I couldn’t work out how to do that thing that Mar-C did where she made them all little neat thumbnails so you get bigger photos. Here’s 2006 in visuals…

Some incredibly ambitious 2006 round-ups for you to enjoy. Makes our annual struggle to put together 10 albums look a bit pathetic.

Edward O counts down his Top 100 Singles of 2006 on Enthusiastic But Mediocre with much europop and, well, pop. His 2005 article was one of my favourite things and I am enjoying this year’s a lot so far.

The Silent Ballet write about The Top 50 Instrumental Releases of 2006 AND The Top 25 Instrumental Tracks of 2006 and still have stuff left over they have to put in an honourable mentions page. Hardcore.

Also, a small bit of self-promotion: Cake Tourism. We are eating cake around the globe, photographing it and posting it here for your delight. If you have eaten any exciting cake recently do tell us.

It had its good points amongst all the crap, didn’t it?

MUSIC
This Heat – their boxset finally came out, and it’s better than anything else you’ve ever heard.
Rob Lee/Wax Stag – http://www.myspace.com/waxstag
The Beloved Music by Paul Flaherty & Chris Corsano
Crescent by John Coltrane
10th Avenue Freakout by Fog. I know I’m late.
Super Golden Original Movement by Golden
Mother of Thousands by MV, EE & the Bummer Road
Racoo-oo-oon
Busdriver
The Dead C
Led Zep
AC/DC
50 LPs for a quid down t’market.
The resurrection of Siltbreeze

LIVE
Trencher & Kraufort @ The Social (Jan)
Part Chimp, Hey Colossus, Lords @ Cabaret (Jan)
Jack Rose & Chris Corsano @ Raffles (Jan)
Earth & Sunn0))) @ The Custard Factory (Feb)
The Evens @ Sneinton Hermitage (Mar)
Thee More Shallows @ The Social (Apr)
Burning Star Core @ The Old Angel (Apr)
Smegma @ The Old Angel (Apr)
Magik Markers @ The Matilda (May)
Subtle @ Coventry Colosseum (Jun)
Charalambides @ Bunkers Hill (Jul)
Alasdair Roberts @ The Maze (Aug)
Steve Reich, Konono #1, Gavin Bryars @ The Barbican (Oct)
Erase Errata @ The Rose of England (Oct)
No Neck Blues Band @ Taylor John’s House (Dec)

FILM
The New World pissed all over every other film released in 2006 from a very great height. Actually, it pissed all over every pretty much American film released since Terence Malick’s last effort (The Thin Red Line in 1997). The only reason I can think that it didn’t get into the diskant poll was because no one saw it – it slipped in and out of UK cinemas with alarming speed, and predictably has made fuck-all money. You can now buy it on DVD for about six quid. I recommend you do so.
Also, the Harvey Milk DVD.

BOOKS
The Road by Cormac McCarthy – not only his best book for 20-odd years, but so much better than any other book I read this year.
How We Are Hungry by Dave Eggers
JPod by Douglas Coupland
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Mysteries of Pittsburgh & Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon
Buying loads of second copies of books I already have in charity shops to thrust upon friends and insist they read them.

MAGS
I get more depressed at music journalism with every passing year – I don’t think I’ve bought a magazine in a good 3 years now. I did however finally chance across a copy of Simon Reynolds’ Blissed Out in a secondhand shop, which is always worth a dip.

EVENT OF THE YEAR
Finishing mixing the new Souvaris album after 3 months of sitting in a bedroom in front of a laptop, slowly going insane.

THINGS YOU DID MOST THIS YEAR
Waited at stations for trains that were either chronically delayed or cancelled. I’m biting the bullet and buying a car in 2007.
Complained how tired I was.

PLACES VISITED
Scotland’s southwestern coastline
The Lake District
Yorkshire
The Dales of Derbyshire
Sheffield
Taylor John’s House in Coventry

BEST THING
Love.
Rediscovering meat and how to cook it.
Rediscovering that decent electronic music is being made all over the world.

