MUSIC
"When you're playing with the right musicians, when you're on the stage, you do reach a transcendental zone that's incomparable I think to anything else. I think that's why so many musicians and performers still do it. It's the greatest high you can imagine."
- Dave Alvin, from Straight Up, Jan. 7 story.
"Everybody seems to like Irish music. . . . It's just good, fun music. I liken it to a polka: you don't have to like it, but if you hear it, then your old toe starts tapping anyway. . . . Even if we're singing about some poor fellow who got drawn and quartered and hung in 1798, it's still such a happy tune, people are smiling and clapping, and I'm thinking, 'They don't know a bloody thing we're singing about,' but that's okay if they're happy."
- George Millar, from The Irish Rovers just keep on smiling, Sept. 30 story.
"Typically electro is perfectly organized and structured and when you record you can go back and fix it. (With Holy F___) you're sitting in the dining room and they have all their junk spread out on the table, all these wires everywhere with this little keyboard that's strung through the drum machine, which is strung through a compressor, which is strung through a gainer. Every chord I was playing was affected by the distortion pedals and the drum machine itself so all these things are happening and it's all happening live and it's all invented as we're creating it. From that jam session came the bed tracks for 'Siberia' and 'Everybody Breaks A Glass' and then the last nine minutes, where this nine-minute instrumental ends the record, called "Day One." So we went from perfectly structured pop tunes to complete chaos which we were patching together to make songs and it brought this life to it that maybe wasn't there when everything was so perfect."
- Lights, from Lights sheds a little darkness on the process, Nov. 18 story.
"Mexicans and Canadians stopped having a positive relationship in terms of visas I think two years ago so after that it's been a bit of a problem every time you want to go to Canada. It's become a little bit harder for me to be able to tour but I finally got my visa for the date and I'm excited."
- Ximena Sariñana, from Ximena Sariñana makes her English-language debut, Aug. 19 story.
"Sometimes it depends so much on atmosphere. We played Massey Hall two nights in a row. The first night was really stale. We were in a beautiful, historic setting, yet sometimes things aren't clicking. A real firecracker of a show is sometimes in really dodgy clubs in the middle of nowhere."
- Ryan Guldemond, from Mother Mother break on through with Eureka, May 2.
"I think we're all shocked that it's still such a huge part of our lives, considering the beginnings. I don't think we ever really dreamed it would be something that we'd be doing all those years later."
- Geoffrey Kelly, from Spirit of the West set to play CelticFest, March 18 story.
"I love Southern writers and I love writers that really tell deep stories and are sparse.
I like writers that leave something to the imagination of the reader and I try to do that when I write songs too.
I try to write it so the listener can make the song their own."
- Ray Bonneville, from Literature feeds songwriter's roots poetry, June 24 story.
"I've always admired people who just put out records really occasionally and it's
really refined, Gillian Welch or writers like J.D. Salinger, as far as books go. That has a fascination to me. But for me, the way I continue to do it is through making a lot of music. For me, that's kind of how I stay in shape. I'm totally out of shape in other ways, but my writing chops, if I keep my mind active, then I tend to create more."
- Joel Plaskett, from Acclaimed Maritime rocker starts fresh, July 15 story.
"I was coming of age in the mid-to late-'90s so I was into all that grunge stuff. Even before I started playing I was always interested in music. Do you know the magazine Sassy? Maybe not. It was this mid-'90s out-of-New York magazine aimed at young pre-teenage girls. I read that thing religiously and they actually had awesome taste in music and so I totally got into The Pixies and The Cure and Sonic Youth and a bunch of those bands thanks to Sassy. They had good taste."
- Lyn Heinemann from Drawn Ship launches debut, Sept. 9 story.
"People wanted to put us with a band, and they wanted to make us sound more Nashville, and I feel like for a good solid two years Dave and I just went around saying no. I feel like we had a lot of pent-up passion to return to the duet. When we went into this record, I felt the first thing I knew about this record was, 'OK, this is a duet record. Nobody else is playing on this. This is the two of us." - Gillian Welch, from Duo steeped in deep south roots tradition, Aug. 5 story.
