News and Reviews 2015

We are now in year 11, and it seems both impossible and inadvisable to have gone so far down the rabbit-hole. This blog began in April of 2005. As of this date, that works out to more than  1,600 posts, a decade in the making. It's a been a real time killer in every sense of the phrase. It's the end of the year and a fine time to take a look back. (You can see previous years lists at the links below)

2014	2013	2012	2011
2010	2009	2008	2007
2006	2005

Best Posts:
I wrote about a number of bands from the last century that were active in radio like the Hackberry Ramblers,Obscure radio-powered instruments, all things Bjork, our less portable world, and another round of Stupid DJ tricks. I wrote up the rise and fall of WXDB, just the fall of WCCC, the locality of WSHC and a hoax at WVBR among many other obscurities. In a word it was all very Skinderviken. My personal favorite was my write up of the Viking Accordion Band. Never has the rotating line up of a more obscure polka band been so scrutinized. To quote George Waring "If it's worth doing it's worth over-doing." Strangely he was talking about draining pipes not blogging.

Most Popular Posts:
My most popular post since 2009 has been a post about Peter Tripp. Thank you Reddit. It was re-blogged by many others and remains an aberration in my web-traffic with 90k+ hits.  My 2007 post on the Career Academy of Famous Broadcasters continues to earn comments from it's legion of former students. In third place  a 2010 post on Barn Dance programs remains popular.  It's also notable that readers continue to debate if I was unfairly harsh to Kevin Metheny. But that post remains quite popular.

Best Radio Show: 
Many of my favorite music blogs have fallen by the wayside, but I still find an inordinate proportion of my music via Bandcamp and increasingly on the Youtube channels for WFPK, WFMU, and KEXP. 

Best Zine: 
Last Years pick of L magazine went out of circulation this July. Hopefully it's not a harbinger of things to come.  My pick this year is the zine Truckface. It's not about music, or about radio... but I can't stop reading it. You can get current issues here or the anthologies here. I read both anthologies and have become an evangelist for it. Long live LB Briggs.

Top 10 Records of 2014    

1. Killing Joke - Pylon
2. Mewithoutyou - Pale Horse
3. Navi - Illuminavi II
4. Noxious Foxes - Roxious Soxes
5. Pile - You're Better Than This
6. Protomartyr - Agent Intellect
7. JK Flesh - Posthuman
8. Desaprecidos - Payola
9. Girl band - Holding Hands
10. Jars - No

Honorable Mentions go out this year to: Pinkwash - Cancer Money 7-Inch, Container - LP, Ukryte Zalety Systemu (self titled), PiL - What the World Needs Now, Gazer​/​Frustrations Split 7-Inch, My Disco - Sever, Don Vito - Comment Ca Va Light My Fire, Stats - Mercy, Destruction Unit - Negative Feedback Resistor, Giraffes? Giraffes! - Superbass,  Bobby Bare Jr. - Don't Follow Me (I'm Lost) OST, Bulbul - Zu, Mick Futures - Banned From The Future, Mash - Morality Crisis, Manhandle - Massive Load, Refused - Freedom, Faith No More - Sol Invictus,