My Favorite Music, Movies, Video & Books of '12!

Movies
The Dark Knight Rises
I'm Now: The Story of Mudhoney
Searching for Sugar Man
Notes: Of the 19 movies I saw this year, eleven of which were 2012 releases, and just these three of those I deemed list-worthy... I got myself all psyched for The Amazing Spider-Man, but it turned out to be a proverbial turd in the punchbowl... And the less said about Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, the better.

Video
Breaking Bad: Season 4
Eastbound & Down: Season 3
Get a Life: The Complete Series
Louie: Season 2
Notes: This doesn't include stuff from the "Movies" list above, just TV shows... Still need to see season five of Mad Men, released this year... Can't wait 'til the latest seasons of Breaking Bad and Louie are out on video, hopefully in 2013.


Songs
Best Coast - "Mean Girls"
Dum Dum Girls - "I Got Nothing"
Bob Dylan - "Pay in Blood"
Ben Gibbard - "Ichiro's Theme"
Japandroids - "The House That Heaven Built"
King Tuff - "Bad Thing"
Melvins - "Let Me Roll It"
Bob Mould - "The Descent"
Public Image Ltd. - "One Drop"
The Rolling Stones - "Doom and Gloom"
Soundgarden - "Been Away Too Long"
Bruce Springsteen - "We Take Care of Our Own"
TacocaT - "Cat Fancy"
Thee Oh Sees - "Lupine Dominus"
Jack White - "I'm Shakin'"
Notes: I just don't get into new albums as much as individual songs anymore, though the exception this year would be Best Coast's The Only Place... A couple older acts I became obsessed with in 2012 are the Beach Boys and Hüsker Dü (the first rock concert I ever saw was the Beach Boys, at the Puyallup Fair in 1981 or '82, and I regret not seeing them on their 50th anniversary tour this year; I saw Bob Mould open for the Pixies in '89 (and thought he sucked)... I'm also bummed that I again missed the original Dinosaur Jr. lineup when they came through town... Otherwise, I saw some classic rock bands for the first time (Aerosmith, Cheap Trick, Heart) as well as a couple new favorites (Best Coast, Dum Dum Girls), plus some old standbys (Girl Trouble, Melvins, Young Fresh Fellows).

Books
The Art and Making of The Dark Knight Trilogy
Bringing Up Bebe by Pamela Druckerman
The Obamas by Jodi Kantor
Everybody Loves Our Town by Mark Yarm
Notes: I didn't read much this year. The other ten books I did read were either published in previous years (the best of which was Duff McKagan's It's So Easy (And Other Lies)), or comics...

Comics
The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist by Alvin Buenaventura
Batman: Earth One by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank
Harvey Pekar’s Cleveland by Harvey Pekar
New York Drawings by Adrian Tomine
Notes: I still wanna read Chris Ware's Building Stories.

For those keeping score, here are my favorites from 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006 (movies and music).
***

Cool Connections #3: Iggy and Evel

In Robert Matheu's new book, The Stooges: The Authorized and Illustrated Story, Iggy Pop describes the above image, taken from a 1969 photo shoot for the band's first album cover...

I didn't want to just be posed there, because we were a band that moved. So I got the other guys on the floor all huddled together, and I decided that I'd jump up over them like Evel Knievel going over the fountain at Caesars -- and just like Evel, I crashed down on Scottie [drummer Scott Asheton, the guy in the middle] and went face first into the cement floor. Scottie was always cool about those things, 'cause I crashed into him a lot over the years. So I went to the hospital to get stitched up and came back the next day.

On a similar Evel/Iggy note, I wrote in Evel Incarnate...

In the 1993 book, Come As You Are: The Story of Nirvana, Michael Azerrad wrote that Evel was Kurt Cobain’s “childhood hero,” and that “two of Kurt’s favorite stuntmen” were Evel and Iggy Pop... The Stooges may not have had any direct connection to Evel, yet Cobain’s admiration of both Evel and Iggy Pop was rather astute. In the early 1970s, Iggy was rock 'n' roll's closest equivalent to Evel, as their respective pioneering acts and reckless, search-and-destroy nihilism curiously paralleled one another.

