News and Reviews for 2006

Ok, I am back at home base. I merged the music mag and music zine catagories this year to add the best music blog category. I (like everybody else) expect more digital media, and less print media over time. It's the last weekday of 2006, let's all try not to kill the leftover Xmas cookies in the fridge over the weekend.

On with the year's highlights:

Best Pastrami Ruben: Mecca in Monterey California. Lisa Magadini uses sauerkraut that will do you harm. It's a sandwich to be reckoned with. In all seriousness you won't be able to eat for the rest of the day. It entirely changed my idea of what a Ruben can be.

Best Radio Show Playlist: The Minister of Swing on 90.7 WWOZ . Old swing, ragtime, and more interestingly local New Orleans Jazz artists you've never heard of in your life.

Best Record Store: Remember When Records, Greensboro, NC. I bought that classic record by Hum and a 45rpm record box in great shape. The owner was that wizened old music geek you always hope to run into. Truly, the store is almost a shrine to what real archival music nerds aspire to.

Best Music Blog: http://www.builtonaweakspot.com/ Jonathan Harnish has a taste for post hardcore that rivals Ian Mckaye. He clearly celebrates the entire Amrep catalog.

Best Music Columnist: Brian LaRue at The New Haven Advocate just for putting Bloarzeyd in his Top 10 best local artists of 2006. Article here

Best Disk Jockey: Chris Roberts, host of the Local show on KCMP Minneapolis. His program focuses on the bands of the twin cities past & present. He's got good presence and his OCD drove him to start a wiki just for MSP area bands.

Best Concert: James Kochalka at Tritone, Egads!

My Top 10 records of 2006:
1. Jack -The Impossible Sound
2. Die Princess Die - Lions eat lions
3. Don Vito -II
4. KK Rampage - Split cassette with Shearing Pinx
5. Meth and Goats - Attack from Meth & Goats Mountain
6. Ultra Dolphins - Mar
7. The Bronx - The Bronx
8. Noxagt - Noxagt
9. Tornavalanche - No Money No Problem
10 Norma Jean - Redeemer

Biloxi to Baton Rouge, Travel Missive #2

1370 WCOA-AM was the first radio station in Pensacola, and the last I listened to as I blew town this morning. http://www.wcoapensacola.com/ It is a station many older residents still feel indebted to in this often storm-struck coast. In 1926 there was no national storm warning service. So when the staff of WCOA received telephone reports from the Southeast of a severe hurricane they urged citizens in low lying areas to evacuate. It was their first year on air, and for them a landmark in their history twice over. Today they are a typical local talker.

I got to Biloxi by lunch time but avoided eating in town. I was in a neighborhood near Gulfsport and there is nothing there really. Everything here is either brand new or a rubble heap. This was the center of the Katerina storm surge last year. Somehow Coast Radio Group (aka Dowdy) building survived despite their close proximity to the St. Louis Bay.

Notable stations that made me turn off the new Black KeysCD:
106.1 WMTI (Nostalgia)
1320 WRJW-AM (country oldies)
102.9 KMEZ (one of the REAL rythmic oldies outlets)
1420 WIGG-AM Americana
1600 KLEB-AM cajun

...and tonight I am going to listen to the Minister on WWOZ and nobody is gong to stop me