Friday, January 09, 2009

Psychedelicatessen: The Best of 2008

Here's a list of some of my favorite stuff to appear on this blog in 2008, in case you missed any of it.

I scanned in some early 90's letters-to-the-editor of the Athens Daily News. This is one of my all-time greatest hits.

I started this "Punk Single of the Week" series (which soon became just "Single of the Week"), with stuff by The Zany Guys, Peace Corpse, Dogbowl, the We Can't Help It If We're From Florida compilation, Raymond McCollister, The Residents, Hose, Jerry Reed (RIP), Victor Lundberg, Curtis Mayfield, Queen, The Beastie Boys, PeeWee Herman, The Circle Jerks and Morbid Opera.

I also posted the Temptation LP by Florida punk band The Voodoo Idols. (If you want to go further back into the archives, you can find Hillbilly Frankenstein's Hypnotica (I linked to some video of the band here) and Cyril Jackson's Afro Drums, which I meant to eventually follow up with this Guy Warren album, but somebody beat me to it. It's a shame you can't find any information on guys like Warren until they die.)

Some videos I posted on YouTube: great footage from the films Get Yourself a College Girl, Hootenany Hoot and Cha Cha Boom!, and the first half hour of The Happening (not the M. Night flop), filmed on location in 1967 Miami. Plus a clip from White Cargo.

The post that consistently gives me the most hits is the "Wyatt Tape," a permanent home for Bob Suren's primer on hardcore punk. It attracts a lot of Google hits due to all the bands mentioned in Bob's very, very, very extensive liner notes. (I also get a lot of hits from a short post I wrote on Juno and Persepolis. It's the top result on Google for people who misspell "Perseoplis," which is more common than you would think.)

Over the summer, I was posting and writing about a lot of music (the files are all still there), including The Dictators, the Nigeria 70 compilation, Let's Active, Mungo Jerry, The Fugs, King Khan, and Dale Warren's track "Salvation Symphony" from the Wattstax soundtrack. This all culminated in me posting a Muxtape of The Fiery Furnaces. Of course, a few days later, Muxtape went down, so most people never heard it. I keep meaning to re-do it as a podcast, but I still like the lengthy overview/defense of their career that I wrote. Then I read Nick Tosches' Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock-n-Roll, which led to this lengthy post, and this eventual follow-up (which was also sort of a follow-up to posting this song), both of which I like quite a bit.

I got some comments about this post in which I countered the straw-man argument that I felt Brad Bird was making with the character of Anton Ego in Ratatouille. Here's my review of Blast of Silence, the best film I saw last year. I'm quite proud of my review of the Stones' concert film Shine a Light (I was as surprised as anyone by how much I liked it). Might as well throw my brief reviews of Killer of Sheep and Girl 27 in there. And here's my obituary for Rudy Ray Moore.

I also wrote about the Proustian effects of martinis, the weirdness of turning 40, and seeing Hollywood Boulevard at the New Beverly. People seemed to dig these Thai movie posters I posted, although I can't take much credit (I just copied the images from eBay). I did buy that Flash Gordon poster, and it is framed above my couch right now.

What a year. Here are my lists of favorite DVD's, albums and songs (with one late addition) of 2008.

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