So it goes...

In your final week, I bid you adieu mon ami!

Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A - START!

Vampire Weekend's new album Contra is out today! (applause) Go get it!

NBC - You Bastards...

Remember all the drama in 92/93 with Johnny Carson retiring, Letterman getting the shaft, and Leno stealing the show (the Tonight Show...). You think they would have learned their lesson - NOPE! Jay's show is abysmal. Conan's hasn't been great. Regardless, it's been 6 months against real shows @ 10pm (9pm God's Time) and an established show (Late Show with David Letterman). Nice mess NBC. No wonder you're dead last...

If only NBC really had Jack Donaghy.....

Left and Right In the Dark

Friday I went to my 2nd concert in a row - solo. As Whitney and I drove home the previous Saturday from our now favorite Dim Sum brunch at Myers & Chang, we drove by the Paradise Rock Club. Across the marquee were the words, "Julian Casablancas: this Friday". I nearly drove the car into a hydrant. JC is the lead singer of the Strokes (arguably my favorite band of the oo's). His 1st solo album, Phrazes for the Young, came out at the end of last year. This was to be the opening night of his 2010 tour. Not sure how it wasn't sold out, but I got a ticket to the show (and then it sold out.......big time)Heading in I'll be honest, I was not expecting much. It was great. Like so many concerts before this one, it really made me like/enjoy the songs even more. There are only 8 songs on the album, so he had to pull some stuff out. They tried a new ditty they'd thrown together and some cover songs. That is where things got interesting. Julian said, "This next song........well I guess you'd say it's a cover.....#*$% it. You'll figure it out.....". A mellow, jazzy song ensued. He and only the organ player remained on stage. It wasn't until the chorus that the crowd realized what it was. It was the Strokes! "I'll Try Anything Once", the demo of "You Only Live Once", was right under our noses. By the second chorus, the whole audience was singing along. I thought I was recording the whole thing, but alas - No. There is a snippet of it that I'll post below. The 2nd cover left most of the audience dumbfounded. I was having a ball. It was a lounge singer/Jim Morrison-esque cover of "Velvet Snow" by the Kings of Leon (off Aha Shake Heartbreak - my favorite album of theirs - though I'm not a fan of that song so much.....). Solid nonetheless! Enjoy some crappy pics and some good and some dark videos - no good lights at the 'dise!

Here's a flashback: when these boys were young and untouchable...

PS- Brooklyn's own Tanlines opened - interesting if you crossed Animal Collective with African Pop........

The Willys Y2K9

Hope everyone has had a nice year. Didn't it go by in a blink? Here are my Favorite ALBUMS of the year. The year started with a bang album-wise then ended up being a "singles" kind of year. Some great stuff came out this year, but it was an off year for me. I was really struggling to find 15 albums that I loved....and were worth this. I admit there is much I missed the 2nd half of this year, b/c I was insanely busy.

These were good, though....

Best of 2009

(in order for me)

Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

Animal Collective – Meriweather Post Pavilion

Pains of Being Pure At Heart – (s/t)

Black Lips – 200 Million Thousand

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – It’s Blitz

The Big Pink – A Brief History of Love

Passion Pit – Manners

The XX – (s/t)

Peter Bjorn & John – Living Thing

Julian Casablancas - Phrazes for the Young

Honorable Mention

Cass McCombs – Catacombs

Grizzly Bear – Veckamist

Karen O & the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are (OST)

Arctic Monkeys - Humbug

The Dead Weather - Horehound

Y2K Willy Singles

Singles (50)

Top 15

1901 – Phoenix

My Girls – Animal Collective

Zero – Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Short Fuse – The Black Lips

Skeleton Boy – Friendly Fires

Everything With You – Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Dominoes – The Big Pink

11^th Dimension – Julian Casablancas

Listomania - Phoenix

Let’s Go Surfing – The Drums

Little Secrets – Passion Pit

Cousins – Vampire Weekend

It Don’t Move Me – Peter, Bjorn & John

Big Bills – Flosstradamus ft Caroline Polachek

Quiet Little Voices - We Were Promised Jetpacks

The Rest of the Pack

Plain Material – Memory Tapes

Answer to Yourself – The Soft Pack

Ring Ring – Sleigh Bells

Islands – The XX

All Is Love – Karen O and the Kids

Young Adult Friction - Pains of Being Pure at Heart

She’s Got Me Dancing – Tommy Sparks

Empire State of Mind – Jay-Z ft Alicia Keys

Lalita – The Love Language

Eid Ma Clack Shaw – Bill Callahan (SMOG)

I Wanna Kill – Crocodiles

Summertime Clothes – Animal Collective

The Fear – Lily Allen

Hi-Fi Goon – Throw Me the Statue

Little Bribes – Death Cab For Cutie

Bad Romance – Lady Gaga

Coast of Carolina – Telekinesis!

