Where did the year go? In my case, most of it seemingly went to work. It was a busy year professionally, with a major work project consuming most of it and even keeping us from attending Iceland Airwaves, our first absence from that festival in a decade. But the good news is that the product launch was pretty successful, so things should return to normal next year. And to make sure we already bought our tickets for Iceland Airwaves 2019, so hopefully we’ll see you in Reykjavik in November.
It wasn’t all work in 2018, even though sometimes it felt that way. We took a great trip to Japan and Korea in the Spring and enjoyed long weekends in Portland, Denver, and New York City, all of which involved record shopping. The blog suffered a bit, however. This was my lightest year of posting since Life in the Vinyl Lane started back in 2012. I’ll finish the year somewhere just north of 180 posts, which is a lot, though not even close to the 222 I wrote the year before (and that’s even less than the years before). Trust me – the reason had nothing to do with not having enough great music to write about. It was just a matter of time.
Whether you’re a regular reader of Life in the Vinyl Lane or just pop by from time to time, I’d like to thank you. Feel free to drop me a note any time and let me know what you think, or what I need to listen to, because I love hearing from you.
So with all that being said, here’s Life in the Vinyl Lane’s Best of 2018! Keep it punk.
Top 5 New Releases In 2018
- Lies Are More Flexible – Gusgus (Iceland)
- Electrostatic – Individual Totem (Germany)
- Death Is A True Prophet – ERZH (Iceland)
- Bring Down The House Lights – Dirty Sidewalks (US)
- Digital Garbage – Mudhoney (US)
2018 was a truly outstanding year for music, both generally and for me personally – quite a few of my favorite artists put out releases. In fact, of the 24 different performers who have graced my Top 5 New Releases lists since 2012, 10 of them put out new albums this year, including three who held down the #1 spot on a previous list. To get to the Top 5 this year we started with about 60 albums, whittled that down to the final 20. and then listened to those again over the last few weeks. Arriving at the final seven was easy, but trimming that down to five… man, it was tough.
The top spot, however, was a pretty easy choice for me. I’m a huge fan of Gusgus and have been through their various iterations and changing styles. Their latest release, Lies Are More Flexible, found the group down to just two core members and moving in a more heavily musical direction with outstanding results. I know not everyone is sold – most of my friends who are also Gusgus fans lean towards either the instrumental or the vocal tracks on the album, loving half of it and not caring as much for the other. But to my ears it’s all outstanding.
The next two albums weren’t released on vinyl, but that wasn’t going to keep them off the list. I was a latecomer to the world of Individual Totem, but their new CD creates a dark electro buzz in my brain that has me wanting to explore their back catalog. ERZH’s Death Is A True Prophet is the third heavily electronic album on the list, one physically released only via cassette from Iceland’s FALK label, which continues to pump out infatuating albums by little-known hyper-talented artists. The Top 5 rounds out with a pair of Seattle-based bands, newcomer psych-stars Dirty Sidewalks and grunge/punk veterans Mudhoney. Mudhoney edged out a few other challengers (most notably Fufanu) for the #5 spot primarily on the strength of Digital Garbage‘s lyrics, a combination of snark and venom aimed at the direction things are taking in American society these days, which I found to be poignant.
Top 5 “New to Me” Bands/Performers
- Rammstein (Germany)
- Executive Slacks (US)
- Chinas Comidas (US)
- GRÓA (Iceland)
- Holz (US)
Oddly enough the top artist on this list is one I’ve never written about, nor do I have any of their albums on vinyl, even though they’ve been around forever. I decided to finally check out Rammstein after, believe it or not, seeing the opening scene to the original xXx movie which featured the Germans playing the song “Feuer Frei!” in a club. Within a few weeks we had about half a dozen Rammstein CDs and were playing them constantly on our iPods.
Top 5 Vinyl Purchases
- Medical Records Catalog
- Unholy Death – N.M.E.
- Ork Records: New York, New York
- Korean Metal
- Ravno Do Dna – Azra
Over one of the holiday weekends earlier this year, Seattle’s Medical Records label posted on their Facebook page that everything on their Bandcamp page was something like 30% off. I shot them a quick note asking if that included the package deal they offer whereby you can order one copy of every single release they still have in stock, figuring there was no way they’d say yes. And they said yes. I did the mental math, factoring in how many duplicates this would mean for me based on stuff I already had, and pulled the trigger. In just a few days two massive boxes showed up on my front porch. The final count was just over 50 assorted LPs and 12″ vinyl, plus a few 7″ records and even a cassette. I still haven’t managed to get through all of this synthy goodness, but everything I’ve pulled off the shelf so far has been awesome.
Unholy Death has a local tie and led to Holly and I taking a field trip, which you can read about if you click the link above. I got a screaming deal on a used copy of the Ork Records: New York, New York box set, and was excited to find that the unused download card were still inside. Buying 1980s Korean metal in an (literally) underground market area that included a half dozen stores made for a fun afternoon in Seoul, and the copy of Ravno Do Dna had a surprise inside, three old postcards from Yugoslavia, which was kind of cool.
None of this stuff was particularly valuable or ultra-rare, but instead things that resonated with me. The money is just a means to get more music!
