new year, same old crap...

Ha! how's that for a header title? anyway, i hope everybody had a great holiday time (take that, Bill O'Reilly) and happy new year to y'all...

here's a interesting link to my friend Mattias from sweden's website. he is a super talented musician and producer who has his own studio in Sweden and he has GREAT gear like 2 or 3 Mellotrons and an Optigan and it's rarer cousin, the Orchestron and here is great link to a movie of him playing with what is probably the world's first drum machine, the Chamberlin Rhythm-mate

Mattias is in a few bands but i first learned of him via his band, Nanook of the North. Mattias sent me a cd-r of this album and, pretty much unlike anything else i've ever had sent to me, it was great! so, i forwarded it on to Parasol records and they flipped and put it out. i was happy to help bring them together. i actually did something like that once before when back in the mid-90's i got to know Liam Hayes a.k.a. Plush and helped him hook up with Flydaddy records for his single "No Education/Soaring and Boring." the downside is i lost contact with him in, like, '98 and haven't talked to him since. he ended up going back to drag city after that single anyway...

so, everybody and their brother does a "Best Of..." list this time every year but since i can't remember much about what i listened to new this year, i'll just say for now that i really liked MOST of these albums last year:

SFA- "Love Kraft"
Sufijan Stevens- "Illinoize"
Devandra Barnhart - "Cripple Crow"
Broadcast - "Tender Buttons"
Paul McCartney - "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard"

and no, i haven't hear the new Burt Bachrach record yet...i'll let ya know...