The 2009 Phillipino Music Awards
Top 20 Tracks of 2009:
20. Manic Street Preachers, “She Bathed Herself in a Bath of Bleach”
19. Dinosaur Jr., “I Want You to Know”
18. Fuck Buttons, “Surf Solar”
17. Cass McCombs, “You Saved My Life”
16. Julian Casablancas, “11th Dimension”
15. The Thermals, “Now We Can See”
14. Bowerbirds, “Northern Lights”
13. Camera Obscura, “French Navy”
12. Surfer Blood, “Swim”
11. Dirty Projectors, “Cannibal Resource”
10. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart, “Young Adult Friction”
9. Blue Roses, “I am Leaving”
8. Health, “Die Slow”
7. Phoenix, “1901”
6. St. Vincent, “The Strangers”
5. Grizzly Bear, “Two Weeks”
4. Pictureplane, “Goth Star”
3. Manic Street Preachers, “Me and Stephen Hawking”
2. Animal Collective, “My Girls”
1. Polvo, “Lucia”
Top 20 Albums of 2009:
20. The Mountain Goats, The Life of the World to Come
19. Antony and the Johnsons, The Crying Light
18. Cass McCombs, Catacombs
17. Sunset Rubdown, Dragonslayer
16. Dinosaur Jr., Farm
15. Camera Obscura, My Maudlin Career
14. Super Furry Animals, Dark Days – Light Years
13. Cymbals Eat Guitars, Why There Are Mountains
12. Bill Calahan, Sometimes I Wish We Were an Eagle
11. The Pains of Being Pure of Heart, The Pains of Being Pure of Heart
10. Phoenix, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
9. Dirty Projectors, Bitte Orca
8. St. Vincent, Actor
7. Russian Circles, Geneva
6. Mono, Hymn to the Immortal World
5. Polvo, In Prisms
4. Grizzly Bear, Veckatimest
3. Sunn O))), Monoliths & Dimensions
2. Fuck Buttons, Tarot Sport
1. Animal Collective, Merriweather Post Pavilion
Monsoon Christmas
I’ll I’m trying to make up for my end-quarter blogging failure by doing some of those perennial end-year lists. There should also be a Pajiba piece appearing relatively soon. Stay tuned for a veritable bukkake of content.
This Christmas it rained. It rained for 72-hours straight, and then rained some more. I managed to reach Benton before the actual interstate flooded, so I could watch our state break its annual rainfall record from the comfort of my parents’ home and not the waterlogged I-30. I stayed inside reading Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and quibbling with my parents. Their précis of my personality in the form of a single Christmas present was a “Haunted Landscapes” calendar.
Shaun: (to a shield depicting a unicorn that hangs on the wall of the movie set) Hellooo, Griffindor!
Phillip: That is a unicorn, triqq.
Shaun: No, it’s a Pegasus!
Dolly: Either way, not Griffindor.
Shaun: Whatever, it’s a Pegasus!
Dolly: Isn’t Pegasus a proper name? Wouldn’t any other winged horse just be a winged horse?
Phillip: There can be only one Pegasus.
Shaun: So, like, if a Pegasus and a unicorn did it and had a baby, what would you call the baby?
Dolly: A Lisa Frank drawing.
Shaun: Is she the artist that draws all those horses fucking?!
Phillip: No.
