Favorite Music of 2012

So I threw some stuff up on Frontier Psychiatrist and Windy City Rock already, but here is my personal list. Can do a definite top 10, followed by other favorites.

1) Fiona Apple - the Idler Wheel...



2) Miike Snow - Happy to You



3) Frank Ocean - Channel Orange



4) Grimes - Visions



5) Netherfriends - Middle America




6) Ed Schrader's Music Beat - Jazz Mind



7) Sharon Van Etten -Tramp



8) Liars - WIXIW



9) BBU - bell hooks



10) Spiritualized - Sweet Heart Sweet Light



Other Favorites:
Delicate Steve - Positive Force
the Evens - the Odds
Guardian Alien - See the World Given to a One Love Entity
Young Magic - Melt
Paper Mice - the Funny Papers
Thee Oh Sees - Putrifiers II
Sleigh Bells - Reign of Terror
Of Montreal - Paralytic Stalks
Chandeliers - Founding Fathers
Dustin Wong - Dreams Say View Create Shadow Leads
Kids These Days - Traphouse Rock

Didn't Listen to Enough, But Still Solid:
Air - Le Voyage Dans la Lune
Jens Lekman - I Know What Love Isn't
Killer Mike - R.A.P. Music
Mellowhype - Numbers
Memoryhouse - the Slideshow Effect
Menomena - Moms
Patti Smith - Benga
Passion Pit - Gossamer
Twin Shadow - Confess
Ty Segall - Slaughterhouse
the XX - Coexist
Thee Satisfaction - Awe Naturale

Books I Read in 2012

35 books this year. Next year's goal = 52. All by women, minority, international, or LGQBT writers. Here's to 2013.   

Jennifer Egan - A Visit From the Goon Squad (2010)
Christopher Hitchens - Hitch 22 (2010)
Michel Houellebecq - the Map and the Territory (2012)
Aleksandar Hemon - the Lazarus Project (2008)
Sylvia Plath - the Bell Jar (1963)
Ben Marcus - the Flame Alphabet (2012)
Pico Iyer - the Man Within My Head (2012)
Teju Cole - Open City (2011)
Azar Nifisi - Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003)
Jay-Z - Decoded (2010)
Roald Dahl - the Umbrella Man and Other Short Stories (1996)
Truman Capote - In Cold Blood (1966)
Adam Levin - Hot Pink (2011)
Jonah Lehrer - Imagine (2012)
Mike Royko - Sez Who Sez Me (1983)
Rick Bass - In My Home There Is No More Sorrow (2012)
Michael Czyzniejewski - Chicago Stories (2012)
Franz Kafka - Amerika (trans. 1996)
David Eggers - You Shall Know Our Velocity (2002)
Etgar Keret - Suddenly a Knock on the Door (2012)
Toni Morrison - the Bluest Eye (1970)
David Eggers - a Hologram for the King (2012)
William Burroughs - Naked Lunch (1959)
Toni Morrison - Home (2012)
Zadie Smith - White Teeth (2000)
Zadie Smith - NW (2012)
Michel Houellebecq - the Elementary Particles (1998, trans. 2000)
Michael Chabon - Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (2000)
Saul Bellow - the Adventures of Augie March (1953)
Peter Orner - Love and Shame and Love (2011)
Junot Diaz - This is How you Lose Her (2012)
Junot Diaz - the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (2007)
Michael Pollan - The Omnivore's Dilemma (2006)
Adam McOmber - the White Forest (2012)
John Kennedy Toole - Confederacy of Dunces (1980)

Ear Relevant: The High School Years (Pt. 1)

So I found some mix CDs I made for myself in high school that had a bunch of awesome music I totally forgot about. This stuff blew my mind in high school and surprisingly holds up pretty well after years of ignoring/forgetting it. Let's start off with some indie tunes for tonight:

The horns in this song are just killer. Classic melody executed wonderfully:




I never got too much into Pinback, but I love the guitar in this. The rapping...eh...




Apollo Sunshine may be one of the most underrated bands around. Very experimental while remaining very poppy. They've been quiet for a few years, but I hope they come back.




Classic Saddle Creek coming up. Rilo Kiley knows how to tug at the heartstrings.

