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My favorite music of 2010

Hi all,

I had no time to devote to the blog in 2010. I think about reviving it on occasion, but I’m so busy with work — and soon, with (hopefully) getting a band up and running — that it is hard to imagine where I would find the time for it. We’ll see.

In the meantime, here is my favorite music of 2010. I hope you find something new that you dig.
-dp

My ten favorite records of 2010:

  1. Los Lobos — Tin Can Trust
  2. Black Dub — Black Dub
  3. Robert Plant — Band of Joy
  4. David Hidalgo & Louie Perez — The Long Goodbye
  5. Ted Leo & The Pharmacists — The Brutalist Bricks
  6. You Am I — You Am I
  7. The Corin Tucker Band — 1,000 Years
  8. John Legend & The Roots — Wake Up!
  9. Richard Thompson — Dream Attic
  10. Daniel Lanois — Here Is What Is

A few notes:

  • There’s a clear gap between #1-4 and the rest. I couldn’t stop listening to the top four, and especially the top two. It is astounding to me that: 1) Los Lobos keep putting out such great records, and 2) they aren’t even more popular than they are.
  • I bought just 33 current-year releases, a trend of buying less new music that has continued from previous years. I check out so many new bands and they just don’t move me. I’ve written about this before – it’s the effect of being a music fanatic my entire life. I have about 35 years of great listening behind me. At this point, it’s less about the thrill of the new thing and more about spending time with quality music. There’s so much great stuff out there I’ve missed over the years, that now it’s as much fun to dig into an artist’s back catalog as it is to discover someone new. New music is new music regardless of when it was released.
  • The Black Dub record is so close to what I hear in my head with many of my own songs. If only I could get Brian Blade and Daniel Lanois to play on them. I played just one gig this year, the least I’ve played since 1987. In a year where my own performing fell by the wayside for a variety of reasons – the unfortunately weak music scene of Kent/Akron being the major one – listening played an even more important role than usual in keeping me sane. I hope to soon have some good news to announce on the band front.

Continuing on with 2010 releases…

Solid to pretty good:
Tired Pony — The Place We Ran From
Kingsley Flood — Dust Windows
Chip Robinson — Mylow
David Gray — Foundling
Jon Dee Graham — It’s Not As Bad As It Looks
Paul Weller — Wake Up The Nation
Freedy Johnston — Rain on the City
Mumford & Sons — Sigh No More
Peter Case — Wig!

Got them late in the year and we’re still getting acquainted, but they probably wouldn’t crack the top ten anyway:
The Roots — How I Got Over
Elvis Costello — National Ransom
The Walkmen — Lisbon
Stan Ridgway — Neon Mirage
Spoon — Transference

Ok in places, but the hype still puzzles me :
The National — High Violet

Better in theory than on record:
Arcade Fire — The Suburbs

Disappointing:
Fistful Of Mercy – As I Call You Down
JP, Chrissie & the Fairground Boys — Fidelity!
Jason & The Scorchers — Halcyon Times
The 757s — Last Laugh

Earlier releases that dominated my listening in 2010:
The Swell Season – Strict Joy (thanks, Sean!)
The Frames – entire catalog (thanks, Sean!)
Grant Lee-Phillips – Little Moon
Suzanne Vega – 99.9, Beauty & Crime

Shows – best of the year and in the all-time favorites category:
Los Lobos – Masonic Auditorium, Cleveland – 11/4/10
David Hidalgo & Louis Perez – Jazz at the Lincoln Center, New York – 1/15/10
The Swell Season w/ Mark Dignam – House of Blues, Cleveland – 5/30/10
The Swell Season w/ The Low Anthem – Asbury Hall @ Babeville, Buffalo – 7/27/10
Richard Thompson Band – Byham Theater, Pittsburgh – 11/1/10
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Southgate House, Newport – 9/24/10

Shows – really good:
George Coleman Quartet – Jazz Standard, NY – 1/16/10
Ted Leo & The Pharmacists – Grog Shop, Cleveland – 2/11/10
Pearl Jam w/ Band of Horses – Quicken Loans Arena, Cleveland – 5/9/10
Dick Prall solo – The Winchester, Cleveland – 10/15/10
Trombone Shorty & Rebirth Brass Band – House of Blues, Cleveland – 11/12/10

Shows – disappointing:
Chrissie Hynde w/ JP & The Fairground Boys – Tangier, Akron – 10/3/10

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2011 01 02 Dave music Comments Off Permalink

Nihilists (cutting off the johnson of progress?)

