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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at Moore Theater

With little fanfare and no setup, the lights went down at the Moore and BAM! Bonnie 'Prince' Billy began. I expected him to be alone onstage, however he was joined by a fiddler/violinist, bassist, drummer and another guitarist, all of whom were wildly talented and enthusiastic performers. The first song was quite "backyard hillbilly" in tone, a sweet little song with a good female backup vocal to accompany Will Oldham on voice. The set continued with some good ol' sad bastard country, with prominent fiddling and tremulous voice. The set overall was not what I'd been given to expect from having heard older work. It was almost...happy? Don't get me wrong, there was more than enough evil in the set, but not as much as I'd prepared for.

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We hear at TIG love the hook-y stuff but there are some sad bastards that float our boat too.

One such SB (one with a hearty beard to boot) is coming to town and we're excited to have a pair of tickets to giveaway to one imaginary reader to see Bonnie Prince Billy at The Moore Theater on Thursday, March 26th.

Enter to win the pair of tickets by emailing tig @ three imaginary girls . com (with a subject line of BPBillyTix) by noon on Sunday, March 22rd.

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2008 was an interesting musical, and personal, year for me. I listened to a lot of indie rock, electronica and went to a shit-ton of shows (one of which was the best I've ever seen, thanks Of Montreal).

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It has now been 2.5 years since I moved out of Seattle for the Golden State. I've slowly drifted out of the NW music culture, so sometimes I wonder if I know what to say on TIG these days.

Combine that with the fact that I was so distracted from music for a lot of 2008, this year's "best of" lists were especially difficult. Heck, I don't even think I can make a Best of NW music list this year, not because there was insufficient music, but because I just missed so many of those important-but-not-well-known releases that make these lists. I did enjoy Fleet Foxes, Common Market, Colin Meloy live, Malkmus and the like, but really, that isn't a "Best of the NW" list but rather a list of albums I liked that happened to be from the NW.

That being said, I did get a last minute music revival for the year. Maybe it was the election being over (and the good guys winning), maybe it was finally getting a faculty position after many years of trying (lets just say Erik will be moving east in 2009), maybe 2008 just didn't mesh with me musically. Who knows? However, there was a lot of great music anyway, and here are my top 20 (for your praise or fist shaking). Feel free to read the full commentary. 

 

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Reviews of some new vinyl releases from someone who loves vinyl. Next up -- seven inches!

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I somehow get the impression that Will Oldham would last 5 seconds in California.

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Although I don't fully understand the "Shortlist" awards, they have announced their, ahem, shortlist for the 2006 award. The Shortlist award is "a peer-selected award that recognizes the most creative and adventurous albums of the year" (um okay) and made their 10 album nomination list. The winner will be announced "in May". I get the impression it is an attempt to be an American version of the "Mercury Prize" in the UK but maybe I'm just not a big fan of extraneous awards anyway.

The nominees are Band of Horses, Beirut, Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Cat Power, Girl Talk, Hot Chip, Joanna Newsom, Regina Spektor, Spank Rock, & Tom Waits.

Indeed, a motley crew.