2009-A Year In Review

Ah, 2009. It's unbelievable how fast you went. Thankfully, you left a trail of great music and even some decent television shows! My favourite album of the year is almost a toss up. Decibully's World Travels Fast is near perfect, but at the same time The Lawrence Arms's Buttsweat and Tears is pretty amazing. It's too tough to call, so I'm going to call it even. I waited such a long time for both and listened to them way over 10 times in a week.

In 2009, I discovered a band that has been around for a while. Tegan and Sara. One night, they played the Tonight Show With Conan O'Brien and rocked their new single "Hell". It was very Alkaline Trio-ish and I had to dig deeper to see what else they can do. My guitar player is a huge fan, and ripped me his favourite songs. All of them catchy and brilliant.

This year I didn't go to too many shows due to my wife and I purchasing a house in March. We did go to two great shows. Maritime+ The Smoking Popes at Turner Hall in April, and most recently, Decibully in December. Both shows were very memorable. After the Popes show, Jill because a big fan of them, and for the first time in many many years, Bryan and I got to go to a concert together.

And now, some of my favourite songs of 2009

The Slowing Drink At the Saddest Bar On the Snowiest Day in the Greatest City

-The Lawrence Arms

Somewhere in the World

-Decibully

Hell

-Tegan and Sara

Best God in Show

-NoFX

Airport Security

The Bouncing Souls

Hurricane Season

The Emergency Room

As far as television is concerned, Modern Family wins for best sitcom. We watch it every Wednesday, and it's pretty hilarious. Even the idiot from Married With Children is funny in the program.

2010 should be a pretty good year. Alkaline Trio has a new album coming out. I've already heard a few songs from it on youtube from live performances and they sound pretty good. Ted Leo has a new album coming out. Obviously that'll be awesome. So here's to another year, and cheers to 2010.

Decibully @ the Bayview Brew Haus

Friday, December 18th was a rare moment in time. Like when there is a solar eclipse, or if the planets all line up for a brief moment...So what WAS this rare moment? Bryan and I got to see a concert TOGETHER for the first time in roughly 9 years. Not just any band...Decibully, one of the best bands around headlined a show at the smokey Bayview Brew Haus. Fable And The World Flat and Invade Rome joined them that night to celebrate Decibully's record release of World Travels Flat. As Invader Room played, my brother, my wife and I shared a "Java Beer" which was 1/2 coffee and half beer. It was dark, strong and pretty good. We almost looked out of place with the rest of the crowd drinking PBR and Shlitz. Fable and the World Flat opened. They weren't too bad. Had some catchy grooves here and there. I chatted with Aaron Vold of Decibully for a bit during their set. I stupidly forgot to introduce him to 82. Oh well. Invade Rome played second. They were quite forgettable, but covered Decibully's "Rid of Me At Last" which wasn't too bad. Vocals could have been better, but the overall sound was good. Decibully went on around Midnight. They opened with "World Travels Fast" off their latest album with the same name. William sounded perfect singing acapella at the beginning of the song. His voice is very soulful which makes this unique band that better. Other sounds they played off the latest album were "Live By The Lake", "Don't Believe The Hype", "If I Don't Work", "Little White Girl" and a few others. "Broken Glass" sounded amazing live. I can't even describe how the opening song from WTF blew me away. They played their single off the record as well "Somewhere in the World". They played a few classic D-Bully songs as well including "Penny Look Down", "Sing Out Sing Out Sing Out" and "Meg and Magill". My wife started to get kinda nauseous while we stood in the crowd since it was basically like standing in a completely filled ash tray. We headed out after "Meg and Magill" (which was around 1:15am). The fresh air was a wonderful welcome to the quiet streets of Bayview. As far as the new ablum is concerned, I've listened to it way too much lately. But unlike other artists, you have to turn this up loud so you can hear all of the well-detailed layers. Like a painting, Decibully is well enjoyed by listening, relaxing and taking it all in. When you see Decibully live, it's like watching art come to life. All of the notes, rhythms and vocals are the brush strokes. If you haven't seen them live, you probably should go to their myspace and check the tour dates.

Singers/Actors who need to cover Holiday songs

82 posted the most dreadful holiday songs. I totally agree. But now it's time to list some artists or actors that should release some covers for kicks and "jollys"...

Christopher Walken-12 Days of Christmas

William Shatner-Frosty the Snowman

William Shatner With John Lovett-Mr. Grinch

Dr. Dre with Jimmy Buffett-Deck The Halls

Tenacious D-Feliz Navidad

Rivers Cuomo & Henry Rollins-Jingle Bell Rock

Happy Holidays!

The Fall-The End of Madrid. & The Last show @ McCaullifes Pub

I knew it wouldn't last forever. Almost from day one, I knew deep down Madrid. was a downward spiral. Saturday, the 5th of December, we called it quits at our last gig in (of all places) Racine. A few weeks before the event, Alex the bassist announced (after Nick, the guitarist couldn't practice a day) that he was going to leave the group to play in a metal/prog/rock project. Nick and I were actually pretty pleased because we knew he was irritated for quite some time. Nick wrote 98 percent of the songs we played. Alex couldn't handle the basic bass parts that were pretty much cemented in. Nick and I didn't like having to drive out to Racine to play in dinky small bars for people who weren't even watching us (thanks to the UFC fight last Sat.) So, we were pretty stoked to finish off Madrid. But we wanted to end our year-long group on a high-note.

Saturday, we played Blank Fest 3 at McCaullife's, which went decently well. We played second after a bar-band called Rest of Yesterday. They were solid, but that's about it. Drumming was very basic, despite the guy having a very expensive set of hi-hats (which I ended up drumming on). After the first song, I got really exhausted because I hit the skins with so much intensity. After that song, I thought "man, I've got like, 9 more to go!" The rest of the set went swimmingly despite losing a drum sticks during "Oliver's Army" and breaking one on our closing song "The Fall". Overall, the night went pretty well and I thought I played the best I could. Thunder Driver was next and they were metal-esque. So obviously, my wife and I left at the drop of the first few notes.

I'll keep the blog posted on my new project with Nick and our new keys/bass player

Worst x-mas songs ever

Here are the very worst non-traditional Christmas songs ever, in no particular order:

* "Same Old Lang Syne" - Dan Fogelberg

Ok, this song is on every single year at Christmas time, but the incident in question just takes place at Christmas at a grocery store. Apparently, he has the time to go out drinking with an old flame unbeknownst to her husband. Nice one, buddy. The lyrics are just crap.

* "The Christmas Shoes" - NewSong

Seriously, shoes for his dying mother? Does she have everything else? And of course, the kid is out on the street all alone. Maybe it's Maccauley Culkin.

* "Last Christmas" - Wham!

He gave away his heart last year, just to have it thrown away. But this year, he'll give it to someone special. Didn't he do that last year? And look what happened!

* "Grown Up Christmas List" - seemingly everyone...

Yes, it's so nice and selfless to ask for world peace and hunger to just vanish into the ether, but can't you do it with better lyrics? See John Lennon for tips.

* "Baby, it's Cold Outside" - specifically, the Brian Setzer version because it's especially creepy.

Ok, date rape is not cool. We can all agree. And basically, the female (in the sheet music, referred to as "the Mouse." The male is "The Wolf." What does THAT tell you!) wants to leave and the male attempts to talk her out of it, basically, refusing to take no for an answer.

To spare you, I'll not post mp3 links. Look 'em up yourself if you're curious.