WORST THING
No time for love, Doctor Jones
So many boring noise/improv bands.
Labels and bands overkilling on the amount of stuff they put out that all sounds exactly the same. Again.
The Next Big Thing in music and bands covered by the mass media just seem to get worse and worse.

OVERALL
At some point I’m gonna catch up on all the sleep I missed out on. Maybe in 2008.

LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2007
A much-needed holiday. In the autumn.

Albums of 2006

Battles – EP C/B EP – Immense. Immense!!

That Fucking Tank – Day of Death by Bono Adrenalin Shot – quality gung-ho rock noise.

Squarepusher – Hello Everything – An updated, more major and hopeful Feed Me Weird Things which is sadly not as incredible as FMWT was back in the day. Gorgeous art work.

The Ladies – They Mean Us – Zach Hill, the drummer from Hella (all time favourite band), provides clean and quiet fills with Rob Crow from Pinback. Haven’t the slightest who Pinback are but an excellent slice psychedelic pop nevertheless.

Thom Yorke РThe Eraser Рnit-picked from depressingly huge hypermarch̩ in Calais Рnot proud of it but for once, crime pays. Mesmerizing art and beat-work.

Don Caballero – World Class Listening Problem – Damon Che is the best drummer I have ever seen – flashy but still tasteful. Some songs are even 4/4 and happy!

Kieron Hebden and Steve Reid – The Exchange Session Volume 2 – these boys really take their time – it’s pretty long winded electronic free jazz but it pays off – it’s a beautiful hypnotic journey through Hebden A.K.A. Four Tet throbbing melodies and some drummer geezer who played for the late James Brown.

Plan B – Who Needs Action When You’ve Got Words – Possibly the only album I’ve ever listened to that has made me properly empathise with a full-on, ‘shit your pants while crossing the street’ chav. Mike Skinner doesn’t get anywhere near this for shocking brutality. Ben Drew speaks, no, powerfully raps the awful truth and the truth hurts indeed.

Hella – Acoustics – Bought this one late so Muse is off the top ten. It’s the highlights of their 2 greatest albums: The Devil Isn’t Red and Hold Your Horse Is but just played on more acoustic-y instruments. http://www.hellaband.com/

Melvins – A Senile Animal – probably most accessible Melvins album, ever-idiosyncratic sludge of King Buzzo’s guitar to new bassist and two, yes TWO drummers! A colossal, heaving noise.

GOOD FOR GIGS
Polmo Polpo – Port Mahon, the most moving gig experience in all my days.
Black Dice – Oxford Wheatsheaf, cheers for the tinnitus boys.
Battles – Oxford Zodiac
Don Caballero + Todd – London Scala
Melvins – Zodiac
Animal Collective + Battles – Astoria
Suitable Case for Treatment + The Mules – last gig ever at the Zodiac

BOOKS
Haven’t read any published this year, but…
Music and the Mind – Anthony Storr
Any Human Heart – William Boyd
Clockwork Orange – Anthony Burgess
Maribou Stork Nightmares – Irvine Welsh

DVD
Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace
Mighty Boosh Boxset
Pixies Live (when they’re old and wrinkly, won off Gideon Coe’s breakfast show on 6 Music. We talked about porridge and muesli mainly)
Twin Peaks Series One

MAGS
Stool Pigeon: http://www.feedthepigeons.com/

2 BEST THINGS
Singing tenor in a choir full of incredibly lovely old(er) people.
and
‘Wish you Were Here’ on beautiful blue vinyl.

2 WORST THINGS
Reading Festival, Saturday.
and
I’m not being funny here, but the execution of Saddam Hussein saddened me quite profoundly. I don’t want to jump on the soapbox just yet but I think it’s awful, merciless brutality. Do like the old emperor of China and employ him as a toilet cleaner.
Phew.

