TBWHTO #'s 31-40

Hi everybody! It's me, Dr. Nick!

But seriously, I just got back from the Iron & Wine/Calexico/Sufjan Stevans/Ebony Hillbillies/etc show. Easily one the 5 best shows I've ever attended. Seriously. The other four are The Afghan Whigs, Firewater, Ween and Nina Simone. I'm so happy. It just may have been the best day of the year. Add up the roast beef sandwiches for dinner, getting my glasses fixed, finding out I've gone down a size on my belt, walking home in a very comforting snowfall and seeing one of my favorite bands with my favorite gal and, really, who could ask for anything more? Every song I could have requested played superbly? (The Trapeeze Singer, Woman King, Jezebel, Evening on the Ground, Cinder and Smoke, Naked As We Came, Free Until They Cut Me Down, Sodom South Georgia, History of Lovers, Burn That Broken Bed, covers of All Tomorrows Parties and Ain't No Sunshine and closing with Dead Man's Will!!!). OK, I'll go take a chill-pill. Here are songs 31-40 for the singles countdown.

40. "Don't Save Us From The Flames" M83 [I used to have a personal blog where I occasionally wrote about music and about 99.9% of the visitors I had were looking for the lyrics to M83's "Run Into Flowers" after it appeared in a car commercial. The other .1% suprisingly were looking for lyrics to Say Hi To Your Mom's "Hooplas Involving Circus Tricks". This track also made its way into a car commercial so that the masses might enjoy their faintly psychedelic brand of electronica.]

39. "Be Gentle With Me" The Boy Least Likely To [If memory serves me correctly, this was the subject of our first post. The Boy Least Likely To were recommened to me by the fine fols at the Rough Trade record shop in London about 3 years ago after they had put out a few 7" singled which I'm told sell well on eBay (I'm keeping mine). When I saw that they had finally put together a proper lp I was so excited I shelled out twenty something bucks for the import. Songs like this make the juice worth the squeeze.]

38. "My First Time Volume 3" Spoon [An iTunes exlusive named after a book in which gay men describe their first same-sex experience. Um, ok.]

37. "Things The Grandchildren Should Know" eels [This is everything the last song on a two-disc album should be. Everett's bittersweet portrait is almost a little too familiar. I was wondering when I heard about the album whether its seeming excess would break the long streak of wonderful eels records. I now know that there couldn't ever be a bad eels album because there is nothing else out there like eels.]

36. "Huddle Formation" The Go! Team [The most dancable thing I heard all year. The English underground knows how to have more fun.]

35. "Everyday I Love You Less And Less" Kaiser Chiefs [The Kaiser Chiefs make me nostalgic which ultimately makes me question their staying power. This particular song is a fine companion to the 6th's "Falling Out Of Love (With You)" for those of you feeling trapped in a shabby romance.]

34. "The Widow" The Mars Volta [Yesterday I mentioned something about self-indulgence. This is the only time I can say thank the Lord above for the radio-edit. Anyway, prog-rock doesn't deserve to be this passionate.]

33. "Shine It All Around" Robert Plant & The Strange Sensations [I know that you just love how I followed The Mars Volta with this really excellent track from Robert Plant. The fact is, it was much higher before I thought they'd like to be together.]

32. "Red Receiver" Sons & Daughters [I'm going to use this space to tell you how badly I lust for Sons & Daughter's resident banshee Adele Bethel. When they opened for The Decemberists earlier this year I had one of those creepy this performance is for me alone moments. It's just all very sexy to me.]

31. "Grrr" dios malos [I saw dios a few weeks back and was mistaken for the lead singer (who I guess I'm a a minature version of) by this nice girl whom I spent the rest of the show talking with but who never emailed me (which is too bad 'cause she liked alt-country and seemed pretty darn cool). This song is dedicated to her.]

That's it folks. I'll be checking out Islands (ex-Unicorns) at my former employers The Knitting Factory tonight.