Shifted Sound's Best of 2008

Shelby Miller, the fantastic host of the best damn indie music podcast, submitted to my requests and sent over his Top 10 albums of the year.

And it's perfect because it coincides with his year end show, where he recaps all the good stuff that he's been pushing out over the year.

So here's his list. And subscribe to his show.

In no particular order:

Rosebuds "Life Like"
Arizona "Glowing Bird"
Pictures and Sound "Pictures and Sound"
Ra Ra Riot "The Rhumb Line"
Vampire Weekend "Vampire Weekend"
Mates of State "Re-Arrange Us"
Lowry "Love is Dead"
Air France "No Way Down"
Girl Talk "Feed the Animals"
Cut Copy "In Ghost Colours"
No Kids "Come Into My House"
Cloud Cult "Feel Good Ghosts"


Disappointments:
Jenny Lewis "Acid Tongue"
Keane "Perfect Symmetry"
Lindsey Buckingham "Gift of Screws"

We Get Letters - Jeff M.'s Picks for 2008

I was at this concert. It was stinking hot. Jeff was keeping it cool. On the high hat

Occassionally we get letters. And occasionally I will post them.

Here we have another letter from longtime reader and my good friend Jeff M., former drummer for the now defunct Alphabetical Order.

Jeff was kind enough to send over his picks, so I said, hey, I'll post them. They're really good. Jeff's turned me on to a lot of new music over the past two and half years I've known him (FMCI GAO FOR LIFE!!!), and in true form, he doesn't disappoint.

Except for that Deerhunter pick.




i know it's bad form for a bunch of like-minded people to like the same albums, but so be it. we hear the same because we feel the same, to paraphrase Damon Albarn of Blur. Mr. Shimmy Shake is the person who turned me on to No Kids and i absolutely love that the spirit of "i love this band so much, you need to hear it!" lives on in my life. and besides, No Kids is the most interesting band i heard in 2008. in fact, music was so good this year that i was lucky enough to put albums at the top of this list from bands that are truly innovating, creating new sounds and mixing genres. these are the ones i spent the most time with.

1. No Kids - Come Into My House
2. Jaguar Love - Take Me to the Sea
3. Parts & Labor - Receivers
4. Calexico - Carried to Dust
5. Deerhunter - Microcastle/Weird Era Cont'd
6. Tokyo Police Club - Elephant Shell
7. Wolf Parade - At Mount Zoomer
8. Hot Chip - Made in the Dark
9. David Byrne and Brian Eno - Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
10. Rhymefest - Man in the Mirror mixtape with Mark Ronson

honorable mention:
All the Saints - Fire on Corridor X
Foals - Antidotes
French Kicks - Swimming
Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
The Kills - Midnight Boom
No Age - Nouns
The Notwist - The Devil, You, and Me
Portishead - Third
Q-Tip - The Renaissance
Sigur Ros - Some Made Up Icelandic Album Name
Sun Kil Moon - April
TV on the Radio - Dear Science
Vampire Weekend - self-titled
Vivian Girls - self-titled
Wire - Object 47

then there were a bunch of bands whose albums i didn't love all-around, but who put out some amazing songs nonetheless:

The Big Sleep - Bad Blood
The Broken West - Auctioneer
Coldplay - Lost!
The Helio Sequence - Keep Your Eyes Ahead
Horse Feathers - Albina
Joan As Police Woman - Hard White Wall
Ted Leo/Pharmacists - Paranoia (Never Enough)
MGMT - Time to Pretend
Mountain Goats and Kaki King - Thank You Mario, But Our Princess is in Another Castle
Nada Surf - Weightless
Neon Neon - I Told Her on Alderaan
Santogold - You'll Find a Way
Santogold - Creator
Sebastien Grainger - American Names
Subtle - Exiting Arm

here are 7 excellent albums i heard this year that i either 1) didn't know existed or 2) had never even heard of the band before. this is the big lebowski "new shit has to come to light / we were not aware of that, dude" award:

Diplo - I Like Turtles mixtape
Klaxons - Myths of the Near Future
Meligrove Band - Planets Conspire
The Natural History - People That I Meet
Sea Wolf - Leaves in the River
Statehood - Lies and Rhetoric
Strategy - Future Rock

and finally, because they haven't gotten props anywhere else, i just want to shout out Radiohead for putting on a hell of a live show at nisaan "who the fuck designed this place" pavilion in may. i endured torrential rain and was sopping wet the whole show, but it was worth it. also, a shout out to Lupe Fiasco's show in january at 9:30 Club. he said he was under the weather, but put on an awesome two-hour show anyway. it was good to see a showman on stage, and he is definitely a showman.

