Page 36 - The NOISE December 2015

BesT of 2015
sTory By Tony Ballz phoTo By clair anna rose
Well, this one wasn’t so bad.
2015 brought us great new waxings from Wilco, Belle & Sebastian, Screaming Females, Modest Mouse, My Morning Jacket, Ghost, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Clutch, Puscifer, Steve Earle, Joanna
Newsom and the reunited Sleater-Kinney. My faves were James McMurtry’s Complicated Game and Faith No More’s Sol Invictus, which basically picks up where 1997’s Album of the Year left off. Welcome back, guys. All of the above artists need to visit Flagstaff as soon as possible (Yes, Modest Mouse just played here. I don’t know of a single person who was able to score a ticket).
In the land of Grampaw Rock, ol’ bloody lungs Bob Dylan coughed up Shadows in the Night, a sur- prisingly resonant collection of Frank Sinatra standards reinterpreted by the 73-year-old croaker and his band. Dylan put this ridiculousness in perspective by last year unleashing a 6-disc Basement Tapes collection (the title says “complete,” but it isn’t), and this year (deep breath now, exhale slowly) an 18- disc box of every studio session from his glory period of 1965-66. Sweet mother of pearl, that’s a lot of Bob. Excuse me while I mop up the drool collecting in my lap. Is there any way to melt all that stuff down and inject it directly into my bloodstream?
Three wheelchair lengths behind Zimmy was Neil Young, who turned 70 this November. After a couple of uneven records in 2014, Young went back to two of the things he does best: rockin’ out and stirring the sh*t. The Monsanto Years has Neil backed up by young’uns Promise of The Real (which includes two of Willie Nelson’s progeny) and features his most socially conscious lyrics since 2006’s Liv- ing with War. And just to prove he still has a few surprises under his cowboy hat, Shakey divorced his wife of 36 years in order to shack up with still-hot-at-55 Daryl Hannah, who has gone to jail five times in the last ten years for various protests. I bet Neil’s a big Blade Runner fan, wonder if she can still do those acrobatics?
Speaking of box sets, be sure to avoid the 5-CD 1-DVD reissue of the Velvet Underground’s final LP Loaded,ashamelesslyobviouscashgrabjustintimefortheholidays. Re-Loaded45thAnniversaryEdi- tion (really, they couldn’t wait another five years?) contains no less than five different mixes of the same ten tracks, plus outtakes and alternates that already appear on the two disc Fully Loaded from 1997, and the awful sounding Live at Max’s Kansas City, which was already remixed and reissued in 2004 (now you can hear Jim Carroll trying to score drugs in crystal clarity!). The only previously unavailable mate- rial is Live at the Second Fret, Philadelphia, the only recorded show where Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and Doug Yule performed drummerless. It’s an important historical document, but the sound quality makes Live at Max’s sound like Dark Side of the Moon. The original ten song Loaded LP was proof that Lou and the gang could make good solid mainstream rock & roll that happened to be absolutely peer- less, but at $65 this latest rip off should have borne the title Bloaded. Eat my shorts, Warner Brothers, you capitalist swine. If anyone in the music industry is still wondering why consumers like me prefer to download stuff for free, here’s one reason.
Shuffling off this mortal coil in 2015 were Ben E. King, Percy Sledge, Rod McKuen, Leonard Nimoy, B.B. King, Stooges sax honker Steve MacKaye, Ornette Coleman, Wes Craven, Edgar Froese (Tangerine Dream), Gary Richrath (REO Speedwagon), Chris Squier (Yes), Dallas Taylor (drummer for CSNY), Errol Brown (Hot Chocolate), Rowdy Roddy Piper, Christopher Lee, Jack Ely (Kingsmen), Catherine Coulson (Twin Peaks’ Log Lady), Motorhead drummer Philthy Animal Taylor, New Orleans legend Allen Tous- saint, entrepreneur/weirdo Kim Fowley and bassist extraordinaire Tim Drummond, the only man to play with Bob Dylan, Neil Young and James Brown. Happy Trails, y’all.
Best new local band: Sol Drop. And they’re not even paying me!
The obvious highlight of my 2015 was the long-awaited launch of Radio Free Flagstaff. All our programming was prerecorded at first, but as soon as we had two functioning turntables connected I took action. Every weekday morning I bike 90 pounds of LPs from my house to the Orpheum and broadcast live for three hours. After my shift is over I return home and gleefully pack up more albums for tomorrow. Sometimes I’ll bring only garage punk and Motown 45s and dance spastically around the box office like the village idiot on display in a glass cage.
This has been going on for weeks and the novelty still hasn’t worn off. I’ve belonged to The Ancient Brotherhood of Night Owls since I was old enough to stay up and watch the Midnight Special (thanks Mom), but lately I find myself bouncing out of bed at 7:30 every morning, plowing through a bagel and a shower, and banging on the Orpheum’s back office door by 8:45. Often no one is there yet to let me in and I pace impatiently around the parking lot jacked up on coffee and muttering, “Come on people, I got a show to do here! Me public awaits!”
Weekends are interminable. I vainly try to focus on extracurricular activities but all I can think about is what to play on Monday. I daydream of relaxing contentedly in the studio on a cold winter’s morn with a mug of hot cocoa and a plate of cookies, wearing silk PJs and big fuzzy bear-claw slippers and one of those Citizen Kane bathrobes with TBZ embroidered on the lapel, puffing on a pipe and telling tales of childhood Christmases in Indiana by the glow of the “On Air” sign, while side three of Electric Ladyland revolves lazily on turntable #1. It all sounds like paradise.
I was not prepared for this level of addiction. Should I worry? I’m having way too much fun, that can’t be beneficial to my mental health. Anyone have the number of a licensed therapist who special- izes in media scum? Are disc jockeys allowed to go to shrinks or are we expected to work out our neuroses over the airwaves, like Howard Stern? I am the program director, I’m supposed to be there all the time, but still ...
How was your year?
| Tony Ballz awaits cookies and hot cocoa. Go! music@thenoise.us
36 • december 2015 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us