We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Daft Punk: "Get Lucky"
02 Chvrches: "The Mother We Share"
03 Phosphorescent: "Song For Zula"
04 Jason Isbell: "Elephant"
05 Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds: "Higgs Boson Blues"
06 Guy Clark: "My Favorite Picture of You"
07 Robin Thicke: "Blurred Lines" [ft. Pharrell & T.I.]
08 Eleanor Friedberger: "When I Knew"
09 The National: "Pink Rabbits"
10 Brandy Clark: "Stripes"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Hiss Golden Messenger: Haw
02 Phosphorescent: Muchacho
03 The National: Trouble Will Find Me
04 Brandy Clark: 12 Stories
05 Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
06 Eleanor Friedberger: Personal Record
07 Janelle Monáe: The Electric Lady
08 Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park
09 Kanye West: Yeezus
10 Chvrches: The Bones of What You Believe

Most Played Song of 2013: iTunes claims my most-played song of 2013 is Hiss Golden Messenger’s "Sufferer (Love My Conqueror)", which I remember playing over and over just to hear the part at 4:14 when the string section splits into two parts and traces tributaries through North Carolina. But I suspect that if you consider all of my music-listening devices (computer, phone, turntable, brain), my most-played song would be Daft Punk’s "Get Lucky". At one point in April I put it on repeat and didn’t sleep for three days.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Last Christmas, my father-in-law, a seventh-generation Texan and the biggest Elvis fan I know, gave me his old copies of Jerry Jeff Walker’s Viva Terlingua and A Man Must Carry On. Both are live albums, and both are just glorious examples of gregarious Lone Star rock whose exuberance is matched only by its weirdness: Opening the set with two-and-a-half minutes of chicken imitations, pausing for not one but two poetry recitals. I also discovered that Walker wrote an ode to Astros ace and former Rangers honcho Nolan Ryan, which in my head plays over an endless loop of this. 

Musical Highlights: At the beginning of the year I discovered an old 10" record in a box of my grandparents’ belongings. Scrawled across the label was my grandfather’s name—Dr. E. E. Deusner—along with the title of a hymn ("Pearly White City") and a date (October 1948). At first I thought it was a sermon; my grandfather had been a Southern Baptist preacher in Lexington, Tennessee, for more than fifty years. He retired in the early 1980s, shortly before his death in 1983. It was an amazing find, but it was also bittersweet: I didn’t have a turntable capable of playing a 10" record, nor did I want to risk damaging the vinyl coating with a modern needle.

Fortunately, nearby Indiana University has an incredible Archives of Traditional Music, and they agreed to take a look at this find. I met with a technician named John Dawson, who took the time to walk me through the process of cleaning, playing, and finally making a digital copy of the record. It turned out to be not a sermon but a solo performance of a hymn called "Pearly White City". Under the heavy blanket of 65 years of surface noise, a pipe organ can be heard, faint but billowy, which makes me think the recording would have been made in the sanctuary at his church, the vinyl etched in real time. Thanks to Dawson, I was able to hear my grandfather’s voice for the first time in thirty years. You can listen here.

Musical Lowlights: The deaths of Ray Price, Lou Reed, Karen Black, Ray Harryhausen, Cowboy Jack Clement, J.J. Cale, and Bobby "Blue" Bland weren’t shocking, but that didn’t make them any less devastating. 

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Deafheaven: "Dream House"
02 Crash of Rhinos: "Opener"
03 Youth Lagoon: "Mute"
04 The 1975: "Sex"
05 Autre Ne Veut: "Play By Play"
06 Drake: "Hold On We're Going Home"
07 Iron Chic: "Spooky Action At A Distance"
08 The Wonder Years: "There, There"
09 Balance & Composure: "Reflection"
10 The Dangerous Summer: "Catholic Girls"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Deafheaven: Sunbather
02 Kanye West: Yeezus
03 Local Natives: Hummingbird
04 Kurt Vile: Wakin On A Pretty Daze
05 Los Campesinos!: No Blues
06 The World is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die: Whenever, If Ever
07 Autre Ne Veut: Anxiety
08 Crash of Rhinos: Knots
09 Baths: Obsidian
10 Sigur Ros: Kveikur

Your Most Played Song in 2013: I've been consistently listening to Soulja Boy's Juice mixtape for the past three years, so I have no idea how the title track's video escaped me until 2013. Since YouTube does't maintain an individual play count the way iTunes does, I can only rely on guesstimates in saying that "Juice" was my most-played song of this calendar year, but I don't think there's much doubt. In lieu of morning meditation, I played at least some portion of "Juice" twice a day, for months at a time. Not just for the quality of the song itself—a man can only live off so much "Zan With That Lean"—but because it's the most effective OTC anti-depressant on the market. Even after the 200th or so viewing, the way Soulja, Kwony Cash and J-Money discuss during the intro who has the juice at that given moment never fails to brighten my day—given their enthusiasm, you'd think they're having this conversation for the first time, like the song itself had not made it clear that Soulja's got the juice. Similarly, he tells his jeweler, "you stay with the ice" as if that too is something Soulja is considering for the first time—even though we're led to believe this establishment exists for the sole purpose of Stacks On Deck Money Gang's random impulse buys. And did Soulja have to ask the jeweler for his CD back? And if not, does he carry a stack of burned Juice CDs with him every time he goes to the mall?  Are there alternate cuts of "Juice" where SODMG are posted up at an Auntie Anne's or Sephora?

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: In 2013, I spent more time in my car than I have in probably a decade, so I started to get very nostalgic for the major-label hip-hop records I purchased between 2002 and 2003, played maybe five times and subsequently sold back to Disc-Go-Round to buy Yuengling as an anesthetic for the 40 hours a week I gave to a company that really had a Hawaiian Shirt Day. I don't know if they've aged particularly well, but my perspective has. See, used to be that I'd evaluate them on the basis of  "Does this 70-minute body of work justify its purchase price, which is roughly equal to my hourly wage at this mind-numbing office job I am driving to?" These days, it's "Does this give me the singles that caused me to buy it in the first place, plus 25 additional minutes of music that sound great in my car? Also, does it reminds me of a time when I seriously couldn't see far enough into the future to envision a time when I wouldn't want to eat Lean Pockets four times a week?" And that gives you a much more positive and lenient attitude towards the artistic merits of Lil Flip's Undaground Legend, N.O.R.E.'s God's Favorite, Nellyville and even The Blueprint2. 

Musical Highlights: Deafheaven on Twitter; Drake's pronunciation of "shrimp" in "305 To My City"; the ad-libs on Trap Lord; the guitar solo in Youth Lagoon's "Mute"; every Matt Korvette interview; Swans' Pitchfork Festival set, specifically Christoph Hahn's pedal steel slide/haircomb; Deftones and Glassjaw waiting until a year where I could afford tickets to do a show together; watching people my age and half my age absolutely lose their shit during "Freakish" and really the entirety of Saves the Day's show at the Troubadour; Taylor Rice chipping his tooth on the mic during the encore of Local Natives' Greek Theatre show; Desaparecidos covering Joyce Manor's "Constant Headache"; the pause before the 1:18 point of Kanye West's "I'm In It"; the Dangerous Summer somehow making 2013's best Jimmy Eat World and Kings of Leon song at the same time with "Catholic Girls"; the guitar riff in Balance & Composure's "Reflection"; the point where the Wonder Years' Dan "Soupy" Campbell jumps to a higher octave in the second chorus of both "There, There" and "The Devil In My Bloodstream"; the whistling solo in The 1975's "Settle Down"; the first time I heard the segue between Disclosure's "Intro" and "When A Fire Starts To Burn"; Owel preempting the Knapsack reunion at 0:24 in"Death in the Snow"; when My Bloody Valentine's website stopped showing a 403 error; everything that happens after 1:47 in The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die's "Picture of a Tree That Doesn't Look Okay"; the fact that "Dream House" is the exact amount of time it takes me to run 1.25 miles.

Musical Lowlights: Every time I got a PR email with the words "brand new" in the subject heading and it had absolutely nothing to do with the next Brand New album.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Drake: "Worst Behavior" 
02 Kanye West: "Blood on the Leaves" 
03 Lorde: "Royals" 
04 Florida Georgia Line: "Cruise (Remix)" [ft. Nelly]
05 Kanye West: "New Slaves" 
06 Miley Cyrus: "We Can't Stop" 
07 Drake: "Come Thru" 
08 Vampire Weekend: "Ya Hey" 
09 Justin Timberlake: "Mirrors" 
10 A$AP Ferg: "Hood Pope"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Drake: Nothing Was the Same
03 Beyoncé: Beyoncé
04 Haim: Days are Gone
05 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
06 Deafheaven: Sunbather
07 Lorde: Pure Heroine
08 Kacey Musgraves: Same Trailer Different Park
09 Sky Ferreira: Night Time, My Time
10 Ariana Grande: Yours Truly
10a A$AP Ferg: Trap Lord

Most Played Song of 2013: I can’t seem to… REMEMBER?

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Definitely Elvis’ Christmas Album because of the podcast Jenn Pelly, Mark Richardson and I did for the Pitchfork Weekly app made me go back to that, but I also really played the hell out of Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life this year. Mark sent me a ton of Seger for our abandoned "Mark and Corban’s Rock Tank" column—the name was the key—so I went into that too.

I still listen to Taylor Swift's Red every day.

Rereading the Harry Potter series was not the game-changing pop culture touchpoint that it was for others, but Lorde seeing a picture of my hometown hero George Brett and getting inspired to write "Royals" is good enough for me, forever. I still can't believe that happened. It must be a trap.

Musical Highlights: This is definitely freshest in my mind, but I really enjoyed the experience of Beyoncé and Nothing Was the Same being dropped on our heads overnight and staying up to listen to them. It wasn’t necessarily the fact that everyone was racing to tweet about it or write about it—that just added another layer of noise to an already overloaded experience—but just the fact that everyone in the world was hearing it with fresh ears is a fun thing to think about. These days whenever I really want to read or listen or watch something, I get this anxiety about not being able to do it as fast as my mind wants to do it. That’s how I felt Thursday night/Friday morning. Kind of an awesome feeling.

Musical Lowlights: I bought tickets to see Chief Keef in New Haven, which he cancelled hours before he was set to perform because he neglected to get on his plane. Fortune struck when he booked a show in Kansas City the weekend I was there for a wedding... which he cancelled again hours before the show while the warmup DJ had already started playing. I got refunds, but the sum total is surely lower than the perceived value of the experience. <moderate sadness emoji>

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: "Hannah Hunt"
02 Daft Punk: "Touch"
03 Forest Swords: "Thor's Stone"
04 Fuck Buttons: "Brainfreeze"
05 Pissed Jeans: "Bathroom Laughter"
06 Yo La Tengo: "Ohm"
07 Foxygen: "San Francisco"
08 Deafheaven: "Dream House"
09 Disclosure: "Latch"
10 My Bloody Valentine: "New You"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
02 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
03 Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
04 Neko Case: The Worse Things Get, the Harder I Fight...
05 Forest Swords: Engravings
06 Polvo: Siberia
07 The Haxan Cloak: Excavation
08 Savages: Silence Yourself
09 Veronica Falls: Waiting for Something to Happen
10 DJ Koze: Amygdala

Most Played Song of 2013:  Daft Punk, "Give Life Back to Music".  Somehow 2013 was the year I realized I hadn't spent enough time thinking about Chic.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Various Artists: Hata Unacheza - Sub-Saharan Acoustic Guitar and String Music Ca. 1960s. This excellent comp was originally assembled from vintage 78s by Ian Nagoski in 2007 and made available again this year on his always-crucial Canary Records.

Musical Highlights: My twin five-year-old sons got really into Vampire Weekend's "Step", and the line "I feel it my bones" in particular. They both would walk around softly repeating "I feel it in my bones" as though it was a riddle to be solved. As for myself, the "album" I spent the most time with was the mammoth 99-track For Tom Carter tribute compilation on Deserted Village and it was worth every hour.

Musical Lowlights: One thing no one really tells you about parenthood is that eventually your kids reach the age where it's like getting some new cranky, opinionated little roommates. Much of the talk at my house essentially boils down to "Yo, Dad, turn off that crap you're listening to, I want to hear MY song." It's even worse when that song is Ylvis' infernal "The Fox (What Does the Fox Say)".

Shake Appeal is a column that highlights new garage and garage-adjacent releases. To celebrate the end of the year, Evan Minsker has asked some of his favorite artists to share their "Best of 2013" lists, including Timmy Vulgar, King Louie Bankston, Protomartyr, Hunx, White Fence, Purling Hiss, Cheap Time, White Mystery, Royal Headache, Jacco Gardner, and many, many others. Enjoy.

Protomartyr

Live Highlights of 2013

1. This spring Protomartyr finally got out of Southeast Michigan and went on a west coast tour with the mighty Turn to Crime. Along the way we got to play with some truly great bands. Smelly Tongues, Skate Laws, Meercaz, Shark Toys, and Dreamsalon to name but a few.

2. We went to SXSW and experienced all the wonderful highs and crumb-bummery lows that fest entails. Besides the Can’t Stop The Bleeding show at Beerland, the highlight for us was the Monofonus Press show with Shit and Shine, Deep Time, and our pals Spray Paint. Later in the year we were able to hook up Spray Paint with a show in Detroit at the historic Jumbo’s with us and local dirtbags Tyvek. So we have that going for us.

3. Now addicted to fests and the promise of wearing complicated wristbands, we played Hopscotch Fest where we were happily blown off the stage by both North Carolina’s own Whatever Brains and (it goes without saying) Pere Ubu, who were joined at the end of the show by Merzbow. Why even compete when that kind of crazy shit goes down?

4. That being said, the best show of 2013/2014 will be the New Year’s Eve R. Kelly show at the Masonic Temple in Detroit.

Sick Thoughts

Favorite Albums of 2013

10. The Future Primitives: Into The Primitive
I usually hate "garage" type stuff but this is great.

09. Kremlin: Drunk In The Gulag
Who the hell doesn't like Kremlin?

08. The Ugly Kids: S/T
I really like the production on this, songwriting is OK, but it's on here for the way it sounds.

07. VAGUESS: I Hate Rock N Roll
All of this guy's stuff is awesome, makes me wanna get a cheap keyboard from a dumpster.

06. Shocked Minds: S/T
I have a real hard time picking my favorite ex-Carbonas member. Josh (Carbonas, Beat Beat Beat, Foster Care, Ex-Humans) is basically a rock'n'roll super hero to me.

