The Best of 2008 - CD's

here is my list, in alphabetical order...

alejandro escovedo – “real animal”
ben sollee – “learning to bend”
bob dylan – “tell tale signs - rare and unreleased 1989-2006”
carrie rodriguez – “she ain’t me”
cat power – “jukebox/dark end of the street"
cowboy junkies – “trinity revisited”
david byrne & brian eno – “everything that happens will happen today”
johnny cash - “johnny cash at folsom prison: legacy edition”
kathleen edwards – “asking for flowers”
kris delmhorst – “shotgun singer”
over the rhine - “live from nowhere volume 3”
ray lamontagne - “gossip in the grain”
rodney crowell – “sex and gasoline”
ryan adams and the cardinals - "cardinology"
shelby lynne – “just a little lovin’ "
teddy thompson – “a piece of what you need”
tift merritt – “another country”
the waifs - "sundirtwater"

*and i'm combining cat power's "dark end of the street" [ep] with "jukebox." they are out of the same sessions and it is just like an extension of that project.

and here is "Rolling Stone's" top 50 albums of 2008:

1 | TV on the Radio: Dear Science
2 | Bob Dylan: Tell Tale Signs — The Bootleg Series Vol. 8
3 | Lil Wayne: Tha Carter III
4 | My Morning Jacket: Evil Urges
5 | John Mellencamp: Life, Death, Love and Freedom
6 | Santogold: Santogold
7 | Coldplay: Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends
8 | Beck: Modern Guilt
9 | Metallica: Death Magnetic
10 | Vampire Weekend: Vampire Weekend
11 | Fleet Foxes: Fleet Foxes
12 | Guns n' Roses: Chinese Democracy
13 | Blitzen Trapper: Furr
14 | Ryan Adams and the Cardinals: Cardinology
15 | The Black Keys: Attack & Release
16 | Randy Newman: Harps and Angels
17 | B.B. King: One Kind Favor
18 | Lucinda Williams: Little Honey
19 | Erykah Badu: New Amerykah: Part 1 (4th World War)
20 | Kings of Leon: Only by the Night
21 | Kaiser Chiefs: Off With Their Heads
22 | Jackson Browne: Time the Conquerer
23 | Conor Oberst: Conor Oberst
24 | Girl Talk: Feed the Animals
25 | The Magnetic Fields: Distortion
26 | Mudcrutch: Mudcrutch
27 | Brian Wilson: That Lucky Old Sun
28 | The Knux: Remind Me in Three Days...
29 | Bon Iver: For Emma, Forever Ago
30 | Duffy: Rockferry
31 | MGMT: Oracular Spectacular
32 | Jamey Johnson: The Lonesome Song
33 | Ne-Yo: Year of the Gentleman
34 | Stephen Malkmus: Real Emotional Trash
35 | Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds: Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!
36 | The Hold Steady: Stay Positive
37 | Nine Inch Nails: The Slip
38 | Ra Ra Riot: The Rhumb Line
39 | Taylor Swift: Fearless
40 | Jonas Brothers: A Little Bit Longer
41 | AC/DC: Black Ice
42 | David Byrne and Brian Eno: Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
43 | Nas: Untitled
44 | The Raconteurs: Consolers of the Lonely
45 | Be Your Own Pet: Get Awkward
46 | The Academy Is...: Fast Times at Barrington High
47 | Of Montreal: Skeletal Lamping
48 | Raphael Saadiq: The Way I See It
49 | Hot Chip: Made in the Dark
50 | No Age: Nouns

Tift Merritt - Towne Crier Cafe/Pawling, NY (08.09.2008)

submitted and written by keith bergendorff

below is a review of tift's recent show. besides being an avid music fan and concert-goer, keith is a friend and fellow lover of music + great reviewer and taper. keith has kindly included a link to his excellent recording of this show, feel free to download and enjoy.

many thanks to keith for sharing his words and recording. and thanks to tift for being "taper friendly" and allowing recordings of her shows. these recordings are for personal use only, feel free to share and trade, but please, respect the artists and tapers wishes and under no circumstances should they be sold or money change hands for these recordings.