Top 5 Live Shows
- Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – Roseland Theater, Portland
- Henry Rollins – Neptune Theater, Seattle
- Dream Wife – Barboza, Seattle
- Mudhoney – Neptune Theater, Seattle
- Devil Makes Three – Red Rocks Ampitheater, Colorado
We only saw five shows in 2018. Given that we didn’t make it to Airwaves, that’s probably about typical, though. This year’s clear winner was Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (right). We first saw them a few years back at an outdoor show in Salt Lake City, which was fun, but BRMC are a band that feels like it belongs in a dark club somewhere. And while the Rosalind isn’t a club, it’s pretty intimate and plenty dark inside, and the band sounded incredible.
I wasn’t sure if Henry Rollins qualified for the list, since we saw his spoken word travel photography show. But he’s a musician, and it’s my blog, so I guess I can do what I want. Henry talked at 100 mph for 2.5 hours straight, never once stopping for a break, sitting down, or even taking a single sip of water. And I’m not exaggerating. Henry has more energy than should be humanly possible.
It was exciting to see Dream Wife outside of Reykjavik, even more so since I’d just done a 30 minute phone interview with lead singer Rakel a few weeks prior for the newly released issue of Reykjavik On Stage. For Mudhoney, this was our second time seeing them do a record release show, having gone to the one for Vanishing Point as well, and the mosh pit was off the charts. The list rounds out with our second time seeing Devil Makes Three at Red Rocks. They’re alway outstanding – this was either my 6th or 7th time experiencing them live and they never disappoint.
Top 5 Places to Buy Records
North America (excluding the greater Seattle area)
- 1709 Records, Vancouver (WA)
- Green Noise Records, Portland
- Twist & Shout Records, Denver
- Academy Records Annex, Brooklyn
- Mississippi Records, Portland
The Rest of the World
- Time Bomb Records, Osaka
- Stereo Records, Hiroshima
- Seoul Record Mall, Seoul
- Compufunk Records, Osaka
- Jet Set Records, Kyoto
I decided to not include any Seattle-area shops this year. After all, Easy Street Records, which just got named to Rolling Stone‘s top 10 record stores in the US, will probably be #1 on my North America list from now until forever, and there are a number of other local shops I love too. Plus we traveled enough in the US this year to easily come up with a list of five stores that I want to get back to again someday.
1709 Records was a very pleasant surprise when I found myself with a few hours to kill on a business trip to Vancouver, Washington, and I came away with some cool Green River and Scratch Acid vinyl. Portland’s Green Noise has been around for a while, though this was the first time we’d ever stopped by. It just moved to a location a few blocks from another perennial Top 5 favorite, Mississippi Records (#5 this year, and remember kids – always bring cash, because they don’t take plastic!), so I’m sure it’ll be a regular stop on future visits to Rip City.
As for the rest of the world, this is the first time no stores in Reykjavik made the list, which gave me more space for other stuff. Osaka’s Time Bomb was perfectly laid out and organized, and every single record accurately graded. I could have spent hours there. Stereo Records wasn’t even on our list of shops to visit in Hiroshima – we found it because it was across the street from a shop we were actually looking for, and it offered a deep selection of excellent condition titles. I almost included the Osaka branch of Tower Records, and not just for nostalgia reasons – the CD selection was of course filled with Japanese releases, both artists as well as special editions, plus I got a cool old-school Tower t-shirt that always elicits comments when I wear it. Bonus points to Compufunk for also being a club, a fully stocked bar, and an amazing view of the river in Osaka.
Top 5 Music Books
- Beastie Boys Book, by Michael Diamond and Adam Horovitz
- Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, by Joe Hagan
- The Mudd Club, by Richard Boch
- Zounds Demystified, by Steve Lake
- Factory, by Mick Middles
I should confess that I only managed to read six music-related books in 2018, so this wasn’t too tough to put together. The Beastie Boys Book is a great journey through the lives of Mike and the two Adams, with tons of pictures and commentary from assorted friends and fellow artists. I also enjoyed Sticky Fingers, an in depth biography of Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. Wenner is extraordinarily driven, and while at times Hagan’s portrait of him is less than flattering there is no denying Wenner’s ambition and confidence (and the one-time magnitude of his cocaine habit). Richard Boch’s memoir of his time as the doorman of NYC’s infamous Mudd Club is a seemingly honest portrayal of the grittiness of the city in the late 1970s, a city populated by young people who were simply surviving day by day in a dystopian urban environment that offered little in the way of a future and plenty of drugs. Zounds Demystified is a stream-of-consciousness history of the post-punk band Zounds written by a former member, and Factory tells the story of the infamous and influential Factory Records label.
It’s hard to believe 2018 is already in the books. Mind you, I think I say that every year – the older I get, the shorter the years seem to be. I’m excited for a fresh start in 2019 and can’t wait to see what it has in store for us!
Unless you’ve been living under a rock or the terms of your probation don’t allow you to access the internet, you know that Chris Cornell passed away a few days ago. Chris was an icon in the Seattle music scene, first with OG grunge rockers Soundgarden and later with Temple of the Dog, Audioslave, and his solo projects. He was a supremely talented man and music fans in Seattle probably feel his loss just a bit more deeply than do people everywhere else. He was one of ours, born and raised. I’m certainly old enough to have experienced the loss of other musicians who were part of my formative years, including more than a few local talents. Cobain, Staley, Wood… But Cornell. This wasn’t supposed to happen. He had survived the reckless years. He’d won Grammy’s. He did a James Bond theme song for Christ’s sake. And he was back with Soundgarden and touring. And then he was gone, choosing to exit the stage permanently.