05. Missing Monuments: S/T
Everything King Louie does is awesome. The Persuaders are a huge influence on Sick Thoughts, and so is the power pop of the Missing Monuments.

04. Raspberry Bulbs: Deformed Worship
This record got me to go back and start listening to black metal again. Everything about this record is perfect. Better than Bone Awl. Started a black metal band too.

03. Buck Biloxi and the Fucks: S/T
Solid Shit Gold. Total idontgiveasingleshit rocknroll. Best cover ripoff of all time. Also a great label.

02. Timmy Vulgar: Center Of Saturn
Timmy is one of my biggest influences. Weird sounds and fuzzy guitars and great vocals. The label Flesh Wave hasn't put out a bad record since their beginning.

01. The Oblivians: Desperation
Obviously the Oblivians are an influence of mine since I rip them off all the time. I usually hate records after a couple years when the band doesn't put stuff out and is on a hiatus. This is my only exception. They got a genre of their own. Got to open up for them earlier this year and got to hang out with em. Even got a Pill-Popper tattoo!!

Endless Bummer

Favorite Albums of 2013

Pissed Jeans: Honeys
Thee Oh Sees: Floating Coffin
George Brigman: Jungle Rot
Vaz: Visiting Hours
The Dictaphone: The Dictaphone
Doses: Live in Waco
Fuzz: Fuzz
Chrome: Lost Tracks
Devo: Hardcore Devo Vol. 1 & 2
High Speed and Afflicted Man: Get Stoned Ezy

Photo by Nick Helderman

Jacco Gardner

Best of 2013:

1. Mort Garson (artist) 
Basically anything he did is awesome. I already knew about some of his projects like The Zodiac but never realised what else he did. His more electronic solo album Plantasia totally blew my mind this summer.

2. Maston: Shadows (album)
Shadows came out in February, one day after I released my album and it's really great. They do great live shows as well and are really cool people to hang out with.

3. Ben Rider (person)
He joined the band on keyboards last month and this turned out to be a really good move. He adds a lot to the music and the whole touring experience. What a guy.

4. Wurlitzer 200A (electric piano)
Probably the best thing I've bought this year. Found it in Glasgow when we were there to play a show at King Tut's. I was looking for a decent electric piano to use live instead of the virtual one that I was using and the Wurlitzer is totally perfect for that.

5. North America (part of the world) 
Really enjoyed it there. Never been there before until this year. Twice even! Especially the West Coast has been vey enjoyable. Lovely people and one of the most beautiful places on earth I've ever seen.

6. Federal Duck (band)
I'd heard about this band here and there on blogs and such but never really took the time to check them out until this year. They released only one self-titled album in 1968 which has about four songs. I don't like at all, the rest is genius.

7. Trees (band)
Great acid folk/rock band. A couple of years ago I would have probably hated them but now I really enjoy listening to their first two albums. Both from 1970.

8. Duncan Browne: "Duncan Browne" (Album)
I'd already listened to his first album a lot and totally fell in love with it. This is his second album from '73 which is a little different but in a really good way.

Las Ardillas

1.Wau y Los Arrrghs!!!: Todo Roto
I'm not into that 60's Garage Revival shit, but this band is another thing. These guys actually know how to write good songs and they are not worried about whose got the best dress or the best haircut for the night. Great lyrics, great live show! Recommend it to anyone who's into wild rock'n'roll!!!

2.Ano: Shit Just Got Real!
Three beautiful ladies and a lucky guy playing total dirty, straight-to-the-point punk rock. Lyrics about boredom, sex, drugs, etc. This is a limited edition cassette and it's handcrafted by the own band, TOTAL DIY! GET ONE OF THESE OR REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE!!!

3.Shannon and Thee Clams: Dreams in the Rat House
One of the only few bands playing that good 50's doo-wop that people have forgotten about! Great record, catchy as fuck!

4.Los Vigilantes: Me Siento Azul
Good rock'n'roll from San Juan, Puerto Rico. There's even a song in Japanese in these Record! Mommy, Mommy, buy me one of these!!!

5. Natural Child: "Don't Wake the Baby"
This song is the A-side of the Surf 'n' Turf split with Guantanamo Baywatch. Great country rock'n'roll in the CCR tradition. They even try to sing in spanish in these song! ''Jalapenos, pimientos, cocaina, and laughs.'' Yummy!!!

Timmy Vulgar

Well 2013 is coming to a close and I'm glad!! It's been kind of a shitty year at least since October. Why? With a super close friend/band mate passing. R.I.P. "Fast" Eddie Altesleben!! Raise your next glass to him. Also friends family members passing... Man, terrible. Anyway. That aside... The good things about 2013?... I'll start in order. Ten in the order as they happened, sorta...

01. PINK REASON
Live at "LESS THAN MUSIC Vol.#2" Columbus, Ohio. Kevin Failure has been at this project/band for over a decade, and Pink Reason are one of my favorite modern bands. Top 5, to be specific. Live they are insane, they've blown my mind every time I've seen them! For all you regular Pitchforkers that don't know what that is... it's classic, high octane, bloodthirsty, loud, ugly, nasty, kick your bearded plug ear ringed, tattooed ass back to WHERE ever the hell you came from... baaaa!!!

02.CHEATER SLICKS
Seeing them live at SXSW. And their Reality Is Grape LP!! The record smokes! Released in 2012 but I didn't hear it till 2013. Also Nu Sensae at SXSW was super cool. Had no idea who these guys where. Still don't know much. I stumbled upon them live, glad I did.

03.DESTRUCTION UNIT
Live at SXSW and in Detroit. Also the Deep Trips LP on Sacred Bones. Dig it. Super sonic powerhouse acid eatin' rock'n'roll me another!!!!

04. FLESH WAVE Tapes
Rad Tape label out of the metro Detroit area. They released my first cassette this year, I'm proud of that! Along with other Detroit local bands/projects. Check em out!

05.EAT SKULL: III
On Woodsist. Their live set was great this year too. Love this band.

06. THE GO: Fiesta
On Burger. Also a great live set at the Atlanta Mess Around Fest.

07.THE ZEROS
Live, at the Atlanta Mess Around Fest. Sounded just like the records! They played all the classics! Thank god!! Other wise they would of been on my shit list, like WIRE and the FLAMIN' GROOVIES. All original members, even ELVEZ! They looked great for some ol' cats too.

08. DAVID BIXBY
Live in Detroit at Trinosophes. If your not familular with David Bixby, he released two amazing albums, one in the late 60s called Ode to Quetzalcoatl and one in the 70s called Harbinger: Second Coming. His music is a spiritual journey of psych-folk from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Take a listen, you'll shed a tear.

09. MOONHAIRY
The Kingdom of Eternal Poverty also on Urinal Cake Records. My ol' good buddy Jimbo Easter who's old bands marked their territory PIRANHAS and DRUID PERFUME. Now MOONHAIRY! Cartoon rubbish rock. The best band in Detroit, possibly the world. This record will have ya pourin oatmeal on your self.

10. CLONE DEFECTS
Thankful we got to play our last three shows this year. It was time waaaay well spent with our good friend Eddie. It's so unreal that you are gone. Love you, brother.

Photo by Angel Ceballos

White Fence

Paris
Playing the City Sounds Festival in Paris, France. The concept of the festival was to bring San Francisco bands to Paris for two nights. There was a moment where 30-50 people jumped on stage while we played, and after that, three dudes stayed on and sang "To The Boy I Jumped In The Hemlock Alley". Except they read the lyrics off their iPhones.

Jack Name
Finally, after years in the making, my friend Jack's LP Light Show premiered a track this year and has a release date on GOD? records. When he cuts his skin, glitter comes out.

"Sanjay & Craig"
By some stroke of luck, I've been writing songs for a cartoon show on Nickelodeon called "Sanjay & Craig". John Dwyer did the theme song.

Nashville/Freakin' Weekend
A very warm group of creative people run the scene there. I was honored to play the "Freakin' Weekend". R.I.P. Ben Todd. Rock'n'roll forever.

Vinegar Mirror
John Dwyer (Oh Sees) put together a book of his photos. He's the next Ansel Adams.

The Phantom Payn's Vol. 1 Dig The Squares - They're Ugly and Trouble With Ghosts
These did not come out this year, but I got into them this year. Spent the better half of 2013 trying to find Jürgen Gleue's records.

Cate Le Bon's Mug Museum
Beautiful voice, songwriter, and human.

Pusha T's "Numbers on the Boards"

Bob Dylan's "Time Passes Slowly #1 (Alternate Version)" from Another Self Portrait

Gay Marriage in California
Equality for all. I'm actually pissed that some bigger bands (who for the time being with remain anonymous) that have the pedestal/large audience didn't step up. This is the modern world… da da da da daaaa!

Hunx

Favorite Albums of 2013

1. La Luz: It's Alive
2. Sky Ferriera: Night Time, My Time
3. Kim Deal solo singles series
4. Veronica Falls: Waiting For Something to Happen
5. Cherry Glazerr live
6. The Julie Ruin live & Run Fast
7. Cold Beat single
8. Crazy Band live & Live From Prison
9. Miley Cyrus: Bangerz
10. CSS: "Hangover" single

Buck Biloxi & the Fucks

08. Shocked Minds: S/T (HoZac)
Shocked Minds are three dudes from the Carbonas including that dude Josh from Beat Beat Beat. This record kicks ass. Pretty sure these guys tried to crash an aftershow at Gonerfest 10 that my girlfriend and some of my friends had put together. After they ended up not playing, I think they went to go get crack. Still, this is a great record. 

07. Manateees: Destruktor 7" (Tic Tac Totally)

Seriously evil, brutal shit. The B side, Witch, I think is about their weird mascot head thing.

06. The Sleaze: Tektonik Girlz 12” (Total Punk)
These guys are crazy. I put the singer in this band in a sleeperhold while they were playing once because they were spilling beer all over my friend Neil’s amps that they were borrowing. Complete pussies, but I like their records a lot.

05. Golden Pelicans: Go Jump in a Lake/Hard Head(Total Punk)
Great record by these Orlando dudes. Catchy shit that goes hard. Lots of real guitar chords and stuff. Members of Diaper and the Shitbags.

04. Mac Blackout Band – Heartbreaker 7” (Pelican Pow Wow)
This dude has done a bunch of records that are mostly pretty underrated in my opinion. His new band fucking destroys with guitars and is eerie as shit with a microKORG on top of that. The vocals are as tortured as they were on the Mickey LP or on Daily Void stuff. If you’re a dumbass, don’t buy this record because you won’t like it.

03. True Sons of Thunder: Stop and Smell Your Face (Little Big Chief)
An inside source tells me that this was recorded during the same sessions that their previous LP, Spoonful of Seedy Dudes (Jeth-Row) was drawn from, but these are definitely NOT outtakes. This is just as solid as their first record. Eric, Joe, and Sam can just barely cut through Rich-wad’s terrifying banjitar howl. A banjitar is a banjo neck affixed to an electric guitar body, by the way. Not for dudes who dress like There Will Be Blood or some bullshit, this will melt your face off like Raiders of the Lost Ark.

02. Real Numbers: Only Two Can Play 12” EP (Three Dimensional)
This is a great pop record that Eli from Minneapolis bands Cozy, Boys’ Club, and the Retainers is in charge of. Every band I’ve heard that this dude has been in has been really exceptional. Lots of fun, uptempo melodies on this thing, but it’s still mostly kind of sad.

01. Sector Zero: Guitar Attack (Goner)
The B-side of this, “Hiding In My Car,” is the real hit, I think. This is a supergroup of sorts and everybody in this band is a huge deal or whatever, so it’s pretty cool that they didn’t put a lineup listing on the sleeve. This record should be purchased by bad dudes who like to kick a lot of ass, not some bespectacled Pokémasters who gotta catch ‘em all.

00. Buck Biloxi and the Fucks/Giorgio Murderer split 7”(Holotrash)
Never in the history of the phonograph has such an incredible record been pressed. If you purchase one record for yourself or a loved one this holiday season, make it this one. The A-side is me, your boy, Buck Biloxi doing my thing on two songs: “Shithole Boys” and “Tea Party.” P-U-N-K. The B-side is also me as Giorgio Murderer, using a combination of real, legit instrumentation, computer junk, and yelling to yell about Star Trek.

Cool Ghouls

Meat Market: "Too Tired" 7"
This scrappy little 45 is what an Oakland house party sounds like. Excellent tunes! Plus, Meat Market are a bunch of stand-up dudes in person.

Sonny and the Sunsets: Antenna to the Afterworld
"Path of Orbit" literally brought tears to my eyes upon first listen. Beautiful. If Sonny had a spirit animal, it would be a wise old dog.

Angel Olsen: "Sleepwalker" 7"
"Sweet Dreams" is such an amazing and psychedelic tune!

The Mallard: Finding the Meaning in Deference
Their swan song. I would call this album a fucking achievement.

Cairo Gang: Tiny Rebels
This is some seriously mystical shit! I don't think the psych-garage crowd is really privy to Emmett Kelly, but they oughta' be goin' nuts over this album.

Froth: Patterns
These guys are one of Lolipop Records flagship bands. Super stoked about the work that Lolipop is doin' down in LA! A new epicenter for rock n roll on the West Coast! And Froth jam real good n hard.

La Luz: It's Alive
La Luz are fucking killer.  Their sound is like Dick Dale thrown into a tar pit then re-emerging as the Silver-Surfer spinning Billie Holiday.

Magic Trick: River of Souls
Tim is in fine form these days. We played the release show for this album. He brought some trumpets on stage at the end of his set and played some far out jazz-ass shit.

White Fence: Live in San Francisco
Ryan was at this show. White Fence's albums are rad, but I've always thought that his live sets are where he really blows minds. He's like a sorcerer or somethin. This record was recorded by John Dwyer on a Tascam 388 -- sounds real nice.

Al Lover: "Snake Hands" 7" [ft. White Fence] 
After an Al Lover set, I walked up to him and said "Hey man, that shit was so good, it made me feel weird." Al laughed and told me that's what he's going for. 

