#196 - tracks & snacks 2011.

for the past two years, when this time of year rolled around & i sat down to compile my top ten tracks & snacks of the year, it's been a relatively painless process. not so this year. in the past, i've always been able to open up itunes, take a look at my list of most played tunes & easily compile a list. this summer, my computer finally decided to kick the bucket for good, taking all the precious "most played" info with it & forcing me to rely on my memory, a task which is a dicey proposition at best. 

...so there's inevitably something i'm forgetting but i have to give nods to das racist, st vincent, cut copy, adele, shabazz palaces, los campesinos, atlas sound, pj harvey, destroyer, girls, anvil hands & cities aviv who, if this was a top 22 list, all had songs worthy of being on it. in the end, each artist on this year's list has never been in my top ten before although three songs from the albums on my mid-year top five list made it into the 2011 top ten.

...so if you're the type who's looking for a shiny new band to call your own, there are ten great candidates below & links to videos for eight of the songs & "listen" links for the other two. ALSO, since spotify has finally made its way to america, i've tossed up a playlist of the nine top ten tracks that are available on it, so if you swing that way, have at it here. BRING ON THE TRACKS! BRING ON 2012! SMELL YA LATER 2011!

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pumpkaphenomenal.

is it the final day of pumpktoberfest already? well gosh darnit, i guess all "good" things must come to an end & stuff. that doesn't mean that we can't go out with a bang though, right? today, to mark the final day of the season, we've got not one but TWO PUMPKTASTIC POSTS!!! ISN'T THAT TOTALLY AWESOME?!!! to be honest, i was hoping to post this some time this past weekend but then i got lazy & slacked on writing it. my weekend sloth is your monday reward! anyhow, the other day, we shared a recipe for pumpkin oatmeal cookies with you & today, for our last snack of the pumpktoberfest season, we've got another tasty vegan pumpkin cookie--alternative baking company's phenomenal pumpkin spice cookie.

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a smorgasburg of pumpkins.

as i've mentioned a bunch of times in the past, three-quarters of the parow children now live in new york city, so we get together every once in a while. when we do, it's usually over food. last weekend, my doctor sister was celebrating her 35th 25th birthday so on a windy saturday the three of us & a few of the bro's pals met up in williamsburg at the god-awful hour of 11am to eat a bunch of food at brooklyn flea's smorgasburg market. it was the first time i'd returned to the market after visiting there for fucked in park slope back in may for its opening weekend. in preparation for our familial gathering, the bro had purchased three passes from gilt city that were each good for five entrees, a drink & a dessert, so we had some serious eating ahead of us. i, of course, was on the hunt for pumpktoberfest treats.

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the fifty states project #6: CA.

if i've learned one thing from 2 pac & dr dre, it's that california knows how to party, or at least they'll know how to do so in the year 2095. personally, though i've attended a number of rockin' parties in the san fran area in my time, i can't attest to southern california's partying skillz, so i'm just going to have to take their word for it. since the state's got the most people of any in the nation & an economy that's larger than canada's, i suppose that their ability to throw an acceptable party is pretty good. they could get beer from their hundreds of fine craft brewers, wine from their hundreds of fine vineyards & weed from their thousands upon thousands of fine weed proprietors. any cali band except for the red hot chili peppers or green day or blink 182 can provide musical entertainment. if all that cali party awesomeness doesn't do it for you, you can just drive east to vegas to gamble your face off amidst a blur of neon, hookers & adrenochrome.

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#193 - mid-year hype.

is it really that time of year again? you bet your sweet ass it is...it's time for my mid-year top five list of albums, accompanied by some sort of snack-drink list! for the past two years (2009, 2010), i've paired my top five albums with five snack-drink pairings that i'd planned on writing about but never got around to. this year, since i'm feeling slightly nostalgic, i'm changing it up a bit & pairing the top albums with the top five posts of all time on eat!drink!snack! isn't change exciting?

has it been a good year for music so far? it's been aight i suppose. while the list of bands who've put out albums is impressive, the quality of those albums is much less so. over the last six months, we've had lackluster new efforts from a bunch of bands i expected more from--the decemberists, arctic monkeys, tv on the radio, the strokes, art brut, deerhoof, destroyer, okkervil river & the beastie boys.

even with all these letdowns, there have been a bunch of good albums released thus far. the dodos, pains of being pure at heart, yuck, man man, bon iver, the kills & radiohead have all put out albums that are worthy of being in my top five. in the end though, there were just too many albums to cram into a top five, so i sort of leaned toward my current faves.

as a predictor, last year only one of the songs from my mid-year albums list ended up on my end of year "top ten songs" list. in the previous year, four of my favorite mid-year albums had songs on the 2009 end-of-year list. how will this year's mid-year albums fare? more importantly, how drastically will my mood change by the end of december? you'll just have to stay tuned for another six months to find out!...or you can skip the next six months of amazing blog posts & check back here in january if you want to be a jerk about it. but for now, here are the top five...

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