Interview with Kristin Andreassen

After hearing Kristin Andreassen on A Prarie Home Companion a few weeks, I dropped her an email, and hoped she would write me back. Well she did, and threw in the curveball of a phone interview. This sent me in a bit a whirlspin, since I've never done a phone interview before for this blog, and I wasn't quite sure about taping it and what not. And when I do live interviews, I tend to let the interviewee take over, because it gives you better quotes.

So I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do.

But I called her last Wednesday, only to be kicked to voicemail. Now I'm thinking she stood me up. But she called back in a few minutes and told me she was driving in a tunnel on her way to Brooklyn, and once she parked and found a coffee shop she'd call me back.

I'm of the belief that most people are nice, but she was really really nice. 30 minutes later she called and we chatted for a very quick hour about everything. I had questions, written down, but they kind of went right out the window.

So this is less an interview, but more of a long recap of our conversation, sprinkled with quotes.

Although she is based out of Boston right now, Kristin still has a Maryland area code for her cell, attributable to her time with Annapolis's Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble.

Kristin says that the song "Crayola" was kind of a bridge from Footworks to her solo album "Kiss Me Hello."

"Most of the first songs I wrote didn't have any muscal accompianent. Crayola was one of the first songs I ever wrote, playing patty cake on the steering wheel. I had rhythms and kid shows on the brain."

One of the most amazing things about the album is that Kristin plays virtually all the instruments. But she wouldn't categorize herself as a multi-instrumentalist.

"As a kid, I played piano and sang in choirs. I still wouldn't consider myself an instrumentalist.

"The journey started as a dancer in annapolis, and wiritng my own songs, I figured that I should learn how to play the guitar in from an audience.

"I've always been sort of a band person."

And a band person she is. She plays with two other bands, Sometymes Why and Uncle Earl. For the record, I'm all for attractive women getting together and singing beautiful music. But Kristin keeps the whole thing rather breezy and low key, even when she's name dropping. On talking about Uncle Earl's last album

"It was a very unfanfareish release. We did this record with John Paul Jones."

Oh, just John Paul Jones. Of Led Zepplin fame.

And so our conversation goes. She still seems geniunely incredulous that she got on to A Prarie Home Companion after mailing them a copy of her fantastic debut album ("I was like , that's a waste of a $1.11").

I've already gushed over "Kiss Me Hello" but I'm going to continue. It's a really pleasant and refreshing album. Slightly genre mixing, it still is very traditional American music. Kristin says she had many sources of inspiration.

"I feel like in a weird way, I wrote these songs in sort of genre categories, and recording them kind of taught me what they were. Our friends would come and stay with us [in Annapolis] all the time. And I feel that what I learned about music, came from those times when friends would come by and stay."

Lyrically, the album stands out for great writing. Each song has a very nice hand-crafted feel to it, with no thrown away lines or overemoted filler.

"I'm not a fan of music that makes you work too hard to understand it, that it's not an exercise.

"I think it's the influence of listening to other songwriters. One of the thigns that Dylan said is that he listened to so much traditional music. So much of his stuff is stolen melodies. And I think that's okay. And you can't always come up with something completely orginal. There's something archtypal."

Kristin's next big adventure is her two song a month club. For $15, you get two brand new songs a month from her for 2009. This is why I love independent artists. That's an incredible connection to make with an audience.

Again, Kristin seems very unassuming about the task.

"It's a lot of music. It's not that I'm going to have low standards for myself. I'm seeing the two song a month club as a committment to myself to write. Of the fans I have, I feel like thay enjoy the process. Your early demos, you feel like they are completely flawed, and those are the ones people like.

"I've learned that other people are more forgiving than I am of my first attempt."

If you'd like to see Kristin play in your hometown, she says just write her, which I'm sure your local music hall will appreciate.

Housekeeping

I feel like I'm in the news biz again, I got plenty of copy, I'm working on two stories. I just need to the pull the trigger.

Kristin's interview is taking longer to put together than I thought (pain meds and typing don't mix kid). But it's coming.