White Mystery

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Uh Bones: "Only You" 7" (Randy Records)
02 Twin Peax: Sunken LP (Autumn Tone)
03 The Brats: "Be a Man" 7" (HoZaC Archival)
04 Shine Brothers: Hello Griefbirds (Burger)
05 Absolutely Not "10
06 Night Beats: Sonic Bloom (Reverberation Appreciation Society)
07 Earring: Nunn Ones Cassette (Manic Static)
08 M4ss1v3 3g0: Don't (Maxiumum Pelt)

Cheap Time's Jeffrey Novak

Top 10 Mudhoney shows we saw this year, of the 10 shows we played with them

10. Dallas, TX - Club Dada, 9/28/13
Easily the worst show of the tour. Mark hurt his angle during some crazy jump on stage, and then he ate Ryan's pizza as he was iced down backstage, then Guy arranged for the fans who had stuck around after the show to come back to meet the disabled Mark Arm for autographs.

09.Charlotte, NC - Tremont Music Hall, 9/25/13
This was Mudhoney's first time to ever play in Charlotte, and maybe their last. Argued about Hawkwind records with them, and I was really surprised what an early cut-off point all those guys have for the ongoing kings of space rock.

08. Washington, D.C. - U Street Music Hall, 9/23/13
First night of the tour, and none of us had ever seen or meet anyone in Mudhoney before. They were instantly the nicest band we've ever met next to Yo La Tengo. None of us were prepared for what a great live band they are. This could have easily been number 1 for those reasons alone, but DC sucks.

07.Chapel Hill, NC - Cat's Cradle, 9/24/13
Got to go record shopping with Steve, and watch Guy learn their Cheater Slicks cover during soundcheck. Ryan got to play the Cat's Cradle for the first time, where he saw the best shows of his teenage years.

06.Austin, TX - The Mohawk, 9/29/13
Mudhoney introduced us to the lead singer of Cat Butt.

05.Memphis, TN - The Strip Mall Hi-Tone, 9/27/13
The new Hi-Tone is a real disappointment. It's set up is just as bad as the old one. Mudhoney forgot to play their Cheater Slicks cover, and they argued with me the next night because it was written on the setlist. Mark and Steve were super stoked on Human Eye.

4.New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks, 10/1/13
Surprised that more people turned out when we played One Eyed Jacks with Jon Spencer earlier in the year. Mark borrowed my Jazzmaster that I've had since I 16 for one song in open G.

03.Atlanta, GA - The Earl, 10/2/13
Guy forced us to eat these horrible pickled quail eggs that were really spicy. Jessica seemed to enjoy hers. Ryan couldn't even be incised for a taste. I eventually spat mine out.

02.Houston, TX - Fitzgerald's, 9/30/13
Jessica played some intense of air hockey backstage with Dan. Guy's bass solo on "In'N'Out of Grace," really went for it. Dan admitted to me that Bill Bruford is his favorite drummer.

01.Nashville, TN - Third Man Records, 9/26/13
Seeing Ben Swank and Ben Blackwell act like teenagers in awe of their teenaged heroes was a real treat. I've never seen everyone at Third Man so excited. I warned Jack White before show that it was impossible to not play air guitar to "In'N'Out Of Grace," and sure enough Ryan turned around and caught Uncle Jack in the act. 

Growwing Pains

Favorite things to listen to in 2013:

01. Love Chants 4 track EP
I have a very fond memory of being uncomfortably high and listening to the song "Skirts of Rain" over and over again driving through some mountain range in the van on our first tour last summer.

02. UV Race: Homo
It’s disgusting how many times I’ve listened to this tape all the way through but it always sounds just as good as the first time.

03. Meat Thump: "Box of Wine" 7”
Quickly becoming one of my favorite bands. Fronted by the late Brendon Annesley of Negative Guest List Recordings. Two of the most thoroughly depressing songs ever in the best way.

04. Bitch Prefect: Big Time
Simple, sad, elegant, sincere, clean and honest. Great lyrics. No malarkey.

05. Terrible Twos: S/T 
First record of a local band I think I ever bought. Just rips the whole way through. Every song’s a hit. Adam and I used to go see these guys all the time when we were kids, and still do.

06. Raw Prawn: S/T 7”
Man, everything this label (RIP Society) puts out is so good. The songs are great and they fit really well on a 7”. Plus the cover is a dog wearing sunglasses. Get right outta’ town.

07. Solid Attitude: BB Gun Picnic
This band is awesome. Everything I’ve heard from them feels like its over too soon and I like that.

08. Bazooka: I Want To Fuck All The Girls In My School EP
This band is from Greece. I like that they have two drummers and I like that they have a kind of atypical way of writing songs.

09. Dave E. and the Cool Marriage Counselors: "Searching Through Sears" 7”
This one’s an oldie but goodie. Big fan of Electric Eels but I think I like the solo stuff even better. I love that he sings “Love Meant To Die” in acapella style flawlessly right there on the spot.

10. Eat Skull: III
Always on heavy rotation. Great songs. The lyrics really hold up. Love the way it was recorded.

Bed Wettin' Bad Boys

Soma Coma: Demo '13
Sick hardcore from Melbourne. Relentless drums, great evil riffs. They pummel every part. This is friggin powerful and I would feel immortal in this band. I guess Die Kreuzen is an easy reference point, manic hardcore with rock tendencies. Still sounds distinctly Australian to me in parts though. Incredible cover art, haven't seen the tape around since the start of the year so I'm assuming it's long gone, but you can download it here. [Joe]

The Stevens: A History Of Hygiene
This came out a couple weeks ago, easily my favourite record of the last year. Another Melbourne band. I get headaches trying to comprehend this record. Ruthless command of melody, about 20 great guitar lines in every 1 minute something song, basslines so good they become backup singers. Every single member of this band is throwing in every genius thought they've ever had, and I guess I need to mention they do it consistently across 24 songs on this LP. Really dense well realised record. Interesting musicians to watch play music also, as per the record every member is sharp and going for it. [Joe]

Constant Mongrel: Heavy Breathing
One last great record from Melbourne. I still find this LP really bizarre despite knowing the members on a friendly basis. Tom has an effortless ability to make masterpieces of what would in any other instance be the dumbest riff or melody you've ever heard. Weird and catchy punk songs without a hint of deceit. Sounds great too, recording is wiry and sort of subdued making the whole thing weirder. Finishes with a locked groove of Tom Hardisty (who recorded the LP) breathing heavily—friggin genius. Last time I saw em they played a new song which sounded like the pinnacle of their musical creativity so far. Can't wait for another record. [Joe]

Mordecai: College Rock 
Putting this record on makes me think about the people making it. Some guys in rural Montana. Where do they eat? What is their idea of a fun day out? Every listen brings another stream; were they all homeschooled together? [Ben]

Dribble: Demo Cassette
Ugly punk out of Melbourne. They’ve really turned the festy up with this one. The tape comes courtesy of Cool Death Records. My prediction for 2014? Dribble release, crossover hit. [Ben]

Dick Diver: Calendar Days 
This band appeals to me mostly because they are the only Melbourne band to feature a member who prefers rugby to AFL. That probably doesn’t mean much to an international audience. The fact that they sound Australian in the 21st century in a way that doesn’t make me madder than a cut snake should though. [Doug]

Kurt Vile: Waking on a Pretty Daze
I kind of got bummed when I heard the title track for the first time before the album was released and realised it was nine and a half minutes long. I thought that I’d heard a quarter of the album in one go. Then I found out it was a double album and I was happy again. [Doug]

Hoax: Hoax
Found out about these guys when we were on tour in the States in 2011, just after the Fagget 7” had been released. Got to see them play down in Long Beach, so the track "Los Angeles" has particular resonance.  

"Music of the non-Garage Rock variety"
You may have heard there's been some what of a "garage rock revival" in Australia over the last few years. No doubt some of the music that came from under this banner was/is great but it seems now the agenda of writing a no-frills guitar song is much less admirable, urgent or even subversive as it once felt. Loads and loads of awful Johnny-come-lately's have tagged along wanting a piece of the pie. No doubt lots of great "traditional" bands here still but I think this has (probably subconsciously) caused the better music from here to be a little more interesting, ambitious or absurd. A few examples: Cured Pink, Mad Nanna, Satanic Rockers/Encounter Group, Half High (and all of Matthew and Lucy's post-Naked On The Vague projects), Love Chants, Angel Eyes, Nun, Super Star and Ghastly Spats. Even the local groups mentioned above by my BWBB associates have the admirable trait of trying to fit between or outside of any genre-based music tradition. Outside of Australia: I enjoyed pioneering trip metal group Wolf Eyes most recent LP. Also all things Graham Lambkin/KYE Records made a huge impact, finally a reliable IN to the world of experimental/outsider music. Opened my ears to Call Back The Giants, Idea Fire Company, Swill Radio Records, Jason Lescalleet, James Rushford & Joe Talia, Aton Heyboer, Good Area and much more. [Nic]

Pampers

Top 10 NYC bands we played with in 2013:

Call of the Wild: The hardestest, rockinest band in town. They're the kings and queen of making even the biggest "seen-it-all" curmudgeon grin from ear to ear. They also host the best (and probably last) loft shows in Williamsburg… Look out on the streets for actual xeroxed flyers for Wild Kingdom—yr not gonna find it online, nerds!

Degreaser: This power trio does something unique—twist their native Australian farm-punk roots through NYC sewer sludge to mutate into their own exceptionally disagreeable Swamp Thing… Our favorite show we played with 'em this year was at Shred-Stuy, a house infested with skate rats, BBQ grilling and free kegs of beer… We played on a roof over a half-pipe while dudes, well, shredded it + people dangled from various long drops all around us.

Foster Care: Our brothers from different mothers. They're everything that's right about the world and everything that is so very, very wrong. The best punk band in NYC and you people still don't know…! The funnest show we ever played with 'em was not a show so much as it was all of us jumping off of cliffs into Percy Priest Lake.

Liquor Store: Man alive, these guys were rad before but have gotten sooooo sick… Supercharged, beyond tight, AND it's boogie woogie? YEAH BUDDY. Someone on Terminal Boredom called 'em "Grand Punk Railroad" and that's some apt-ass shit. They also might be the hardest gigging rock'n'roll band in the city (in all the right ways).

LiveFastDie: NYC's best garage punk band during the 2000s. They don't play out much anymore but it was a goddamn honor to play with 'em this year—they haven't lost a step! Although, our best time seeing LFD was definitely circa '06, where they played in someone's kitchen while we watched the action from a bathtub down the hall.

The Men: The boys of the Men were kind enough to take us on tour a couple months ago and it was inspiring to watch these guys go about doing their shit right… Rockin' tighter than pretty much everyone else, conducting business with both solid mettle + good humor AND showing everybody what being bona fide buddies is really all about. They truly are the epitome of their name.

Nancy: Don't you love it when you've never heard of the band that's about to play and then they end up being so awesome that you high five strangers? Nancy was the only band we played with this year that scratched that particular itch, and for that we are eternally grateful.

Nuclear Santa Claust: Another tubular hybrid (this time Clevo + NYC), NSC transcends through enthusiasm... They're so hyped up, they're so stoked—but they couldn't care less about you, they probably don't even realize yr even there! Being true punks makes 'em deliriously happy. Boy, we're jealous!  

Pop. 1280: We had the pleasure of playing their gnarly record release party at Death By Audio and that's our favorite thing about 'em: they motivate pleasure in all the nastiest ways! You listen to that band and yr like, "This is definitely killer but, woof, there is definitely something wrong with these guys"… Which, thankfully, fills them with childlike glee. From personal experience, we also recommend ferry rides with them, strangely enough.

Shocked Minds: They're literally dangerous! Seriously! They play the most infectious power punk in the city, but listen: just 'cause they put a little sugar on it, it doesn't mean that they won't hurt you for some quick money or yr ladyfriend. God bless 'em.

Photo by Leah Horikx

Royal Headache's Lawrence Hall

A list of pinball machines I've enjoyed this year

01 Medieval Madness - Williams - 1997
02 Atlantis - Gottlieb - 1975
03 Bank-A-Ball - Gottlieb - 1965
04 Indianpolis 500 - Midway - 1995
05 Ice Show - Gottlieb - 1966
06 AC/DC - Stern - 2012
07 White Water - Williams - 1993
08 Champion Pub - Williams - 1998
09 Theatre of Magic - Bally - 1995
10 Pinch Hitter - Williams - 1959

Chit Chat

Favorite Albums of 2013

Haunted Leather: In Her Golden Room
Fuzz: S/T
Weyes Blood: The Outside Room
Hlep: Zahn
Kyle Kaos: Negi Zonin'
Cousins: River/Sea Change 12'' split
Stolen Girls 7"
Total Trash: I Don't Care

Purling Hiss

Favorite Albums of 2013

Axis:Sova: "Past The Edge" 7"
Spacin': Megatations (Tour CD-R)
Afflicted Man: Off Me 'Ead
Birds of Maya: Celebration
Hatchet Annihilation: Marvin The Psycho (Private Press)
Andy Kaufman: Andy and His Grandmother
Royal Trux: 3 Song EP
Pampers: S/T
The Men: New Moon
Counter Intuits: S/T

Gino and the Goons

Gino Bambino: Midnight Hour Queen by Jack O, Lou Reed, Mills Ave. in Orlando, Fla. From Weber St. to Virginia Drive.  

Hugh T.Williams: Melissa, Gonerfest 10, Dirtbombs - Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-Blooey!

Jack Majic: The Shirks 'Slow Song', especially the lyric "I don't want/I don't wanna want you". Nick Cave and other practicing vampires; Harry Dean Stanton, Collin Barth, Mark E. Smith. Greta Gerwig dancing. Especially in Greenberg& Frances Ha.  

Greg Chumpire: Lancaster, Pa. music scene—Small Beers of Quilmes, Argentina and people who upload obscure '90's vinyl to youtube.

T.Love: Sex, drugs & rock'n'roll. Same as last year.

Ulf Mandlebass: Memphis, The Growlers, Lean Cuisine Pecan Chicken

Lefty Laroo: Life Stinks: S/T, Buck Biloxi/Giorgio Murderer 7", Lumpy and the Dumpers -Let me see you nitwits pogo!!

