Comfort Food for Late-Night Boozehounds- The Top 11

And here we are again, reflecting on the lost opportunities, stupid comments and increasing jowliness of another year.  Yea, but there's always reasonably good health, mister, so take a sip of gratitude, find the good in the taken-for-granted, and let's wallow for a moment in the righteous sounds of 2011. Sadly, neither John Prine or Harry Nilsson made a new record this year, so this list will have to do.

11. Dexter Romweber Duo- Is that You in the Blue?- that Dex is still kicking is cause for rejoicing, and even if this record can't be counted among his best, it's a comfort to know he's still out there, ready to transport the weary with one more aching ballad.

10. Missing Monuments- Painted White- King Louie is another nearly sunken American treasure, and if he wants to dive for pop gems, I'm listening.

9. GG King- Esoteric Lore- just enough weirdness here to help it transcend the genre tag, that being SoCal skate punk of the 80s, a sound that hasn't aged all that well but that conjures enough memories to bleed a little nostalgia into the listen.

8. Case Studies- The World is Just a Shape to Fill the Night- I don't know what happened to The Duchess and the Duke, but this gentleman keeps the folk flag flying with more yearning weepers sure to help the lonely keep the rope at bay.

7. Psandwich- Northren Psych- it's Ron House, for crying out loud, and he's rocking and screaming that he's stoned to death. So maybe it doesn't quite reach TJSA heights, but that voice plus guitars = a rasberry to the little things getting ya down.

6. Jack Oblivian- Rat City-  this man just keeps delivering- a model of consistency as he drives through the vast array of styles he owns. "Girl on the Beach" should have been the summer hit that brought rock back to the radio.

5. OBN IIIs- The One and Only- 100% p-rock stomper with enough variety to keep things interesting but not so much that your feet stop moving.

4. Royal Headache- S/T- Aggressively hooky Oz pop that just keeps getting better as the melodies lodge indelibly in that place where emotional memory fires up the dopamine and pleasure ain't just a dive bar outside Vegas.

3. Total Control- Henge Beat- sometimes stylistic diversity means lack of vision, and sometimes you get the feeling the band is determined to do justice to its full range of influences. These guys might have made a love letter to Wire, Gary Numan and Joy Division, but they've woven their heroes' ideas into a thing entirely their own.

2. Crooked Fingers- Breaks in the Armor- this guy delivers more emotional weight in his voice than a middle-aged burnout can sometimes bear.  More scaled back than recent albums, but all he needs are those melodies and that voice, and you've got yourself weepy gold.

1. Apache Dropout- S/T- what an original and entertaining record this is- wacky and hallucinatory and anthemic and you can call it a bonafide aural miracle. Folks will be digging this for years to come.

El Camino

In the post-9/11 era, the mainstream has steadily shed rock 'n roll's influence. The Hives, White Stripes, and  Strokes 2000 garage rock era is now about 10 years dead, an eon in popular culture. To aspire to be a hip hop mogul, dance floor diva or earnest sock-headed indie type is where it's at. Jay Z Inc, Katy Perry or Bon Iver.  Some collaborative effort among the three would be the defining soundtrack of our age. Indeed, rock 'n roll is primarily relegated for Super Bowl half-time shows and guest judges on American Idol. Even video game publisher Activision has stopped making Guitar Hero because no one cares about that old man's music.

Which is to say, you take your guitar players and real drummers where you can find them. Enter the Black Keys. Guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Jay Carney came on the scene as Junior Kimbrough disciples recording their home made hits in some flyover basement about a million miles from New York or Hollywood. They even recorded an lp of Junior covers called Chulahoma, named after his hometown. Moreover, The Big Come Up, Rubber Factory and Freak Thickness referenced not only delta blues but Sonics-style garage rock.   Slowly the Black Keys' reputation grew among the few who still cared about this kind of music.

El Camino is the follow-up to the duo's massive crossover success Brothers. It continues the break from earlier blues-y traditionalist records. In fact, El Camino raises the bar by offering more hits, hooks and melodies than Brothers. It should appeal even more to an audience not inclined to rock. The sound is much fuller with a whole band, multi-track vocals with soaring harmonies and dance-y beats. The Black Keys are a long way from that flyover basement, as hip hop producer "Dangermouse" makes another appearance.

No band can stay static lest they turn into the Ramones, so I understand why they have moved on. And this music sounds good to me in parts.  I suppose I'm just that crabby old man who can't help but feel it was better back in the day. And who knows? Maybe the pendulum will swing back rock 'n roll's way.