An Andrew Sullivan reader perfectly nails the vacuousness & nihilism of the teabagging right. It is the smartest critique of the current right that I’ve read in a long time. My brief comments are below the quote.
My teabagger parents are gloating today about the Brown victory. To them, this whole politics game is like football: they simply cheer for the red team to beat the blue team. Period. They don’t know or care how Brown or any of their other preferred candidates are going to solve the real crises my generation will face.

And for all their slogans and smugness and phony outrage, the teabaggers are on the wrong side of the future in every way I can imagine: Entitlements will have to be cut. The eligibility age for Medicare and Social Security will be raised, benefits will be means-tested, and Medicare will eventually be rationed. Everyone in my generation knows this. We accept it. But we want those programs to stick around in at least a minimal, bare-bones form. The teabaggers just mindlessly shout “Don’t cut my Medicare!” But they don’t mind bankrupting it for my generation.

Taxes will be raised. This is a fact. But teabaggers keep demanding tax cuts, insisting that cuts increase revenues, a claim that can’t even be called discredited because it was never credible in the first place. Policy-smart conservatives know it’s hooey, but teabaggers love it because it’s a convenient, feel-good talking point, truth be damned.

The rest of our lives will be filled with economic stagnation and profound personal insecurity.

The health care system as we know it will fall apart, spiraling costs will destroy growth, and the government will be forced to take an ever-bigger role in health care, sooner or later. What it means to be middle-class will be drastically different in fifty years, maybe even twenty. The disruptions of globalization will require government to alleviate the economic risk on individuals through programs like expanded unemployment benefits, targeted job training (and re-training), and education reforms. Teabaggers’ answer? Scream “Socialism!” and argue for ending all regulations and social welfare programs.

The theme of the future will be the need to accomplish more with fewer government resources. This will require a generation of leaders committed to the old-fashioned conservative notion of good government. For teabaggers, though, it’s an article of faith that there is no such thing as good government, so they don’t care what kind of hacks they put in office.

American empire will have to be rolled back. We can’t afford it. The defense budget must be cut. But teabaggers just want more and more war, imperial occupations that never end, in every corner of the globe. You have to wonder if war simply makes them feel good. Climate change and peak oil are facts. They will alter our lives in ways that seem like science fiction to us now. But teabaggers grasp at any flimsy excuse they can find not to face these facts, from “Al Gore is a hypocrite!” to “Drill, baby, drill!” to “The emails prove it’s all a hoax!”

The ridiculous, exhausting culture war has to end. My generation is sick of re-fighting Vietnam and Selma and Stonewall. We don’t want to be defined by whether we eat arugula or wear Carhartt. But the teabaggers need the culture war to continue forever because it ratifies their prejudices. It justifies their hate. It prevents the change they fear.

Now who is better prepared to start solving these problems now, a pragmatist like Obama or the teabaggers? Who is the real small-C conservative? If teabaggers continue to stand in the way—or God forbid, if they take power—how much longer will it take for leaders to emerge who are willing to do the hard work? I asked my father what his solution would be. “Blow up the whole government,” he said. “I’m not responsible for your security.”

If that’s not nihilism, what is?

Bravo. This faction of the right — and they are clearly the dominant voice of the right at present — refuse to believe that we have serious problems, problems that are only getting worse. When you try to present factual evidence about these problems, they scream that the research is biased by (pick one) leftist professors, the NY Times, European socialists, the homosexual agenda, the UN, etc. They want to return America to 1950, when all was well (for them). They are unwilling to engage with the reality of globalization or the multicultural present and future of America. In their minds, we are not suffering because of the effects of deindustrialization, globalization, a government that has rewarded the wealthy at the cost of the rest of us (both parties are at fault), and our nation’s aversion of hard solutions and shared cost. They blame so-called socialist policies, arugula-eating liberals, immigration, and a lack of family values.

