OMG I am such a dork I've started added more shows to my Events page:
http://www.last.fm/user/saintartaud/events/
Not very far along with it, but I do have all 3 of the Dresden Dolls shows I've been too. I doubt I'll be able to remember any dates beyond that.

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Trout Mask Replica
I feel utterly incapable of giving this a proper review, partially because I've only been able to listen to it all the way through a couple of times, and partially because there are so many songs to wade through. In some ways "Lick My Decals Off, Baby" is a…

Those of you who have been watching me the past year might remember my huge compedium of journal entries, wherein I listed and reviewed every single album I bought over the course of 2005. Well, another year is over, and I've officially been scrobbling for over a year, so why not do it again?

On Best-Of Lists

Now, as far as best-of lists go, I tend to suck at this whole "buying new music as it comes out" thing, so I barely top 5 new releases a year. And big surprise, I ended up with only 5 new releases overall,…

http://www.ataraxia.net/

Three free tracks from "Paris Spleen" are posted in the discography section. You can also hear "Bienvenue à L'Enfer!" on Cold Meat Industry's Myspace profile. The song is quite good, moody and melodramatic in a fashion similar to their work prior to "Lost Atlantis." The content of this album is based around the work of Charles Baudelaire, the Grand Guignol tradition in France, and 19th century Parisian cabarets.

I'm looking forward to this one, personally. Ataraxia is one of my favorite gothic/neofolk/neo-classical groups out of Europe.

I don't really like Pitchfork, but I sometimes visit for news and reviews, the occasional interview. This one was actually pretty good:

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/39683/Interview_Interview_Tom_Waits

Tom Waits is notorious for being a difficult interview, but I think the gal here was a good sport and asked interesting questions. Of course, in typical Pitchfork style, she throws out lots of names and tries to show off her musical prowess and knowledge. I wonder if they follow a style guide, or just make sure to include snippets of their grad theses in everything.

There was also a good interview with David Tibet, where they…

Haven't bought any new stuff in ages, but I just got a shipment from Amazon, featuring:

Tom Waits–Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers, and Bastards
Black Heart Procession–The Spell

My external hard drive officially died last month, so I'm missing a lot of mp3's, a number of which I had planned to purchase anyway. Won't be much listening of The Arcade Fire for a while I'm afraid. Remember folks, back that shit up.
On the plus side, I also received my refurbished G5 tower last month, and over the course of the last 2 weeks have been imported all my unpacked…

Thu 14 Sep – Munly & the Lee Lewis Harlots, American Catastrophe

I shouldn't have waited over a month to review this show, and I'm not sure how coherent it's all going to come out. I'm sure I'll eventually be rewriting this, as I joined up with a friend's music-related project. So, here goes…

The local Kansas City band, American Catastrophe, turned out to be the perfect opener for Munly, despite the absence of their drummer. This band is comprised of former members of several local bands, most notably The Black Water and Sister Mary Rotten Crotch. While…

My old external hard drive being inaccessible and both my CD drives going haywire over the last week, I've been listening to more last.fm radio and playing with tags a bit. In particular, there's the swamp goth tag for a mish-mash of dark and swampy music that borrows elements of blues, country, and various other forms of americana, which describes a number of my favorite artists over the last 8 or so years.

A lot of my collection is still boxed up, so what I have anyway is pretty limited, excluding the new stuff we bought after the move. More…

Wed 9 Aug – The Black Heart Procession

Last year, a certain librarian friend of mine handed off a couple CDs worth of mp3's by a variety of artists ranging from Devendra Banhart to Ride. Included was every single album by The Black Heart Procession up to "Amore del Tropico." Prior to this point, I was no more than an interested party. I'd heard a couple songs, liked them, and kept planning on getting some, but never did. Earlier this year, around the time I opened this account, I actually sat down and listened to each album back to…

Mon 7 Aug – Tom Waits

I'm still in computer limbo, so I've fallen way behind on reviews and such. I'm going to write up reviews for shows I've recently seen, however, since they're still quite fresh in my mind. I've been lucky enough to see some artists I really adore, which is always a good thing.

Getting tickets to any of the Tom Waits venues proved a difficult task. I unwisely passed up some really horrible seats in both Nashville and Chicago, so the lesson here shall be, "If you want to see Tom Waits, be willing to take…

Last Week's Top Artists

I hadn't listened to R.E.M. and Girls Against Boys in ages, so I decided to do so. "Automatic for the People" is one of my favorite albums of all time. They took the folkier roots-based sound of "Out of Time" and made it stronger and more consistent. Unlike that album, there is not one song that's wasted. GVSB's "Cruise Yourself" is an example of a solid album from a band with a distinct sound riding at their highest point. They're still a good band, but there used to be a grimier stain to their swinging post-punk…