Deli – Delorean

In This Lonely Town – Jeremy Jay

I’m Confused – Handsome Furs

California On My Mind – Wild Nights

I Gotta Feeling - Black Eyed Peas

Walkabout – Atlas Sound ft Noah Lennox

People Say – Portugal. The Man

Wind Phoenix - Cymbals Eat Guitars

Games for Days - Julian Plenti (Paul Banks of Interpol)

Space and the Woods – Late of the Pier

Brandy of the Damned (Mark Ronson Remix) – Nickel Eye ft Wale

Poem Party – The Strange Boys

People Got a Lot of Nerve – Neko Case

Never Had Nobody Like You – M. Ward ft Zooey Deschanel

Oh No – Andrew Bird

Crying Lightning – Arctic Monkeys

Got Nuffin – Spoon

Treat Me Like Your Mother – The Dead Weather

Warm Hearts of Africa – The Very Best ft Ezra Koenig

Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Heads Will Roll

Merry Christmas !!!

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

(thank you very much)

Είμαι πίσω

"Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter"

-John Keats

Narcissism

Let's take a step aside for a moment friends.

Do you even see all the internet outlets we as a society subscribe to?

- Facebook
- Twitter (not I - kill me if I ever twitter)
- Blogs
And on and on...

With my 7 posts in less than 72 hours (I did them on purpose leading up to this - I tried to make a post for anything that crossed my mind), vanity is at a premium.

All of these "things" we do are riddled with narcissism. Twitter is the worst. How many different ways do we need to pat ourselves on our backs and affirm our sense of self-importance? Yikes. I'm as guilty as any. I love music and love to talk about it. No one is here to talk to me about it, so I just put it out there. I love it. I don't think I'm better than you (as far as you know). I just wanted someone to talk to. It's sad more than anything - all of these things. Facebook used to be a place to re-connect with friends. It has become an avenue to announce when you are "waking up", "feeling cranky", "partying like a rock star", "going to bed" etc etc....(btw, twitter, real original). Blogs are a pulpit for you to pour out your mind. It's your own column in your own paper. Who cares what we think? Who cares what I think? This blog is going private later this month - private as in non-existent. It's what it has become anyway. Just some food for thought, kids. Eat it up! I can't handle it anymore.

You're so vain....

Signing off for good for now.

It's been fun...
-W

Weak-end Wrap Up

The 1st weekend of Premier League is in the books. Some surprises. Some boredom. Either way, it's good to be back. For the most part, it was a weekend of reminders:

- Arsenal year in year out plays the most beautiful football in the world. The are a treat to watch. No one maintains possession or passes with more precision. Tip of the cap to Arsene Wenger and Cesc Fabregas (6-1 over Everton!)

- Moneybags Man City began with a win, but the fact remains that they have a 2nd rate coach at best. He'll never handle all the ego at Ewood Park.

- Fulham began with a win for once. Portsmouth looks headed for the drop.

- Liverpool is painful to watch. One of the best strikers in the world (Fernando Torres), and they can't even get the ball to him. They've lost all their depth (who's your back-up striker? Veronin!?!). Glen Johnson looks promising.

- Rafa Benitez is not a good manager. I don't know how he breaks the colts, but it doesn't work. You can't live and die by the injury time goals. Terrible. Should've been sacked 2 years ago....

- Lucky breaks for Man U and especially Chelsea - 1-0 and an injury time winner respectively.

- Tottenham Hotspur look like Arsenal. Great moves by ol' Harry.

It's gonna be a good one. Come on Fulham! Wheel out the cannons for Arsenal, b/c they are in class form!

They're So Money, Baby

So, I just stumbled upon this brother/sister trio from Camden Town, UK today. Apparently, I was late to the dance. They are in a time warp somewhere between 1930 and 1950 with Cab Calloway. They are cool cats for sure! I give you - Kitty, Daisy, & Lewis

Download - "Put the Kettle On" mp3

Let's Kick It

The day my wife has come to dread is upon us. English Premier League begins today. Oh, how 12 weeks flew by. My fantasy team (Darjeeling United) is ready, and my Fulham Cottagers better be, too. So many quality players left the premier league this summer (read: Cristiano Ronaldo). Manchester City (the other Manchester club) was bought by an Arab Emirates group and used their cash to bring in everyone under the sun to a perennially average club. My team, Fulham, qualified for the Europa League and will be playing mid-week on the mainland. Can't wait to see the new clubs that were promoted (Burnley, Birmingham City, Wolverhampton) and the new faces that have come to England (Alberto Aquilani, Jozy Altidore, Yuri Zhirkov, Thomas Vermaelen). It's a long way to May. For those who still haven't caught the fever, look out it's more contagious than H1N1....

