2013 Top Ten, pt. 1. 1 -5

1. White Fence - Cyclops Reap

I think this is the best record that came out last year, at least that I heard. I didnt hear that many records, but whatever, this one stands up to any record ive ever heard so i guess its good enough!! I like that this record is beautiful, like it sounds beautiful. It reminds me of the Rolling Stones, whatever their first show with Mick Taylor was where he is playing like really ornate frilly lines, kinda regal. I like all the different types of effects and how there is different ideas on each song -- like this ones the Silver Apples one, this ones the MBV one, obviously some Syd Barrett in there, etc. I like the chords, its like basically 5 chords, E A D G B, minors, kinda like the Black Lips, but way more complicated/less obvious. Also the drummers playing are really good, i think there might be 2 different drummers depending on the track, might want to check.

2. Youthbitch Live - 2013 was the year Youthbitch made it down to play Texas for the first time. They had 2 releases last year (2012), a tape, and then an LP on Dirtnap. I bought the LP but left it their van on accident :(. These guys are classic, they are super fun. The main guy reminds me I wanna say of John Spenser Blues Explosion in a fun showmanship way. The lead guitarist reminds me of Flea. The singer (bassist) reminds me of my friend Paloma, like a dude version, and the drummer reminds me of the drummer from the Oh Sees. I think they are all originally from different places, like Idaho and Ohio, maybe one guy from California and they met in Portland where they all went to try and do a band. I like that they have 2 guitarists who can really play the shit out of a guitar and compliment each other nicely in a couple styles -- they can both shred at lead guitar as well. They couldn't play "Cool California" which was on their tape because they had a new drummer and he didnt know those old songs. There is good video of them I posted a while back playing "House of Prebon" if you wanna youtube that, I think its with the old drummer.

3. Pau Wau Summer Boat Party - I played the boat party playing guitar as a member of Bill Baird's band/ensemble. On the bill were Living Grateful, us, Cartright at the very end, Chris Catelina, and pardon me, i forget, there may have been one more band. Gotta stop a sec and give it up to Nick Cornetti who put the whole thing together. I feel like that guys only real reward on the show is that the show exists, and that is truly altruistic. After the rental of the boat ('spensive), paying the bands, kegs , etc , the show is basically geared to where its obviously impossible to make money, bets case scenario is breaking even and worse case scenario i would say is you fuck something up and it ends up being really expensive for you, and yet I think the general misconception is that someone would do that because they were trying to make money, when really the only reason is they wanted to make someone incredibly sweet happen. Those guys werent pussying out about the fact that the way to do that would be to do a shit ton of work and a bunch of organizing and putting your ass on the line. Cartright almost didnt get to play also, his band would have been the first one to get cut if things hadnt gone on time enough. He played drums in Bill's band and it was really fun to practice and play with him. I felt a little bad, because we disappeared to get tacos during practice the morning of the show and he was on a schedule, but it all worked out. Or the story was something like that. Was Sam Sanford involved? I think taco window was closed so we had to go the other Taco Window and it was like 2:50 and they close at 3, its not really important. What is important is that it was the most fun I had all summer, and the time i got to have special memories with some of my friends, the kind where you look back at life and if you dont have any of those memories you just feel like shit, like you wasted your life. So thx Nick. Also it may have been Living Grateful's first show, or one of their first ones ... I remember telling Greg "you got me all pumped up" and I jumped off the high dive a few times, it was really fun. Those guys are really good, even if one of their songs does go "stuck inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues again," I love the slow quarter notes the drummer can do, hes got a great hand, and having Gina who I met on that boat party on bass is really good. I like Catelina going with the Fear and Loathing look, he seems to be enjoying it. The piano man. Greg and Ryan its cool to see how those guys sticked together, they are kinda like the survivors, the dudes who are left in a way (really everyone is still left in that band, I just think its cool they have a longtime musical bond and you can tell by the way they play together it just conveys joy and fun and other cool shit that i associate with those guys's vibe.)

4. Shooting BB Guns at the Owl during E.A.S.T -- The Owl was a funny place to be in 2013. I wonder what the vibe there will do coming up. Red is a hilarious host. I hope that place still goes strong. Red posted online that there would be free margaritas for E.A.S.T. Sunday the first week that E.A.S.T was going on (when the weather was good). Whats with everything in town having to be 2 weekends in a row, huh? Anyways, that was an aside, the I think i smoked some weed and cleaned up my house in the morning and headed over there around 2:30 or 3. I forget if anyone was even there yet, i just started loitering and meeting whoever was there, since I just biked down by myself. I had a really awesome day at EAST the day before...I stumbled into it, i was just on Caesar Chavez at 9 AM on a Saturday to get my fucking car door fixed :) :). I should start a top 10 hassles of 2013 list, that would be on there. Anyways, there were indeed free margaritas. This was right after I got out of jail for a PI on my birthday and it was my first time going back out and having fun, because you gotta get back up when life kicks you down, am i not right? Just Im gonna try to hold myself a little closer to a standard of common sense, i guess. Builds character, as my cousin said. We played some poker for no money and got into some really "all in" hands, it was a cool way to meet some strangers, and then we ended up shooting a BB gun at cans on the wall. It was really awesome, every time we made a shot we felt so manly (there were a bunch of chicks setting up for a show while we were doing this). Just goofy, dorky fun.

5. The Memories - Love Is the Law - The Memories are still all young dudes, and they play clean lines like they are carving up a wave. hahaaa. Put that to copy. I like their style, I think this band might hit a slump, but they might not, ive been wrong on that before. Sometimes I have thought a band was in a slump at a time and it turned out they were making cool shit all along, i just didnt get what was happening at the time because my ear heard their logical progression as something different or something, so I didnt get their music? Whatever, not important. I like these guys perspective, like they are perched in a tree overlooking a canyon. If I were to guess, I think the Memories came about as like a conception in opposition to White Fang, like it was softer, but just as West Coast, but also going for a specific wanderlust of love emotion. Sometimes bands that are made up in opposition like that, its like, well what are you gonna do for the next album (they have a few releases as The Memories already, but only one LP, I believe), like what direction does the music have to take? Or that it changes sound more slowly, I guess is another way to put it, especially if you are younger. And those guys are doing a lot of touring, I believe. Its hard to say as an outsider really, but I really liked this record alot as evidenced by the fact that I listened to the shit out of it.
stay tuned for part 2!