Tim's top 10 list of albums for 2009

Okay, I am actually ahead by a month. I only reviewed 22 new albums instead of 28 like in 2008, which I didn't put out until the last week of February and did not post until July. Here we go...in order.

1. Neko Case-Middle Cyclone (album of the year)
2. Son Volt-American Central Dust (runner up and best band Americana)
3. Animal Collective-Merriweather Post Pavilion (best prog rock)
4. The Felice Brothers-Yonder Is The Clock (runner-up best band Americana)
5. Bob Dylan-Together Through Life
6. The xx-The xx (best minimalist pop)
7. Metric-Fantasies (best fuzz guitar pop)
8. Dinosaur jr-Farm (best hard rock/punk)
9. John Doe & The Sadies-Country Club (best country & western from a former punk rocker)
10. Rum Drum Ramblers-Tradin' Dollars For Dimes (best traditional blues)
11. Bob Reuter's Alley Ghost-Bob Reuter's Alley Ghost (best garage and punk)
12. Dave Rawlings Machine-A Friend Of A Friend (best singer/songwriter & folk)
13. Oliver Sain-St. Louis Breakdown (best re-issue and best R & B/soul)

Honorable Mentions:

Booker T. -Potato Hole (Best Blues/R& B)
John Fogerty & The Blue Ridge Rangers-Rides Again (best country & western performed by an outsider)
Levon Helm-Electric Dirt (best contemporary electric folk)


And yes I realize there are more than 10 albums in the "Top Ten."

The Great Larry Weir

R.I.P. Larry Weir; friend , music influence peddler, KDHX DJ.

The last of 2009 reviews are all about St. Louis.

There were three great St. Louis musician albums that came out late 2008 and 2009 that I wanted to share with folks. The first is the great blues/folk blues/country blues revivalists The Rum Drum Ramblers. I am so burnt on electric blues that it is ridiculous. And quite frankly I can't tell the difference between modern electric blues and the rock blooze of the late 60's. But blues revivalists, especially those in the folk & country vein, really trip my trigger. Even the electric blues of The Rum Drum Ramblers are great. I strongly recommend their excellent Tradin' Dollars For Dimes to any blues purist and anyone interested in retro tuneage that is as authentic as any St. Louis style blues that you can lay your hands on. The Rum Drum Ramblers are a Rosetta stone of acoustic, post WWII electric, and country blues like no other groups in St. Louis. Many of their tunes are comparable to the types of blues archetypes done by such bands as The Squirrel Nut Zippers or Flat Duo Jets. As fun as their album is to listen to, it is a great history lesson. Put these guys in league with Henry Townsend or Albert King and BUY THEIR RECORD.

Photographer, musician, singer/songwriter and KDHX DJ (and a true DJ at that) put out two excellent Americana albums under two different names. The first is Bob Reuter's Alley Ghost. This album features the Rum Drum Ramblers as the backing band and is full of the fun and humor you would expect from Reuter. His excellent command of punk and garage meshes nicely with his command of blues and folk. Primarily an Americana-style singer/songwriter record featuring blues, folk, and country blues, it is the softer side of this great musician's records that came out last year.

Contrasting from Bob Reuter's Alley Ghost to his other great band called Thee Dirty South, their record, 25 Conversations, sounds like it could have all been included on the first Nuggets Boxed Set; Detroit rock and roll in the vein of Sweaty Teddy, the MC5, or the Stooges. Hell, this could be Neil Young and Crazy Horse (speaking of Neil Young, included here is a great cover of Mr. Soul). You get the picture, heavey, tinny guitar, 4-track recording and hell of a lot of rock and roll fun.

Both of Reuter's albums reflect a true musician's musician and someone who understands the term "rock and roll" from its 1950's R & B beginnings to late 70's American punk. You don't get better than this. It is way, way, way underground but the sound is sooooo purely in the rock and roll spirit of rebellion that The Ramones would be jealous.

I think Bob Reuter is on a little hiatus from his gig as DJ of Bob's Scartchy Records on KDHX, but that show really defines how he approaches his own music. What a treasure and gem to the St. Louis music scene he and the Rum Drum Ramblers are!

Oliver Sain St. Louis Breakdown-The Best Of Oliver Sain

The next big reissue I got this year (it varies by two songs from the original issue) was St. Louis's R & B Giant & Legend Oliver Sain. I got a lot of St. Louis city music this year. Oliver Sain was a master saxophonist and producer par excellence of such greats as Fontella Bass (the original version of Deliver Me was sung by her and produced by Oliver-yes you know the song used for pizza delivery). This great reissue called Oliver Sain St. Louis Breakdown-The Best Of Oliver Sain is a must own for anyone with a passing interest in Rhythm & Blues, Disco, Soul and any other genre associated with not only the African-American music movement, but especially that of the Mid-West, and I ain't talking about Chicago and Detroit.

