For some reason as stressful as it is sometimes to do, I found myself compiling a bunch of year end and decade end lists over the holiday weekend. So many so, I decided to spread out all my lists throughout the week. Today we'll start with the meat of the list -- my favorite releases of 2009.

As long as I've been making lists, it's always been apparent that I'm partial to Pacific Northwest bands... and this year it's especially so. I'm sure I've forgotten something that I love beyond belief.. but here is the list as of *right now*. What are your favorite local and non-local releases of 2009?

 

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After quite a bit of hmm-ing and hah-ing, I've finally come up with my favorite albums of 2009, listed in sort of numerical order, or at least that's how I feel today, including local favorites BOAT, Visqueen, and indie pop hearthrobs The Pains of Being Pure at Heart!

{photo by hot avocados photography}

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As you might have already heard in the podcast, one of the most impressive things to me about Telekinesis' rise to fame is the fact that they get to know Superchunk (one of my all time favorite bands). So you might understand why I nearly spit hot tea all over my monitor when I found this video this morning: Superchunk covering our dear imaginary favorites Telekinesis' "Tokyo" (collectively, one of our favorite songs of the year).

Please keep all electronics safe from any flying liquids due to excitement.

 

Like you, we can hardly believe that it's already the end of the year and time for end of the year parties and countdowns, let alone (for most folks) the end of a decade (which is a whole other podcast).

Imaginary liz and imaginary keenan joined forces to review some of our imaginary staff Pacific Northwest favorites for 2009 and a peek at the bands playing our Imaginary Winter Holiday Spectacular {December 23, 2009 at Chop Suey} in podcast form {official top 10 lists to come soon}! We couldn't fit everything in here... what did we miss?

at Showbox at the Market

"Watching The Globes at the Showbox. Holy crow and OMG."

 

Chris Walla's Twitter post during The Globes' set was just a sign of things to come. Not only was the Death Cab for Cutie guitarist in attendance to show support for three of his favorite (local) bands, but he later joined Telekinesis on stage as their second guitarist. In a way, it was a bittersweet set as frontman Michael Benjamin Lerner announced that it was David and Jonie Broecker's last show with the band.

Coming off their electric Bumbershoot performance back in September, The Lonely Forest took the stage just before 11 PM to a nearly sold out crowd, some of which had been waiting in line outside since 5. It was amazing to see such a huge turnout, especially on Black Friday where everyone was either still in a food coma or exhausted from a full day of shopping. This was the first time that any of the bands had played at The Showbox and it certainly will not be their last. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

 

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{photo of DJ Spooky by Jeremiah D. Johnson}

Arriving later than I wanted to, I swiftly ran from the press gate across the Center to catch Telekinesis' KEXP Music Lounge session, and as always, their tight pop hooks and charming melodies did not disappoint, and I cursed my love of Rhett Miller, knowing that I'd have to choose him over Michael Lerner and co's fun pop beats (Bumber-schedule conflict #1!).

Next up I hit Flatstock, and of course found dozens of posters I'd be proud to hang in my apartment (including the ever wonderful Seattle Show Posters). Flatstock is always a Bumber-highlight for me, despite my general dislike of buying posters for shows I did not attend (but I generally make room for posters for shows I wish I had attended).

After Flatstock, I sauntered over to SIFF Cinema and caught four delightful shorts that won Best Grand Jury Prize at SIFF earlier this year, featuring a wonderful animated short called Photographs of Jesus, about a photo warehouse where people constantly ask for zany photographs that don't exist, like ones of dodos (extinct in the 1700s), one of Hilter at the 1948 Olympics, and of the moon landing, but with 12 other people on the moon. Also featured was a very wonderful and very short documentary called The Herd, which starred a deer who wanted to be and believed it was a cow. It was just as endearing and cute as you might imagine.

Got any Bumber-photos at all? Please put them in our flickr pool!

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Bumbershoot takes place at the Seattle Center this September 5-7 and there's about a million and a half things to do (bands, literary panels, art shows, Flatstock, kettle corn lunches) over the three-day fest.

To help folks (especially ourselves) prepare for Bumbershoot 2009, we put together this lil mix of some of the things you should add to your Bumbershoot scheduling spreadsheet. We hope this helps you pick your must-sees or at least provides a soundtrack as you wander to and fro.

 

{go listen}

I don't know how it happened, but half the year officially is over! That means that we're half way to end of the year list time! I know that for a bunch of us, there are few things we love more than lists and mix tapes (I usually make a mix for friends of my year-end list favorites) -- so it makes sense we should do a mid-year check in and see what's topping our Best of 2009 list. Here's my off-the-cuff list of what albums would vying for Top 10 of 2009 in my book:

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at The Crocodile

Telekinesis takes a victory lap at The Croc.

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Our friends at Easy Street and Sonic Boom have put plans in place to make this the best Record Store Day Seattle has ever seen.

I'm still finalizing my list of things I want to pick up on what could be my biggest shopping day of the year and both stores have made it doubly hard to pare things down. There's a bunch of labels releasing rare and limited edition Record Store Day 7"s and re-releasing sup'd up favorites.

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