Glasvegas - Euphoric Heartbreak

Glasvegas kinda rocked my world when they dropped their debut a couple years ago. Motown-isms, Glaswegian accents and healthy doses of reverb all are things that will curry favor at JS-NYC HQ and Glasvegas had them all in spades. The singer looked a lot like Joe Strummer, they had a bad-ass lady drummer and the neighbors soon got well sick of the repetition.

There was a pretty big push in the Q when this dropped and I gotta say that I wasn't all that excited to hear that the enigmatic frontman had written the lion's share of the record in Malibu and was currently wearing nothing but white, had his mother recording spoken word parts on the record and had two new tracks subtitled Homosexuality, especially when they were not concurrent with the singer announcing his practitioning thereof. Don't even get me started with the punctuation. Soon after, I got Euphoric///Heartbreak\\ flowed my way and can't say that I was over the moon about the whole thing. It seemed ponderous and didn't flow well at all. After the six or seventh spin, I realized I'd been playing the record backward and liked this a lot more. With all the sartorial and musical pretentions, I would have liked Euphoric///Heartbreak\\ to be a lot more engrossing than I find it currently, but it's a solid sophomore shot from Team Glasgow and I bet that I'll really fall for this over the next couple months. Stay tuned here for backpedaling revisionism. In the interim, keep track of Glasvegas here.

R

Jaded Scenester NYC Top Ten Singles of 2009

It was tough for me to come up with this list for a couple of reasons. One reason is that technology hates me. It's one of the many reasons that I'm happy to just be a dumb bass player. When I initially tried to figure out the tracks, it seemed prudent to just use the counter in my iTunes. Makes sense, right. In consulting said oracle I was surprised to find that there was one track that really was head and shoulders above any others playwise. I was most surprised to find said track was The Northside, The L&L, And Any Number Of Crappy Apartments by The Lawrence Arms. While that is a solid track, I can't see having played it 285 times, despite what the good folk of Apple might have me think. As a result, I'm going to throw empiricism to the wind. Additionally, I'm not going to limit this list to songs actually released in 2009. Mostly because I can. I bet a bunch of them are from 2009, but hey let's keep it interesting, shall we?

Ok, here we go.

Jaded Scenester NYC Top Ten Singles of 2009

1. Lifter Puller - Star Wars Hips (7" version)

from Slips Backwards

2. Kith n' Kin - Austin Lucas

from The Common Cold

3. Lonesome Dogtown Nights - Lucero

inexplicably not released on 1372 Overton Place

4. The Ballad Of Marvin Heemeyer - Shorebirds

from It's Gonna Get Ugly

5. Calloused Heart #2 - Drag The River

from Bad At Breaking Up

6. Darlin' - Austin Lucas

from Somebody Loves You

7. Jessica's Suicide - Jon Snodgrass

live with Joey Cape or Cory Branan

8. Geraldine - Glasvegas

from Glasvegas

9. Magazines - The Hold Steady

from Stay Positive

10. Sherman City - Lifter Puller

from Half Dead And Dynamite reissue

Jaded Scenester Top 10 Records of 2009

Ok Boy(s) and Girl(s):

Just because you clamored for it, here's the formal Top 10 Records of 2009 (full-length) as selected by your pals at Jaded Scenester NYC. Thanks to all of the people therein(on?) for all the sweet ear love that they provided in the wasteland that were the internets most lauded records of 2009. If I have to hear one more bad Fairport Convention (or more probably High Llamas) rip-off record reverbed out to infinity by some 20-something beardo or beardos, I'm going to go John Belushi on some motherfuckers. Don't even get me started on the hip-hop records. Criminy! Sell back that Dirty Projectors record and know, love and buy all the 10 releases below. If you are concerned, please rest assured that single tracks, EPs, reissues and live shows will all get their separate lists. Try and control yourselves. Do take note that we've got a Best of 2009 playlist available for your perusal. It's free, just drop JS-NYC HQ a line and we'll send you a download link out pronto.

Jaded Scenester NYC Top 10 Records of 2009

1. Jon Snodgrass - Visitor's Band

2. Drag The River - Bad At Breaking Up

3. Austin Lucas - Somebody Loves You

4. Lucero - 1372 Overton Park

5. Glasvegas - Glasvegas

5. The Dopamines - Soap and Lampshades

6. The Hold Steady - A Positive Rage

7. Banner Pilot - Collapser

8. The Riot Before - Fists Buried In Pockets

9. Dear Landlord - Dream Homes

10. House Boat - Delaware Octopus

Glasvegas - Glasvegas

Hell-o! This is one hell of a great record. Glasvegas are from Scotland, which seems more and more to be a seal of quality when it comes to the rock music.  Teenage Fanclub, Jesus and Mary Chain and Aereogramme are only a few of the great bands that have all come from that rainy neck of the Isles in recent years. Lest you think our Scottish friends have fallen off, be aware that new bands like The Twilight Sad and, now, the quartet known as Glasvegas are carrying the torch quite admirably, thank you very much. I had passing knowledge of the lady and gents via something in Q and liked them when they played one of the late night programs. I made a note to check them out and grabbed Glasvegas when I had the chance, but hadn't gotten around to throwing it on until recently. Boy, am I kicking myself. The record has been blowing up in the British Isles since it dropped in September of last year and seems poised to do the same stateside.

Glasvegas the band and Glasvegas the album display a pronounced love of reverb and big soaring choruses. I'll be the first to question what the deal is with all these reverb bands like Fleet Foxes and My Morning Jacket. I'm not sure whether it's coincident with the grade of weed going through the roof in recent years, or if the prescription drugs that all the kids like these days just cater to this kind of stuff, but it's a little over the top in this day and age. It's becoming the Antares sound of the Rock Underground and it's in danger of getting way played out. That said, Glasvegas have reverb on every damn thing they can get a noise out of here and it's absolutely wonderful.  Think Jesus and Mary Chain covering Motown tunes with Mike Peters on lead vocals.  Trust me, it's a pretty magical combination.

There is the weird spoken word piece over an interpolation of The Moonlight Sonata, but I'll ignore that and aver that the nine other tracks on Glasvegas are some of the best that I've heard this year. If Columbia can't sell this record in the States, the US record industry is well and truly in the shitter, as Glasvegas are everything good about U2 and The Killers with half the pretension.  You need to buy this record. There, I said it.  Here's a link. You can keep tabs on them through their awesomely Scottish website. Check it out here and thank me later.

Slainte!

R