I drove up to the Towne Crier Café in Pawling NY from Long Island (about 90 miles) last night to see Tift, having missed her appearance at the Mercury Lounge in NYC some months back because I had to be out of town. I picked up my friend Arlene (who lives in Manhattan) at the Pawling train station at 7:01 and we headed over to the venue to have dinner before the 9:00 show. There was already a pretty good crowd seated near the stage when we arrived at 7:10, but we got a table with a good view about 20 feet from the stage a little left of center.

I had never heard opener Jess Klein, and I gotta say she was absolutely phenomenal! With a plaintive sultry voice and formidable technique on a guitar that's nearly as big as she is, she had the audience absolutely transfixed (myself included). I actually had to loosen loosen my collar during her spine-tingling performance of Willie Dixon's The Same Thing, during which you could have heard a pin drop.

Tift and the boys came on a little after 10:00 and opened with Morning Is My Destination with Tift at the piano. It was a very spirited show, as I've come to expect from Tift by now (I think this was show #8 for me). This was the first time I've seen the band with Scott McCall and I thought he did a really fabulous job on lead. They performed Supposed to Make You Happy unmiked with Jay and Scott turning in beautiful harmonies, and also went off mike for brief but lovely interludes during Keep Me Happy, Broken, Something To Me and When I Cross Over. Tift performed Good Hearted Man solo on the piano (after encouraging the staff to silence the register noisily pumping out the dinner receipts) and they closed with a rousing performance of When I Cross Over. Mille Tendresses was the encore.

By the time the show was over it was about 10 minutes before Arlene's last train back to NYC. I had brought my copy of Another Country for Tift to sign, but a long line had already formed to talk to her when I came out of the men's room and I really couldn't wait. So I just stopped alongside the line across from her and Zeke on our way to the front door and called out "Tift! I have to catch a train, but -- I LOVE YOU!" She flashed me that big smile of hers and reached out her arm through the people standing in front of her, and I squeezed her hand and waved. "Don't miss your train!" she laughed. It was a good moment.

I could say a lot more about the show but a recording is worth a thousand words (and then some), so you can download hi-fi mp3s from this link:

http://kbergend.tripod.com/tm2008-08-09.zip

The house mix wasn't quite as good as other times I've seen Tift perform and there's a bit of clipping during the very loudest parts of the show, but for the most part it sounds pretty nice. I boosted the gain a little on Supposed To Make You Happy to make it more audible. Enjoy!

01 Morning Is My Destination
02 Hopes Too High
03 Stray Paper
04 I Know What I'm Looking For Now
05 Another Country
06 Supposed To Make You Happy (unmiked)
07 Tell Me Something True
08 Keep You Happy
09 My Heart Is Free
10 Ain't Looking Closely
11 Broken
12 Tender Branch
13 Something To Me
14 Good Hearted Man
15 When I Cross Over
[encore]
16 Mille Tendresses

AT943c > Marantz PMD620 @24/44.1
cardreader > USB > Audition 3.0/Ozone 3 > CD Wave > Apple mp3 encoder @192kbps
Editing: gain adjustments, EQ, compression < 120 Hz, MBIT+ dither to 16 bits

also, i checked out jess klein's website(s), the opener for tift that keith mentioned in his review and whoa! do yourself a favor, pop over and give this girl a listen.

jess klein (go to the album page and you can have a free listen)

jess klein - myspace

a couple of great free shows in louisville...

apparently....

pollstar has teddy thompson listed as the headlining performer for october 27th's waterfront wednesday. while it is not listed on teddy's site or wfpk's site, wfpk lists vhs or beta as the headliner for the show so i'm not sure if there is a cancellation or schedule change for some reason. vhs or beta's website does not list them in louisville on the 27th and shows them playing in puerto rico on the 28th, which could be tough to pull off if they played late here on the 27th. pollstar tends to be very accurate, i'm sure hoping it is correct.