"There was three stages and we were in the basement space,. They had a jazz series there on Sunday nights and it was really like a big open space. There was a corner with a makeshift stage and we spilled out from that and came forward into the audience with the keyboards blocking the fire exit and all that kind of stuff."
- Darcy James Argue, from Big Bands and beyond, June 24 story.
ALYSA LECHNER
Top 10 Albums
1. Danny Brown - XXX (Fool's Gold)
2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
3. Kurt Vile - Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador)
4. Mr. Muthaf___in' eXquire - Lost in Translation (Mishka)
5. The Black Lips - Arabia Mountain (Vice)
6. Jay-Z and Kanye West - Watch The Throne (Roc-A-Fella, Roc Nation, Def Jam)
7. Ty Segall - Goodbye Bread (Drag City)
8. Frank Ocean - Nostalgia, Ultra (Def Jam)
9. Beyonce - 4 (Columbia)
10. Das Racist - Relax (Greedhead)
ERIN MCPHEE
Top 10 Albums
1. Bon Iver - Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)
2. Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop)
3. Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital (Sub Pop)
4. The Decemberists - The King is Dead (Rough Trade)
5. Black Keys - El Camino (Nonesuch)
6. Beirut - The Rip Tide (Pompeii)
7. Radiohead - The King of Limbs (TBD Records)
8. Feist - Metals (Arts & Crafts)
9. Destroyer - Kaputt (Merge)
10. Tennis - Cape Dory (Fat Possum)
TERRY PETERS
Top 10 Albums
1. The Kills - Blood Pressures (Domino)
2. Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots (RED Distribution)
3. Raphael Saadiq - Stone Rollin' (Columbia)
4. Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit - Here We Rest (Lightning Rod Records)
5. Greg Allman - Low Country Blues (Rounder)
6. Adele - 21 (XL Recordings)
7. Kings of Leon - Come Around Sundown (RCA)
8. Little Dragon - Ritual Union (Peacefrog)
9. Street Sweeper Social Club - The Ghetto Blaster (Street Sweeper)
10. James Blake - James Blake (Universal Republic)
ANJA WEBER
Top 10 Albums
1. St. Vincent - Strange Mercy (4AD)
2. Wild Flag - Wild Flag (Merge)
3. Wye Oak - Civilian (Merge)
4. An Horse - Walls (Mom & Pop Music)
5. Thao & Mirah - Thao & Mirah (Kill Rock Stars)
6. The Kills - Blood Pressures (Domino)
7. Telekinesis - 12 Desperate Straight Lines (Merge)
8. Jessica Lea Mayfield - Tell Me (Polymer Sounds)
9. Braids - Native Speaker (Kanine Records)
10. Eleanor Friedberger - Last Summer (Merge)
JOHN GOODMAN
Top 10 Albums
1. Motor City Drum Ensemble - DJ Kicks (!K7)
2. Handsome Furs - Sound Kapital (Sub Pop)
3. M83 - Hurry Up, We're Dreaming (Mute)
4. Drawn Ship - Low Domestic (Scratch Records)
5. Tinariwen - Tassili (Anti)
6. Drive-By Truckers - Go-Go Boots (RED Distribution)
7. Ximena Sariñana - Ximena Sariñana (Warner Music)
8. PJ Harvey - Let England Shake (Vagrant)
9. Sevara Nazarkhan - Tortadur (Sevaramusic)
10. Tim Hecker - Ravedeath, 1972 (Kranky)
JOHN GOODMAN
Favourite Reissues/remixes/archival releases
1. This May Be My Last Time Singing: Raw African-American Gospel on 45 RPM 1957-1982 - Various Artists (Tompkins Square 3CD)
2. Van Dyke Parks - Arrangements Vol. 1 (Bananastan)
3. Nirvana -Nevermind (Universal)
4. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On (Motown)
5. Sebadoh - Bakesale (Sub Pop)
6. Monomono - Give the Beggar A Chance (Tummy Touch)
7. Lee Scratch Perry - The Return of Pipecock Jackson (Honest Jon's)
8. Smashing Pumpkins - Gish/Siamese Dream (EMI)
9. Can - Tago Mago (Mute/Spoon)
10. Dome - 1-4+5 (Editions Mego, 1980-99)
