Writing is Fighting

Soo...What Did I Listen To This Year?

We are now in the throes of the "Best of 2011" music, film and pop culture lists, and I've submitted two and I am preparing to do a third for the Village Voice's Pazz and Jop music critics poll. As I have done for the past number of years, I reviewed a lot of music, but my personal preference veered towards listening to previously released material. As like in 2010, I was greatly influenced by going to shows as a reviewer, the Maryland DeathFest, which is always a great opportunity to check out new and previously established bands, and podcasts, my favourite being WFCS's Gateway to Oblivion, which might not be continuing in 2012.  DJ Dave Polce's musical tastes were simply incredible, and I was really happy to gain more musical knowledge and appreciation of those bands that fit into the stoner / doom realm. 

And I'm Back! Music News and Troubling Views

Lots of news and well.....views. the book has been keeping me busy - I started the round of edits / revisions a couple of weeks ago and it has been, while interesting as it's my book, extremely stressful trying to do that and work the day job, which has been pretty brutal. On top of that, I'm still writing for Exclaim! and Blogher.

 

I covered the most excellent Mastodon / DEP / Red Fang show last weekend, which was fantastic. I bought Red Fang's Murder the Mountains right after. DEP was great - funny, I'm not a fan of their music, but man, they know how to put on a live show. And as I wrote in my review, this was (thank god) the best performance I've seen of Mastodon. Despite the prog / hard rock of The Hunter and Crack the Skye their setlist was pretty heavy.