Dick Jacuzzi: Single mothers, left-handed cigarettes, motorcycles with side cars

Photo by Ryan Naideau

Tweens

1. Favorite Records

Gun Outfit: Hard Coming Down [Bridget]
Swearin': Surfin Strange
Dead Dog: Precious Child
The Harlequins: Sex Change EP
Bad Side: "Everyone Wants Something From Me" 7”
Joanna Gruesome: Weird Sister

2. The lemon poppyseed from Dough Doughnuts in NY. We don't have doughnuts like this in Cincinnati. We just don't. [Bridget]

3. Swans was one of my favorite shows this year. Loudest set I've ever seen. [Bridget]

4. When our friends showed up super fucked up at a not-so-attended CMJ show of ours and rolled around on the floor and freaked everyone out. [Peyton]

5. Seeing BB crowd surf during the Spits set at the Knitting Factory [Peyton]

Dick Diver

The Clits: 22 past 5 from Excuse Me 7”
You think the song ends but it keeps going (usually a bad thing). I think this song is about confusion. It is direct, sad and rockin’. 

Bed Wettin’ Bad Boys: ‘Any Day Now’ song/clip from Ready For Boredom
People talk about sincerity and irony like you have to pick a side. This song seems loving, completely sincere and in this clip the guitars are ‘plugged in’. Good gag. 

Footy: Mobile Cemetery
Footy are a piano duo that play...what? Jazz? ‘Ambient’ stuff? German Rock? I dunno. They’re not really like anything I’m aware of and they can play the shit out of their pianos. I mean, check out the last track 'Sea Home'. The bastards!

TV Colours: Purple Skies, Toxic River
This was not the album I was expecting, mainly due to the ambition in the production. But it seems like a really open and beautiful album. The recording of the beeping supermarket check-out is sad and cool.

The Stevens: A History of Hygiene
There are lots of songs on this album but never once did I think 'they could have done with another verse.' So there’s a generosity here that I enjoy a lot.

The Native Cats: Dallas Album Launch, Brisbane Hotel, Hobart
The Native Cats are a modern band in that they are committed to something lyrical that ignores, for example, the "meaningful" ode to nature. Seeing them at their album launch I got that weird tension in the pit of my stomach that I think means "good art."

KES: Duets
When Dick Diver was starting a few years ago, I felt like KES’s shows and albums amounted to a sort of formidable presence in Melbourne. He/they went quiet for a while but I hope that KES will just keep on making strange records like this for a long time.

Day Ravies: ‘I Don’t Mind’ from Tussle
To me this song evokes this weird feeling that I’ll try to approximate: slightly drunk (2-4 gin & tonics), on a plane high above the clouds, 2PM sunlight refracts through drink, seems nice.

Smelly Tongues

Getting to play in odd, fun places like the Palms Tavern, the basement of Vacation Vintage, Permanent Records LA, and getting to play these and other places with rad bands like Protomartyr, Human Eye, The Spits, Lamps, Zig Zags, Fuzz, and Endless Bummer.

Eating at Mission Chinese in San Francisco

The Cuntz

Mississippi Records, Número Group, and Light in the Attic comps and reissues.

M.I.A.

The Evening Meetings album (listen to Ricardo loudly while driving), and getting to see Dreamsalon (former Evening Meetings) play

Permanent Records in Eagle Rock. Liz 'n Lance are two totally amazing people who have created something unique here in LA.

Counter Intuits LP

LA Opera's performance of The Magic Flute (a mixture of German Expressionism and Buster Keaton)

Keenan Marshall Keller and his ability to carry a Twin Reverb

The Resonars

Best of 2013 in no particular order:

Blackfeet Braves (Lolipop)
Top-shelf psychedelic pop. Seeing them at the District in Tucson was an earth-shattering experience.

Wrong Words: Everything Is Free (Trouble In Mind)
Hit after hit after hit. Listened to this record every day for a month. What's Done Is Done is the best song I've heard all year!

Freezing Hands (Burger)
Travis Spillers is a master storyteller. He writes songs both hilarious and heartbreaking, often at the same time.

La Luz: Brainwashed/TV Dream 45 (Suicide Squeeze)
My favorite 45 this year! Dark yet upbeat, reverbed out surf-rock with 4 part harmonies.Here's to those ladies having a speedy recovery!

Hot Lunch (Tee Pee)
Brain-crunching hard rock. Someday I'm gonna steal their drummer.

Wyatt Blair: Banana Cream Dream (Burger)
22 years old and already has two albums loaded with hits under his belt.

Tele Novella: Don't Be A Stranger/Excalibur CD-R (self-released)
Natalie Ribbons is my favorite songwriter right now. Songs full of dynamics and gorgeous twists and turns.

Gravy's Drop: Gumball (Spot On Sound/Cut-Rate)
Straight up great rock and roll. Billy doesn't mess!

Union Pacific (Lolipop)
A Tucson band so good that when I first heard them I had to ask 'where are these guys from?' They remind me of the Makeout Party.

The Courtneys: S/T (Hockey Dad)
A great combination of Daydream Nation-era guitars and sunny poppy melodies. The song "90210" makes me swoon!

CCR Headcleaner

Our Favorite Musically Related Happenings of 2013:

Bay Area Bands: Stillsuit. Mansion. Life Stinks. Big Black Cloud "Dark Age." Cesar Cuts. Chikamasa B-300. Dabber Techno. Danny Brown's Old. Destruction Unit "Deep Trip." Drugs. Eat Skull "3." Finally getting a 388. FUZZ TOUR. Home recording. Human Eye "4." The Knockout. Matt Horseshit. Pizza Burglar Records. Releasing our LP, finally. Riding Crops. Rumors of Chris Gunn and Adam Stonehouse releasing new shit. Spray Paint live at Trailer Space SXSW. SS Records. The Tascam 144. Taterbug Live at LCM. Trinidad Scorpion Powder. Turning Up The Lights. Ty's Sleeper. Vegas Birthday. x0xb0x. THE DESTRUCTION OF THE TECH BUBBLE AND RESURRECTION OF BAY AREA MUSIC ARTS AND CULTURE (NEXT YEAR?) 

Photo by Megan Mack

Las Rosas

Top Four Moments from the Television show "Martin":

Rosas bass player Jose A grew up watching the sitcom "Martin" starring Martin Lawrence. Jose B’s parents wouldn’t let him watch shows of its kind because they weren’t on PBS. Here, Jose B, (guitar/vocals) annotates Jose A’s (they aren’t the same person) top favorite moments from "Martin". 

Bob from Marketing
It is a true story that Jose A went as Bob from Marketing for Halloween a few years ago. While a Dominican in whiteface-over-blackface may have been an insane idea, it somehow failed to prevent him from impressing a certain young lady that night, destined to become his sweetheart!

Suspicious Minds
from Jose A: "this one is one my favorite ones hahaha martin is trying to find who stole his cd player"

I’m in love with Martin’s fake dog! I also love their all-black wardrobe, contrasting Bruh-Man, the obvious culprit. Definitely feeling inspired by Martin’s chain/turtleneck look!

Romantic Weekend
HA! They must have had such fun making this TV show. Looks like Jose A isn’t a huge fan of Sheneneh, Martin’s most popular alter ego. Anyhow, here we see Martin and Pam in a rare moment of unity in the face of danger. Interesting body language, considering their usual antagonist tendencies toward one another.

Dragonfly Jones
The use of exaggerated ebonics, offensive portrayal of various ethnic groups, caricatures of poverty and criminal tendencies are frankly… stuff I thought up by pretending to be a college sophomore.

Nots

Our Favorite Places to Get Weird:

Eli's Mile High Club: Our number one hobo hangout on this list. Located underneath a freeway near an overpass Oakland, USA.

Saturn Bar: Sweet pit action. Best balcony for spectators and smokers. There's also a bar kitty who only loves Bailey, the bartender.

House of Creeps 2: Warehouse weirdos with a hot tub in the kitchen and a non-functional fire pole next to the bathroom. Holler at Bryan from Talk Sick Brats when you go.

Conspiracy Corner: Sometime they meet at an after-hours pizza shop. Sometimes they meet via headset mic at the coffee shop. Either way, they will find you.

Black Mekon

01. Kid Congo and the Pink Monkeybirds: Conjure Man
Kid knocks it out of the park with every release these days.

02. Al Lover FT. White Fence: Snake Hands
This is why PNKSLM is the only label for us, they put out awesome records like this.

03. White Mystery: Break A Sweat
I ripped off one of Alex White's songs recently, I hope she doesn't mind.

04. Sudakistan: Concrete Djungle
Best live band this year without question.

05. Ultras S/C: 1417 Roberts Ave
This proves supergroups don't have to suck.

06. Coachwhips: Look Into My Eyes When I Come(reissue)
Almost everything Dwyer touches is gold but Coachwhips will always warm my cockles the most.

07. Charles Howl: Do No Harm
How can you not dance to this? What's wrong with you?

08. The Gories: Shaw Tapes Live in Detroit 5/27/88
I'm including the whole album because they're the goddamn kings.

09. Claw Marks: Soul Food
If I can't have any Cheater Slicks this year then this will fill my quota. Got teeth.

10. Les Big Byrd: Indus Waves 
All my favorite songs are usually under 2 minutes but I think you could dance to this for an hour without realizing. 

Natural Child

5 things that changed in 2013

01 Burger King continues to get worse, but it's better than
02 McDonald's in Europe
03 In 2013, there are more Subways than people named Jared
04 Taco Bell got Cinnabon, Wendy's got pretzel buns
05 Rally's is still Checker's

Cool Runnings

01. Colleen Green: Sock It to Me
She rules so hard, perfect pop songs and production. So chill.

02. Fuzz: S/T
Best cover art of the year and the meanest riffs out. So Sabbath.

03. Earl Sweatshirt: Doris
The beats are sick and the raps are just way too good. Angry chill.

04. The Locust reforming for FYE Fest
Real real good news A+++

05. Hunx & His Punx: Street Punk
Hunx are the shit and this whole record kills so hard.

06. Caroles: Hollow Trophy
Caroles are way younger than you and way more fucked off. Insanely good live too FYI.

07. Zero Cold War:  Dane Burman skate vid
This dude is so gnarly.

08. The Memories: Love Is The Law
This record is so sweet and so chill.

09. Taylor Swift Red Tour: Vector Arena, Auckland
Half of us got real stoned and went to see Taylor Swift. It was pretty much the best time ever.

10. Snoop Lion: "Here Comes the King" video 
This kinda speaks for itself. ONE KING. ONE FAITH. ONE RELIGION.

Terrible Twos

10. OBN iiis live. Seriously the best live band going right now. So many bands try to "rock" but miss the mark. Orville and company are the real deal. Something that cannot be faked, true raw power.

09. Erika: Hexagon Cloud (Interdimensional Transmissions)

08. Audacity: Butter Knife (Suicide Squeeze)

07. TV Ghost: Disconnect (In the Red)

06.Bare Mutants: The Affliction (In the Red)

05.Gary Wrong Group: Knights of Misery (Total Punk)

04. Superior Viaduct's Reissues: HardcoreDevo, Negative Trend, The Urinals etc...

03.New Analog Synths: Minibrutes, MS-20s, Volcas and the rest. Finally new, affordable analog synths are available to the masses.

02.Drexciya: Journey of the Deep Sea Volumes 1 - 4, reissues of hard to find tracks by Detroit best kept secret.

01. Opening for The Clone Defects final Detroit show at Urinefested. Their drummer Fast Eddie's passing would have to be 2013's low.

King Louie Bankston

What the hell have I been diggin' this year? I don't know if I can even go back a whole year's worth of mind wreckage so I at least can at least look around my room or on the foot of my bed or see what's drying up in the bathroom. It's actually really cool that Evan asked me to do this cuz I can talk about stuf like bands and records but not have to give a review. I can just say what it does for me.

Anyway, my buddy Bazooka Joe passed along a copy of my lablemates' new album The NIGHTMARE BOYZZ. This is another one of those ''hey, Mr. Exploding Hearts Guy... this should be up your alley." This one did not disappoint. Even though I think if the production wasn't (and I know that's what they were trying for) so blown all out it would actually be tougher. If the hi-hats and bass drum and the chug chug on the guitar cords could be heard better in the verses it would bite harder. But what do I know. I lean even more to the bubblegum girl group side of power pop and I always have. I just really think this is one of the better records I've gotten in the last 10 years, Exploding Hearts influenced or not. It's on the box at my ACE hardware in rotation this week.

Recently got into this band PARAMORE. Yeah, I'm totally the last-to-the-party poser on this group. But hell, gimmie a break, I never knew what Pitchfork was till I heard about that Jay Reatard review in 2010. After the HELL that was 2003 and then Katrina I totally cavemanned for a decade. This record has really got me hooked. I'm not really giving it the review they deserve. I'm just saying what I like about it. It's tough and still recorded well. Its almoast like a greatest hits package but it's just a new studio offering. And I went out and bought a greatest hits live CD from them that they did a few years back and this is even better. Someone could have said, "Ok enough ukulele."

I grabbed some CDs at the Walmart and one of them was the GREEN DAY third CD in the trio set that they did. I missed them at new Orleans VOODOO FEST cuz Billie Joe was burning the candle at both ends and got thrown in to rehab. Jack White played that year though and it worked out. I wanna thank Third Man for allowing me to play harmonica on the Quintron/Miss Pussycat LP last year too. Anyway the first CD is the punk one, the second one it the more experimental disc and the 3rd one is the (in my opinion) ballad one. That's the one that really cought me. It's got the same sound you could never mistake as GREEN DAY but it cant tell if it's a well-seasoned offering from a veteran punk group or and band that refigured out how to find something fresh in their signature. It's their best record since Dookie. I never bothered with anything before that. I think the production that was afforded to them with the big record deal helped out and the songs were able to be what they needed to be.

Also I've been recording with Terri Six [guitarist for the Exploding Hearts]for the first time in a decade. It's been so great! We are just doing what we always did back with the Hearts, but it's not. It's us just writing pop and pub rock and bubblegum swamp harmonies. It's been a long road back to the studio with Terri and I. We really didn't feel like we could do ourselves any good or something positive through music to help with our grief until now. We decided to sick together as friends and be brothers. We already made the music with the Hearts. That was a great year. They were my best friends. and thank God I still have Terri!!! THANK YOU GOD! And also I have a new extended family that I never had with the Cox, Gage, and Nancy Fitgerald. I have a sister in Erin McDermott who has supported all of us throught the years. Love you girl!!! Our band is simply just called Terri and Louie. Garrette from King Tuff was on loan for the session and it's sounding GREAT!