I’m not talking about this part of the right in the abstract, but rather about arguments with family and friends. It’s endless frustrating. And frequently insulting, like when I cite statistics from some of social science’s top researchers and get told, “oh, that can’t be right” or “you just believe the research that supports your political views.” And it’s frightening because this faction of the right is going to stall progress on important issues until it is too late. Yes, there are some of the far left who would probably impede progress if they could, but they don’t have the massive presence of the far right. (Dear friends & family who will bitch about this: please point me toward the far left’s equivalent of Fox News. Kthanxbye.)

The teabaggers who are suffering blame Democrats, immigrants, and poor minorities for their problems rather than the broader socioeconomic forces that have changed our country since the 1960s. The teabaggers who are not yet suffering — and this is where the people we know fall — refuse to see  the problems because they are not yet feeling the economics effects of our problems.

Obama is not a leftist. He is a pragmatist — too much of one, at times. But the tea party right will continue to stall and resist through the 2012 elections. If you can’t get people to agree that there are problems — I’ve heard numerous people say that there is nothing wrong with our health care system — you surely cannot fix them. And even when we agree on the problems, we can’t find common ground on the science and knowledge needed to fix them (remember: global warming is a myth perpetuated by the left).

All of the hope we felt a year ago feels like a sad, distant, foggy memory.
2010 01 21 Dave Uncategorized Comments (8) Permalink

Helping Haiti

If you are interested in sending aid to Haiti, please consider Partners in Health (PIH). PIH has operated clinics and hospitals in Haiti for over 20 years and, in the process, has revolutionized how infectious diseases are treated in poor countries around the world.

In 2008, I wrote about “Mountains Beyond Mountains,” a wonderful Tracy Kidder book that details the career of Dr. Paul Farmer and his Herculean efforts to found PIH and help people in Haiti.

Click here to go directly to PIH’s earthquake fund.

Also, via the Obama administration, you can also text “HAITI” to “90999″ and a donation of $10 will be given automatically to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts, charged to your cell phone bill.

Last, here are primers on Haiti from the BBC and CNN.

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2010 01 13 Dave general Comments Off Permalink

A whole big bunch of music, sociology, and more…

Belated happy new year everyone. I’ve had good intentions to blog more often, but all of my writing energy is going toward new songs, editing research papers for publication, and trying to land a letter in Penthouse Forum. Here is a bunch of things I’ve been reading/digging/thinking about over the last month, culled from my Twitter feed. (More on that later — the short version is that I like Twitter far more than I thought I would.) Your thoughts are welcome, as always.

First off, check out Amy’s annual top 10 book list, along with a link to her lists for the past decade. It’s amazing how far and wide this travels every year. This time, she mentioned her love for Martin Sheen — this resulted in an email from someone who works for the Sheen brothers and promises to try to get it to Martin. Very cool.

Music

* I’ve been ripping many old CDs that I didn’t get to when we moved to MP3s nearly six years ago. Somehow, I skipped over all of our Peter Gabriel records, so I’ve had fun getting reacquainted with them. Another fun rediscovery: “Sell Me A God” by Eat, an English band from the late 80s/early 90s. Check out “Tombstone,” their college radio hit. And while you’re in an ’80s college rock (yes, that’s what we called it back then, indie kids), check out Slicing Up Eyeballs, an excellent blog devoted to the subject. They link to things like this kickass video of Midnight Oil playing a protest show at the Exxon building back in 1990 (post-Valdez wreck), U2 ringing in the last decade in Dublin with “Where the Streets Have No Name, and a BBC interview with John Lydon/brief PiL reunion clip.

* Besides that, I’ve been obsessed with tracking down every U2 and Joe Strummer b-side I can find. It’s always amazing when an artist is so good that their non-album tracks are better than most artists’ lead single. I also finally checked out Frank Turner’s “Love, Ire & Song,” at the urging of our friend Tom Krueger. Check out some samples at Amazon — he’s like a cross between Billy Bragg and New Model Army.

