With End of Year listmaking being the favorite holiday pasttime for a lot of us around here, we asked some of our local music friends to submit their own top 10 lists this year. The first to return theirs was Scott Giampino, the talent buyer at the Triple Door. His list (in no particular order, he says) is after the jump.

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A profile from six years ago in Slate highlighted LA-based singer/songwriter Eleni Mandell as an example of a great talent who has yet to get a record deal. Even earlier, the New Yorker said in 2001 that she could be "the best unsigned artist in the business". In 2009, that is still true. Slate said of her:

If Mandell has been overlooked by the industry, it's not because she's hiding out in the American heartland. She lives in Los Angeles and could actually be described either as an insider's outsider or an outsider's insider. Raised in the Sherman Oaks section of the San Fernando Valley, she started playing guitar when she was 15 and began performing publicly while a senior at UC-Berkeley. Soon she met Tom Waits and Chuck E. Weiss (musician, quintessential rock scenester, and subject of the Rickie Lee Jones classic "Chuck E.'s in Love"), and Weiss became an encouraging mentor. Twice she's been a finalist for top singer/songwriter honors from L.A. Weekly, losing both times to Beck. Several of her songs have popped up on television (Six Feet Under) and in films (Heavy). Her reviews—when she gets them—are glowing.

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I doubt this is an April Fool's joke so I'll put it out there, Bumbershoot announced the first list of acts to play this year. There are certainly some that I'm really excited to see (some again) and others I'll pass on.

I know there'll be a lot of people bitching about Katy Perry but remember that booking her sells tickets that pay for other acts and you can choose to do something else while she plays.

Here's the roster so far:

Sheryl Crow / Modest Mouse / Katy Perry / Michael Franti & Spearhead / De La Soul / Raphael Saadiq / Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan / The Long Winters / Sly & Robbie & the Taxi Gang / World Party / MSTRKRFT / Roy Ayers / Common Market / UH HUH HER / Dave Alvin and The Guilty Women / Eric Hutchinson / No Age / Matt & Kim / Dead Confederate / The Cave Singers / Swollen Members / Vieux Farka Touré / Lenka / Gang Gang Dance / Todd Snider / Holy F**k / DJ Spooky / Iglu & Hartly / Low vs Diamond / Sera Cahoone / Eleni Mandell / Carrie Rodriguez / The Honey Brothers / Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head / Extra Golden / Cordero / Forgive Durden / Hey Marseilles / Adrian Xavier, and much, much more to be announced.

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It's very easy to fall in lust listening to Eleni Mandell - she has one of the sexiest voices this side of Chan Marshall or Rachael Yamagata.

She plays at The Triple Door tonight, Sunday, March 23, at 7:30.

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his comp was put together by four DJs from public radio stations scattered across the country, most notable to many readers here because one of those DJs is John Richards from KEXP. Includes songs by Cowboy Curtis, Eleni Mandel, The Sharp Things, and Film School.

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