While I highly question the authenticity of these children’s Christmas letters to Christopher Walken, they’re still pretty dang funny.

JAM! collects some quotable quotes from 2004 and assembles their own albums of the year list.

Sterogum has his year-end list up, complete with non-album mp3s for each record! Keener.

Stylus spikes the egg nog with some haterade, listing off the 40 worst albums of 2004. Considering the list is identical to their Best of 2004 list, I think we can assume that their tongues are planted firmly in cheek.

Also from Stylus – Top 10 inevitable reunions for 2005. As much as I’d like to see some of these (Replacments, My Bloody Valentine), I don’t see much hope for most of these prospects.

Res Magazine has a Q&A with Jeff Tweedy about the whys and wherefores of The Wilco Book.

French Kicks at the Horseshoe March 10, $10.

Since it worked so well for Stars, Metric have added a second, all-ages show to compliment their Mod Club date on the 21st of January. The underagers can get their rocks off on the 22nd at a 7pm early show.

Bored over the holidays? This zoomquilt will keep you occupied for hours. Or drive you stark raving mad.

I am looking to book a hotel for SXSW. Is five miles far? I don’t understand your crazy moon distances.

It was Christmas Eve day, in the drunk tank… I expect many if not most will be en route to homes or whatnot for the weekend. I myself am heading back to the homestead this afternoon and enjoying the start of a full week off from work. Everyone have a happy holiday weekend, and for God’s sake – be careful out there.

np – Stars / Set Yourself On Fire

It’s always interesting to spin albums that you haven’t heard in ages and listen to them with essentially fresh ears. Case in point – Spiritualized’s Ladies And Gentlemen, We Are Floating In Space. Space-rock being just an awkward shuffle away from the shoegaze which has so possessed my musical urges lately, I’ve been pulling out the J Spaceman discs and enjoying them – but for whatever reason, listening to Ladies And Gentlemen at work yesterday really hit me upside the head. Maybe it was cause I had the volume up louder than I normally do, but even though I’ve listened to this record dozens of times if not more over the years, it all sounded new to me.

The cracked “Only fools rush in” refrain underneath the verses of the title track, the aching orchestral swells of “Broken Heart”, the gospel choir behind “Cool Waves” (which brings to mind the time I was walking to class and was stopped dead in my tracks when I heard it coming out of the PA outside the Mongolian restaurant beside campus), the slow, hypnotic pulse of closer “Cop Shoot Cop” punctuated by discordant horn breakdowns… And on top of it all, the voice. Somehow Jason Pierce manages to make his vocals sound typically narcoleptic and drugged out, and yet raw with emotion at the same time. How does he do it? I don’t know, though a nasty nasty break-up usually helps things along (long-time girlfriend and bandmate Kate Radley had recently left him for Verve front-corpse Richard Ashcroft).

At this moment, I am firmly convinced that this is one of the greatest albums of the ’90s. Hands down. Tomorrow, I may change my mind, but that’s tomorrow. It’s frustrating that since Ladies And Gentlemen, Pierce has been essentially treading water. The follow-up Let It Come Down was lovely, but over-thought and lacked the emotional heft of its predecessor, and last year’s Amazing Grace was a raw, garage record that no one asked for. Still, one remains mildly hopeful that he can find that spirit again, ideally without getting back on the smack or having his heart smashed to pieces again. He’s supposedly taking his current band into the studio this year, so we may have an answer before 2005 is out. In the meantime, the two Complete Works compilations have found their way onto my Boxing Day shopping list. And on a tangential note, check out the website where you can order Spiritualized merch online in North America – more specifically, check out the other bands who have swag available… One of these things is not like the other…

Man, you’d think that with the sort of music I listen to, I’d do a lot of drugs, eh?

And to play six degrees of items in a post, J Spaceman’s old bandmate in Spacemen 3, who now performs as Sonic Boom, collaborated with Luna’s Dean & Britta on this cover of Roger Miller’s (the “King Of The Road” dude, not the Mission Of Burma dude) Christmas ditty, “Old Toy Trains”. Featuring guitar by Kevin Bacon (no, not really).

And as a final segue, if I wanted to get ONE Spacemen 3 record, which one should I get?

Fans of John Vanderslice should circle the month of August on their 2005 calendars – that’s right, THE WHOLE MONTH – for Unfinished reports that is when you can expect to see his next album in stores. The Slice has been keeping a recording diary of the proceedings.

Whether you hate them or love them, you know you’ve been waiting with bated breath for Pitchfork’s 50 Best Albums of 2004, so that you can either feel outraged or validated. It overlaps my own list by exactly one entry, their album of the year (and no surprise to anyone, really), Arcade Fire’s Funeral. One of the other heavy hitter sites, Tiny Mix Tapes, has also weighed in on the year that was and also puts Arcade Fire at the top (no surprise since they’ve been championing the band for over a year now). Make sure you check out the sidebar there for scads more year-in-review articles. And yeah, I know the PF and TMT lists are so yesterday… if you’re not leading the way, you’re in the way! I stay in the box, and I feel shame.

They’d rather dance with you! The Kings Of Convenience are at Lee’s Palace February 17th, tickets $13 on sale now. The cardigan-wearing set rejoices. Myself, I’m not sure how I feel about music so fey that it makes me feel like a brawny lumberjack by comparison. I’d be more interested if they brought along the girls who appear on their album artwork. And Japanese melodic-noise ensemble Mono are at the Drake Hotel Underground April 3, ducats $10.

NOW offers up a series of Toronto-centric year-end lists and Information Leafblower offers up an Information Leafblower-centric look at the past year.

eye thinks I’m a winner! Take that, Mom!

np – Pernice Brothers / Nobody’s Listening

We’ve been spending so much time lately looking back at the ’04, how about a look ahead to the ’05?

