2008 recap, first post

Yeah, I don't write here too much, and often when I do it's not much of
note. Oh well...here's my little recap of tunes I was interested in in
2008, as well as some sidenotes:

Pure Pop : I love this place, and support it
whenever I can. Great but smallish selection of new records, and these
guys make their picks so well it's like a snapshot of my dream
collection at any one time. Classic hip college town shop with way cool
disaffected clerks and grating tunes playing just a half-notch too loud.
Since my 2008 New Year's resolution was to buy my music locally, I went
here a little more often than previous, and they tend to get my business
over other Vermont shops.

Metal: Neither of these came from Pure Pop; 1) I loved my rediscovery of
these shitty low-rate MP3's I bought back in '00 or '01 of Sacred Reich
and Mercyful Fate. Killer metal, the latter is pretty proggy/heady
stuff while SR are just straight up thrash, nothing pretty. 2) I've been
digging those Warner reissues of the first four Metallica records. Some
people bitch about the sound quality, but it's friggin' thrash metal,
people. For fifteen clams you get a really good copy of some classic
shit. Bought mine at Exile on Main Street in Barre. Given their rockin'
blue-collar roots it only seems right.

Sun Kil Moon, Ghosts of the Great Highway. I went to a garage sale
this spring and got a bunch of pretty mellow but slightly left-field
stuff; Nick Drake, Jem, Kings of Convenience, Ray Lamontagne (blah...).
This record was to best of the bunch. "Carry Me Ohio" rattles around
the dusty corners of my head a lot. Spooky, shattered Americana from an
artist (Mark Kozelek) I need to learn more about.

Alejandro Escovedo, Real Animal. I've dug this guy for a long time,
and got a chance to catch him last November at a corner bar in Austin.
He played a bunch of the songs that would come out on this record, and
their strength lies in that they sounded like classics then, and again
on first listen to this. Al is at the top of his game right now; just a
solid rock-oriented songwriter with wisdom to offer. Not as deep at
Boxing Mirror but after that reflection on near-death it's good to let
down and boogie a bit.

More to come.......

TB