it's the end of the year (as we know it)

before going any further, the cd of the year goes to ... sufjan stevens, for 'come on feel the illinoise!'
no big deal, in the scheme of things, means a lot around these parts tho. not much cracked the jaded veneer of the w'room this year, maybe spoon and billy and a few sneakers, not much else.
so, at any rate here are just a few fave tunes that got us thru this dismal year, all in all,
... and if ya started us talkin' 'bout the year in music, well ... we'll just give up the mp3s ... thru yousendit for a week or so:

sufjan stevens - jacksonville (from 'illinoise!')
spoon - the beast and dragon adored (from 'gimme fiction')
fiona apple - better version of me (from 'extrordinary machine')
john mayer trio - wait until tomorrow (from 'try!')
billy harvey - dope wings (from 'pie')
bob dylan - desolation row (alt take) (from 'no direction home : bootleg series 7')

we sure hope that the '6' is better than the '5', pahleezzz, at least music-wise ...
the billboard year-end charts
the about.com top whatever
pitchforks top 50 albums
npr's list, (closer to ours, somewhat, if we had one)

(and we'd do a top movie thingy, but darn if none of 'em stuck! ....)

and a step back ...
shades of the '80s!
... way back, about 20 years ago or so, tipper gore began her crusade about the evils of the demon rock and roll. and now it's another bored soccer mom with too much time on her hands and pitchin' a bitch about rock and roll 'noise'. i 'googled' 'noise' and found no reference to a 'noise' band outbreak, but she is making a stink of devil making music to anti-authoritarian rock bands like 'radiohead' 'sonic youth' and some other groups i never heard of, like merzbow and wolfeyes (tho from the looks of it she may be onto to something about the last two, guess we'll just 'limewire' 'em just to find out how harmful/useless they really are ... we always love to do things we are told not to!)
so, for the preservation of the pampered white, overfed, under-educated, lazy, game-fed american youth, we urge all mothers to join 'mothers against noise' today! i guess it's better to join the service than to make 'noise' ... and so it goes.

we love you guys! happy new year all, 'specially all our friends and family dealing with the daily hardships of picking up after katrina and rita. we can't wait to get home and are actively seeking ways to make it soon after justin's wedding, ahhh, a sure sign of rebirth. hang on ya'll!