The new Super Furry Animals compilation Songbook – The Singles Volume 1, along with its companion DVD, will be coming out in North America on January 25 (There’s even a website!. Full info here. A new Furries studio album is due out sometime this Spring. The Furries are one of those bands I’ve always felt like I should like more than I do. I have/had a copy of Guerilla that I just couldn’t get into. I think maybe they’re a little too wacky/dippy for my tastes. I like things a little more… bedsit? I dunno.

But what won’t be coming out on the 25th of January is the Fountains Of Wayne b-sides comp. Billboard reports that the album will compile almost every b-side the band has ever released and some new material as well, but has no info on a title or release date, just sometime next year. If it were coming out in a month, they’d have probably confirmed some of that by now. And so we wait.

Some other noteworthy releases coming in the first few months of 2005 (from my POV, anyway):

Low / The Great Destroyer – Jan 25

Matt Pond PA / Winter Songs EP – Jan 2005

Bettie Serveert / Attagirl – Feb 1

The Wedding Present / Take Fountain – Feb 15

M Ward / Transistor Radio – Feb 22

The House Of Love / Days Run Away – Feb 28

Spoon / The Beast And Dragon Are Adored – Feb 2005

Doves / Some Cities – Mar 1 (see artwork here)

Kathleen Edwards / Back To Me – Mar 1

Ivy / In The Clear – Mar 1

Idlewild / Warnings/Promises – Mar 8

The Decemberists / Picaresque – Mar 22

Aimee Mann / The Forgotten Arm – Mar 2005

Pernice Brothers / untitled – Mar 2005

Josh Rouse / Nashville – Mar 2005

Teenage Fanclub / untitled – Mar 2005

Of course, these are just the known quantities – the artists whom I can generally expect to put out a good record. There’s certain to be any number of records by artists whom I’ve never heard of (for the moment, at least) who will spin my world around. Hopefully.

Glide asks a wide variety of musicians, including Drive By Trucker Patterson Hood, to put together their own year-end lists.

Our friends from across Lake Ontario, Mystery & Misery, compile a bunch of ’04 lists. I’m flattered to be on the Favorite Music Websites list. Heavy Black Frames also lists off and inflates my ego.

Go here for a complete Nellie McKay concert at the Aldrich Museum in New York this past August. New songs in the set, even! Via Achtung Baby.

Pop (All Love) recounts a lovely little tale of people falling in love over Stars.

np – Doves / The Last Broadcast

The indie rock blogosphere weeps today as New York’s Sea Ray announced yesterday that they are disbanding after a farewell show next month. The usual reasons are cited – the strains of being a touring band on personal lives and a general overall broke-ness. Being one of my favourite new band discoveries of the past year, to say I’m rather disappointed in this news is an understatement. At least I have my much-cherished copy of Stars At Noon, a t-shirt and memories of being one of the dozen or so people in attendance at their only ever Toronto show this past June (photos here). If you never heard their lush blend of shoegaze, space rock and chamber pop or saw their trippy live show, man you missed out. I mean, I lobbied (albeit very unsuccessfully) to get people out to the Toronto show – you can’t say I didn’t try. This certainly ends 2004 on a bum note. Thanks, Sea Ray. Here’s a going away present:

Sea Ray – “Sister Gone” (live at the Earl, Atlanta GA – October 29, 2004)

Update: MP3 removed as apparently the band is unhappy with that particular recording. I’ll put up another one tonight/tomorrow, or check with Information Leafblower later today as he’ll have some up as well. In the meantime, you can check out the studio version here.

Update 2: Thanks to ILB for providing the live “Sister Gone” from Atlanta, which is now online for your enjoyment. Kyle will also have “Nicholas Ray” form the same show online later today.

KCRW has audio and video of a performance in their studios by American Music Club last month.

The thing about Christmas songs is that you can really only play them once a year – which is why I’m linking directly to Bradley’s Almanac, who has a couple of mp3s of The Cocteau Twins doing Christmas carols rather than squirrel them away for me to post next year.

Stylus is spending this week rattling off their top albums of the year. Nice to see American Music Club make an appearance, but behind Courtney Love? Puh-leaaase. Meanwhile, Pitchfork runs down their top single releases of aught-four.

Cinescape reports that they’re moving ahead with a film adaptation of The Flash. It’s likely be the Wally West version with Ryan Reynolds tipped to don the red tights. I dunno, he could certainly do Wally’s smart-ass personality, but he’s a little… big for the Flash. I always thought the Flash should be more graceful, for lack of a better word. Reynolds is a big boy, isn’t he? Anyway, whichever way they go, hopefully it’ll be better than that short-lived TV show in the early 90s starring Dawson’s dad dressed in velour.

Toner Mishap remembers the days before movie deals when super-heroes had to supplement their incomes with product endorsements. Like Hostess pies!

Filter talks to Noah Baumbach, co-scribe of the forthcoming The Life Aquatic. Reviews have been modest, but I’m looking forward to it when it opens Christmas Day.

Video caps from the set of Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Zaphod seems to be missing a head.

And check out the first Sin City trailer here – yeah, you have to install some crappy plugin, but it’s worth it. Check out the credits at the end – holy shinola, there’s some star power in this flick. Mickey Rourke AND Nick Stahl? In the same picture? Oh man, someone call the Academy. I’m kidding – I’m very much looking forward to this, and it looks GOOD. Update: Here’s the trailer in a much friendlier Quicktime format.

According to The New York Times, bloggers are not only dating, but having sex. Wha?!? I must have missed a memo.

np – The American Analog Set / Know By Heart