Now that 2003 has been analyzed, poked and prodded a-plenty, it’s time to look ahead to 2004 and the riches it will bring. Consider this a sneak-peek look at the good bets to make next year’s list. Expect new releases from:

The Mountain Goats / We Shall All Be Healed (Feb 3)

Sarah Harmer / All Of Our Names (Mar 9)

Six By Seven / Down Here On The Ground (Mar)

Luna (Apr)

The Magnetic Fields (Apr)

American Music Club / You Better Watch What You Say (May)

Ivy (Spring)

The New Year (Spring)

Sparklehorse (Spring)

Spoon / The Beast And Dragon Are Adored (Spring)

Wilco (Spring)

Built To Spill

Tanya Donelly

Interpol

Tiny Mix Tapes has their year-end list up, and they TOTALLY stole my graphic treatment. I got my list up first, therefore they are the copiers. For shame! And they’ve also redesigned, but their stylesheet doesn’t work in Netscape anymore. Someone’ll be getting a sternly worded letter about that, believe you me. Hey Wyatt – what’s your email? I want to send you a sternly worded letter.

Thanks to Kazaa, I’m now watching season two of Six Feet Under. Nuts to waiting for the DVDs. Nuts, I say!

My Las Vegas trip has been shifted ahead a half week, so I think I will be able to go to the Mark Kozelek show on the 30th. Huzzah.

It was a good weekend for holiday-type get-togethers. After the company Christmas party Friday, I spent Saturday catching up with a gaggle of university friends, some of whom I hadn’t seen since, well, last Christmas. And to top things off, I finally got an email back from Ross who had been incommunicado in Toledo since his wedding in May. It seems that “Get in touch, you chimp,” is an effective guilting device. So we’re exhausted but feeling pretty good.

np – Bedhead / Transaction De Novo

Or last night’s, to be accurate. The office Christmas party went off without a hitch. Which is to say, I stayed mostly sober, awake and kept my dinner down (which is good because it was the finest steak I’ve had in over three years) – All marked improvements over last year. I even played a couple decent games of pool. Afterwards I swung by the Global Pop Conspiracy shindig a couple blocks away and met up with Sean from House of Hotsauce. It was crazy busy and impossible to talk or move, so I only stuck around a little while, retired to the Tap for another drink then back home to crash.

There seems to be the makings of a university reunion this weekend, as there’s a bunch of my old classmates in town for one reason or another. I expect tonight will involve some more drinking and shouting over loud music. Happy holidays.

Mark Kozelek plays a solo show at the Horseshoe January 30. Tickets $12.50. Sounds like a bargain. I will be in Las Vegas, however. Alas.

Lee’s Palace will be shutting down for two weeks at the start of January for renovations, including a new stage 2.5 feet higher and 4 feet deeper. Neat.

np – various artists / Global Pop Conspiracy: Best of 2003

I spent last night in the rehearsal space with Brad and Clay recording drums. Sitting there listening to drums and drums only for two hours is interesting… but I think we got some good stuff down. A fairly low-tech, TapeOp-approved setup, but I think it was sounding pretty good. I doubt I’ll get around to laying any of my parts down till the new year at least.

Torontonians may notice that the Rotate This website has gotten a shiny new makeover. Very nice, took long enough.

Pitchfork’s top 50 albums of 2003. Grist for the mill. I have a big fat seven of their picks.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. George W Bush needs to visit a grassy knoll somewhere. A transcript of his interview with Diane Sawyer from this week. My eye starts twitching just reading it.

The company Christmas party goes off tonight, and hopefully this year I’ll be able to pass on the mantle of official company party punch line onto someone else. The open bar didn’t quite agree with my system last year and I was nodding off through dinner. Nothing horribly embaressing, but enough to earn me a year of ribbing.

np – Luna / The Days Of Our Nights

The Onion has posted their year-end lists. Real ones, not fake! I think.

Kraftwerk are coming to town April 23, and playing the newly erected Ricoh Colliseum. Kraftwerk = arena rock? I’m strangely intrigued.

Pitchfork’s Top 50 singles of 2003. Do people even talk about singles anymore? I guess so. I’ve only ever heard 12 of these songs, and that includes t.a.t.u.

Neutral Milk Hotel live and rare mp3s, including a Mountain Goats cover of “Two-Headed Boy”. Courtesy of LHB.

CDs make crappy gifts for kids. From Cranky Coder.

So I missed the Emm Gryner/Sarah Slean show last night – went out to dinner with a friend and by the time I got home, it was late enough that I was pretty certain it would have been sold out – all the advance tickets had been gone for days. Alas.

np – Cinerama / Cinerama Holiday

So hopefully my cable modem adventures are at an end. The repair guy came by again – different one this time – and I don’t think I understood a word he said. The whole time, it was a non-stop stream of techno-babble, modem types, filter connections, mips, blips, gurps… I had no idea what was going on. What I do know is when he left, I had a new modem, 20 more cable channels and a RIDICULOUSLY fast internet connection. I’m talking 2700 kbps download. Whoooooa. I’ll be sticking with Rogers, I think.

24 – Gotta say, last night was a disappinting episode that doesn’t really bode well for the rest of the season. I don’t find the fact that the President got dumped by his girlfriend a very compelling storyline. Nor is the explanation for why Jack needed to re-infiltrate Salazar’s orgainzation terribly interesting. In fact, everything has taken a turn for the conventional, banal even. I’ve seen all this before in countless spy movies. Blah. I think it’s time to cue the space aliens. End spoilers.

Apparently they had some trouble keeping the computer-generated soldiers in Return Of The King from running away from certain virtual death.

Pitchfork has started their 3-day look back at the way we were in 2003. Lists, lists, lists.

Another quiz! You know you’re indie, let’s subcategorize (from Melody Nelson):

You’re an Indie Pop Kid. You like songs about
relationships and the prettiness of nature.
You’re sentimental, but not certainly not emo.
Oh, and if you aren’t an English Major, you
should be.

Hmm, well that’s emasculating. At least I get a picture of Isobel Campbell as consolation.

np – Steve Earle & The Del McCoury Band / The Mountain