On January 26, it was back to Brooklyn Bowl to see moe. for the, oh gosh, I've lost track how many times it's been.  I do know the first time I saw them was a free show in 1997, opening for The Samples, who were in turn opening for G. Love & Special Sauce, in between days of two Widespread Panic shows.  That was a crazy few days.  This show, as moe. usually is, was a lot of fun.  And they quite appropriately dusted off Camper van Beethoven's Take the Skinheads Bowling.  Got there late and missed Pete's intro, left before the encore, but, you know, it had to happen that way for reasons I can't go into in this forum.

This past Friday it was back to BAM to see The Antlers opening for Ra Ra Riot.  (Thanks to the King for coming!)  IMHO, The Antlers blew them off the stage.  The Antlers had an unusual lineup: guitar, keys, drums, and two horns.  Nor was it the traditional "play a song, finish the song, play the next song" format.  Music bled from one song into the next.  One song also was reprised.  Hard to explain.  Anyway, I've enjoyed the music of theirs that I've heard (as I've said here), but you never know what you're going to get live.  With The Antlers, I was impressed with the live show as well.  Ra Ra Riot was fun, but nothing I'd really need to see again.  I'd listen to them in the future without great objection, but can't see myself traveling, even to Brooklyn, for a show.  I'd see The Antlers again.

And how freakin good is Raekwon's Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt. II?!  I'll be shocked if I don't think, after making it through this list, that it shouldn't be much higher on the countdown.

On to #32.

I'd heard about Them Crooked Vultures, but hadn't listened to anything by them yet.  Lotta hype for this supergroup, and the first few songs didn't do much for me at all.  But starting with Scumbag Blues, this album definitely has a lot of interesting and really good songs.

I'm excited to finally listen to the Rae now, also for the first time.  And Lord knows I love me some Ghostface.

Ha!  I see Them Crooked Vultures are on SNL tonight.  Too bad we don't have a TV.  And I looked at their wiki page - funny that Paul M tried to elbow his way in but got denied.

Come on, this Arctic Monkeys album probably wasn't one of the 35 best albums released the day it came out, let alone last year.  It's listenable, but breaks no ground whatsoever.  Humbug, indeed.

Pretty cool.

Bibio was a nice find.

Now it's on to Converge.  I'm not sure really how the first three songs differed from each other.  GROWLROARYELLSCREAMGRRRRRYEAAAH!!!!!  Wretched World is a weird track so far.

Bibio.  I'm enjoying this a lot.

Muse.  This is the band headlining night two of Coachella that I don't think i'd ever heard of.  I keep wanting to post the Coachella lineup and comment on it, then deciding that's stupid.  Anyway, when Cho-y came over the other day we put on Muse since I couldn't believe someone was headlining one day of Coachella and I'd never even heard of them.  I didn't like it.  I figured that's how it was gonna stay.

I've listened to a few tracks off this album and I like it more than the other stuff I heard.  Don't hate, Cho-y!  I haven't listened to the whole thing yet.  Jury's still out.

In the meantime, try this.

U2 is not working.  I hope that's not because U2 doesn't let people do anything with their music where they don't get to roll around in money?  Who knows.  I hope not.

Now on to #39, Paramore.  Somehow Trey always raves about them; people mock him and/or blame it on his having young daughters.  But the quote near the album (on Hype) is: “Forget about Paramore being a band for teenage girls, if Williams' vocals on "All I Wanted" don't give you chills, then you are hardly human. ” -- The B-Log

We'll see.  The first song sounded like something for teenage girls.  Not that that's necessarily bad, but I am not one.  This second song is better, but I'm still not sure.

Also, I was wondering if I ever said anything about Anvil! The Story of Anvil?  It popped back into my head the other day.  I liked it a lot more than my brothers.  Lips 4EVA.

Now on to Monsters of Folk.  K saw these guys when they came to NYC; I wasn't invited.  I haven't heard this album at all, I don't think.

When is it onto v. on to?

Now it's La Roux's creatively titled album La Roux.  This is how I found out about this list.  So far so good.  I see they're coming February 11...