In August of this year I was interviewed by the veteran webzine ScenePointBlank for a feature they were working on, loosely titled, “the coalition of the webzines”. The idea was to get a variety of music sites to talk about their history, how they approach their content and readers, and their views on music journalism. [...]

I came across a few photos from Sound & Fury 2012 that left me in awe. Several of them were taken by a photographer named Alvin Carrillo, along a more mysteriously named Aladdin Jr. No matter, check out their work at alvincarrillo.tumblr.com, and on Flickr. Above photo of the band DANGERS used with permission.

Two weeks ago I got to see a band I have loved for a very long time, for the first time. There has always been something for me about the first time; an answering of questions if you will. An experience that while exhilarating, dabbles in fragility. REFUSED certainly left me bruised. They left me exhausted, out of breath and writhing for more. Refused reminded me of what it’s like to absolutely shake for something; to feel the pulse of music that could have been long forgotten, but was not. Refused was not fucking dead and we have long established that fact with months of cryptic messages and rumors culminating in official announcements and on-sale dates. But Refused wasn’t the only thing very much alive in that room. That room was brimming with old friends; people who came up in a scene together, went every separate way possibly known to man, and yet all came back together for a set of songs. There is something to be said about that. Call it a revelation, call it the musical equivalent of a group orgy, but looking back I’m only going to remember it as possibly the last time I may ever have an opportunity to feel the unspeakable excitement of once-in-a-lifetime.

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One of the first childhood memories I can recall involves being stung by a bee. It was summer in the woods of upstate New York and the screen door was full of holes as usual in our old spooky house. My mom and I were lying across an ugly brown coffee stained sofa watching one [...]

I used to be thrilled by 30 song CD compilations selling for $5 or less. With the advancement of  mp3 compilations, 30 simply wasn’t good enough anymore, and it became a digital free for all (sometimes literally). Quality was often sacrificed as digital samplers grew like kudzu. “One H.E.L.L. Of A Compilation” breaks the mold. [...]

I forgot about scale.

UIC Pavilion is one of Chicago’s largest venues, holding about 10,000 people. I understood that RISE AGAINST should play there but couldn’t or didn’t internalize what it meant. It meant distance. (It also meant getting my press credentials was nearly labyrinthine. But that’s hardly a problem with the concert and mostly me needing to say somewhere the gig was comped.)

RISE of course overcame it but I’m getting ahead of myself.

Scranton, PA’s The MENZINGERS came on first. The last time I saw them it was at a venue so tiny it didn’t bother with a barrier. At UIC, I watched them from the other side of the stadium. Yea… They emoted well, and the new songs, “The Obituaries” and another I didn’t recognize sounded even better inside a stadium. I hope, deeply, that I’ll see THE MENZINGERS somewhere smaller soon.

I tried, very hard, to ignore A DAY TO REMEMBER. I went to the merchant booth, I urinated, I read Labyrinths by Borges. But, finally I succumbed and paid attention. They weren’t bad! Not great, but hey, “All I Want” was played well and when the singer said something that didn’t sound like canned banter it seemed sincerely thankful. A metal LESS THAN JAKE, Brendan Kelly called them and it sounds about right. There were massive gusts of air (obviously meant to be flames) to punctuate the moments in songs that seemed a bit too stadium-y for my tastes. Then again, this is a stadium.

I forgot how many hits RISE AGAINST has…

More after the jump

I failed this year.

Regardless of whether I did or not: In 2011, I feel my listening habits were too conservative. A quick scroll of my inbox shows, in stark relief, as to the PR people doing their due diligence to drum up blog chatter for their clients, and the ones I bit on were ones I already knew about. More than that, though: Even if I didn’t have PR comped YouSendIt links or official downloads, I could still have used, let’s say, unauthorized sources and listened to the music. I didn’t. Hell, I downloaded some records and never fucking right clicked and scrolled down to Open With Spotify, because I shielded myself in what I already knew.

Yes, I was in Rome. Yes, I was in London. This year, the routine bit down hard. I lost and I think it shows here.

Run For Cover blew up this year based on great records by YOUNG STATUSES, SEAHAVEN and DAYTRADER. Or, so I hear anyway. I didn’t listen to any of them. Shit! DEAD TO ME released their followup to African Elephants in Moscow Penny Ante. Nope. Didn’t hear it. POS’s crew, DOOMTREE, put out a crew record, hotly anticipated by humans, I guess and I didn’t listen to it. No Kings? No idea.

It isn’t a matter of “not getting to a record,” it’s a matter of having the record in my hands and not playing it. Where it matters to you, Pastepunk reader, is that this list well, it is going to be mostly made up of bands you expect to appear, with their newest entries.

Of the CDs that came out in 2011, my favorites are:

Parting the Sea Between Brightness and Me by TOUCHE AMORE. Speaking of being dead wrong…I’M PARTING! THE SEA! BETWEEN BRIGHTNESS! AND ME!

You can click Read More for the rest of the list.

This year without question changed my life forever. The music I listened to had to reflect that. It had to fight like hell with me. I think that one of the things we love most about music is that it travels with us; it is our one true everlasting companion. This music traveled with me to places I never expected to go; to weddings, births and to far too many funerals. It traveled to new opportunities and gut-wrenching defeats. It traveled by car, by train and by foot. Some days it did not travel at all. Thankfully a lot of beautiful music came out this year and I think this is a wonderfully awkward collection of that. Cheers!

 1. BON IVER – Bon Iver (Jagjaguwar)

Sometimes I sit alone in my room with all the lights off drinking wine while I watch all those hallucinogenic videos that Bon Iver released to go along with each song on this record. I stare at all the colors; I ain’t ashamed!

Lyric: “…and at once I knew I was not magnificent.”

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