Sunday Funday, 12.09.12

Despite crummy weather all damn day, managed to make the best of it.

Started off with a book fair at the Empty Bottle. Picked up stuff from Curbside Splendor, Another Chicago Magazine, The Handshake, Two With Water, Artiface and a couple novels. May have over done it:

 Only spent about 20 minutes there before I booked it to Saki. Caught the second half of the last song by Foxygen. Managed to catch all of Angel Olsen's set. Amazing voice and range, fantastic presence for just her and a twelve string acoustic. Picked up John Coltrane Live at the Village Vanguard Again! Features Pharoah Sanders. Haven't listened yet, but I'm sure it's gonna be bizarre. Grabbed a burger at Longman & Eagle, undoubtedly one of the best restaurants around.

As is customary for when I go to the Metro, it has to rain. As it did for Liars:

Another tweet complaining about how it always rains when I go to the Metro.
— Hjortzy (@and_hertz) July 20, 2012

and Spiritualized:

Ominous thunder is ominous. Always seems to rain when I go to the Metro.
— Hjortzy (@and_hertz) May 4, 2012

earlier this year. While there's no tweet commemorating it, I'm positive it was raining when I went to see Boris last fall. As if going to Wrigleyville wasn't miserable enough. Oh well. Full review of the show (of Montreal, Wild Belle, and Foxygen) is up on Windy City Rock. Of Montreal is the @horse_ebooks of live music. They played 'Oslo in the Summertime' and 'The Past is a Grotesque Animal' so all is right in the world. 

Mo Yan

Mo Yan first came to my attention (as most likely many others, even if they won't admit it) when he was awarded to Nobel Prize for Literature in October. He is a Chinese author, who has had some books translated into English, but apparently not enough to become as big as other Eastern writers, such as Murakami (who many were disappointed got snubbed for the prize). But now he almost seems inescapable. Particualarly today there have been a few pieces I've stumbled upon, as he gave his acceptance to the prize earlier on.

To get yourself acquainted with him, here is a piece called "Bull," which is excerpted from the forthcoming novel Pow! It was published in China in 2003, but just now being translated into English. For a more behind the scenes take, here's an interview the New Yorker did with the translator Howard Goldblatt.

(tangent: Yan teaming up with Goldblatt reminds me of this article: Oh, To Be Jewish in China)

As for the articles of today:

Salman Rushdie calls out Mo Yan as a "patsy of the regime."

Beijing Cream comes in with two. They shared an essay by Anna Sun (looking into relation with Walk The Moon's Anna Sun) on his "diseased language." There is also this Red Sorghum flashmob in a strip mall in Stockholm.

I haven't read any full novels by him yet, but Pow! is certainly on my list when it's released next year.

Ear Relevant

Front Psych completed our top 50 albums of 2012. I'll throw my personal list up here eventually. 

Re-discovered this gem last night. Whatever happened to Kaada anyway?




Also, went to Logan Hardware this week and picked up High Energy Plan by 999. Forgotten punk rock classic:



And now that I have tickets purchased, getting excited about New Year's Eve at the Hideout. Chandeliers and the Eternals. Gonna get weird with it.

Ran Dumb Lean Kiss

So having a day off and a slight hangover meant I scoured the Internet, reading interesting shit, which I pass on to you. Also some stuff book marked from the past few days. Check it out:

The Atlantic says I can have as much coffee as I want. No take backs.

Bookstores aren't dead. Neither is vinyl.

Speaking of vinyl, We Listen For You made me feel guilty for not physically purchasing my favorite album of the year.

Surprise, surprise, the mainstream art world sucks.

Fiction on Twitter. It's possible, but rather silly unless you happen to catch it in real time. Elliott Holt did her best though.

Camus, 100 years later.

Vice interviewed Syrian poet Mohamad Alaaedin Abdul Moula as an Arab Henry Miller.

The Great Spanx Sex Experiment. Julieanne Smolinski is "ha-ha funny."

Last but not least, this makes me nostalgic for Shanghai. Enjoy:


SHANGHIGHSPEED | 上海延时摄影 from Tiny Carousel on Vimeo.