already announced is the phenomenal local talent, ben sollee opening the show @ 6:00PM, followed by seepeoples @ 7:30, here's hoping teddy is the closer @ 9:00PM (btw, nothing against vhs or beta).

also, tift merritt has just released several new tour dates (posted below), one of those will include a free set @ the original highlands art & music festival on saturday night, september 13th @ 8:00 PM

the full schedule for the festival is:
12-1p.m. - Leigh Ann Yost (East Stage)
12-1 p.m. - John Gage (West Stage)
1-2p.m. - Louisville School of Rock (East Stage)
2-3p.m. - Shannon Lawson (West Stage)
3-4p.m. - The Ladybirds (East Stage)
4-5p.m. - Brigid Kaelin Band (West Stage)
5-6p.m. - Danny Flanigan and the Rain Chorus (East Stage)
6-7p.m. - Peter Searcy (West Stage)
8-9:15p.m. - Tift Merritt (East Stage)
9:30-11p.m. - Love Jones (West Stage)

tift merritt
August 2008
22 Aug: Isle of Palms, SC @ Windjammer
23 Aug: Raleigh, NC @ NC Museum of Art
24 Aug: Wilmington, NC @ Greenfield Amphitheater
27 Aug: San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
28 Aug: Saratoga, CA @ The Mountain Winery
31 Aug: Aspen, CO @ Snowmass Town Park
September 2008
04 Sep: Charlotte, NC @ Visulite
05 Sep: Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle
06 Sep: Atlanta, GA @ Variety
07 Sep: Birmingham, AL @ Workplay
09 Sep: Chattanooga, TN @ Rhythm & Brews
11 Sep: St. Louis, MO @ Blueberry Hill
12 Sep: Newport, KY (Cincinnati, OH) @ Southgate House
13 Sep: Louisville, KY @ Original Highlands Art & Music Festival
19 Sep: Norfolk, VA @ Discovery Indie Series/Attucks Theatre
26 Sep: Jackson Hole, WY @ Center for the Arts/Jackson Hole Music Experience
27 Sep: Boise, ID @ The Bouquet
29 Sep: Seattle, WA @ The Triple Door
30 Sep: Bend, OR @ The Annex

the best of 2008 (so far),..

submitted by: bill ivester

as you've probably noticed, the year is now, incredibly, half over. so i thought i'd list some of my favorites through the first six months of 2008.

so here they are...

CD's (top ten, roughly in order*)
teddy thompson – "a piece of what you need"
cat power – "jukebox"
shelby lynne – "just a little lovin’ "
kathleen edwards – "asking for flowers"
cowboy junkies – "trinity revisited"
alejandro escovedo – "real animal"
tift merritt – "another country"
ben sollee – "learning to bend"
r.e.m. – "accelerate"
kris delmhorst – "shotgun singer"
honorable mention
steve winwood – "nine lives"

*(order subject to change depending on what i just finished listening to)

CONCERTS
02.10 - cat power @ the vic (chicago)
05.25 - over the rhine / ohio: in concert (cincinnati)
06.11 - alejandro escovedo (w/ben sollee) @ headliner’s (louisville)
04.26 - over the rhine (w/julie lee) @ canal street tavern (dayton)
04.17 - kathleen edwards @ headliner's (louisville)
03.11 - grace potter and the nocturnals @ headliner's (louisville)
*03.14 - over the rhine @ the ryman, opening for ani difranco would have to be my top concert experience and had it been a full set, would have unquestionably topped this list.

if you are unfamiliar with any of these artists, i highly recommend checking out their music and seeing them live if they are anywhere in your general area.

should you be so inclined and/or curious, there are links to their (and many other great artists) websites and/or myspace pages on the right hand side of my blog.

do yourself a favor and give them a listen.

and enjoy.