On the New Orleans front we kinda had our (MISSING MONUMENTS) drummer Aaron Hill barrowed to EYEHATEGOD after the death of Joey. We love and miss you dude! So when they grabbed our drummer, we grabbed their bass player. Fair trade, HA! I took some time away from listening to music after my van wreck out on HWY 90 just up the road from where Jane Mansfeild was decapitated. And yes she was. I started to write for the MONUMENTS at that time and didn't want to have any other influences on it. The down side was I didn't listen to music for the last 3 years too much. Just some Bi Polaroid and hell I played on that. Not sure if I'm still in the band though. Imma have to call Ben and see if I got fired...Hey, Imma plug in my DR DRE BEATS (orange) PILL I got at Holloween and fire up this new MGMT self-titled disc I just picked up. See if its any good. I hope they wrote some pop songs on this album. Either way I gotta pass the fuck out and pump propane tomorrow. Thanx for the frantic scratching Evan...thanx a lot! 

Scraper

Cut Rate Records: Ran and recorded right by tasty David Fox.
Lucky Penny's Country Fried Steak: Makes your knees feel like gravy and tastes better than sin.
Wizard Mountain: Puts out only the best of SF.
Pirate Love: By Johnny Thunders and the Heart Breakers. Sometimes we can't breathe when we hear it.
Gummo: "Why don't you give me them shoes." "Cuz they're new, and I don't give you new shoes ya handyman."
Generation Loss: The coolest thing (band) around.
Mane: Best in the west.
Sidewalk Surfin': Pain and fun all in one.
Sk8 Hi Vans: Only one way to skate... high
VHS Tapes: Finest way to watch a flick. Stuff you can't find on an internet or blu-ray
The Ramones: Always good in any situation. Better than the best band ever, The Velvet Underground. 

Heavy Cream

01 Those Darlins: Blur the Line
02 Jeffrey Novak: Lemon Kid
03 Mudhoney: Vanishing Point
04 Steve Gunn: Time Off
05 Cheap Time: Exit Smiles

Night Beats

Best Album: The Growlers' Hung at Heart

Best Show We Saw: White Fence & Ty Segall doing his album Sleeper for the last time in Brussels. Ty gave his guitar to the audience at the end and they went wild fighting for it. No one got hurt fortunately.

Best Crowd: The energy and drive of the kids in Paris makes for a rowdy show. That or Utrecht after Le Guess Who Fest. That was a wild night.

Best Fan Love: Someone made their friend a Night Beats logo cake and sent us a picture. 

Best News of the Year: We got booked to play South Africa, wrapping up a year of touring roughly 20 countries.

Best Album Bought on a Whim: Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth For Christ Choir. The perfect record for any morning, soulful and groovy and played by the Chicago youth under the eyes and ears of a genius.

Best Thing Found in the Van: A psychedelic, glow-in-the-dark head of lettuce found between the floor board and carpet that we'd been sleeping on.

Best Pizza, Taco, Sandwich: Seattles Big Marios, Pike Street Fish Fry fish tacos also from Seattle, and Tommys Joynt in SF

Best Worst Toilet: O'Briens Pub in Boston. There's no door and its right next to the stage.

Best Floor to Sleep on: Casper's in Montreal. We helped him squat there his last night.

Guantanamo Baywatch

"We love these albums and bumped them in the van on tour!" - Chevelle Wiseman

• Audacity: Butterknife
• Shannon & the Clams: Dreams in the Rat House
• Nobunny: Secret Songs
• The Memories: Breezy Evening
• Curtis Harding: Keep on Shining (Cassingle) SOOO FUCKIN GOOD
• Lady Gaga: ARTPOP

Spray Paint

Top 10 Live Music Highlights of 2013 that I can mostly remember being at:

01. Protomartyr
Spray Paint was fortunate enough to meet and become friends with Protomartyr during SXSW at a Beerland daytime show that Gerard Cosloy books every year. We ended up playing 4 shows throughout the year with them. They are the best. Highlight within a highlight was playing with Tyvek and Protomartyr at Jumbo's in Detroit.

02. Sparks, Fun Fun Fun Fest in Austin
If you are a Sparks fan you understand how exciting it was to watch this.

03. Endless Boogie, Cropped Out Fest Sept. 27th Louisville
They've been on my radar, but until I saw them live I didn't totally get it. HOLY FUCK was I wrong. They were so great. The whole festival was perfectly curated. The best festival ever. 

04. Running and Oozing Wound, April 22 The Burlington Bar Chicago

05. Buying Tom Scharpling beers while watching Evil Army at Goner Fest in Memphis.

06. Rusted Shut and Vaz, Nov 23rd Mohawk Austin
R.S. are in my top 5 Texas bands ever, and I was skeptical that Vaz could follow them on this night. I was wrong again. They were on fire! *Can't exactly remember the end of this evening. 

07. Hall and Oates, May 26th Moody Theater Austin 
I didn't realize how short Oates was. (5' 4") They sounded incredible. 

08. Cuntz and Burnt Skull, Sept 30 Mohawk Austin

09. Sun Araw
I caught him a few times this year. Dude is on some next-level business.

10. Pissed Jeans, March 15th Austin

11. Austin bands I saw a lot of (S U R V I V E, Troller, Ghetto Ghouls, Shit and Shine, Marriage, Dikes of Holland, Wes Coleman, The Young, Daniel Francis Doyle, Ralph White, Tim Kerr, etc....)

Photo by Carlos Moore

Heavy Times

Bo's Top 5:
01 Topo Chico
02 Source Family documentary
03 Supernatural Strategies for Making a Rock 'N' Roll Group by Ian Svenonius
04 K-9 Sniffies live show
05 Internet K-Hole photos 

Matt's Top 5:
01 LaCroix Pamplemousse
02 Revisiting Ministry records
03 Sold a switchblade to a kid at a gas station before crossing the Canadian border
04 My dad smoking grass and showing off karate moves
05 Chef Boyardee pizza in a box

Warm Soda

Most Memorable Shows Warm Soda played in 2013

01. Jun 22nd // Calgary // Sled Island Fest
Completely surreal experience.  We actually didn't even get to play this show because there was a catastrophic flood and the festival got cancelled. A lot of the city had to be evacuated. We did end up getting to play a really crazy house party with Burnt Ones and some other bands in an unaffected neighborhood making the journey worthwhile.

02. July 20th // Paris // City Sounds Festival
We played the City Sounds festival in Paris with Thee Oh Sees and Shannon & the Clams. It was the one of the most fun shows on our European tour. The vibes were hot at this show.  Revisited the age old pastime of stage-diving while Thee Oh Sees are playing, which was especially popular that night. Flicked off Petey while crowd surfing.

03. July 25th // Barcelona // Rocksound
Got mugged. Floated around in the Mediterranean sea. Then we got tattoos and were late getting back to the venue. Everyone was pissed off at us, including the promoter who was "very disappointed." Nevertheless, the show was great, we killed it and all lived happily ever after. Had to get a new passport in Amsterdam.

04. Aug 1st // Rotterdam // Roodkapje
We originally cancelled our Rotterdam show because an inexperienced pilot crashed a plane into the San Francisco Airport the day we were supposed to leave for tour, but it somehow worked out to get a different Rotterdam show added at the end of the tour. This is the show where I met the girl of my dreams. Seriously, it was the kind of love at first sight that you see in movies and only hope to actually experience in real life. After the show me and Doris hopped on a train to Amsterdam so we could get away from everyone and hide out for a few days.

05. Oct. 24th // SF // Thee Parkside
This punk band I'm in called Big Tits got to open for Tav Falco's Panther Burns. Being from Memphis, it really meant a lot to play with a local legend that I've always looked up to. We shared gear and he was cool about letting us use his ultra customized amps. He was all hopped up on codeine due to being "under the weather," but still completely slayed it.  He even brought a girl on stage midsong and and did the tango with her and then kicks her off the stage to go back into a chorus!

Red Red Krovvy

Housewives' 1st (the RIP SOCIETY one)
Every good new band should have members younger than you. The singer Lincoln is also our manager, which shows his impeccable taste. Their first show they played they put on themselves, and had the ego to play last. They are that good.

Good Throb: Culture Vulture
As a small portion of the world has deemed Australian music relevant now it is easy to deem the rest of the world irrelevant. This record is an example of how to get out of the hole dug by the Australian music fan. Snotty, obnoxious, smart.

Ausmuteants: 100 Ausmuteants Fans can't be wrong, 100000000 Bon Jovi Fans Can
Geelong in a post-Y2K world. A perpetual child fronts a band that releases a bunch of stuff in 2013. With "All Talk" they break my one rule of song and have a disco beat in the track. Somehow it works.

Worst things:
Taking a bus to Philadelphia to see Watery Love, going ten blocks in two hours and losing all hope of seeing the great Watery Love.

Trying to weasel onto a lineup (as is the norm for Red Red Krovvy) and being out weaselled by the worst band during the set up process. Weasels.

Having no control over some things in life.

Best Things:

Going to a conference and seeing a man from Darwin who owned three phones, none of them in any sense smart.

Listening to a radio station that played "Theme From Rocky" on repeat, nonstop.

Seeing great American guitar band, Tyvek, in my own country.

Getting a year older and learning through good and bad interactions.

Running

Matthew:
Spray Paint: S/T
Connections: Body Language
Dirty Beaches: Drifters / Love Is the Devil
Oozing Wound: Retrash
Life Stinks: S/T

Alejandro:
Triangulo de Amor Bizarro: Victoria Mistica
Toupee: Dinner Party (Rotted Tooth) 
ONO: Machines That Kill People reissue (Priority Male) 
White Fence: Cyclops Reap (Castle Face)
Burnt Ones: You'll Never Walk Alone (Burger)
Brainbombs: Disposal of a Dead Body

Jeff:
Pampers: S/T (In The Red)
Pink and Brown: Every Shade of Pink and Brown reissue (Castle Face)
Cave: Threace (Drag City)
Thee Oh Sees: Moon Sick (Castle Face)
Je Suis Punk: The Very Best of European Punksplotation (Not on Label/Faux77)

Feelings

Tyvek released their best record yet.

Everything Timmy Vulgar did live and on record. Human Eye may be the best live band going.

The Bugs from Portland, live with Tyvek, a great pairing.

Natural Child live, especially after adding Benny Devine of Wizzard Sleeve on keys. Best bar rockers. Hard in Heaven shows them getting closer to replicating the joy of playing that is conveyed at a Natural Child show.

Tronics: What's The Hubub Bub/Say! What is This? Reissues are perfect bedroom DIY available for the first time ever on LP/any where thanx to our pals at M'Lady's (everything they put out rules!).

The Gories: The Shaw Tapes live in Detroit 5/27/88 This is a must hear/have on Third Man! Hopefully the first of many. In true Back From the Grave style this is bought to you with the help of Steve Shaw and his late great big brother Jim Shaw.

Supernatural Strategies for making a Rock 'n' Roll Group by Ian F. Svenonius. A must read if you are thinking of starting one these things.

The Go's Fiesta and The Pastels' Slow Summits

Urinefested 1 Our fearless leader Ez Love is gonna have a tough time making 2 better than this one!!! Long live Clone Defects!!!

Los Corrale!!! Hands down the best Mexican Restaurants in town!!!

Liquor Store

01. Not being able to afford to go see Neil Young, Van the Man, or Jerry and the Boss. That last one is like some bizarre dream come true. Seinfeld and the Boss at MSG. "I saw the Stones at MSG back in '71" "Oh really? Well I saw Seinfeld and the Boss there in '13. Jon Stewart was there too." Whatever, at least I can download every album ever off some website in five minutes and listen to it on an iPod the size of an overgrown toenail while I'm getting my swell on at the gym before I hit the club. Connecticut license plate white beamer halogen headlights cutting you off from an entrance lane can sit front row with his buffalo wing in her sling.  If he's lucky cop an HJ on the ride back blasting a freshly cracked copy of the latest Greatest Hits.

02. Van Morrison Moondance Reissue: I don't own this nor have I heard it but there's no way it's anything less than sick as death. Van Morrison says, "Don't buy it."

03. Quapping up higher than the Slavery Tower (take that Chicago) and rolling through the sunset on 80 East, possibly the only enjoyable ride I've ever had through the wilds of Pittsylvainia, the golden throated silk-fingered stylings of Andrew Cedermark's "Home Life" leading me back to that great melting garden of Babylon on the coast.  

04. The best band in the world the Spider Bags finally got all their genius singles on one LP so I only have to flip the platter 10% as much while I'm pounding bong rips and protein powder. They got another baby in the oven and they're hotter than ever. Went from a three-car 12-piece band to a three-man 12-pedal band touring in a Montana with a TV.

05. True Sons of Thunder: "Stop and Smell Your Face": I'm sorry but I lied, this is actually the best band in the world. This is kind of like a record made by a guy who breaks into your house, steals your car, huffs almost all the gas, leaves just enough to crash the car back into the garage, makes coffee and eggs, and is watching Kathie Lee in your TV chair when you wake up and wander in after he yells "Breakfast!" Your car's still on fire and it's creeping through the walls.

06. Human Eye "4: Into Unknown": This is for Pitchfork right? This is where it's at people. Wake up and smell that intergalactic java.

07. Gary Wrong Group "Knights of Misery": Post-apocalyptic pederast music made by a proud parent. Perfect.

666. "Funkadelic" and "Free Your Mind and Your Ass Will Follow": Listening to this shit I am overwhelmed imagining how the fuck they pulled this shit off. "This shit" the palindrome that never was. Once this shit licks your mind I don't know if it's possible to get it unstuck.

69. Funkadelic: "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On": This album seems a little more feasible, and also seems to be where the Red Hot Jalapeno Poppers and Slave Against the Latrine copped the entire cut of their jib. All jokes aside this is a seriously thick slab of straight from the mothership groove blubber approaching the stoner void. Which is to say the void is approaching them/it. The only difference is rhythm. Or speed. Similar to how Crass basslines sometimes forget their panties in a twist white boy origins and enter disco territory by way of funky town (see "Slammed From the Foxy" et al), there might be some kind of missing blue link between Funkadelic and the stoner dried grass worshipping that oozed forth from the Holy Mountain after wafting out of Iommi's cauldron. Go funk yourself.

09. "A Feast of Snakes" by Harry Crews: This is one of those books I feel like I'm always looking for but only find once in a black lagoon. Almost Ready Records head (and only) honcho Harry Howes Sr. rented me a copy of this. I'm pretty sure he only read it because the author's name was two letters off from his own. It does however (ironically?) paint a picture of a world that would very much be similar to the transformation of his psyche into some sad and twisted corner dimension of reality. A perfect ending you never even thought was coming.