You can thank people like Tom "Papa" Ray, DJ of the program The Soul Selector on community radio station KDHX 88.1 FM and owner of Vintage Vinyl in University City for bringing these recordings to us. It would have been a magnanimous task. This album serves as a great historical document of Oliver. In the 90's in the heyday of Roy St. John's Morning Show Band, Oliver was always kind enough to lend his vast saxophone talents to this hodgepodge of a group who were typically raising money for KDHX. On these occasions I got to meet and shake hands with someone I consider as important as Allen Toussaint or Smokey Robinson as far as producers, songwriters, and performers go. Oliver was all of these as well as kind and humble too.

Pick up this very historically significant R & B/Soul album, it will not disappoint and should get your booty shaking and your hips grinding!

The reissue of Pearl Jam's Ten

I am sure a lot of people will disagree with me. I HATED the Seattle music scene of the early 90's. I hated Nirvana, I hated Soundgarden, I hated Mother Love Bone and all things associated with the Seattle scene. There were SO many other bands in the country that were trying to take punk to the mainstream that were SO much better, so much better. There were so many of us who had already invented that scene and left it by the time it got popular. In fact I thought it sucked before it got popular.

I did not hate Pearl Jam, but they were to me a top forty hard rock band. I thought their sound was a lot more original than all the other horrible crap from Seattle. Primarily because I could tell that they had a great understanding of classic rock. I thought that the really great bands of the modern and indie rock era had a great understanding of two things 1) Punk & 2) Classic rock. Needless to say, I did not ever buy any of Pearl Jam's albums. I knew that their catalog was going to be re-issued in 2009 of course starting with Ten.

Pearl Jam is intimately familiar with Punk and Classic Rock. Lo and behold for my birthday this year, a friend of mine who is a Pearl Jam fanatic bought me the reissue of Ten. Quite frankly, it is a brilliant example of modern pop rock. Heavy and tuneful with none of the stupid-ass ego of talentless hacks like Kurt Cobain (I will never understand what people saw in such an utter mistake of humanity) haunting their mix. The Ten reissue also known as Ten Redux has great packaging too. Inside it is the original issue of Ten, the second CD is Ten Redux which is a rough mix of the original plus six extra cuts. I really like this, it is too bad they did not issue this album as the original. The rough unmixed of this is the superior recording. The last disc is a DVD from MTV Unplugged. Predictably forgettable unless you are a true fan and believer. In any event this is a classic album and must be owned.

Starlight Mints Change Remains

The Starlight Mints hail from Norman, OK. Kind of similar to The Flaming Lips whom share state roots with the Starlight Mints. They make great jangly pop music and keep it pretty quirky. At heart, this fivesome is a pop band. They could fit on anything from 80's top forty to 90's modern rock to 21st century indie rock. They are tight, effective, fun, and dancey even. Lots of drum loops and funky keyboards and the lead singer sounds as nervous as David Byrne or Modest Mouse.

I have not heard their earlier albums, but Change Remains is such an enjoyable pop grab bag of pure music joy, it tickles the ears and the mind into wanting to mine that back catalog. In a single album you get a little reggae dancehall, beatlesque pop, funk, disco and all the stuff from all the decades that made real good pop music so nice.

Roy Rogers Split Decision

Roy Rogers has been knocking around for over 25 years. He is notable as a part of John Lee Hooker's Coast To Coast band in the 80's in which he played guitar, his specialty being his signature of being a slide guitar sideman. He also produced the excellent Hooker early 90's albums The Healer and Mr. Lucky (which won a Grammy), both being classic modern blues albums. So Roy's street cred is impeccable.

This Blind Pig Records offering, Split Decision is a good but not great blues album. Although some say Roy has not succumbed to the over produced heavy handedness of modern blues (which is essentially overproduced vaguely bluesy late 60's rock & roll), I would beg to differ. Modern blues, unfortunately, is nothing short of its continuing devolving of borrowed styles. In the case of acts such as Roy Rogers or say Walter Trout, these non-innovators borrowed the blues mined by Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones in the 60's and have regurgitated it in the 21st century as blues music. Yes, he's a stone great guitar player, yes the album rocks, yes there is competent R & B here, but it is pretty sterile and borderline soulless. It's all right and it may be a good introduction to modern blues, but then I just say pick up a couple old Led Zeppelin albums and you're probably good to go.