Also from the Stooges book is this cool mini- connection: guitarist Ron Asheton vandalized Bob Newhart's face on the cover of a 1983 TV Guide.















***

My Favorite Music, Movies & Books of '09!

Albums
1. Nirvana, Live at Reading
2. Black Lips, 200 Million Thousand
3. Kiss, Sonic Boom
4. Sonic Youth, The Eternal
5. Reigning Sound, Love and Curses
6. Bruce Springsteen, Working on a Dream
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, It's Blitz!
8. Dead Weather, Horehound
9. The King Khan & BBQ Show, Invisible Girl
10. New York Dolls, 'Cause I Sez So
Notes: A live recording of a 17-year-old concert by a long-defunct band shouldn't even qualify for such a list, but I listened to Live at Reading far more than any other CD this year... The reissue of '09 is easily The Beatles Stereo Box Set.
***


Movies
1. The Hurt Locker
2. A Serious Man
3. Inglourious Basterds
4. Star Trek
5. Watchmen
6. Anvil: The Story of Anvil
7. Food, Inc.
8. I Love You, Man
9. It Might Get Loud
10. Up in the Air
Notes: Still haven't seen Big Fan, In the Loop, Sherlock Holmes, and bunches of others. I need to watch more movies...


Books
1. Under Their Thumb by Bill German
2. Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend by Joshua Blu Buhs
3. We'll Be Here for the Rest of Our Lives by Paul Shaffer
4. The Art of Tony Millionaire by Tony Millionaire
5. Inventory by the Writers of the A.V. Club
6. Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition by Alan J. Stein, Paula Becker & the Historylink Staff
Notes: I need to read more books.


***

My 17 Favorite Albums of the '00s!

1. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Fever to Tell (2003)
2. Paul Westerberg, Come Feel Me Tremble (2003)
3. Detroit Cobras, Life, Love and Leaving (2001)
4. The Strokes, Is This It (2001)
5. The New Pornographers, Mass Romantic (2000)
6. The Rolling Stones, A Bigger Bang (2005)
7. The Dirtbombs, Ultraglide in Black (2001)
8. Komeda, Kokomemedada (2003)
9. Black Lips, Good Bad Not Evil (2007)
10. Danger Doom, The Mouse and the Mask (2005)
11. Bob Dylan, Modern Times (2006)
12. White Stripes, White Blood Cells (2001)
13. Bruce Springsteen, Magic (2007)
14. Iggy Pop, Skull Ring (2003)
15. Melvins, (A) Senile Animal (2006)
16. The Baseball Project, Vol. 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails (2008)
17. Nirvana, Live at Reading (2009)

***

My 100 Favorite Songs of the '00s!

Against Me! – Thrash Unreal
Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)
Audioslave – Cochise
The Baseball Project – Pastime
Beastie Boys – An Open Letter to NYC
Beck – Girl
Belle and Sebastian – Sukie in the Graveyard
Beyonce – Crazy in Love
Black Lips – Can’t Dance
Boss Hog – Monkey
Caesars – Jerk It Out
Camera Obscura – Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken
Johnny Cash – Heart of Gold
The Chesterfield Kings – Up and Down
Danger Doom – El Chupa Nibre
Dead Moon – It’s a Long Way to the Top
Detroit Cobras – Hey Sailor
Devo 2.0 – Uncontrollable Urge
Dinosaur Jr. – Almost Ready
The Dirtbombs – Chains of Love
The Donnas – Hot Pants
The Dutchess and the Duke – I Am a Ghost
Bob Dylan – Workingman’s Blues #2
The Fall – Sparta 2XX
FannyPack – Cameltoe