10. Seal: Seal II: As I poke these words into the telephone I got my ass parked in the van wedged between 80 guitars and all my current worldly possessions which are jammed into a piece of plastic I found in the garbage in the ninth grade as we roll down Druid Park Ave in Baltimore which is currently under many layers of frozen water which permeated the innermost layers of my sneakers sometime last night after we played to seven and a half people after sitting in the car not moving for hours staring at a nine car pile up in a snow storm, before we got ejected from a Chinese restaurant and then watched all the employees trash a Mexican restaurant to the glorious sounds of "POTUSA" because they all hated the boss and are "trying to get fired" before waking up and searching for a pot in which to bathe myself but finding instead a bulldog in the bathroom and a steaming pile of his turds in the shower and I couldnt be more psyched. Making love to Seal must be like that scene in that movie where Christopher Walken videotapes somebodys brain when they die and then watches it and loses his shit. Now I'm eating someone else's shit which I have purchased and made my own at a Taco Bell in Frederick, Maryland and washing it down with brownish water that tastes vaguely of something the dentist shot me in the face with once upon a fat mattress and I'm happier than a clam bake in a porta potty after a free turkey dinner at a Super Bowl party. True story. Thank you Seal. Every few years a Taco Bell "exec" must take an all expenses paid vacation to the Mexican restaurant down the block and 6 months later BOOM out pops a new dish at "The Bell". How do you think they thought of Baja Blast? "Live mas."

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Ellery James Roberts: "Kerou's Lament"
02 Kanye West: "New Slaves"
03 Torres: "Honey"
04 Gesaffelstein: "Pursuit"
05 Pusha T: "Nosetalgia" [ft. Kendrick Lamar]
06. Big Black Delta: "Side of The Road"
07. Run The Jewels: "Run The Jewels"
08. Tim Hecker: "Virginal II"
09. Miley Cyrus: "Wrecking Ball"
10. Sky Ferreira: "You're Not The One"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels
03 Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt
04 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
05 Rhye: Woman
06 Joanna Gruesome: Weird Sister
07 Haim: Days Are Gone
08 Danny Brown: Old
09 Cate Le Bon: Mug Museum
10 Young Galaxy: Ultramarine

Most Played Song of 2013: I like my hip-hop hard, abrasive, and polarizing, so there were relatively few moments since the June release of Yeezus that Kanye West's "New Slaves" was far from the top of my Spotify play queue. For me, not only did "New Slaves" pretty much lay waste to every other hip-hop single this year, but Ye's seething, pointed rage and industrial-powered production makes everything in his stellar back catalog seem saccharine by comparison. 

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: I went on a big Joan Didion kick earlier this year, the bulk of which conveyed a pretty terrifying picture of late 60's/early 70's Los Angeles. After devouring Slouching Toward Bethlehem and The White Album, I unconsciously found myself drifting toward Love's 1967 masterpiece Forever Changes, a kaleidoscopically urgent record which painted a similarly grim and fatalistic picture of the increasingly unstable Sunset Strip music scene and its decadent, disillusioned decay. 

Musical Highlights: Driving down country roads in and around Chautauqua Lake, NY with my wife and her sister this summer while blasting Yeezus and Run the Jewels and repeatedly laughing at Killer Mike's ability to create and deploy the adjective "murderful." Using Ellery James Robert's epic "Kerou's Lament" to soundtrack the first dance at our wedding. Popping Long.Live.A$AP on the jukebox for a nice 12-song block at my local dive whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Musical Lowlights: Some folks are fans of Rich Homie Quan's underground success story "Some Type of Way", but I'm not one of them. It seemed like every time I hopped in my car for a quick errand and tossed on WAMO (Pittsburgh's hip-hop radio station) I was punched in the face with Quan's pumped up warble... and would always find myself rapping the strange earworm hook for hours afterward.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Grizzly Bear: "Will Calls (Marfa Demo)"
02 Kevin Gates: "4:30 A.M."
03 Duke Dumont: "100% (Need U)"
04 Chester Watson: "Phantom"
05 Rocko: "U.O.E.N.O. Remix" [ft. Future & A$AP Rocky]
06 Migos: "Chinatown"
07 A$AP Ferg: "Shabba/Shabba Remix"
08 Classixx: "All You're Waiting For"
09 Schoolboy Q: "Collard Greens" [ft. Kendrick Lamar]
10 Problem: "Like Whaat" ft. Bad Lucc

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Danny Brown: Old
02 Thundercat: Apocalypse
03 Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap
04 Darkside: Psychic
05 Kevin Gates: The Luca Brasi Story/Stranger Than Fiction
06 Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels
07 Forest Swords: Engraving
08 DJ Rashad: Double Cup
09 Juicy J: Stay Trippy
10 Shlohmo: Laid Out

Most Played Song of 2013: Migos, "Chinatown." Whatever smug, fancy lad proclaimed that ignorance was bliss must have had the Migos in mind. I'm relatively certain that listening to the Atlanta carnival trap trio at length can cause you to speak exclusively in staccato bursts and exhaust your spare brain power on devising similes for your plug. But when I wanted to run on a treadmill or break through flimsy bando walls with my forehead, Migos were there for me. I wouldn't count on them for cultural sensitivity, restaurant recommendations, or sartorial diversity, but they understand how to make a consistent and addictive product. It also made me order more shrimp fried rice this year than any other year of my life. 

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: I'd heard "Dove" sampled on the title track of The Fugees' "The Score." I'd heard "Bra" sampled by De La Soul. But I never understand how much I needed Cymande in my life to fulfill my vampiric need for 70s funk-soul-jazz fusion. 

Musical Highlights:Fela, the musical, again. The Yeezus tour briefly eroding my cynicism through imagination and Starman mask . Rustie in the rain at the Pitchfork Music Festival.  Any piece of cheap vinyl that I bought to temporarily excuse myself from the grid. Hellfyre Club rapping so hard at Low End Theory that the audience broke Basquiats over each other's heads. Renting out a bar for my birthday so I could be a musical fascist and play music from 1993, 2003, and 2013—timing the substances and sounds just right that the last hour was Juicy J, Kevin Gates, "Shabba", LA ratchet, "New Slaves", 2 Chainz, Salva, Classixx, Rich Homie Quan, and Danny Brown. Somehow emerging alive and improved.

Musical Lowlights: Watching Red Foo from LMFAO do a courtside jig at the Lakers game to "Party Rock Anthem", while Zack Galifiankakis glowered at him from two seats away. I imagined a "Between 2 Ferns" episode in my head.

Most Played Song of 2013: Wooden Wand, "No Bed for Beatle Wand/Days This Long". I suppose I had a head start here, since an early copy of Blood Oaths of the New Blues—the first of the two albums James Jackson Toth released in 2013—arrived well before the close of last year. I remember driving to my grandmother’s for family Christmas in 2012 and listening to this record on repeat, attempting to decode Toth’s tales of bank-robbing families and kids bound for ruin. For the last 13 months, I’ve come back to its first song—which actually conjoins two tunes with an organ drone—again and again. It’s a love story told with requisite worry, where turning yourself over to something bigger than you becomes both a relief and a dare. Toth attaches asterisks to his optimism but crowns his anxieties with the realization that he’s finally where someone can keep him from “freaking out.” I listened to this song at dawn or shortly thereafter this year more mornings than I’d like to count; it felt, and feels still, like a moment of very honest assurance, a reminder that times have been been worse before and that—if you’re lucky—maybe they’ll never be that way again.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: I’d heard the name Betty Smith mentioned many times in connection with Appalachian folk music, but I kept it like a reminder to, at some point, actually seek her out and listen. This summer, while idly browsing the used section of a local store, I found a copy of Smith’s 1975 album for Folk-Legacy, Songs Traditionally Sung in North Carolina, complete with the 20-page book of annotations she’d written for the release nearly 40 years before. The price seemed high, but I’m glad I made the investment. Smith is still alive, but even then, her voice seemed ancient, delivering familiar ballads with an almost alien sense of wonder. Her "Black is the Color" is a gentle, mesmerizing wonder; I like to ponder her hypothetical reaction to Patty Waters’ version, recorded exactly a decade before.

Musical Highlights: Since we met, my wife and I have been a bit like glue. When we’re not in our offices, we’re generally together, whether that means dinner or rock shows. Early in our relationship, I asked her to go see William Tyler, a Nashville guitarist with a new record out, open for Yo La Tengo. She agreed, because that’s just what we do. “You didn’t tell me he was good,” she scolded me, slack-jawed, a few minutes into his set. I think that’s when she started to trust me, perhaps? In June, I was slack-jawed, too, when I watched her walk down the aisle of the rock club where we’d met, as William sat tucked beside the stage, playing our processional. Our family and closest friends watched and listened, and it was a perfect moment. 

Otherwise: Facilitating a meeting between Jason Spaceman and John Cale, then talking to Spaceman while Cale waited (patiently) in the car to be taken to his hotel room. Seeing CocoRosie perform for the first time in many years and loving every surreal minute of it. Watching John Darnielle cover The Grateful Dead, George Jones, Ace of Base and "The Cat Came Back" at a NARAL Benefit. Seeing Richard Buckner silence the same room solo, several months later. Watching the wonderful ASG christen a new metal club in Raleigh. Seeing Béla Fleck and Abigail Washburn perform in a hotel suite for a crowd of a few dozen. They played Washington Phillips’ "What Are They Doing in Heaven Today?" and the traditional “Am I Born to Die?” Based on that last selection, I convinced Washburn to buy Current 93’s Black Ships Ate the Sky. Dream collaboration?

Musical Lowlights: Honeymooning in Jamaica, only to find that, according to Jamaican resort culture, Bob Marley is the only Jamaican recording artist of all time.  

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
02 James Holden: The Inheritors
03 DJ Koze: Amygdala
04 Various Artists: Night Slugs Allstars Vol. 2
05 Livity Sound: Livity Sound
06 Majical Cloudz: Impersonator
07 Logos: Cold Mission
08 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
09 Bill Callahan: Dream River
10 Maxmillion Dunbar: House of Woo

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 The Range: "Metal Swing"
02 Sophie: "Bipp"
03 The Mole: "Lockdown Party (DJ Sprinkles Crossfaderama)"
04 Autre Ne Veut: "Play by Play"
05 DJ Rashad: "Let It Go"
06 A$AP Ferg: "Shabba (Remix)" [ft. Shabba Ranks, Busta Rhymes, and Migos]
07 Glass Candy: "Warm in the Winter"
08 Haim: "The Wire"
09 Pev: "Aztec Chant"
10 Tessela: "Hackney Parrot (Special Request VIP)"

Most Played Song of 2013: Sophie's "Bipp". It's a cotton candy jam: 97% air and sugar, with the remaining 3% a pink grotesquerie. The song lasts half as long as it should, almost as if you consumed it much too quickly. Like most treats, the mild guilt/stomachache that accompanies it is healthy, and worth it.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Remarc's Sound Murderer, a compilation of 12"s from the enigmatic drum & bass producer, who couldn't miss for most of the 90s but has since faded from sight. A lean collection of nothing but the most mangled-in-a-blender breakbeats and threatening dancehall MCs.

Musical Highlights: Traveling to London, I bought the wrong advance club tickets; I ditched them and shuttled between Plastic People (Matias Aguayo) and a FWD>> party at Dance Tunnel (Koreless and Zinc), where the bouncer mocked my age. A long-overdue reading of Simon Reynolds' dance-music tome Energy Flash. Whispering "like I'm Sha-Shabba Ranks" softly to myself after minor professional victories. All personal attempts to mimic dancehall samples. The mostly unassuming girl who came with us to a VFW hall for karaoke after Bjork was rained out, waited two hours for her turn, and absolutely blew up Alicia Keys' "If I Ain't Got You".

Musical Lowlights: Disco naps that went long, depriving me of DJ Sprinkles and Girl Unit. Watching all manner of young producers hop on the hardcore bandwagon in real time. My failure to convince co-workers that filter disco exists.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:
01 Drake: "Worst Behaviour"
02 A$AP Ferg: "Shabba" [ft. A$AP Rocky]
03 Chief Keef: "Citgo"
04 Migos: "Hannah Montana"
05 Sky Ferreira: "I Blame Myself"
06 Kanye West: "New Slaves"
07 Young Thug: "Picacho"
08 Lil B: "Look Like God"
09 BC Kingdom: "Lockup"
10 Vampire Weekend: "Hannah Hunt"

Favorite Albums of 2013:
01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Jai Paul: Jai Paul
03 Drake: Nothing Was the Same
04 Young Thug: 1017 Thug
05 Blood Orange: Cupid Deluxe
06 Sky Ferreira: Night Time, My Time
07 Waxahatchee: Cerulean Salt
08 Best Coast: Fade Away
09 Gesaffelstein: Aleph
10 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City

There's a commonly held notion that people grow more steadfast in their tastes and beliefs as they get older. But in 2013, a year during which I ostensibly settled into some of the trappings of real adulthood, I occasionally found myself feeling like I’d lost my own compass. I sometimes suspect I’m becoming more impressionable, floating in an ungoverned no-man’s land between stubborn old habits and preconceived notions and a glut of outside information and opinions in front of me. If you're inclined, blame it on the internet (of course) and its unending flow of new music, along with its endless cycle of takes and takedowns.

But this isn’t a melodramatic or despondent story; it’s an elemental one. It’s been important for me to remember that music is a simple thing—a brief burst of invisible pulses in the air that either feels good or doesn’t. Some of the most valuable experiences I had with music this year were the ones that caught me off guard, the ones that arrived without context and unsolicited and reminded me of that fact. Here are a handful of small-but-meaningful experiences that helped anchor me to my own taste when I felt unsteady on my feet.

-Last winter I went to a late-night Saturday show for a piece I was writing. I was milling around, absent-mindedly jotting observations down on my phone between sets when a DJ played a song that jolted me out of the default mental lull I enter while alone in a crowd. "You a beast," the rap went; it sounded like it came straight from the mouth of a young girl during a game of double dutch. I still cannot get the song out of my mind and I still cannot get my hands on the song. After finding evidence of it online by searching different variations of the lyrics I managed to jot down—someone on a Yahoo! Answers page is having the same problem—I discovered that it’s a song called, yes, "U a Beast" by Blaqstarr. I eventually reached out to someone from Blaqstarr’s camp in July; I got a response saying someone would try to send it to me, followed by radio silence. It’s a reminder that not everything is at my fingertips. If you have a copy of this song and would like to send it to me, I am carrie@pitchfork.com.

