejected.

I've been doing some mechanical work on the blog and I've been trying to update it for all the New Blogger fanciness but I'm running into some difficulties. Bear with me, please.
Edit: Turns out Blogger is just giving the shaft to its users who publish by FTP. Nice.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I know it was yesterday, but nevertheless.

Two weeks ago I went to see a production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street as done by Rachel's school (she was stage manager). They did a fantastic job, it was way beyond any high school dramatic performance that I'd ever seen before. Everything was well done, the acting, the singing, the music. Top-notch all around. So good I couldn't shave for the whole week afterwards.

Later that week Rachel broke up with me. I had been half expecting it for a week or so, so I wasn't that surprised. It's a little more complicated than that. We're still on amicable terms and we're still hanging out. It did bring me low but I'm getting back to myself all right. I'm either just really persistent(ly stupid) or maybe there's still something there, I'm not much in a position to say.

The Friday after that I went to see a couple of bands perform, because some of them were comprised of my friends. I invited Gabo and Rachel along, and Rachel brought her friend Mike, because he's also friends with someone I know in one of the bands. I went principally to see The Raging Pucies (warning: explicit content). They were amazing. It's interesting how having your friends in a band transforms it from being ridiculously bad to just ridiculous. I could have been their bassist but refused upon the startling realization that I have standards. Nevertheless, seeing them up there, I did suffer a twinge of regret.

The other band playing that was really good was Meat Rainbow. Good garage rock kind of stuff. They were just plain good, actual professional-like. After the show we went back to Gabo's place and hung out for a while, and then we went our separate ways.

On Tuesday I went to see The Shins with Gabo at the Electric Factory. It was a really good show. The opening band, Viva Voce, was also pretty decent, although a little bothersome. They started out having some tech issues - the drummer's mic was all messed up. After they fixed that, there was some weird feedback issue in the bass frequencies while they were playing that made the low-end intense enough to make it a little hard to breath at times. Very loud, and we were pretty close to the front. It was also bothersome because you could very clearly hear some bass playing on the songs, yet all there was on stage was the drummer/occasional guitarist and the lead guitarist. It confounded me.

The Shins were really good. It was one of the few occasions in live music where the mixing was really good. I could actually distinguish the instruments, which is pretty good considering there were two or three guitars, bass, drums, and one or two keyboards. They were also really tight. Honestly, I had pretty low expectations, just because for some reason the way the Shins sound on their records made me think they'd disappoint live. Quite the contrary. It's a really nice thing when a band can bring something to a live show that isn't there on the albums.

Friday night I had my first haircut in over a year and a half. I'm not really sure what made me do it, exactly. I've been thinking seriously about getting one and talking about it a lot, but hadn't really come close to overcoming my inertia. But for whatever reason, I ate dinner and then went into the bathroom with a pair of scissors and grabbed a hunk of hair and started cutting. Five minutes later and I declared it to be done. I've done a little bit extra since then, just trying to even it out a bit, but the funny thing is, it's honestly probably the best haircut I've ever gotten. I've gotten a lot of compliments on it, which feels very nice.

It feels amazing to have short hair, it's just such a relief in a lot of ways. It means I won't get food in it when I eat. I (probably) won't get mistaken for a female (as much). (Which I almost regret, since I find it very entertaining indeed.) It cuts my time in the shower to nearly half, as well as my shampoo usage. I don't get it caught in coat zippers or car doors. It's great.

Yesterday was St. Patrick's Day and my friend Rita's eighteenth birthday. I took a train into Philly and hung out with Rachel for a couple of hours and then we took a taxi to the Clown House for Rita's birthday party.

I'm not good at parties. I never have been, and I suspect I never will be. I'm a wallflower by nature and loud music and strange people tend to make me retreat farther into my head rather than bring me out of myself. Nevertheless, I had a pretty good time, better than I expected. There were a few really great surreal moments, like when someone sat down on the couch next to me, picked up a five-string banjo that happened to be resting nearby, and started playing classical music on it.

Rachel and I had a fight at the party but it turned out all right, I think. We don't have a lot of fights, which is nice, but when we do they usually get resolved decently. I managed to relax a little and got involved in some interesting conversations. Those are stories for another time, I think.

After the party, Rachel and I went back to her place where we hung out for another couple of hours before she went to bed and I went to couch (voluntarily; there was a bed available but it was less convenient). My dreams last night were interesting. All there was to them was a map of Philadelphia, with red blinking lights representing taxis moving around it. I always find it disorienting when I dream in something other than the three dimensions I'm used to.