Feist – 1234
The Fiery Furnaces – Tropical Ice-Land
Fischerspooner – Mega Colon
The Flaming Lips – Do You Realize??
Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
Flight of the Conchords – Foux de Fafa
Foo Fighters – All My Life
Girl Trouble – Rockin’ Good Way
Gnarls Barkley – Crazy
Gorillaz – Feel Good, Inc.
Guided by Voices – The Best of Jill Hives
Neil Hamburger – Three Piece Chicken Dinner
The Hives – Hate to Say I Told You So
Hot Hot Heat – Running Out of Time
Iron & Wine – The Devil Never Sleeps
Mick Jagger – God Gave Me Everything
Jay Z – Empire State of Mind (featuring Alicia Keys)
Jon Spencer Blues Explosion – Point of View
The King Khan & BBQ Show – Waddlin’ Around
Kings of Leon – Molly’s Chambers
Kiss – Say Yeah
Komeda – Nonsense
Loretta Lynn – Portland
The Mekons – The Olde Trip to Jerusalem
Melvins – A History of Bad Men

The Minus 5 – Wicked Annabella
Mitch & Mickey – When You’re Next to Me
Modest Mouse – Float On
The Monkeywrench – In the Days of the Five
The Mooney Suzuki – A Little Bit of Love
Mudhoney – I Saw the Light
Neko Case – Star Witness
The New Pornographers – Mass Romantic
The New Strychnines – Psycho
New York Dolls – Runnin’ Around
Nirvana – You Know You’re Right
Pearl Jam – The Fixer
Prince – Fury
Peter Bjorn and John – Young Folks
Pink – Get the Party Started
Pixies – Bam Thwok
PJ Harvey – Good Fortune
Robert Plant & Alison Kraus – Gone Gone Gone (Done Moved On)
Iggy Pop – Little Know It All
The Raconteurs – Steady, As She Goes
Joey Ramone – Maria Baritomo
Reigning Sound – Funny Thing
The Replacements – Message to the Boys
The Rolling Stones – It Won’t Take Long
RTX – Balls to Pass

Santogold – L.E.S. Artistes
The Shins – New Slang
Sleater-Kinney – The Fox
Sonic Youth – Jams Run Free
The Sounds – Rock ‘n Roll
Bruce Springsteen – Waitin’ on a Sunny Day
Stereo Total – Villaines Filles, Mauvaises Garçons
Tommy Stinson – Something’s Wrong
The Strokes – Last Nite
Tenacious D – The Road
The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name
TV on the Radio – Wolf Like Me
Vitamin C – Vacation
Vivian Girls – Tell the World
The Von Bondies – C’mon C’mon
The Walkmen – The Rat
Ween – Bananas and Blow
Weezer – Hash Pipe
Paul Westerberg – Pine Box
White Stripes – Fell in Love With a Girl
Wilco – Heavy Metal Drummer
Amy Winehouse – Rehab
Wolfmother – Dimension
Yeah Yeah Yeahs – Date With the Night
Young Fresh Fellows – Gotta Get the First Plane Home
***

Bart Cobain

Recently I stumbled across what appears to be a macabre Simpsons reference, one I haven't heard of elsewhere...

This lurid photo was taken on April 8, 1994, the day Kurt Cobain's corpse was discovered in his home, and it appeared on the front page of the next day's Seattle Times. Photographer Tom Reese supposedly climbed a tree in the park just outside the house to capture the image, with police investigating the suicide.

Less than three years later, on March 2, 1997, came the Simpsons episode My Sister, My Sitter, in which Lisa is assigned to babysit Bart. After Lisa accidentally breaks Bart's arm, the rebellious Bart locks himself in his bedroom and pounds his head on the door until he knocks himself out. Lisa climbs a tree outside Bart's window and finds him prone on the floor, in the same position as Cobain, as seen from the same through-the-window angle, with the same foliage in the foreground.

Too bad it wasn't Courtney Hole.
***