In the Aeroplane Over the Sea is ten years old! No question my favorite record of all.

Fun facts:
I will not put this album on my iPod.
I listen to it far less than other major favorites like Kid A, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, OK Computer and Things We Lost in the Fire.
I will usually leave the room when someone puts it on at parties.
I do love Jesus Christ like Jeff Mangum does.

I usually listen to it in the car so I can sing loudly along with it, and I have cried each time I've listened to it, except the first time. This is the reason I don't casually listen to it. It hits so hard each time, and I don't know why. I instantly think of everyone I love, how great they are and how one day we will die. I think I'll be laughing out loud with everyone I see when I meet them on a cloud, and also can't believe how strange it is to be anything at all.

Alright, enough quoting lyrics. I first heard "Oh, Comely" on KVSC radio in St. Cloud in the summer of 2002 riding home in my care at about 1:30 on a hot afternoon. I  at first thought it was a silly song, but as it moved along to the da, da, da, part, then the hold of da..., I was smitten. I arrived home around the end of the middle horn part and stayed in my car until the song ended. Some other song came on, and it being sweltering in my car by now, and me being sweaty and smelling of onions from working in a deli, I decided to run upstairs into my apartment and turn on the radio to try to catch the artist being announced. I missed it. Apparently, the following song was very short, and they were already announcing the next song by the time I turned on the radio.
 I tried artists like Bright Eyes and Daniel Johnston, knowing nothing of their music, but was disappointed each time. Finally, about a year after hearing it in my car, a friend put it on at a party, and I quickly announced "this is it!" I bought it a few days later. It instantly made sense to me, everything he sings about on that record. About that time in 2003 Magnet magazine put out a ten year anniversary issue, and Aeroplane was voted best album of those ten years. Artist's that admire like Carl Newman and Alan Sparhawk also chose it as their favorite.

I doubt I'll ever find any record like In the Aeroplane Over the Sea again. There's really nothing like it before or since.

("...holy SHIT!")

It was an OK year for official releases, nothing life changing. Top 5 in no particular order:

Panda Bear- Person Pitch
Caribou- Andorra
Deerhoof- Friend Opportunity
Deerhunter- Cryptograms
Cars & Trucks- S/T

Runners Up, no particular order either:
Low- Drums & Guns
Radiohead- In Rainbows (I guess this was close to the top five, but I was really waiting for Cars & Trucks)
Spoon- GaGaGaGa
The National- Boxer

A few other goodies:
Dungen- Tio Bitar
The Besnard Lakes- Are the Dark Horse
Fourtet's remix of Explosions in the Sky
Yeasayer- (i forgot the title, and i don't wanna look for it now)

Uh...nope:
Arcade Fire & Wilco's releases, with the exception of a couple of songs on each.

Things I haven't heard in their entirety that I'll probably get into this year:
Animal Collective- Strawberry Jam
Battles- Mirrored
Feist- The Reminder
Iron & Wine- Shepard's Dog

Old stuff:
Neu!- all of their stuff
Bob Dylan- Bringing it all Back Home & Highway 61 Revisited
CCR- finally got into more of their songs for some reason.
Beatles- Love  (cool remix that really works)
Got into King Crimson again after about 7 years
All of Caribou's b-sides and tour CD's, etc.
Portrait of a Drowned Man- had to learn to play it.

The best part: playing in new bands that are quite different from each other. Plus, being able to record my own music at home (Atlas Mts stuff).

 ...at the Triple Rock. They (or he, the records are done by Dan Snaith only) have been one of my favorite musical indulgences over the last few years- the kind of band I buy anything and everything from. At the show I met Dan and bought their tour EP's. Sarah bought a T-shirt.
 
The band was right on, considering that they have to play with samples, but because of that, the whole time I kept thinking that it has to be hard to not have any lee way in any of the songs for even the smallest amount of improvisation, to keep the songs a little different each night. Despite that, the show was great, with double drumming, a cool light show, and a good set list. I'm very happy I finally got to see them. I highly recommend them if you like psychedelic-electronic stuff.

I should also note that I got a wee bit buzzed with our friends Andy and Katie before the show. They took us out in downtown MPLS, something Sarah and I haven't done in a long while. Good times.

Atlas Mts. is my musical project outside of my other bands Equal Xchange and Portrait of a Drowned Man. Here's the Myspace:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=149930174

Sarah and I had um...Asian food tonight, and once again, the fortune cookie at the end of the meal was quite profound. Apparently, "it's time to collect the goods". Funny how a little cookie will turn my life around for the better. Fortune cookie? No, too simple. You are the Oracle Cookie.

One of our all time favorites is "When you squeeze an orange, orange juice comes out, because that's what's inside."
Runner-up: "It must be homegrown."

It must be.