I managed to miss that it's been over two years now since this blog was started. Congratulations, to myself, or something, I suppose.

Music of 2006 et all

(Edit 03/05/07 - Added Day Action Band) So here is my list of music that I enjoyed that came out in the year of 2006! It is all good music and you should like it, too.

• Belle and Sebastian - The Life Pursuit
  I like Dear Catastrophe Waitress better but this album is also definitely good.
• The Decemberists - The Crane Wife
  The Decemberists are just good in general and their latest is no exception. It's a lot more cohesive in mood, which is nice. Plus it has the distinction of having the most depressing lyrics of any album I can think of that still has ridiculously catchy songs and mostly upbeat instrumentals.
• The Flaming Lips - At War with the Mystics
  The Flaming Lips are great, their new album is great. It's more like The Soft Bulletin than Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots which is nice if you got tired of beeps and boops looped a little bit past tolerable. I love Yoshimi, don't get me wrong. But the return is appreciated.
• The Long Winters - Putting the Days to Bed
  I first heard of the Long Winters when I saw their frontman do a solo acoustic set of a couple of their songs. Unfortunately I think I liked that better than his band as a whole. There are some good songs that will get stuck in your head.
• Neko Case - The Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
  Old-style kind of songs that soothe me. It goes to show that you don't have to have clean recordings to be good.
• Pigeon John - And the Summertime Pool Party
  I'm not a huge fan of hip-hop or rap, but I make exceptions. This is one of them. I got ridiculously obsessed with this album and I still fight the urge to play it incessantly. I just like rhymes involving self-loathing, I guess. Good rhymes, too!
• Sufjan Stevens - Songs for Christmas
  It's kind of phony putting that on here because it's a box set of mostly older stuff, but it is damned good. It makes me wish that I hated Christmas so that I could listen to Sufjan and then he would show me the light and make me love it.
• Tartan Terrors - Who's Your Paddy!
  First I heard them talked about from some of my friends (I have awesome friends). Then I stumbled upon them playing live when I went to the PA Renaissance Faire. It was there I bought the CD, and then I brought it home and enjoyed. Traditional Scottish music fused with jazz? It sounds like a terrible idea, but they make it sound good.
• The Who - Endless Wire
  Call me crazy, but I love the new Who album. Listening to it, it sounds like a mix between Warren Zevon and the Who, which sounds weird, but listen to it and you'll hear what I mean. I didn't find out about the whole Pete Townshend getting prosecuted thing until after I listened to the album a few times, and now my opinion of it has been tainted a little bit. Some of the songs get seen in a new light and it's creepy. Still, I like the album a lot.

I guess my favorite album of 2006 is probably At War with the Mystics. Now, here's a list of albums that came out that made me sad and disappointed.

• Paul Simon - Surprise
  Goddamn you Brian Eno. Stay away from Paul Simon. Ech. I was tolerating it until a couple of songs in and then it just became too much. Depressing.
• Red Hot Chili Peppers - Stadium Arcadium
  There's one song out of 28 that I kind of like and it's only because it sounds like a bad rip-off of their earlier stuff.
• The Strokes - First Impressions of Earth
  If you listen to this album and you haven't listened to the Strokes in a couple of months, you'll think, hey, this is not so bad. But then if you listen to their album before that, you think, hey, this new one actually kind of sucks. Then if you listen to their first album, you think, hey, that new album really sucks and I wish I hadn't spent money on it. There is one good song on it, and it's because they rehashed the melody from an earlier album.
• Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche
  It's okay, but not what I have come to expect from the man. I really don't care too much for the album, but what can you expect from something that's composed of songs that weren't good enough for a real album?

Now a list of music that didn't actually come out in 2006 but I listened to it a lot this year anyway because it's awesome.

• Andrew Bird - & the Mysterious Production of Eggs
  Ridiculously good. After hearing the album, Andrew Bird is in my top three favorite musical artists that are still doing things. So good.
• Day Action Band - Right on Dairyland
  All three of their albums are just great. You used to be able to get the first two for free off of their website if you joined their mailing list, I don't know if that's still true. Great songs produced by two dudes in a shack somewhere.
• Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane over the Sea
  I'm pretty late on picking up on NMH, but I love the album. The album is a pretty much perfect composition in terms of how the songs fit together and since all the songs have a baseline of "good" the results are nice.
• Jonathan Richman - I, Jonathan
  Good old fashioned kind of rock and roll. Simple but very pleasurable guitar riffs. Song subjects include: Dancing in lesbian bars, how you can't talk to the dude (no no), and the Velvet Underground.

That's a lot of bullet points.