EVENT OF THE YEAR
Truck Fest: Battles + Drum & Bass in the Barn!! Going on a rampage with a marigold mysteriously on my left arm…

THINGS YOU DID MOST THIS YEAR
Mostly charity work and warming the hearts of crippled children…

PLACES VISITED
Pretty local: Sheffield, France, Somerset

LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2007
New Hella album
Going to Peru and cycling down a big volcano
Driving (learning to)
Reading some classic books
Room 237 in Oxford

OVERALL
“I’ll get a mop”

I was going to copy I Like and do 1 photo from each month but I appear to not have done anything in January and an awful lot in Feb/March. Plus 15 makes for a better screenshot. It’s difficult only picking one photo of each place I visited but it does look like I had quite a fun year.

L-R top to bottom:
1. Brighton Pier at dusk on the Uter tour
2. Me and Econoline at 3am in the great Blizzard of March, Glasgow
3. The hilariously twee wallpaper in my first purchased home. Yes, we kept it.
4. Todai-Ji Temple, Nara. My favourite photo of Japan.
5. Largs on one of the hottest days of the year
6. St Stephens Church in Dublin – again for an Uter gig
7. Visiting my sister in London
8. Best costume winners (but disowned by my own mother)
9. Another great Audioscope and a lovely afternoon with Parts & Labor.
10. Angel Bunny joins us for a weekend in Newcastle for crafting
11. I made so many things last year but my brooches were the most popular
12. Detour round Speyside while visiting my family
13. Meeting Bob the Builder at Minehead ATP
14. My handmade Christmas cards
15. Me. I look very different to me in 2005

Full photos here.

I’m going to do an A to Z of 06 when I get chance, possibly tomorrow to cure the inevitable hangover but in the meantime…

MUSIC
Bo Diddley
Groundhogs
Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac
Loren (MazzaCane) Connors
Marc Ribot
Monorchid
Skull Kontrol
Wrangler Brutes
Comets On Fire
Erase Errata
Daniel Higgs / Lungfish
Bilge Pump
Sailors
Geriatric Unit
Nels Cline

LIVE
Spiritual Unity at the Festival Hall
Brotzmann/Bennik at ATP
Stooges at ATP
Whiteout w/Nels Cline at ATP
Bonnie Prince Billy/Harem Scarem in Easter Ross
Monorchid at The Note, Chicago
Touch & Go Festival in general (PW Long, Negative Approach, MOAM?, Ted Leo, Enon etc)
Powerhouse Sound at the Hideout, Chicago
Part Chimp every time I saw them this year, especially Latitude Festival and in Glasgow too
Bilge Pump every time I saw them
Comets On Fire in Nottm
Birds Of Delay supporting Magik Markers in Cambridge
Unit Ama and Lafaro in Easky, Ireland
The Gossip, Dinosaur, Boredoms, Big Business at April ATP
Lightning Bolt in Nottingham
Tom Verlaine and Jimmy Rip at Latitude
The Horse Loom in Nottingham
Hey Colossus in Brighton
The Good Anna a whole load of times
Carla Bozulich in Nottm
Erase Errata in Nottm
Chris Corsano at Nottm Raffles
US Maple and High On Fire Supersonic
Earth in Birmingham

FILM
Saw very few new ones. Enjoyed:
Get Carter
Idiocity
The Devil & Daniel Johnston

BOOKS
The Psychic Soviet by Ian Svenonius
The Biggest Secret by David Icke
Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut
How To Live Like A Lord Without Really Trying by Shepherd Mead
Them by Jon Ronson
Love & Death by Halperin & Wallace
The Sweeter Side Of Robert Crumb by Robert Crumb
Billy F Gibbons: Rock n Roll Gearhead by Billy F Gibbons

MAGS
Stop Smiling
Vice
MOJO

WEBSITES
Flickr
I also discovered the joy of Soulseek this year

BEST THING
It’s been a good year, personally, for music stuff
Going to Chicago

WORST THING
It’s been a frustrating year, personally, for music stuff.
The United Kingdom going down the pan

OVERALL
Not bad not bad.

