[[nid:98351 field_align=right]]My favorite musical things about 2013 (in no particular order):
- Ark Life- Their song "Very Fine Friends" is such an ear worm. It would pop into my head upon waking for two months straight. Such good song writing with this souled out Fleetwood Mac vibe.
- a tom collins- It may look like drunken chaos but there's mad method to that madness. Arron's stage antics verge on performance art; they have rad songs with some sort of "hey ho lets go New Orleans funeral parade falling off the edge of the world and I don't give a s***" feel that I love. I felt like they stole the show at UMS 2013 with their set at Three Kings. Add to that the full-frontal Machine Gun Blues performance at the Hi-Dive's anniversary show and we have some good good stuff coming from Mr Collins this last year .
- Nacarubi Music Festival- Dragondeer got invited to play this very cool music festival in the middle of the woods in Big Sur, CA last summer. We played right before Linda Perhacs which was probably the the most uplifting mystical music set I've ever witnessed.
- Radkey- Played with these three young brothers from St. Joseph, Missouri with Swayback. Ripping fuzzed out Misfits-Ramones punk.
- The UMS- Denver's best musical throw down of the year...every year I've been. All genres of Colorado's music family come together to celebrate and demonstrate what we've know for a long time: Colorado has a diverse and amazingly talented music scene. We are blessed. AND Mudhoney headlined!
- Varlet- Their new record American Hymns gets stuck in my head too. Psyched out Waits-Billie Holiday slinky strut delivering my favorite equalizer lyric of 2013: "Well I got problems baby, so do you."
- Steel Pulse- I listened to True Democracy so many times this year....subversive politics mixed with dark roots reggae on repeat.
- The harmonica- I just love playing em and got to a bunch in Dragondeer this year.
- Monday Jazz Night at Meadowlark- John Grigsby, Mike Smith and a rotating cast of ruling jazz players every Monday night...for free. Such a good vibe and mix of talented players...makes ya feel like you're in a basement club in Berlin or NYC.
- Ovvl at Lost Lake- I watched a pretty lame Deerhunter set and then walked over to Lost Lake and got randomly pummeled by the Zeke, Motorhead and early thrash Metallica sounds of Oakland's Ovvl (pronounced Owl). Pleasant surprise.
- DJ Musa at Cold Crush- I went and saw him spin hip-hop this last Saturday at Cold Crush and the bar felt like I was at some house party that was just going off.
I was also stoked on Kitty Crimes' yoga video, Princess Music, The Baltic's take on shoegaze, Bad Weather Cali (RIP), Joy Subtraction and Brendan Kelly's internet writings, Patrick Dethlefs song "Blue Eyes", and The Yawpers video for "Silicone Love"