Royal Headache

The Oz-invasion continues with more shocking quality but with straight angles this time- fast-strummin pop music from the ironically named Royal Headache, about the least migraine-inducin' sounds from down there since the Hoodoo Gurus' "I Want You Back."  I'm guessing Paul Weller is sitting uncomfortably somewhere, knowing this sound exists and that he failed to produce it when he dumped The Jam for the Style Council, that wimpy white man's attempt at a soul revue.  Most of the R&B in this pup comes through the vocals, as the dude ain't afraid to sustain a note and emote.  Mostly you get frantic down-strummin underneath those silky vocals, and as an old English teacher, I'm impressed how they cut fat from each tune.  Economical, these boys, but with one exception. If you're going to produce a symmetrical pop album with six 2-minute songs on each side, an instrumental added to each just means a touch of bloat you worked so hard to cut from each song. I don't know if they decided 23 minutes would not make a proper album or somebody has an instro fetish, but unless you've got Rick Wakeman on keys, stick some vocals in and don't allow for bathroom breaks in the middle of your record. That is a quibble, however, for what is essentially an entirely loveable album.  It's hard to imagine anyone but nitpicking naysayers not enjoying this thing. So sorry Paul Weller- I'm going to play it again and haunt your oxycontin dreams.

Deaf Wish- S/T

I am a domestic dad with little bastards running through my house (six, as of one hour ago) at high speed ignoring my every command, smearing shit on the couch, torturing the dog and throwing things at my head. "I didn't mean it," is the mantra, and I wonder at the glories of the 1930s father, certain of his position, Scotch in hand, belt in the other, ruling his castle with the confidence of a man who knows his kingdom.  I know the  part of the sunken couch that I slink to when the wave passes and the video games go back on and the walls stop shaking and my bugged out eyes seek solace in a long draft beer and some Gene Clark.

So let's just say noise rock don't fit the current aesthetic, or paradigm, or pick your noun with the general meaning of model and give me a fucking break- I still own that Scratch Acid record, pull out the Laughing Hyenas late night, and find Pissed Jeans one of the three best bands of the last five years. Just don't ask me to pull out Wolf Eyes when you arrive at midnight on your bi-annual trip down wild hair lane- chances are, I'm passed out on the couch with Gram Parsons on repeat. But shiver me frayed nerve timbers, this Deaf Wish record, another Aussie missile in that island continent/nation's insidious attempt to rule our humble shores, is one effective drone.  I do believe I like every song on it, and it ain't exactly Singles Going Steady.  Screeching and pleading and fuzzing and, well, it's very noisy but you can sing along. Sort of. This shit just screams 1988-1992, if that means anything to anyone.  You could almost call it Texas acid-damaged emo if you had no shame, which I don't, so there you go.  The songs work, OK? Aristotelian catharsis is at hand. Just be glad you're not him, if you know what I mean. Now somebody tell me where I can find their other records so I can ignore the little bastards' next wave of madness.

So You Used to be a Surfer in Huntington Beach

Holy Casey Royer, punk man, D.I. is back! Well, Ok, maybe it's just their smack-sodden spirit, but here it is, the music of my formative years played enthusiastically and with great vigor by four young dudes from, wait, that can't be right- New York? I could have sworn this came straight outta Huntington, what with the apocalyptic nuclear annihilation lyrics and the wannabe ghoulish guitar that sounds like a Fullerton mini-mall  and those singalong background vocals on the choruses and Johnny's got a problem and he's outta control and note the poor punctuation as we swing back on the pendulum to the dumbass music of our youth that gave us so much pleasure and led to so many bad decisions (dagger earring, I still love you) and no matter how hard we feign maturity by putting unplayed jazz records on the shelves, that old bitch hippocampus speaks to good buddy amygdala and sense memory meets emotion and here come the images of the PCH at night, stopping for twelve-packs of Schaeffer and a slice on the way to some horrible venue where Social Distortion, The Adolescents, Doggy Style, Youth Brigade, and fourteen other crop-haired young bands would get on stage and snarl and prowl and otherwise act all punky and we in our deep intoxication would smash into one another at high speeds and fall down and then wallow in the brotherhood of that outstretched hand and up we'd pop for the next tour and boy did I have to fake any connection to these people but release sweet release and sometimes the band would find it and by miracle they'd be in tune and, well, memory lane can be a funny old street.  Any band that delivers a time machine to that video arcade where the pock-marked acid dealer offered 14 hours of reality variety is a band worth keeping in the keep pile.

Just because

Missing Monuments- Painted White

Missing Monuments is the new King Louie thang, and it's a pleasant romp through ten pop songs, but   there ain't no 'Gypsy Switch' here, so it's a bit of a letdown. For those not following at home, his majesty put out a record several years ago called Memphis Treet with one killer song on it (and several excellent ones) that trumped anything I'd heard from him on the pop tip (The Persuaders and Kajun SS being whole other things) and hopefully not everything to come. He's a big boy, and I hope he takes care of himself, cuz great pop writers don't come around the block every hangover morning. Anyway, this is fine, but nothing really gets you singing along or tapping your toes with any urgency.  I root for the guy- his voice is endearingly underdog.  But most of these riffs are, in the inimitable words of Lars Ulrich in Some Kind of Monster, stock.  It's nice background music for your coffee and Halloween candy before another day at the gulag, but I doubt I'd pull it out for the late-night shriekalong, and I don't catch myself humming along at odd moments of the day.