Radio IST List: Graham Williams
![Austinist's Will Mills Gets Dunked For Charity [Video]](http://austinist.com/assets_c/2009/11/austinist_capture_03-thumb-110x110-456199.jpg)
Austinist's Will Mills Gets Dunked For Charity [Video]
Bibles and Rhymes: An Interview with Why?'s Yoni Wolf
Austinist Panel Part of Latest SXSW Interactive Additions
Radio IST List: Mission of Burma's Clint Conley
This winter, Austinist wanted to take some time to check in with some of our favorite local performers, artists and musicians to see what they enjoyed in 2008. Our request was simple: give us a few things that you enjoyed listening to this year, and feel free to include releases that might not have been released in 2008, but that found their way onto your turntable anyhow. We'll be sharing our own list too, but be patient and hear what some of our favorite folks thought was worthwhile in '08.
Gerard Cosloy is one of our favorite Austin transplants, a busy man that finds time to act as Co-President at Matador Records, keep up with a (mostly) sports blog at Can't Stop the Bleeding, and perform with his most recent musical collaboration, the Air Traffic Controllers. Naturally, we were curious as to what he was into in 2008:
Prisonshake - Dirty Moons (Scat) Apparently, the Griffin/Enkler duo spent a 13 year layoff stockpiling the strongest batch of songs in their storied career. Take your favorite all-over-the-map double album (London Calling? Double Nickels On The Dime?) and consider the possibility these Cleveland-to-St. Louis transplants are every bit as inspirational, darkly funny and utterly timeless. Easily the most ambitious record I heard in 2008 and as tempting as it is to call Prisonshake the anti-Hold Steady, such a boast sells the former short and gives the latter far too much credit.
The Notwist - The Devil, You + Me (Domino/City Slang) In any other calendar year, this absolute aching beauty would've topped my list. New Notwist albums happen about as often as solar eclipses and the quartet's (very) gradual transition from bombastic math-metallers to today's dizzying rock/electronic/experimental hybrid is sort of like watching Larry The Cable Guy morph into Lenny Bruce over a twenty year span. The Notwist figured out subtlety a while ago, but '08 was the year they combined the anthemic with something much sweeter and sadder in varying degrees.
Endless Boogie - Focus Level (No Quarter) Disclaimer - I work with two of these guys and used to play in a very unpopular band with another portion of the group. As such, I'd have ample reason to disqualify / ignore / disparage Endless Boogie's first commercially available CD after 9 years of deliberate obscurity (or, if you prefer, perfectionism) but no other guitar band has a knack for elemental-meets-expansive quite like this NYC quartet. Don't thank me now, do so after you've seen them in March.
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Anti/Mute) Lyrically, Nick continues to leave most other contenders in the dust. That he does so with the support of the planet's most empathic, perfect backing ensemble just seems brutally unfair to the rest of the artistic community.
The Distant Seconds - Spectral Evidence (Sweetheart Contract) I'm genuinely sorry to be slavishly adding to the hype fest for these guys. You're sick to death of 'em -- Chronicle cover, XL center spread, Texas Monthly profile, ACL taping (w/ Billy Gibbons cameo!), not to mention all the Austinist coverage. But sometimes I've just got to admit that even though a band is one of those wildly popular-of-the-moment combos, that's not to say they aren't thoroughly worthy of the attention. As the Distant Seconds continue to fill Emo's Stubb's, La Zona Rosa, Trophy's, etc. I am occasionally nostalgic for the days long before they wielded their C3 management affiliation like a battering ram. I long for the days when you could watch these guys channel Tom Verlaine, Here Come the Warm Jets-era Eno and Wire's 154 through their own mega-moody prism without being trampled to death. But even if attending one of their shows is like running a gauntlet of the Austin music scene's most glamorous characters, if you're a stay-at-home, pipe & slippers guy like me, you cannot do better than Spectral Evidence on the venerable compact disc format.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
All I remember about the DISTANT SECONDS is that the front dude is a ringer for "My New Gun"-era JAMES LEGROS. That alone was enough to launch them into my "Ask Myself" list.