* Other music stuff…

  • This is exceptionally cool: videos of Bono & The Edge on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle show. Nice collaborations all around. Speaking of U2, this is a great ten-minute clip from a documentary on Irish rock that discusses the Dublin scene that U2 & Gavin Friday came from. And here’s a good interview with excellent producer Steve Lillywhite.
  • Ted Leo & The Pharmacists’ 2010 tour kicks off in Cleveland on 3/11. You can hear three tracks from the new record here.
  • Jazz fans: check out this cool site at NPR: The Jazz Loft Project: Sights And Sounds.
  • Did you know that Kraftwerk had a big influence on Afrika Bambaataa & Detroit technno? Me neither. NYT: Who Knew That Robots Were Funky?
  • Get five songs from ex-Backslider Chip Robinson’s “Mylow” here. He’s one of Americana’s most underrated songwriters. 
  • Lately, I’ve been working to “Music by Ry Cooder,” a mostly instrumental, two-CD comp. It’s really nice. Amazon link.
  • Great piece from 2005 – Tom Waits on his most cherished albums of all time, from the The Guardian.

Sociological (or “sociology near”)

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2010 01 09 Dave Akron
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Brief thoughts and a question on Afghanistan

I’m interested to hear what you think about President Obama’s decision to send more troops to Afghanistan. I understand some of the criticisms of Obama’s decision: we are getting more deeply involved in an endless quagmire; we can’t afford to spend trillions fighting — for what, exactly? — when there are so many desperate problems here at home; and that waging war in Afghanisan does not necessarily make us any safer.

But here’s the thing: I have read a lot this morning, and I have yet to see a convincing, comprehensive critique of Obama’s decision. The analyses I read are flawed for two reasons. First, they ignore the fact that we already ass-deep in a mess that Bush-Cheney created. Like Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic, I do not profess to know enough about the intricacies of our foreign policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan to proclaim what Obama should do. Too much of the criticism from the left, like that of Katrina Vanden Heuvel of The Nation, boils down to a paraphrase of Mr. Garrison from South Park: “War and guns are bad, kids, mmmkay?” Talking about the ideal recipe is not useful when the kitchen is already on fire. Second, pundits seem to be cherry-picking reasons for why we should not go. Thomas Friedman, for example, criticizes Obama’s decision almost entirely on economic grounds. I understand his arguments, but I do not think the problem is this simple.

I enjoy reading Andrew Sullivan because he is the rare, thoughtful conservative that I learn from. I appreciated his take this morning. He opposes the surge, and makes some excellent points in the process — especially this (emphasis mine):

The way our politics of fear is now constructed, there is no limit to the costs involved in nation-building in every conceivable failed state that could be a safe harbor for Jihadists. We cannot have the adult conversation about how much terrorist damage the US should tolerate compared with the costs of trying to control this phenomenon at its source. We are not mature enough as a country to have that conversation. And Obama has decided it isn’t worth confronting that question now.

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2009 12 02 Dave general
politics Comments (11) Permalink

My favorite records of the last decade — what are yours?

Various publications have been compiling “best of the decade” lists for various cultural forms. A music email list I’m on conducted a poll on the best records of the decade. Here are mine, compiled in about 20 minutes. Thank goodness for iTunes, which made this a lot easier.

One caveat is that I restricted myself to one record per artist. (I also didn’t include records from bands I’ve played in, so apologies to Clabbergirl and Messerly & Ewing, both of which would be here otherwise.) There were 195 records in the running.

1. Joe Strummer & The Mescaleros – Streetcore – 2003
2. Ted Leo/Pharmacists – Shake The Sheets – 2004
3. Los Lobos – Good Morning Aztlan – 2002
4. You Am I – Convicts – 2006
5. U2 – All That You Can’t Leave Behind – 2000
6. Bruce Springsteen – The Rising – 2002
7. The Weakerthans – Reconstruction Site – 2003
8. Richard Thompson – Semi-Detached Mock Tudor – 2002
9. Chris Whitley – Hotel Vast Horizon – 2003
10. The Constantines – Shine A Light – 2003
11. Elvis Costello – When I Was Cruel – 2002
12. Joseph Arthur – Temporary People – 2008
13. Billy Bragg & Wilco – Mermaid Avenue Volume II – 2003
14. Jon Dee Graham – Hooray For The Moon – 2002
15. Ted Sirota’s Rebel Souls – Breeding Resistance – 2004