-In March I went to Orlando with my boyfriend for a surprise birthday party. Once the surprise part was over, a local band called Wet Nurse performed in the house—three girls (two of them twins!), a guitar, a bass and a drumset in a dining room. It was late and I was sleepy, full of beer and resigned to a couple of stupidly cynical ideas: that guitar music isn’t for me and that I’m too old (read: uptight and terrified of actually being too old) to care about seeing it performed live. This birthday party band, Wet Nurse, shot both of those ideas dead and killed me along with them. Scrappy, eye-rolly twin-sister pop-punk blasted out in two minute spurts in a house in Florida—that’s how I wanted my music for the week after the trip. Go listen to Wet Nurse.

-I'm lucky enough to live with my best friend; I'm luckier still that she is a person who loves music but remains blissfully detached from the surrounding online chatter and calculated metrics of cool. She has magically pure, excellent taste and she derives sheer pleasure from music like no one else I know. She just wants to dance and feel good and is mostly unconcerned with why (our song is "No Hands"). When I feel uncertain about a song or an album or I want to enjoy it for enjoyment's sake, I send it to her at work on GChat or we listen to it together in our apartment before going out on weekends. She is a truly trustworthy weathervane of contemporary music taste and I would much sooner check out something she recommended me than I would read a critic’s year-end list. She’s taking piano lessons now, and most nights there’s a distant tinkle of scales being played in our apartment.

-At the beginning of this year, my aforementioned friend was cleaning the apartment and playing a dreamlike song I’d never heard on the speakers. I kept asking her to replay it. It turned out to be "Love You In Chains", a years-old interpolation of Nelly Furtado’s "Showtime" by a producer who goes by Arca. You probably know Arca at this point by his affiliation with Kanye West. I’m convinced that if he had released “Love You in Chains” after the Yeezus buzz, it would top more than one critic’s year-end list. But the song is still out there and still sounds just as good; timing is only an issue insofar as you let it be an issue. "Love You in Chains" is my favorite song of 2013.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Young Galaxy: "Pretty Boy" (Peaking Lights Remix)
02 Bill Callahan: "Small Plane"
03 Vampire Weekend: "Hannah Hunt"
04 DJ Koze: "NooOoo" [ft. Tomerle & Maiko]
05 Disclosure: "Latch" [ft. Sam Smith]
06 Kanye West: "New Slaves"
07 Lady Gaga: "Dope"
08 Youth Lagoon: "Mute"
09 Daft Punk: "Giorgio by Moroder"
10 Beyoncé: "Blue"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
02 Kanye West: Yeezus
03 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
04 Arcade Fire: Reflektor
05 Disclosure: Settle
06 Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
07 Bill Callahan: Dream River
08 Oneohtrix Point Never: R Plus Seven
09 Danny Brown: Old
10 DJ Koze: Amygdala

Most Played Song of 2013: I just looked at iTunes and somehow it was "One More Hour" by Sleater-Kinney. I do love this song but I can’t say I go way back with it or that it’s been a long-time favorite. There was a point this year where I reread Julianne Escobedo Shepherd’s great piece for Pitchfork about their last show, it was around the time the Julie Ruin played Northside, and I had been playing it over and over around that time. Few songs have captured its sense of desperation, and it’s a little hard not to be nostalgic, even if only in the abstract, for the sense of purpose S-K had, the feeling that this band needed to exist. It was on an "Old Music I Love" playlist for a while and it got some spins. 

I had to re-build my iTunes database this year, part of my continually refined backup regimen, and so a good number of my plays are probably not recorded. I have a feeling that the Lee "Scratch" Perry recording of Bob Marley and the Wailers’ "Duppy Conquerer" would also be way up there, because I think I listened to it every day on the way to work for like three months. "Duppy Conquerer" is for me one of those perfect songs, where every element falls into place.

Why do I have old songs as my most played of the year? The subway on the way to work is when I listen almost exclusively to old favorites, and I tend to play the same ones a lot. It’s a time when I want to remind myself of my own deep connection to music, almost as a way of "warming up" for work. Like if I can internalize this feeling of having music move me to such a degree, music I've been connected to and that has shaped my life, it will help to guide me in the day ahead. 

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Elliott Smith's Either/Or. When Jayson Green was working on his great oral history of Elliott Smith to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his death, I realized that I had never formed a deep connection to Smith’s music. I admired it when I heard it, and I did know XO well though I rarely played it, but in general his music had never been a thing for me. I had the feeling that it would be someday, but that the timing just had to work out right. And this year it did. While we worked on Jayson’s piece, I had Elliott Smith’s catalogue on my iPhone and I played it a ton and realized how brilliant his music could be. It also felt like mine. And since we have some super-fans in the office, I was able to learn about his music from them. The single song I could not stop playing was "Rose Parade", so beautiful and rich with detail. 

Musical Highlight: On the subway home from work in Brooklyn I take the L train and then the G. During rush-hour, the platform for the G going south almost always has a musical performer, entertaining riders as we all wait for the train. For a chunk of the year, a woman named Sylvia (if you know her last name or if she has a website please email me:markr@pitchfork.com and I will add here) who sang along to a boombox. Her voice is just wonderful, she sings with power and subtlety and and she has a lot of noise to compete with. On two occasions this year, it was after work, I was training home, and I sat on the bench while Sylvia sang and I listened. She’s the kind of performer you take your headphones off for. And on these two occasions, she sang Beyoncé’s "Halo", and I’m telling you, her interpretation of this song is one for the ages. As she sang I started thinking about the people I love and the idea of loss and my shitty day and I started crying a little there on that subway platform. When the timing was just right for the train, she could do the whole thing for the crowd on both platforms and "Halo" brought down the house. And I downloaded "Halo" to listen to when she wasn’t around. To me it’s still kind of Sylvia’s song.

Musical Lowlight: I was excited to write about the Another Self Portrait set this year, and for some reason it was trickly to track down a promo. One was sent and lost, and then another was sent. And the day it arrived, which wasn't all that long before I had scheduled the review, I opened it up and went about ripping the CDs. And when I pulled the second disc from the package, it snapped in half, you know how the spindles can be too tight with 2xCD sets. Bummer. But luckily I found a torrent. 

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

 01 Drake: "Worst Behavior"
02 Vampire Weekend: "Hannah Hunt"
03 Drake: "Hold On, We're Going Home"
04 Benoit & Sergio: "Adjustments"
05 Kanye West: "Blood on the Leaves"
06 Disclosure: "Latch" [ft. Sam Smith]
07 Dillon Francis: "Without You" [ft. Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs]
08 Chance the Rapper: "Chain Smoker"
09 Jai Paul: "Str8 Outta Mumbai"
10 FKA twigs: "Water Me"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

 01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
03 Jai Paul: Jai Paul
04 John Wizards: John Wizards
05 Disclosure: Settle
06 Devendra Banhart: Mala
07 Volcano Choir: Repave
08 Haim: Days Are Gone
09 Arctic Monkeys: AM
10 Blood Orange: Cupid Deluxe

Listening to dangerously loud music can cause irreparable damage to your hearing. It can also make you feel invincible. At 31, I'm protective of my ears. I often wear plugs at shows. I relish quiet, too. I sometimes put headphones on at work not to listen to music but to block out distracting sounds. I spin a lot of Thelonious Monk albums at home, unfocus my computer-zapped eyeballs, and try to zone out. But it's no coincidence that one of my most vivid memories of the year involved music being played at an unnaturally high level.

When I interviewed ?uestlove a while ago, we got to talking about how different artists go about presenting their music to journalists, label folk, and friends at advance-preview listening sessions. True to character, ?uest prefers a responsibly loud volume to show off new Roots albums. He also mentioned that—also true to character—Kanye West likes to "blast his music to smithereens" when given the chance to impress. This proved to be true at the 2011 session for Watch the Throne, which took place at a fucking planetarium, as well as the one for Yeezus this year, which was held in a concrete loading dock at Milk Studios on the west side of Manhattan. At the time of the session, the album had not leaked. Nobody I knew had heard the whole thing yet. Nobody had heard "Blood on the Leaves". And at that moment in that song—you know the one—everything else faded away as the drums hit my ears, my brain, my general sense of being. Death did not exist in that moment. I felt giddy. I felt relieved, too, knowing this sensation was still out there, still ready to flatten my world at any time. Suddenly inspired to share my euphoria, I texted a friend that I don't text enough—something with exclamation marks. "Ryan, you're rubbing it in," he wrote back. He was not wrong.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Daft Punk: "Get Lucky" [ft. Pharrell]
02 RVIVR: Spider Song
03 Haim: "Don't Save Me"
04 Francis and the Lights: "Betting On Us"
05 Diarrhea Planet: "Babyhead"
06 The Men: "Half Angel Half Light"
07 Justin Timberlake: "Mirrors"
08 Kvelertak: "Kvelertak"
09 Queens of the Stone Age: "My God Is the Sun"
10 Butter the Children: "Spit It Out"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 RVIVR: The Beauty Between
02 Haim: Days Are Gone
03 Carcass: Surgical Steel
04 Diarrhea Planet: I'm Rich Beyond Your Wildest Dreams
05 Queens of the Stone Age: …Like Clockwork
06 Suffocation: Pinnacle of Bedlam
07 Black Sabbath: 13
08 Daft Punk: Random Access Memories
09 The Men: New Moon
10 Gorguts: Colored Sands

Your Most Played Song of 2013: RVIVR, "Spider Song". I stumbled across this video on the All Songs Considered blog back in January and quickly slid down the slope into superfandom. I saw three magical RVIVR shows this year; before and between them, this is the song I kept coming back to. I'm a sucker for all the classic early-90s pop-punk moves on display here—the palm-muted riffing, the machine-gun snare build-ups, that monster pick scrape at the 1:39 mark—but what really gets me is the fire in Erica Freas's voice, and the way she uses it to illuminate the fragility of friendship.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: My friend Nick Podgurski—who happens to be a phenomenal drummer, vocalist, keyboardist, composer, etc.—is my prime obscure-music connection. He's constantly digging up long-forgotten prog, avant-garde black metal and mindblowing deep cuts by famous bands you thought you knew and assembling them into playlists for friends. Nick and I were at a party together a while back and I mentioned my recent obsession with the band America. He insisted I check out "Holy River", by the little-known Fort Worth, Texas outfit Space Opera, and I was instantly smitten. It turns out that Space Opera's entire debut record, a self-titled LP from 1973, is just as good. The album jumbles together most of my favorite qualities of early-’70s rock—the down-home groove of the Band, the abrasion and angularity of King Crimson, the ear-bending precision of Steely Dan and, yes, plenty of America—and somehow makes them hang together.

Musical Highlights: Hanging out in a Vermont hotel room with my wife, La'al, accidentally channel-surfing to a video of Haim live at Glastonbury and instantly looking at each other like, "Holy shit, this is good." (Which led to several months of blasting Days Are Gone whenever we drove anywhere together.) Finally recording the first full-length album by my band STATS, more than ten years after my friend Joe and I founded the project. Helping to launch the latest live incarnation of Aa, featuring longtime buds John and Mike, and new comrade Julian. Aurally gorging on death metal, whether via headphones in my cubicle and during commutes, or live at the glorious Maryland Deathfest XI or at my Greenpoint home-away-from-home, Saint Vitus. Catching multiple gigs apiece by rock supernovas Diarrhea Planet and RVIVR. Reveling in the dumbfounded bliss that is the experience of hearing Milford Graves live (also thrice). Finally seeing Black fucking Sabbath.

Musical Lowlights: Witnessing the near-unanimous critical dismissal of 13. Agonizing over Greg Ginn's decision to peg What The… as the new Black Flag album rather than the much worthier Full Serving, a no-profile simultaneous release by his other band Good for You.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Ruin Lust: "Tethered and Lashed"
02 Agrimonia: "Talion"
03 The Ruins of Beverast: "Daemon"
04 Blood Ceremony: "Lord Summerisle"
05 Darkthrone: "Leave No Cross Unturned"
06 Autopsy: "Mangled Far Below"
07 Oranssi Pazuzu: "Olen Aukaissut UudenSilmän"
08 Moloch: "Vomit Phobia"
09 Arckanum: "Dolgrinn"
10 Dread Sovereign: "We Wield the Spear of Longinus"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Agrimonia: Rites of Separation
02 The Ruins of Beverast: Blood Vaults—The Blazing Gospel Of Heinrich Kramer (Cryptae Sanguinum—Evangelium Flagrans Henrici Institoris)
03 Cloud Rat: Moksha
04 Yellow Eyes: Hammer of Night
05 Sacriphyx: The Western Front
06 Wormlust: The Feral Wisdom
07 Atlantean Kodex: The White Goddess (A Grammar of Poetic Myth)
08 Inter Arma: Sky Burial
09 Cult of Fire: मृत्यु का तापसी अनुध्या
10 Bolzer: Aura

Most Played Song of 2013: Cloud Rat, "The Needle and the Damage Done". I hadn’t paid much attention to the 2013 album from this Michigan grind troupe until I happened to catch them at a crust gig in South London. Ho-lee fuck. They blew the doors off the joint and had me sprinting for the merch table within five minutes. This harrowing Neil Young cover has stuck with me the most, both for the song’s inventive brilliance and how close to home it hits if you’ve ever lost a friend to a dark habit.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Merle Haggard, 40 #1 Hits. I grew up on outlaw country and Southern rock, and ol' Merle has always loomed large in my family’s record collections. Now I’m a city girl with a Bathory tattoo, but some things are hard to unlearn. Between him, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam, and Bocephus, I really dug deep into my country roots this year, and have spent countless lonesome nights on the road listening to Haggard’s weary, knowing twang. This best-of is light on deep cuts but chock full of the old familiar songs that would pour out of scratchy speakers whenever we’d go rattling down dirt roads in my dad’s battered grey pickup, back when I was only young and the sky was always blue.