Feel free to click the link above and join the fantasy league, Pabst United. Commissioner Murphree will be glad to welcome you!

No One's First, and You're Next

Modest Mouse is one of those staple indie bands. After what seems like 7 or 8 albums, they have mainstream appeal and still have the street cred to boot. Obviously, their breakout moment came with 2004's Good News For People Who Love Bad News and the hit single, "Float On" (for fans of that song just FFwd to the next track, "Ocean Breathes Salty" is one of my favorite MM songs). They continued with more of the same on the 2007 follow-up, We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank (did you know both albums were recorded in good ol' Oxford, MS?).

The other week, Modest Mouse released an EP collection of outtakes from these albums, No One's First, and You're Next. Leading up to the release of this EP, the band systematically released the songs on limited edition 7". And like a psycho, I bought them all. Now I'm bummed, b/c I have no reason to by the EP. Yet, part of me is driven to purchase it.... Did I mention I have a problem? That's like buying enough baseball cards to complete the set and saying, "you know I think I'll buy the box set". After all this, the songs are just OK. "Satellite Skin" is a winner. The rest are what they are - songs that didn't make cut for the albums. One of the last tracks is noteworthy, because Heath Ledger directed a video for it before his death. He didn't finish it, but his production company did in his memory. Check out "King Rat" just for Heath and take this EP for what you will. The critics seem to like it.

Modest Mouse

We Go To Some Concerts...

Last week was a crazy week. It was my last week in clinic before things close up for the rest of August. Nevertheless, I didn't exactly coast into the break. I was doing surgery all day everyday up until the last moment. On top of that, I went to concerts Wednesday and Thursday night. After Arctic Monkeys on Wed with some friends from school, Whit and I went to Fenway Park Thursday for an evening with Paul McCartney. Surreal.

Arctic Monkeys was a great show. A huge band in Europe with a good following here, the Monkeys are playing in small clubs for this US tour. A band that could easily sell out 2 nights at the Orpheum was playing a club that is more like a Cracker Jack box. Awesome! (except that despite my best efforts it sold out even before the pre-sale went public - what? And I was left with my worst enemy - Stub Hub) Regardless, it was worth it and a once in a whatever chance. They blew the doors off the place. Their new album, Humbug, doesn't come out until later this month. It was produced by Queens of the Stone Age's Josh Homme (amongst others), and it shows. Humbug is a candy over in the UK (I'm guessing like a Werthers) that requires some time to get through to appreciate (just like this new album - thanks Russian Mp3 site....). Here are some pics I took with Whit's camera (no flash allowed...) of the band, me, John Mayer, etc. I tell you about Sir Paul after the jump.

Hey, Hey, they're the Monkeys...

Me and John Mayer

Alex Taylor

We Go To Some Concerts II

Fenway Park is an American icon. Paul McCartney is simply an icon. Put them together, and I just black out. We are Beatles freaks (I know. Who isn't? Joe Pat....). We had a freakin Beatles cover band for our wedding. Obsessed much? Paul did not disappoint. He played for 2 1/2 hours with 2 encores! Plenty of Beatles hits were sprinkled throughout along with Wings and solo stuff that LBH, I was not down with. Highlights for me were "Back In the USSR" with communist/cold war paraphernalia flying across the screen behind him, "Something" on mandolin with a tribute to George (that's his song ya know - but apparently they wrote it together on mandolin - the one he played that night!), a solo "Blackbird" and an abbreviated "A Day in the Life" albeit sans John but amazing. Whitney really loved "Live and Let Die" with all the explosions and fireworks, "Paperback Writer", and "Drive My Car" (even though she wasn't revved up yet). Even "Jet" and "Band on the Run" were pretty good as far as Wings songs go.

Set List:

Drive My Car

Jet

Only Mama Knows

Flaming Pie

Got to Get You Into My Life

Let Me Roll It/Foxy Lady

Highway

The Long and Winding Road

My Love

Blackbird

Here Today

Dance Tonight

Calico Skies

Mrs. Vanderbilt

Eleanor Rigby

See the Changes

Band on the Run

Back in the U.S.S.R.

I'm Down

Something

I've Got a Feeling

Paperback Writer

A Day in the Life / Give Peace a Chance

Let It Be

Live and Let Die

Hey Jude

Encore:

Day Tripper

Lady Madonna

I Saw Her Standing There

Yesterday

Curtain Call:

Helter Skelter

Get Back

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band / The End

The man was bouncing around and playing with the crowd as if he was a Twentysomething. Pretty sure my wife would have left me for him in a heartbeat.
He's a charmer!
It was a magical evening, and one for us that we'll never forget!
Here are some highlights.

Hey Jude

(Please excuse the tone deaf people next to us)