HAPPY NEW YEAR! We’ve been on the most resplendent vacation from all things requiring sitting in front of a computer (unless you count watching Ken Burns documentaries on NetFlix. Yuss Mac support). We’re rather sure you’ve been enjoying yourself and yours too, but we thought, before we launched back into it on Monday, we would put out a few random parting thoughts on 2008. Sort of like the Sammies, but instead of you voting, we exercise our most extreme party dictatorial discretion and lay it all out there. We gotta hurry up and do this, because the Sour Notes, Spain Colored Orange and Listen Listen show tonight at Rudz is gonna kinda rule and we don’t want to miss it. Unless, of course, we crack this book sitting next to us, which promises from the premise to engulf every remaining moment of our vacation.

Albums you simply must own: Just because a record does not get the big ramble treatment by us doesn’t mean that it’s not an excellent selection. Here are our picks of the Wax and Silicon of ’08 you should decidedly be jamming.
Buxton – A Family Light
Papermoons – New Tales
Indian Jewelry – Free Gold
The Sour Notes – The Meat of the Fruit
Woozyhelmet – Get Down
Hearts of Animals – 7″
Born Liars – Don’t Tell Me, I Know 7″
Powerhouse – Yeah!
Flowers to Hide – Down the Stairs

Best things ever:
The Skyline Wiki: A wiki is the sandbox model of the internet at its best: build something for others to play in. And be it seriously detailed entries on bands and releases from the recent past, straight up informational pages, or categories and one-liners dripping with collective (though admittedly insider) hilarity, few things have given us as much joy (or occupied as much of our lunch hours) as browsing through random pages and checking out whatever’s been added since the last time we looked.

Record labels: There are quite a number of labels in this town, some doing a small number of releases for a small roster of bands, while others have some rather hefty momentum behind them and don’t seem construed to too particular a membership. And, they’re doing vinyl batches. That sell out. As in you need to buy them immediately upon release. Specifically, we’re thinking about Ditchwater, AG82 and most of all Dull Knife. We hope they keep it up, because we’ve sure enjoyed their output.

How the city handled IKE: Real talk. Houston is the nation’s fourth largest city. If NYC or LA or Chicago went without power for weeks and weeks, there would have been massive chaos, looting, rioting, and general uncoolness. We all kinda took in in stride. Good work us.

Best new joint: Big Star Bar. Because every night looks like this:

photo by settle down brown

Bands that should keep up the good work: Buxton, Something Fierce, Indian Jewelry – Writing good songs, putting on good shows, building a fan base, releasing records and touring. It doesn’t sound like rocket science, but it doesn’t seem like too many other folks are aiming for a moonshot.

Bands that need to release a record: Spain Colored Orange, Satin Hooks, Elaine Greer, Cop Warmth – Sure, SCO has an EP out, and we’ve heard that it’s more label issues than anything that delaying the release of their 2006-completed Sneaky Like a Villain, but everyone else – what gives? Satin Hooks – put out a 7″. Elaine Greer – Get in the studio. Cop Warmth, your shows are annoying beyond our crotchety ability to attend them anymore, so you must put out records in order that we may enjoy you.

Bands that should be wary of Houston’s tendency to hype you to death and then get bored with you: News on the March, Wild Moccasins, Young Mammals, BLACKIE, Cop Warmth – We’re not saying that you’ve drank the kool-ade or are even in danger of doing so. Just don’t.

Things that we wish there were more of: Blogs or websites or publications of some sort that talk about more of the music that’s out there besides the scene we cover. Sure, it’s whips that so many folks are similarly stoked on the same slice of music that we are in this town, and we are by no means the first to have written about it, but where are the sites that we can go to to learn about noise, grind, metal, underground hip-hop, Navy rock, etc? There are bands that fill up Fitzgerald’s every night and yet there’s no place we can find to go get the news and reviews of whats going on in that scene. Big Ups to Houston’s Most Hated for starting to bring more of the dance-y side of things into the light.

Biggest Disappointment: Rudyard’s. We can remember great cheap nights at this place, watching some of the biggest up and comer bands and having an absolutely whips time. Not so much lately, in spite of their still having one of the most solid crews of bartenders in the city. On New Year’s Eve, just two nights ago, the opening act was literally a Christian Folk Duo. Now, there is nothing wrong with sacred music or folk music or any kind of music, but if there was more of a downer way to end off the year than two people solemnly harmonizing about the River Jordan, we can’t think of one. Horrible.