Good call.

MUSIC
Raccoo-oo-oon
Meneguar
Woods
Lords
The Goslings
Church of Misery
Electric Wizard
Growing
Mouthus
Prolapse
Om
Excepter
Iron Monkey
Animal Collective
Comets on Fire

LIVE
Sunburned Hand of the Man in Cambridge [March]
Boredoms at Primavera
No-Neck Blues Band at Primavera
Lords and Hey Colossus in Cambridge
Bilge Pump in Cambridge
Lightning Bolt in Nottingham
Dinosaur Jr at Primavera
The Flaming Lips at Primavera
Ligament in London
Comets on Fire in Nottingham

FILM
Watched so many films in the last 2 months that it’s kind of hard to come up with any kind of list of favourites. Here then is a random selection of things that weren’t shit:
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
X-Men 1-3
The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue
Psychomania
The Wizard of Gore
The Gore Gore Girls
Satan’s Slave
Frightmare
Con Air
Vampyres
If… / O Lucky Man / Britannia Hospital

BOOKS
Promethea by Alan Moore
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth by Chris Ware
Notes From a Defeatist by Joe Sacco
Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo [again]
Buddy Does Seattle by Peter Bagge
Been a bit rubbish with actual books this year.

MAGS
Found
Dirty Found
Psychotronic
Little White Lies

BEST THING
Barcelona/Primavera

WORST THING
Crippling illness

OVERALL
Had it’s moments, but not a patch on 2005

You may have noticed that our annual Favourite Albums and Films of 2006 articles are now online. Go enjoy.

While doing the above, people complained that they couldn’t vote for stuff that didn’t come out this year or for gigs so I promised we would do it on the blog. We used to do this on ye olde diskant YahooGroup but that has really and truly died after EIGHT wonderful years of complete and utter timewasting. I’m sure the YahooGroups stormtroopers will miss us.

So, make up your own categories for the stuff you wanted to write about. I’m not doing ineligible albums of the year as I still intend to post my Songs of the Year thing.

MOST LISTENED TO BANDS (according to my iTunes)

Errors
Otterley
Findo Gask
Pet Shop Boys
Mogwai
Joanna Newsom
Burowelt
Girls Aloud
Gay Against You
Dananananaykroyd

It seems I am a walking advertisement for Glasgow.

GIGS

Lightning Bolt/Gay Against You @ Grand Ole Opry, Glasgow
Sonic Youth/Stooges @ ATP Minehead
Findo Gask @ The Arches, Glasgow
Ladytron @ Cross Central, London
Errors @ Stereo, Glasgow
Mogwai @ The Barras, Glasgow
Danananaykroyd/CSS @ Indian Summer, Glasgow

WEBSITES

Flickr – I live my life on Flickr. It’s my MySpace
Popjustice – Still hilarious and almost always right
Design*Sponge – has cost me an absolute fortune in buying cute things from design shops.
No Rock’n’Roll Fun – Makes most of the music press pointless
I Was Just Really Very Hungry – Intelligent and inspiring food writing
Wonderland – Computer gaming be fun!
Remember The Milk – has literally changed my life

FILM/DVD

NANA – Film of the Japanese manga
Everything is Illuminated – Amusing and then unbearably poignant
Bring It On – Cheerleading, cliches ahoy and Kirsten Dunst – what more do you want?
Hustle and Flow – Ridiculous
Whisper of the Heart – Finally on DVD with proper subtitles, my second favourite Ghibli because I am a sap

BOOKS

Harumi’s Japanese Home Cooking – my new bible
The Best of Smash Hits – All the best stuff from the classic 80s period
Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash – will make you horribly aware of every single thing you throw away
Paradise Kiss – My favourite manga for having a depressing undercurrent of realism underneath the fashion and relationships stuff, for being short and for not having a happy ending.
NANA – 2 girls called Nana, one a punk singer and one a cutesy ditz. Taking absolutely forever to get translated and getting darker by the week (if you sneakily watch the animes which are way ahead)
100 Posters, 134 Squirrels – Jay Ryan’s amazing posters. So good I bought a real one.

