If it’s snowing in December, it must mean year-end lists. In addition to recess’ own which ran a couple weeks ago, millions of others have surfaced across the interweb, but below are a few especially noteworthy ones. Check it out:
Everyone and Mac McCaughan’s mother at Merge Records has dropped a list over at their blog
The good folks over at Trekky Records have compiled some really stellar lists in the form of “TRK Best of 2k9″ (My biased favorites: Will Hackney, Clare Connolly, Martin Anderson — Bill Callahan and Mount Eerie!)
A bunch of people dropped guests lists on Pitchfork, among them lots of Merge Artists (Jeremy Gara, Dan Bejar, etc.) and rising star Chaz Bundick who we caught up with earlier this year
Karen Mann has her five favorite local releases on her blog
Megafaun recount some of their favorite things of the year (and release a cover of “I Saw Three Ships”) on Hometapes’ blog as part of the label’s 8 Days of Hometapes
All Songs Considered (and NPR music) always puts together smart pieces and their year-end list is good, but this map is possibly better
Finally, I just want to throw in Freddy Ruppert’s year-end list because he has some great picks on there, but also because the Former Ghosts’ debut album was really spectacular.
In addition to reading from Our Noise last night, Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan made some music. The two played “Throwing Things” from No Pocky for Kitty, and McCaughan played two solo covers: the first from Butterglory’s Matt Sugg’s debut album, “Where’s Your Patience Dear?” The second was from Lambchop’s How I Quit Smoking, “Theone,” which McCaughan doesn’t know how to pronounce. Check out the videos below.
In celebration of yesterday’s release of Our Noise: The Story of Merge Records, Merge’s/Superchunk‘s Laura Ballance stopped by the Regulator Bookshop to read from the book and play a few songs (those videos are forthcoming). McCaughan read from the Lambchop chapter and Ballance from Spoon’s. Check out the video below. The label owners will be reading tomorrow at Bull’s Head Bookshop on UNC’s campus at 3:30 and later that evening at 7:30 p.m. at Raleigh’s Quail Ridge Books (and at Malaprop’s in Asheville Oct. 2).
If you didn’t have reason to stick around Durham this summer, Triangle-based Merge Records just gave you a reason to pay the Tarheel State a visit. In celebration of their 20th year, the record label owned by Superchunk/Portastatic frontman Mac McCaughan is hosting a five-day summer concert series featuring Merge artists from the past 20 years. XX Merge will be held from July 22-26 in the “summer heat of sunny North Carolina.” (i.e. location is TBA). Here’s hoping Jeff Mangum makes an appearance
Merge is also offering a year-long subscription for $199 that gets you 14 curated compilation CDs, a remix CD, a Merge covers CD a book of album art and tons of other stuff. Definitely worth it and it can be purchased here.
Here is the second part of our celebration of the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill music scene. Again, the list is not ranked. For part one, check here.
The Eye-Opener at BCHQ – August 2, 2008
A few of BCHQ’s board members work on a project to promote transgender awareness across the globe, specifically focusing on the Hijra communities in India. To help the cause locally, they put together a day-long festival in a sticky August day that included a bevvy of local artists (Mount Moriah, Des Ark, Megafaun, Embarrassing Fruits, etc.) and a vegan brunch. But the best moment of the day came at the end when the Mountain Goats’ John Darnielle gave the best endorsement ever of his current hometown. His numbers might be a little bit off, but someone in Durham needs to hire him to promote the city.
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