ESB 12/17/04

we were going to do a boring old "top ten of 2004" this week but we decided we're way too cool for that. since we've been surfing music blogs frequently for material, we figured, why don't we just do a show on music blogs instead? fuck it, just cause we hate year end roundups so much, we extended it to a two part series. hence this week's title...

THE BEST OF THE MUSIC BLOGS PART UNO

Playlist

MADVILLAIN - meat grinder
* stereogum's number one song of the year, a collaborative effort between madlib and MF doom.

THE ELECTRAS - sample montage
* senator john kerry's 1961 high school surf/dance rock band...imagine, john kerry, the rock n' roll president!

KERRY ROCKS - Kerry in 2004
*very depressing to listen to, but nonetheless, humourous on a scale that increases logarithmically as each day passes. also from www.kerryrocks.com.

ARCADE FIRE live in cambridge, mass- laika/une annee sans lumiere/power out/rebellion/this must be the place/haiti
* fairly good live recording, as the band are much less restrained as they are on the album. lots of energy and the crowd gets into it. full set available at bradley's almanac.

SNOWDEN - time of the season
* cover of the zombies' classic defiled recently by a "tampax was at woodstock" commercial. from revolution in the head.

TELEVISION PERSONALITIES - geoffrey ingram
* what british music is all about. from teaching indie kids to dance again.

BABY SHAMBLES - kilimanjaro
pete doherty, the fucked up dude from the god-awful libertines puts out a side project that is surprisingly pretty damn good. aso from "teaching indie kids".

SONIC YOUTH from john peel sessions, 10/19/88 - rouche rumble
* the best band of the late 80s covers the best band of the early 80s on john peel. more live cuts available at the jean genie

MAGNETA LANE - cheap linguistics
* when i first heard this band a couple months back, i was in a vintage clothing store assisting on a photo shoot with controller.controller. the girl at the store put on magneta lane, the latest paper bag princesses, and i was totally having a shitty day and i was growing sick of the saturated toronto music club, so i figured they were just another stupid forgettable band, but i have come to reconsider my initial distaste for what is actually really fun music by some very purdy ladies who are workin hard to keep the city interesting and enjoyable. this tune has been all over blog city recently but i found it at zoilus, toronto musician carl wilson's blog, who apparently really likes magneta lane.

tune in next week. we're going on holiday at ESB but we'll more than likely have the second part to the best of the music blogs prerecorded for the format. playlist will be posted shortly. we'll take a week to wind the year down and party with disconnected avec CFRC business manager mike sallot aka dj seez of CFRC's dance to the underground. tonight, we're headed to wavelength (see links on sidebar) for deep dark united.

in the new year, we'll look at the music of j. alexander ferron, aka don cash, a former toronto music writer who produced his own hip-hop/garage-rock fusion deal and ended up in new york hangin with DFA records. he didn't like it too much down there, and recently came back to toronto to rock the box. ESB says: "sounds good to us!" he's playing tuesday night at sneaky dee's, so check it out.

- steve birek, director, ESB Industries