COMPUTER GAMES

Animal Crossing: Wild World (DS) – I am still playing this daily. I sent everyone in my town a “festive” tree and am currently trying to build perfect snowmen to get furniture (when dung beetles aren’t running off with my snowballs) while helping the Museum owl to get over his morbid fear of insects.

Cooking Mama (DS) – Learn to cook literally seven million Japanese dishes under the watchful and rather scary eyes of Mama. Making sushi and dumplings is hilarious fun – measuring rice and not dropping your steak on the floor less so.

Chibi-Robo (Gamecube) – Tiny robot runs around the house making everyone happy by cleaning and tidying and fixing problems. Why isn’t tidying the house this much fun in real life?

Tamagotchi Corner Shop (DS) – Just ridiculous. I really spent far too much time hanging out with a bunch of bunny-shaped things and puddings with eyes making them cakes, washing their clothes and decorating their teeth. Happy Tamagotchis thanking Stu for decorating their teeth with I HEART HITLER will live with me for a long time.

EVENT OF THE YEAR
ATP – Was good to be back and the new site made it doubly exciting, not to mention all the good bands, the company, the continental cheese, the chalet, the excellent television and that unique Butlins experience.

THINGS YOU DID MOST THIS YEAR
Eat Japanese food
Play with my DS
Put photos on Flickr
Make things
Read millions of blogs via RSS
Stand at bus stops
Wait for/on delayed trains
Order stuff off the internet

PLACES VISITED
Japan (Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara)
Oxford (three times!)
London (twice)
Brighton
Newcastle

LOOKING FORWARD TO IN 2007
Going back to Japan!
2006 being over

Things will inevitably be quieter for the next couple of weeks though, with our recent level of activity, I doubt anyone will notice much of a difference. Our annual best albums and films of the year articles are almost done and will hopefully be up sometime next week.

I’d like to take this opportunity to name and shame Findo Gask, Dot To Dot, Dananananaykroyd and Try Harder Records as the lazy/busy people who have been keeping me as the winner of my interview slackness stats. Particularly the first two who have been hoarding their interview questions since FEBRUARY! Hopefully we will see all these interviews sometime in the new year. Apologies go to Errors and 1990s who I have been failing to interview all year, mostly because both bands are doing so awesomely well.

While you wait for all this goodness here are some excellent year-end things by other sites that we love:

– The Popjustice A-Z of 2006
– No Rock’n’Roll Fun’s exhaustive round-up of the year’s happenings
– Pitchfork’s Top 100 Tracks and Top 50 Albums of 2006

Have a good Christmas and thanks for reading. Don’t forget to have some pie.

(Each has a link enabling you to waste literally hours at work flicking through them all for your amusement)

