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Under the Radar blog: SXSW 2010: Day One

Wed 17 Mar – SXSW Music 2010

Roman Candle
Choir of Young Believers
Frightened Rabbit
Fanfarlo

List:

Against Me!*
Al Stewart*
Alice Cooper* (x4)
Andy Williams
Arcade Fire
Arctic Monkeys*
The Association
Billy Joel
The Black Keys
Blind Guardian
Blue King Brown*
Bon Journey*
Brent James & The Contraband*
The Buckinghams
Cinderella*
Dave Mason
The Decemberists
Deep Purple
Def Leppard
Dispatch
Dream Theater*
Dropkick Murphys
Ducky and the Vintage*
Elton John
Ernie and the Automatics*
Evan Watson*
Foreigner
Foxy Shazam
Get the Led Out
The Grass Roots
The Guggenheim Grotto*
Heart*
HOLY GRAIL*
Hot Jam Factory*
Iron & Wine
Iron Maiden (x2)
Kamelot*
Kansas
The Killers
Livan*
Live Wire
Mark Lindsay
The Moody Blues
New York Dolls*
Nightwish (x2)
Off With Their Heads*
Peter Frampton
Roman Candle*
Rush
Scorpions (x2)
Seven Kingdoms*
Spoon*
Strawbs*
Tartan Terrors
Tesla*
They Might Be Giants
Trans-Siberian Orchestra (x4)
The Turtles
The Virgins*
Volbeat*
"Weird Al" Yankovic (x3)
Yes
The Zombies

…

Find all these albums, along with to 25 EPs/Demos of 2009 and hundreds more artists and albums on Watch the Tapes! Comments are appreciated!


2009 was quite a year. A lot happened in the world, in my life, and in music. In theory, those all seem like distinct things - but retrospectively, they can be hard to differentiate from one another. Events blur together, timelines become jumbled, memories get obscured by the haze of passing time; memories of how I felt, memories of people I know (or knew), and memories of the music that soundtracked it all. Most people seem content to simply let these things slip into the past, marching merrily into the future, but I'm never able to fully let go, it seems, and this process of archiving my favorite albums of the year reflects that in a big way.

When I look back at this list in the year(s) to come, I'm not going to see an objective list of the best albums of 2009; I'm not even going to see a list I agree with anymore. …

inspired by the first hints of a strolling summer of love

1What A Day by Tobias Froberg
2It Don't Move Me by Peter Bjorn & John
3The Only One by Manchester Orchestra
4Neighbourhood by Ruby Coast
5Oblivion by John Vanderslice
6If You See Something, Say Something by The Flying Change
7Summertime Clothes by Animal Collective
8Northern Lights by Bowerbirds
9Bells by The Go Away Birds
10Come Back (Now That I'm Here) by Leopold and His Fiction
11Bitter Heart by Zee Avi
12It's The Weekend by Jason Lytle
13Early Aubade by Roman Candle
14All My Days by Alexi Murdoch
15Sunshine Girl by Casper & the Cookies
16Dreaming of You by War Tapes
17I Owe You A Love Song by Shiny Toy Guns
18Song Away by Hockey
19While You Wait for the Others by Grizzly Bear
20Once We Walked in the Sunlight by Papercuts
21Girlfriend by Phoenix
22Perfectly Perfect by Elizabeth & The Catapult
23Life Garden by Chase Pagan

Dear all,

I am feeling somewhat bored and do not feel like reading a book, or writing one for that matter, so have decided to waste both my time and yours with an alphabetical list of all the artists I've seen live since 2005. I'm also going to tag them all. Enjoy.

9bach
Absentee
Akron/Family
Alex Clegg
Anna Ternheim
Aqualung
The Arcade Fire
Babel
Beach House
Beck
Ben Folds x 3
Ben Kweller
Ben Lee
Beth Rowley
Bon Iver
Boss Caine
Brett Netson
Bright Eyes
Built to Spill
Cake
Calexico
Chris Rushton
Clinic
Conor Oberst
Corn Mo
The Courtesy Group
The Crimea x 2
The Dead Texan
The Dears
Declan O'Rourke
Deerhoof
Dirty Three
The Divine Comedy
Duke Special x 2
Eastern Conference Champions
Eef Barzelay
Eels x 2
Eugene McGuinness x 3
Euros Child
Fell City Girl
Fields x 2
Fighting With Wire
Fionn Regan
The Flaming Lips x 2
Fleet Foxes
Former Bullies
The Fratellis
Frightened Rabbit
Fyfe Dangerfield
Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly x 3
The Go! Team
Godfrey Salter & his invisible ducks x 2
…

Tue 5 Jun – Guster, Luke Temple

http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/1913/guster1uf7.jpg

I first heard of Guster when I was downloading rare and unreleased Ben Folds tracks, though I was not aware that they were a band; the track was titled "All the Way Up to Heaven (with Guster)" - leading me to believe that "Guster" was some sort of semi-casual musical term (e.g. "Once more... with feeling!"). I admit that this was an incredibly stupid mistake to make and one that I shall regret to my dying day. I later found out that they were a BAND, and one that a friend of mine recommended, too. This must've been around Summer 2005 as I purchased their third album - "Lost and Gone Forever" from the Virgin Megastore in New York. I think it was the first CD from that trip that I played, and the first track - "What You Wish For" - instantly spoke to me. I was somewhat concerned, actually, as, when I removed it from its' case, I noticed a HUGE chunk missing from the CD. …

Wed 16 May – Duke Special, Beth Rowley

http://img70.imageshack.us/img70/9770/picturedukespec004ji5.jpg
Picture courtesy of ME.


(This review was originally written as part of my monthly gig blog for Myspace, but, due to problems with Myspace - the problems being that Myspace is shit - I was unable to post said blog and have decided to relocate here)

Duke Special is one of Ireland's best musicians. Sporting a physical appearance not unlike The Cure's Robert Smith (I'm sure I've said this before - credit goes to Quincy for identifying that particular similarity, though) and a voice not unlike an Irish Rufus Wainwright, I first heard of the Duke when he supported The Divine Comedy on tour in October 2006; I didn't attend any of these shows (the nearest was at Warwick, my parents were away and I had seen TDC in concert a few months prior), but my darling ladyfriend Carolyn attended their show in her home province of Belgium and had good things to say about the chap. …

I really have no idea what to say about Roman Candle but the only word that comes to my mind is addicting. This is a band that recorded two versions of the same record. All same songs, essentially the same record just one more striped down, one more polished. Says Pop was the first released in 2002 and like the name says basic pop. The Wee Hours Revue released earlier this year has more prominent electric guitar and country sound to it. The question is can two of the same records can hold out. The phrase why fix what’s not broken comes to mind. But amazingly these two CDs can hold out on there own both equally.
If you get PASTE they have one of there songs on the sampler cd if not you should check out there Myspace and Website.