Musical Highlights: I have no idea how many shows I’ve been to this year, but the number’s pretty high and the memories are priceless, like: Getting to see Drowned, Agrimonia, Cloud Rat, Bolt Thrower, Katechon, Worship, Nihill, Ophis, The Great Old Ones, and Bestial Mockery in various countries, which was a fever dream come true. All the amazing festivals I was lucky enough to blunder into and be a part of, like Roadburn, Incubate, Kill Town Death Fest, Fall Into Darkness, Scion Rock Fest, Desertfest, Martyrdoom, Housecore Horror Film Festival, and the mighty Maryland Death fest, for which I once again served as editor of the official festival program. Celebrating Iron Fist Magazine’s first birthday. Getting hammered to Destroyer 666 with a bunch of old friends in Dublin, raging at Cruciamentum’s final UK gig in London, and improbably surviving yet another year of SXSW madness. Good times and late nights with the bands I was privileged to trundle across North America with in pursuit of riffs, revelry, and a decent night’s sleep: Cobalt, Corrosion of Conformity, Orange Goblin, Holy Grail, LazerWulf, and their hard-working, big-hearted crews, my eternal brothers of the road. Cramming into the dank recesses of the Underworld in London to witness one of Carcass’ first comeback gigs alongside my boyfriend and tons of our mates (best date night ever!). Standing onstage just behind Brian Patton’s towering amps to watch EyeHateGod and Melvins’ drummer Dale Crover sweat and scream their way through the NOLA sludge gods’ first live performance since the untimely passing of original drummer Joey LaCaze…then seeing ‘em do it all over again (this time with new drummer Aaron) at my two favorite NYC venues, Saint Vitus and The Acheron. Spending way too much money on a coveted 3XLP box set of Necros Christos’ early material (I REGRET NOTHING).

Musical Lowlights: Saying too many R.I.P.s (big love to Marianne, Joey, and Boone). Being too scatterbrained to release all the ridiculous powerviolence songs I recorded last summer with my boyfriend and our friend Donny whilst we were living in London and spending all our pocket money on cider (moving back to NYC mid-recording didn’t help). The time one of my idiot roommates let the cat in our room and it scratched up a bunch of my dad’s original Creedance records. Missing a lot of killer shows and festivals due to geographical misplacement. Nuclear War Now!’s stubborn insistence on making us wait an extra year before booking NWN IV (see you in November, Berlin!). The fact that I now know who Miley Cyrus is.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Haim: "The Wire"
02 Kleenex Girl Wonder: "Migration Scripts"
03 David Bowie: "Love Is Lost (Hello Steve Reich Mix by James Murphy)"
04 Petula Clark: "Cut Copy Me"
05 Girls' Generation: "I Got a Boy"
06 Busta Rhymes: "Thank You"
07 Miley Cyrus: "We Can't Stop"
08 Daft Punk: "Get Lucky"
09 Superchunk: "F.O.H."
10 Perfect Pussy: "I"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Kanye West: Yeezus
02 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
03 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
04 Kelela: Cut 4 Me
05 Melt Banana: fetch
06 The Ex & Brass Unbound: Enormous Door
07 Alex Chilton: Electricity By Candlelight
08 M.I.A.: Matangi
09 Quasi: Mole City
10 Yo La Tengo: Fade

Most Played Song of 2013: That would have to be the Steinways' masterpiece of concision "(My Girlfriend Is A) Crazy Fucking Cat Lady", which does more in twelve seconds than I've done in my entire lifetime, I suspect.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Billy Childish has made enough great-and-very-similar records that I sometimes don't listen to new ones, just so they'll be there when I need one. When I reached for one I hadn't yet heard this year, I pulled up In Blood, his 1999 album of duets with Holly Golightly. It's a particularly solid one, and the formalist in me is delighted by its formal conceit: twelve songs, each written with one chord.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Tim Kinsella: "Idolize"
02 Omar Souleyman: "Wenu Wenu"
03 Perfect Pussy: "I"
04 Crutchfield Twins: "Oblivion"
05 Randy Houser: "Running Out Of Moonlight"
06 Drake: "Hold On, We're Going Home"
07 Tegan and Sara: "Closer"
08 DIANA: "Perpetual Surrender"
09 Kacey Musgraves: "Merry Go Round"
10 Laura Mvula: "Is There Anybody Out There"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Melt Yourself Down: s/t
02 M.I.A.: Matangi
03 DIANA: s/t
04 Laura Viers: Warp and Wend
05 The-Drum: CONTACT
06 Body/Head: Coming Apart
07 Jimmy Whispers: Summer In Pain
08 Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap
09 Tim Kinsella sings the songs Marvin Tate 
10 Tegan and Sara: Heartthrob 

Most Played Song of 2013: Tim Kinsella's "Idolize". As Kinsella has gotten further away from anyone's notice, it's loosened him up to do some of the best work of his career. "Idolize" is the first track on a record of Marvin Tate songs—he's a outre-soul songwriter thats been kicking around Chicago's underground forever, beloved to the old heads—and it's Kinsella over a nothing but pounding, punked piano hollering about worshipping a fucked up girl whose life path is just shy a death wish.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: My toddler sons are obsessed with the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers, and I was forced to finally give it a chance. Not bad.

Musical Highlights: Kim Gordon at the MCA, solo, divining "Black Is the Color of My True Love's Hair", her voice the very sigh of desperation. Hearing the Crutchfield's Grimes cover for the first time and starting it over and over again because I could't even get past the amazingness of the first 30 seconds. The big disco payoff in the Four Tet remix of DIANA's "Perpetual Surrender". Hearing Laura Mvula's Sing to the Moon chiming out of the kitchen boom box speakers and immediately turning it way the fuck up. Giving in to "Running Out of Moonlight".

Musical Lowlights: Watching that sex tape of our city's 1%-er mayor dry humping/"dancing" against a folding chair at a Robin Thicke show.

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next two weeks.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Retribution Gospel Choir: "Seven"
02 Dan Friel: "Valedictorian"
03 Blank Realm: "Falling Down the Stairs"
04 Glenn Jones: "Bergen County Farewell"
05 Scott & Charlene's Wedding: "1993"
06 Mazes: "Bodies"
07 The Mantles: "Reason's Run"
08 William Tyler: "Cadillac Desert"
09 Generationals: "Spinoza"
10 Deerhunter: "Back to the Middle"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Wolf Eyes: No Answer : Lower Floors
02 Mike Shiflet: The Choir, the Army
03 Rashad Becker: Traditional Music of Notional Species Vol. I
04 Bonnie "Prince" Billy: Bonnie "Prince" Billy
05 Hair Police: Mercurial Rites
06 Peter Kolovos: Black Colors
07 Mazes: Ores & Minerals
08 Graham Lambkin / Jason Lescalleet: Photographs
09 Okkyung Lee: Ghil
10 Lee Noble: Ruiner

Most Played Song of 2013: Dan Friel, "Valedictorian". I've actually been playing this one for a year and a half; it came out on a 12" in late summer 2012 before appearing on Friel's excellent 2013 LP Total Folklore. 18 months worth of repeats hasn't dulled its earworm-ing charm—somehow its broken-music-box jingle still sounds fiery and frantic every time it fills my earbuds. It helps that the nursery-rhyme melody dovetails nicely with the incessant songs that bleep from my son's toys, a kiddie canon that "Valedictorian" should someday belong to. Maybe I can at least get Friel to play it at my son's graduation in 2031.

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: DeStijl's massive digital reissue of the entire No-Neck Blues Band discography is quite a public service, allowing fanatics like myself to fill in holes created by otherwise long-gone limited releases. I dug into quite a few of them this year, but was most transfixed by The Large Taquat, two side-long pieces recorded at the band's first NYC studio in 1996, and Rye Antenna, a 2004 tour CD-R that captures the ramshackle spirit of their late, legendary bunker in Harlem called the Hint House.

Musical Highlights: After over two decades years of listening to and writing about Richard Youngs, I finally got to meet him and watch him perform—twice!—on his first official tour in the U.S. The first show, at the annually-amazing Hopscotch Festival in Raleigh, NC, took place in the huge Memorial Auditorium, where Youngs' a capella songs echoed with scary power (at one point he stood so still and quiet for so long everyone seemed to wonder if he was done, then he burst back into singing, like a villain jumping onscreen in a horror movie). The second gig, at the Black Cat in D.C., was much smaller in scale and more personal in tone, with Youngs wandering around the room, sitting in the middle of the floor, and creating a completely different vibe that was just as enthralling. Expectations for this tour were off the charts, but Youngs easily exceeded them.

Musical Lowlights: Why dwell?

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next week.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Kanye West: "Black Skinhead"
02 Neko Case: "Man"
03 Classixx: "All You're Waiting For" [ft. Nancy Whang]
04 Daft Punk: "Get Lucky"
05 Disclosure: "White Noise" [feat. AlunaGeorge] (Hudson Mohawke Remix)
06 Kingdom: "Bank Head" [ft. Kelela]
07 A$AP Ferg: "Shabba" [ft. A$AP Rocky]
08 King Khan & the Shrines: "Idle No More"
09 M.I.A.: "Bring the Noize"
10 Kurt Vile: "KV Crimes"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01. Danny Brown: Old
02. Run the Jewels: Run the Jewels
03. Ka: The Night's Gambit
04. Action Bronson & Party Supplies: Blue Chips 2
05. DJ Rashad: Double Cup
06. Prodigy / The Alchemist: Albert Einstein
07. Thundercat: Apocalypse
08. Janelle Monáe: The Electric Lady
09. Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap
10. Savages: Silence Yourself

Most Played Song of 2013: Going by iTunes playcount, I actually lucked out and came up with "Run the Jewels", from Run the Jewels, off Run the Jewels. So it's good that one of my favorite songs/groups/albums of the year qualifies under what I suspect Chuck Klosterman would call the Black Sabbath Naming Trifecta. By the more stringent criteria of vague suspicion, I'm thinking that Kingdom's "Bank Head"—both the instrumental version off Night Slugs Allstars Volume 2 and the version featuring Kelela on Vertical XL—probably wins out. Bonus for biggest earworm goes to Danny Brown's "Wonderbread".

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Thanks to the deathless existence of a few remaining super-obscuro-peddling MP3 blogs and an urge for constant, voracious consumption that would horrify your typical wolverine, I wound up listening to at least a couple previously unheard old records—often as many as a dozen—over the course of every day. It's not going to be the permanent state of things for me that much longer; I think most of it has been a listen-once/save-for-future-reference undertaking that is probably going to pan out better when that stuff pops up again ambushing me in shuffle mode. With too many to list, here are a few of my favorite highlights, albeit ones that are a bit easier to find: Coroner, No More Color (one of those thrash metal albums where the drums alone are enough to make you flip out); Lone Ranger, M 16 (deeper-than-deep early '80s dancehall); Larry Young, Unity (a '65 Blue Note session where the whole band—Young on B-3, Woody Shaw on trumpet, Joe Henderson tenor sax, Elvin Jones on drums—teeters amazingly between bop and avant garde); Janet Jackson, Rhythm Nation 1814 (which falls more under 'rediscovered' -- try avoiding a Flyte Tyme production when you're 12 in 1989 Twin Cities—and is probably the most 2013 album of the late '80s given its mixture of conceptual ambition and immediate-thrill pop.) 

Musical Highlights: An unexpected twin-bill I experienced during a trip to NYC earlier this spring. Well, I expected the first half, at least: I got to see Kvelertak at Webster Hall, and the alternate-universe version of me that gravitated completely towards metal instead of cutting it with hip-hop, dance music, and R&B probably would've enjoyed it as much as my current-universe dilletante self did thanks to a packed basement crowd and the band's relentless dedication to chest-caving volume. (Also, they went all monkey-bars on the lighting rig and played guitar atop the bar. That helps.) The unexpected half came when I headed back to the place I was staying and discovered that one of Kanye West's video-projection pop-up situations was happening a couple blocks away, so I got to watch a pre-AutoTune rendition of "New Slaves" with a few dozen people milling about in the street who had no idea what to expect. Say what you will about Kanye, somehow he made a big orchestrated famous-artist maneuver like that feel like a weird sort of guerilla-art Happening. 

Musical Lowlights: Having my first-ever chance to see Björk cut short at the Pitchfork Festival due to what shortly proved to be the worst torrential downpour I've ever been caught in. At least I got to hear a god-mode version of "Hidden Place".

We asked Pitchfork writers and editors to share their personal highs and lows of 2013. Check back for more installments of My Year in Music throughout the next week.

Favorite Tracks of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: "Hannah Hunt"
02 Haim: "The Wire"
03 Bill Callahan: "Small Plane"
04 Drake: "Worst Behavior"
05 The Knife: "A Tooth for an Eye"
06 Superchunk: "FOH"
07 Parquet Courts: "You've Got Me Wonderin' Now"
08 Colin Stetson: "High Above a Grey Green Sea"
09 Chance the Rapper: "Paranoia"
10 Oozing Wound: "New York Bands"

Favorite Albums of 2013:

01 Vampire Weekend: Modern Vampires of the City
02 Kanye West: Yeezus
03 Dawn of Midi: Dysnomia
04 Parquet Courts: Light Up Gold
05 Bill Callahan: Dream River
06 Chance the Rapper: Acid Rap
07 Arcade Fire: Reflektor
08 Colin Stetson: New History Warfare Vol. 3: To See More Light
09 My Bloody Valentine: mbv
10 Julia Holter: Loud City Song

Most Played Song of 2013: Patti LaBelle's "If You Asked Me To". I live in a fabulous world. 

An Old Album I Discovered/Rediscovered This Year: Two things: I went back to Prince's 1999 to see what 7+ minute electro-funk songs should sound like. I loved the Daft Punk record, but let's reconnect with some space funk, dirty up some dance cuts, and get all the white people to clap their hands on the four. And then, okay, this La Monte Young/Marina Zazeela experimental drone record 78'17" where the B-side is just three sine waves and depending on where you are positioned and how many people are in the room, the sound changes volume. Both albums sound like great excuses for house parties.

Musical Highlights: 2 minutes of Axl Rose asking for some reggae. Walking around Chicago the night before I moved listening to Chance's Acid Rap. Dawn of Midi's Dysnomia. "Hannah Hunt". The Yeezus live show. Destruction Unit live show. Doing yoga to drone metal in Pittsburgh. How Kurt Vile's acoustic guitar strings rattle agains the frets a little on "Wakin on a Pretty Day". The Britney Spears "Everytime" montage in Spring Breakers. Salem's "Trap Door" playing at the party in A Place Beyond the Pines. Gorgi Kay's cover of Bjork's "Joga" in a final scene in Top of the Lake. Playing air drums to John Bonham's fill at 8:50 on "In My Time of Dying" whenever, always.

Musical Lowlights: "Vegan beefs" and these nightmare robots playing "Ace of Spades".