First Friday of A New Year

Welcome to 2015. Among my resolutions for this year will be to try to listen to music more than I write about it - I don't know if I can make it or not. I go in cycles, listening to music - and the last few years have been a down one. My recent fixation on favorite bands might be a consequence of that - a desperate attempt at least once a month to rekindle the old passion... Which it does: I remember all the good things about listening to music, these bands, any bands - but passion doesn't translate into action. If action means listening to music for extended periods of time. Fortunately, it has translated into writing about music - I'll take it if that's what I've got, but it would be nice to hear more. I will blame technology - iTunes has broken up CDs, made it more work to listen to a record than to songs, etc. - there is that... and my CD player busted a couple years ago. There's that too. I have a new one coming though! so - we shall see, right?

Now? I would like to put up a best of 2014 list, but I don't think I could even choose among the CDs I did get last year. Let alone the songs. The only records that have made the least impression on me are the new TV on the Radio, new Pere Ubu, new Earth and new Scott Walker & Sunn O))) records. So - maybe I will get around to listening to some of the others - I hope so. What can I say?

Still, this being the first music post of the year - it ought to be something different, a bit special - so - maybe previews of coming attractions on the blog? No promises as to the order these bands appear - but they ought to show up, in some order or other.

1. Nick Cave & Bad Seeds - A Weeping Song
2. PJ Harvey - Down by the Water
3. Yoko Ono & Plastic Ono Band - Why Not?
4. Smokey Robinson - The Love I saw in You Way Just a Mirage
5. Sleater Kenney - You're No Rock and Roll Fun
6. TV on the Radio - Quartz
7. David Bowie - Rebel Rebel
8. AC/DC - Big Balls
9. Pink Floyd - Time
10. Mercury Rev - Hercules

Video? Nick and Blixa:



Sleater Kinney, soon to be back in action:



And a bit of Bowie:



Happy new year!