Artists of the decade

These are my picks for aritists of the decade (2000-2009)in no particular order: Ryan Adams, Neko Case, Bob Dylan, The Decemberists, Drive-by Truckers, Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Calexico, Lucinda Williams, U2, Willco, Son Volt, The Hold Steady, Beck, The White Stripes, Built To Spill, The Black Keys.

Here in order are my top 3 that I thought had the most impact on music in that decade.
1) Ryan Adams
2) Neko Case
3) The White Stripes

Dave Rawlings Machine A Friend Of A Friend

I sure like Dave Rawlings Machine. This is the other half of a songwriting team that includes Gillian Welch. Can't go wrong with that. In fact Dave Rawlings new album is called A Friend Of A Friend and that is absolutely the kind of sentiment I think is involved here. You can't contrast this so much from a Gillian Welch album as it sounds like a Gillian Welch album except it's Dave Rawlings on the forefront. It is slightly more band oriented as the backing band is none other than old timey greats Old Crow Medicine Show. So you can conjecture what is going on here, a fine, fine acoustically driven folk album full of melancholy, antiquity, lovelorn unrequited love and all those other things that you have come to expect from these various sepia-toned modern folkies. Gillian Welch is here too and in the photographs of the album art. And like you feel Dave's presence on her albums you feel her presence here but Dave Rawlings is the one up on the plate for this particular namesake.

As with albums like this, I am always intrigued by the covers or re dos of other songs past and present. When Ryan Adams came out with Heartbreaker on Bloodshot back in 2000 Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch were essentially his backing group for that album. Dave and Ryan wrote a song together called To Be Young (is to be sad, is to be high). A fine song and standout on that album. Dave Rawlings slowed it down and folked it up in this nice re-work of it, his high thin voice is built for these gentle borderline bluegrass tunes.

The other beautiful re-work of a song is the latter half a medley he covers Neil Young's terrific and poignant song Cortez The Killer. It's very slow, acoustic style with just meager arrangement. Very wonderful. I certainly hope to hear more of Dave Rawlings Machine in the future because this was one of the better folk albums I heard in 2009.

Andrew Bird Noble Beast

As I wind down the last of the 2009 music reviews, I almost forgot Andrew Bird's Noble Beast.

As an axillary member of The Squirrel Nut Zippers, this singer/songwriter prog folkie makes the kind of swirling pop that you might hear with bands like The Thrills or perhaps even Midlake. His sound also hearkens back to old early 70's prog folk such as The Incredible String Band.

This album is flush with strings as he is a violin-player by trade. And being from Chicago, he did not forget to use the wonderful harmonizing pipes of fellow Chicago luminary Kelly Hogan. The songs are all good and very breezy, mixing everything from swing-jazz to gypsy music to easy folk tunes. But this is primarily an indie pop affair informed by singer/songwriter flair.

Lastly and most oddly this album is on Mississippi based Fat Possum Records. It is a label that I associate primarily with Mississippi Hill Country Blues. None of that on this great record though.

Metric Fantasies

Metrics's Fantasies starts out with fuzzy rhythm guitars and ends with fuzzy rhythm guitars. I instantly liked this album and its sheik, but not necessarily new, sound. I so adore high chick voices singing Euro-pop. All the tunes here hit you over the head with its punky, spunky, over and over 3-chord rock. Best part; they are really a North American contingent based out of such places like L.A., New York, Toronto and Montreal, Canada. That classic tinny sound, punctuated by a speedy economy of guitar and drum loops mixed with dancey, yet serious party fun make this decade ending release some of the best stuff I've heard in a long time.

They are as slick as a raw oyster, a taste that is acquired. Catchy rhythms with Emily Haines's Dale Bozzio-style voice (circa Missing Persons) flesh this great pop album out.

The XX

Wow! Cool! I had some Facebook friends recommend this great minimalist Euro-pop. I mean it epitomizes the genre, but wow, what a great job of it. I mean this is really catchy stuff. From the Velvet Underground economy of sound (except no fuzz) to the ice-pick-of-frozen vodka guitar plucks you just want to sway to this subdued dark-club-with-red-light atmosphere. Nice flat muted girl voice contrasted with a slightly lower male voice trading back and fourth and then following up with a harmony that works perfectly. The metronome drum and maybe a little guitar riff just really perfects this album and each of the songs. Reminds me a lot of The Jesus And Mary Chain. I am sure this will be on my top 10 and I am sure I won't be alone...a minimalist review for minimalist masters of pop.