Top 10 Albums of 2010

Aloha – Home Acres
Stars – The Five Ghosts
How to Destroy Angels – How To Destroy Angels
Fang Island – Fang Island
The Joy Formidable – A Balloon Called Moaning
God Is An Astronaut – Age Of The Fifth Sun
Sleigh Bells – Treats
Maserati – Pyramid Of The Sun
The Naked & Famous – Passive Me, Aggressive You
Autolux – Transit Transit

I’m not anywhere near clever or knowledgable enough to round out my music picks for 2010 with any sort of insightful commentary, but I just wanted to post up the stuff that really stood out to me this year. Aloha was a band I stumbled upon back in 2005 or so and though I liked the album (That’s Your Fire) I never really followed anything after that. Fast-forward to 2010; I heard a few tracks of Home Acres and it hit me like a ton of bricks. Aloha manages to cram so many influences and sounds into one album without it sounding like a discombobulated mess, every song is different from the last but fits into the overall mood.

Stars is a band I’ve loved for a few years but to be honest, they never really put out an album that I wanted to listen to start-to-finish… that is until The Five Ghosts. This album is definitely a concept album but the songs are so well crafted you’d never know it. Each song’s lyrics are subtly haunting fitting with the overall theme but they still maintain that pop element that makes Stars such a pleasure to listen to.

How to Destroy Angels is the brainchild of Trent Reznor and his new wife Mariqueen Maandig. The album carries all of the Nine Inch Nails trappings one would expect but the addition of the soft, sultry voice of Mariqueen really adds a totally different dynamic to the music. The video for ‘The Space Between’ is haunting and beautiful as well.

I discovered Fang Island’s self-titled album and I still don’t quite know how to describe it. It’s sort of a bizarre mashup of harmonized-choir-vocals and driving-guitar-riff-jams. The songs range from punk to progressive-rock but really don’t spend much time in any particular genre. The album is very upbeat and uptempo, definitely worth a listen if you like guitar heavy tunes.

I am dying to hear a full-length album from The Joy Formidable, which isn’t due til March 15th in the US, but for now A Balloon Called Moaning will suffice. This trio from the UK just really hammers every song home with purpose. The melodies are catchy and very well thought out and though there are only 3 members you really get a wide range of sounds on this album, extremely well crafted.

Onkyo Awesomeness.

I decided recently that it was time to grow up and get rid of my Samsung home-theater-in-a-box. I’ve had it for nearly 3 years now, and though it was a good starter setup, my needs have exceeded it’s capabilities.

Enter the Onkyo TX-SR576.

My current A/V setup includes 3 sources connected via HDMI (PS3, 360 and MacBook). Since my Panasonic plasma only has 2 HDMI inputs in the back, I’ve been using a crappy Monoprice analog switch to swap the signals. Besides being annoying, this provided me with an audio problem.

Andy Reale

Andy Reale is an old friend of mine from high school. We used to goof around in computer class together and talk about music and such. I have to say that when I discovered what he was up to the past few years I was really impressed. He’s a full-fledged music video director, and he has a brand spankin’ new website that you should all check out!

Andy reminds me of my all-time favorite music video director, Mark Romanek in that he doesn’t always spend a lot of time operating the camera, but he is the person with the vision, and the ideas that make up the world inside the video. What I always like about Andy’s videos is that they fit the bands. None of the videos you’ll see take the band so completely out of context of themselves, and that’s really important. I also love the composition and color of each video.

If you’re in a band and need a video, get your people to get in touch with Andy. If you’re just a fan of music and videos, spend the time it takes to watch every single video on his site, they’re all really amazing.

Weezer Show

This weekend was action-packed, and to put a little icing on my cake of a Saturday, Braxton called me and offered me 2 extra tickets he had to go to the Weezer show. Nice! Ordinarily I’m not much for live concerts – if you know me I’ve given you my two-cents on that plenty of times, however, this was a special case. Plus, Kurt was with me already and he wanted to go, so that sealed the deal 🙂

For starters, there were 2 great openers; Tokyo Police Club, and Angels & Airwaves. I like both of these bands pretty well, and adding Weezer to that ticket is hard to pass up, especially when you’re being offered the tickets, and they’re GOOD seats. Second, Braxton and the El Scorcho guys hooked up with the local rock station who had set up something with Weezer to have a bunch of fans up on stage playing a wide range of instruments for a few songs. Still with me? Ok, so the bottom line is that Braxton and the Scorcho guys were going to be up on stage with Weezer playing some songs, and that was another thing I couldn’t pass up.

When we first started El Scorcho it was a true, heartfelt tribute to Weezer. We had all connected with their music in our younger days, and being able to replicate that experience and help people re-live those memories was fun for us. We had talked many times about “What if Weezer figured out who we were” or “Maybe we’ll get to meet them someday”. So, it was really cool to see those “What Ifs” realized in the best possible way – on the stage. Check out this KILLER video of Braxton doing the solo for Beverly Hills on the Bassoon! Watch for it at about 1:30 – the crowd EATS IT UP with a spoon.

The entire show was a blast. Tokyo Police Club was fun and energetic, they sounded exactly like the record. Angels & Airwaves put on this amazing visual and aural experience, with crazy lighting rigs and an ambiance that’s hard to match. That said, I just wish that Tom DeLonge could sing better live. I know, I know “Let’s see you do better!”, and you’re right. It’s just that there are so many talented bands out there who get up on stage and make it sound like the record (like Tokyo Police Club) and it’s sort of disappointing to see Tom, who has all these years of experience get up and sound like he’s half-assing the thing. They were really good, that’s my only complaint – and for what it’s worth I had the same complaint back in Blink 182 days.

Weezer themselves put on a GREAT show. They were fun, funny and full of energy. Last time I saw Weezer in 2005, they acted like they were going to fall asleep on stage. Totally didn’t seem into it. But this time was great. It was the last night of the tour we found out, and they did alot of crazy stuff, and it felt like they were doing it just for the Atlanta crowd, which made it even more fun. It also helped that the venue was much much better than Tabernacle. Maybe I’m getting old, but sticky floor and the smell of piss and beer just don’t appeal to me much anymore.

Thanks to Braxton and to Kurt for rollin with me, I’m glad I got to have this experience.

El Scorcho in Access Atlanta

On the way to getting my morning coffee, my good friend Braxton called me to let me know that one of my photos was being used in today’s Access Atlanta. Nice!

For those who might not know, El Scorcho is a Weezer tribute band, a band that I was a part of for 2 years right after I moved to Atlanta. Since I departed to pursue other things I’ve been regularly photographing the guys.

This photo highlights a nice little write up about El Scorcho, and their show this weekend that precedes the actual Weezer show up at Gwinnet Arena. Be sure to visit El Scorcho’s website.