57 more that just missed the cut…
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2009 11 27 Dave music Comments (3) Permalink

A whole mess of recent links

From my Twitter feed:

Sociology/Social issues/Higher Ed

Music

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2009 09 30 Dave general
music
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Top spins o’ the week (Sept 21-27)

1. U2 – 44
2. John Coltrane – 32
3. Miles Davis – 26
4. Pearl Jam – 21
5. Amadou & Mariam – 18
6. Chris Whitley – 15
7. Van Morrison – 13
8. The 757s – 11
9. Los Lobos; Uncle Tupelo – 10
11. Bap Kennedy – 9
12. Blue Mitchell – 8
13. Roy Campbell; R.E.M.; Tom Waits; Jimmy Smith; The Waterboys – 7
18. Cannonball Adderley & John Coltrane; Latin Playboys; Pell Mell – 6
21. Daniel Lanois; Sonny Rollins; Sonny Clark; Buena Vista Social Club – 5

1. U2 – 44

2. John Coltrane – 32

3. Miles Davis – 26

4. Pearl Jam – 21

5. Amadou & Mariam – 18

6. Chris Whitley – 15

7. Van Morrison – 13

8. The 757s – 11

9. Los Lobos; Uncle Tupelo – 10

11. Bap Kennedy – 9

12. Blue Mitchell – 8

13. Roy Campbell; R.E.M.; Tom Waits; Jimmy Smith; The Waterboys – 7

18. Cannonball Adderley & John Coltrane; Latin Playboys; Pell Mell – 6

21. Daniel Lanois; Sonny Rollins; Sonny Clark; Buena Vista Social Club – 5

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2009 09 30 Dave music Comments Off Permalink

Twitter posts for 2009-09-14

  • MJ = great player, not a nice guy. Sadly, people just go along with it. “Jordan’s night to remember turns petty” – Yahoo! http://bit.ly/EhbbJ #
  • Incredible show – more thoughts later. “U2 Reinvent the Stadium Show as 360 Tour Launches in Chicago” – Rolling Stone – http://bit.ly/qKlL7 #
  • It’s the beginning of the third week of the semester & I’ve already received at least five emails from our administration about swine flu. #
  • Two good posts on 9/12 DC march & racism: 1) by @JessieNYC – http://bit.ly/7rPtn and 2) via @EdgeofSports – http://bit.ly/16TGqQ #
  • After thinking that something was wrong with my browser, I learned that Google has updated their search page. Ugly. http://bit.ly/4nSmns #
  • Great advice. RT @eszter my new Ph.Do piece out today: http://bit.ly/4fxbX7 first in a series of two re the conference scene #education #

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2009 09 14 Dave general
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A bunch of stuff on college graduation rates; a good one on health care

  • Matt Taibbi’s excellent (and bitterly funny) analysis of the health care reform process so far: Rolling Stone – http://bit.ly/10Ccwd #
  • Chronicle of Higher Education: Higher Ed admin salaries up 5%, 5.4% in last two years, faculty salaries up 4.1%, 3.4%. http://bit.ly/je1VH #
  • Massive report of college class of 1999: class, race, gender disparities still a problem. Chronicle of Higher Education http://bit.ly/16Iboo #
  • Graph of college graduation rates by socioeconomic status. The state system figures are shameful. CHE: http://bit.ly/11bTst #sociology #
  • More on higher ed report from NYT – How and Why US Colleges Are Failing in Graduation Rates http://bit.ly/3HH3ki (via @TimOBrienNYT) #
  • Online courses for $99/month – how long will it take for this to affect higher #education? Washington Monthly http://bit.ly/Snnuz #
  • Congrats to an Akron brewery — can’t wait to try this! RT @hoppinfrog: Hoppin’ Frog Wins Best Double IPA In America! http://bit.ly/aqsNB #

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2009 09 10 Dave politics
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