A is for ASTRA, my new car. I was trying to work out why a family estate car would have completely blacked-out windows then I found out the previous owner was an ‘adult entertainer’. And there was me thinking the smell of cum in the car was coming from my trousers. I am trying to avoid searching the internet for dogging videos with the previous owners name in the credits – but it’s only a matter of time before curiosity gets the better of me.
B is for CHARLIE BROOKER and his book Screen Burn, a compilation of all his TV review columns for the Guardian. I write reviews infrequently because I simply run out of ways of expressing my raging anger and/or abject misery. Brooker doesn’t suffer such a problem. He is a master of description; example: baldy bad guy Ross Kemp’s tendency to nod to emphasise key lines is described by Brooker as looking “like a testicle bobbing in the bathtub”.
B is also for BILGE PUMP. It must stink to be an American touring band and look at your itinery and see you have Bilge opening for you. I wouldn’t even bother showing up. I love this band.
C is for CITY COUNCIL who I have managed to last a year as an employee of without being fired which, frankly, is amazing.
C is also for CHONG, an amusing term for a bifter, a doobie, a jazz cigarette etc.
D is for DAMN YOU’S 100TH GIG. Our little gig-putting-on collective was 100 gigs old in November and we celebrated in style with a huge show at Nottingham Trent University with Melt Banana topping the bill. I even got interviewed in Nottingham Evening Post. Made my Mum happy anyway.
D is also for, like, DUDE, a word that totally saw increased usage in 2005.
E is for the EARTH which I found out is hollow with a population living on the inside of the planet, drawn to a magnetic centre somewhere in the crust and illuminated by the molten core which operates as a second sun, held centrally in the hollow core by the equidistant gravitational pull from all sides. It’s true. It explains Heaven, religion, sea monsters, the Bermuda Triangle, Nazi UFOs, compass problems at Magnetic North or South, Atlantis and the Northern Lights. Ask me about it sometime.
F is for FAHEY BLOWS HIS NOSE, the outstanding track from this year’s Live John Fahey CD The Great Santa Barbara Oil Slick.
G is for GUITARS. It’s been a quiet year, I only bought the one guitar (a see-through Dan Armstrong like Greg Ginns) which I have subsequently sold because I couldn’t justify owning it. What’s happening to me? Am I getting sensible? I did find myself shopping for Stratocasters on Ebay and I borrowed a Gibson off a friend and though it sounded good. I am worried.
H is for THE HOLD STEADY. I am a chump for forgetting this from my albums of the year. A friend did me a CDR of their second album and what struck me as being a little too stadium rock and a little too cheesy and American to begin with quickly wormed its way to my heart and became the “CD most likely to be reached for”. I keep blathering on to Coogan about this and how much he’d like it and then we both found out that we once told the guitarist off like outraged parents for playing piano in our old house at five in the morning when he stayed with his old band. Oops.
I is for IAN SVENONIUS, who really likes this muuuu-sssssic.
J is for JAY: JAY HOWELL and NEGATRON, a wonderful book from the Sacramento-based artist. Includes the hits ‘Now, I Spank You’ and ‘Sheriff Horsey’s Got A Big One’. Available from Gringo.
To call Jay an American underground rock version of David Shrigley would be wrong. So I won’t. But if you look at his ‘This boner is sincere’ drawing in Punks Git Cut and don’t double over laughing with snot flying out of your face you have no sense of humour and no place in my life! And: JAY DEAN and OLLIE TOOGOOD at Dubrek Studios for their patience, humour and ideas in the recording studio which made what could have been a nightmare (recording an album) one of the most fun experiences of my life.
K is for KATHARINE ‘EVA’ BROWN
L is for LORDS SUPPORTING THE MAGIC BAND. A truly cosmic experience.
L is for LEO – both Ted and Chris. Ted for one of the most uplifting gigs of the year when he ruined his vocal chords and brought the house down at Sneinton School Hall and Chris for the better-late-than-never release of his first novel, White Pigeons and accompanying CD of the unreleased Lapse album which I think was my album of the year back in 2001.
M is for MEGADETH who simultaneously made me feel really young and really old at their Rock City show.
N is also for NOVEL, something I started writing and then got bored of. I need to motivate myself. The plot premise is a winner though. A supernatural story of suicide and scheming with an elasticated time frame.