And I have the very difficult task of putting together my Top 10, best of the year list.

And this year was tough. I mean, I can name 20 standout albums. I already have my No 1, but yeah. That still leaves 19. We'll have it all done by the end of the week, and then you can go on reading.

Thanks for the daily clicks though. We'll get more stuff up soon. I promise.

Nick of No Kid's Top 12 Albums of 2008

I asked the lead singer from my favorite band of 2008, Nick Krgovich of No Kids, to send me over a list of his top 10 albums for 2008.

And he did. He did even better. He sent over his top 12.

This cat is fa real. I think this is why "Come Into My House" is my favorite album of the year. His top 12 includes the obscure, the indie famous, legendary funk expirmentalists, and a funky R&B chartreuse. Also a bunch of people I never heard of.

Thanks Nick for sending this over. If you haven't bought it yet, go get No Kids "Come Into My House" now.

Nick Krgovich's (No Kids) Top 12 of 2008

Allez Allez - Promises

Erykah Badu - New Amerykah, Part One (4th World War)

Beach House - Devotion

Dri - Smoke Rings

Herbie Hancock, Thad Jones, Ron Carter, Jerome Richardson, Grady Tate, Jonathan Klein - Hear O' Israel: A Prayer Ceremony In Jazz

Tommy Jay - Tommy Jay's Tall Tales of Trauma

Reiko Kudo - Licking Up Dust

The Magnetic Fields - Distortion

John Maus - Love Is Real

Arthur Russell - Love Is Overtaking Me

Sprigs of Time: 78s from the EMI Archive

Mark Tucker - In The Sack

Yay

I just got off the phone with Kristin Andreassen, and what a joy to talk to her. I'll be posting the interview up later on this week, but in the meantime, please check out her music at her website. She's doing some really amazing things, and it's great to hear new artists as the get big.

December is going to be an awesome month here t The Shimmy Shake. We're going to have a first ever contest/giveaway. Some special guest postings. Decemebr is going tobe a good month.

Interview with Electric Owl's Andy Herod

Andy Herod of The Electric Owls

So a little over a month ago I went to the Bishop Allen show and was really impressed with opening one-man band The Electric Owls. Helmed by The Comas' former frontman Andy Herod, he detours from that late 90s fuzz rock to a more melodic, lyrically focused psychedelic folk pop sound.

The crowd was a little wary at first, but really got into his set.He released his four song EP, The Magic SHow, back in November. it has two track from his upcoming 2009 release and two other tracks.

Andy was kind enough to submit to a few questions, so here they are.

The Shimmy Shake: Talk a little bit about how you got from The Comas to > here. How did Electric Owls start?

Andy Herod: Electric Owls was born during the year after I left Brooklyn. I fled suddenly and without much of a plan. I couch surfed in North Carolina for a couple months and wrote these songs in friends bathrooms and kitchens when they were at work. Then I drove to California to work construction at a nuclear power plant on the Central Coast for 2 months. I finished up writing a few more songs there and formed a plan to go back to Asheville NC where a friend manages an amazing studio called Echo Mountain and could get me a good deal. So I asked Jason Caperton who had played bass in The Comas but that I knew to be a particularly gifted guitarist, to join me in California and help spice the songs up during a road trip back to the south.

None of this was done with any end in mind other than to have the best time possible. Which we did. But, at some point we involved a record company to get more money to finish and now it looks like I have a new project. Pretty excited though. The theme is really to approach things very differently than I did in The Comas. To let it go where it wants, to have fun, not to stress, concerned only with beauty and fun.

SS: This is definitely a different sound than what you were doing with The Comas. Kind of like psychedelic folk-pop (but maybe that's just me). But it's enjoyable. How did you get there?

AH: As far as the style of the music goes, it was a conscious effort to make it unique sounding and use as many acoustic instruments as possible. There is very little electric guitar on the record. But to make it full and wild we threw on a whole hell of a lot of synths and super effected string patches. This is what will have people using the psychedelic folk pop adjectives which i am totally happy with.

SS: The lyrics though, remain very personal, and very rich. Is the entire album going to sound like this?

Lyrics where very important to me this time around. I had gotten away from that and I put a lot more effort into making sure that SOMETHING was being said whether it was something personal or a story about someone else.

SS: When can we expect the new album to drop?

New album comes out on Vagrant Records first week of April.

Magic Show EP is out now on itunes now.