N is also for NOTTINGHAM. 2005 was better than 2004 for me but in terms of how I feel about the city I live in; new depths have been excavated. I find I am increasingly busy and so the idea of over-analysis is not an option to me. Nottingham seems to have suddenly become packed out with people who over-analyse everything and I mean EVERYTHING. So the days of going out and having a good time are numbered. You might value the 3 hours on a Friday you’ve allocated to get hammered and forget about work etc and be with friends but you can bet someone will want to discuss the gig they saw in great detail or why Sub Pop isn’t a credible label anymore or why using an electric guitar tuning pedal is not ‘real’ or what the best Sonic Youth album is etc etc (all of those are genuine topics I’ve been party to heated discussions over). I blame art students and their complete lack of being able to grasp the difference between living conceptually and living to pay your rent. In 5 years they’ll have burnt out their creative urges by thinking about everything too much and I’ll be able to discuss my mortgage with them in Nationwide.
O is for OFFSPRING. Everyone is having them! Congratulations to Simon & Sarah, Chay & Jodie, Tom & Amy, Greg & Val.
P is for PROPERTY. I had a real pain-in-the-arse experience this year when I went to get a mortgage for the first time. Amazingly I managed to get one after much mathematics and bending rules only for my landlady to decide she didn’t want to sell after all. I was nearly a homeowner.
Q is for QUAGGA a recently extinct member of the horse family of Southern Africa. Q is also for QUADRIVIUM – a course consisting of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. Q is also for QOTSA – get it together Homme, how hard is it?
R is for JOHN REIS who was a guitar revolution to me this year when I saw Hot Snakes play a couple of times. The man is a downstroke riff machine. A god of the chug and the klaaang.
S is for DAVID SHRIGLEY. I am smitten by this man’s work, thanks to Lady Lucky Chua bringing me up to speed with what’s hip in the art world. Or at least what was hip 2 years ago. Shrigley frequently makes me piss my pants only to burst into tears one page later.
S is also for THE STOOGES who blew my mind at their Don’t Look Back performance of Funhouse. So much so that S is also for THE SNEINTON STOOGES, the Xmas Stooges tribute band I was involved in. I got to pull rock poses, wear a Nazi cap and shades, play through 2 amp stacks and use a wah wah and it was allowed because it wasn’t me it was Ron Asheton! Brilliant. It was one of the most fun things I have done, I’ll post some pictures when I get them as the costume Gaz (Iggy) had on was unbelievable.
T is for THIN LIZZY, a band I’ve always liked but never loved – until 2005. Watching Lizzy Live & Dangerous on video you really get the sense that this is a band that, at their peak, were indestructible. It’s amazing to think Brian Robertson was 18 when he joined Lizzy. I guess it explains a lot in a way. The Jailbreak album will always lift my spirits no matter what mood I am in.
U is for UNWOUND who should get their fucking shit together and sort it out.
V is for VALVE AMPS. 2005 was the year of the amp blow-up. Over and over and over again.
W is for the WHISTLING MOUNTAIN BEAVER’S REGGAE LOCKDOWN, a true life event that should really have come from Curb Your Enthusiasm. My friend The Whistling Mountain Beaver had been harbouring concerns that she was living 10 years in the past. This manifested itself in lots of chance meetings with Britpop B-listers. She also hates Reggae. She rang me early one Saturday morning to inform me she had woken up in a strange flat following a large night out. After much detective work she realised she was at the abode of Skin, former lead singer of Skunk Anansie. This is hilarious enough but on top of that she couldn’t actually get home because she was in Notting Hill and the carnival was on. She was literally TRAPPED IN THE PAST BY REGGAE.
X is for XMAS – not bad for once, very relaxing, got to hang out with Ross, Kai and Kevin lots. Also my Mum got me the Harry Smith Anthology, my girlfriend got me a Don Van Vliet exhibition book and my Dad got me a camera – RESULT!
Y is for NEIL YOUNG & CRAZY HORSE and specifically Don’t Cry No Tears which is such a brilliant Sunday morning song whatever the weather. Like Lizzy, Neil Young has been something of a revelation this year – a rediscovery from my existing record collection. I recommend Zuma for the recently broken-hearted. Uncle Neil’ll sort you out.
Z is for ZZZZZZZZZ which is something I got about 6 hours of in 2005. Hallucination through sleep deprivation is an interesting experience. I thought I was being attacked by very small people. It’s almost been something of a competition this year to see who is most tired:
“How are you?”
“I’m just really tired”
etc. My New Year’s Resolution is to go to bed earlier. And stop wanking.
Actually, they’re kind of connected.