Honorable Mentions

Wall of Glass-Liam Gallagher

My friend would fucking kill me if I didn't mention this song among the best tracks of the year and while it's an excellent return to form from the former Oasis front man there's other songs I felt to be a bit better but even if that's the case this song isn't to be taken lightly people.

This song is a blues inspired bit of old school rock and roll awesome that sounds like it'd be very much at home along side any of Oasis' finer tracks with it's excellent guitar work and Gallagher sounding just as snobbish and in your face as he did back in the day this track kind of came out of nowhere for me, smacked me in the face, and road off into the sunset leaving me to have to play catch up.

Honorable Mentions

Miracle Maze-Jaenki

I've seen a lot of local acts do their thing and put out some great music and this list will be filled with a lot of it but if there's one band that I can honestly say sounds WAYYYY bigger than the sum of their parts I'd say it's definitely this little New Wave act.

This song is one slick ass mother fucking jam that has these kind of larger than life feel to it that feels like going on an adventure through space and time with it's very trippy beat and kind of frantic tone  that's offset with occasional slowdowns in pace here and there that end up giving you a track that just fucking kills and was a good launch pad to a year that included opening Buzz Beachball, doing a couple of select tour dates with Atlus Genius, and slowly plotting to take over the world because believe me these guy's have a sound that can easily fill a stadium it's just a matter of time before you can't get in there to witness it.

Best of 2017 Honorable Mention

She's a gun-The Greeting Committee

Kansas City's next big thing are most certainly on track to be truly that after releasing a record so good that it was the first perfect score I've given any project in about 4 years and proving that they aren't just a bunch of kids making cute love songs that peaked after their first big hit instead we got some actual aggression and heft from their follow up EP that actually showcases some real musical growth and the fact that they've been closing every single set of theirs with this song it's eventual release has given us an immensely satisfying rocker of a tune that's the exact evolution of sound that I was hoping to get from this band ever since they started to break huge and Hands Down became damn near unlistenable with the radio blasting it relentlessly every 5 minutes.

Also on a lesser note the music video for this track is fucking tight as hell.

I'm telling you people these guy's are going to be selling out the Midland before next year is up I'm absolutely sure of it they have everything required to be big it's just a matter of everyone else catching up now.

Best of 2017 Honorable Mentions...

WHAT IS UP FOLKS!!!!!

It's the most wonderful time of the year time for me to post the best songs of 2017 in the ONLY LIST THAT MATTERS! And this year I'm a do things a bit differently because rather than posting a top 20 that conveniently ends on the last day of the year I'm instead going to use this week to highlight 5 songs that were exceptional but not quite the most awesome things to happen and then spend the next 2 weeks doing a top 10 proper because while I could have filled a whole list limiting things down to just 10 tracks gave more room to really think my choices over so without further a do here's my first honorable mention of 2017:

Wooded Kingdom(Steam Gardens) Mario Odyssey Soundtrack-Naoto Kubo, Koji Kondo, Shiho Fujii

I'd like to take the time to note I do not entirely know who composed this tune in particular and after doing some research I figured I'd just credit the 3 people credited with the game soundtrack as a whole.

SO I don't recall ever actually doing this at any point in the history of this blog or even mentioning the fact that I am a gamer as well as a very opinionated music critic and while Nintendo as a company isn't my bread and butter they know damn well how to present their games and this year for one reason or another after seeing a lot of my friends playing their products I finally have to say this may be one of if not their best years yet and the game that's almost making me consider giving their new system a chance is the new Mario game Super Mario Odyssey which is a fucking spectral to see people with a host of little things here and there just to let every bodies inner fan boy just fucking go nuts but with all those throwbacks there has to be some new and oh god damn did it bring some great new things.

Although I'm not a gaming journalist if you want that you should check out Kansas City's true best blogger in the form of one TenEightEP THE premiere retro gaming journalist this place has to offer and actually it's because of him that I learned about this EXCEPTIONAL composition in Super Mario Odyssey's Steam Gardens Level.

This insturmental is fucking brilliant people a simple guitar line and stead fast drum beat that's Dick Dale inspired surf rock with a small jazzy tone that creates a track that'll get stuck in your head and make you want to dance and listen to it on an endless repeat as you think to yourself, “GOD DAMN IT NINTENDO YOU DONE IT AGAIN!”

On this hallows eve

It's a cold dark night as I sit alone pondering to myself what it is that goes creeping in the night and as I take a second to check my surroundings in the silence of the night I'm reminded of the various tunes I listen to yearly and the post of Halloween past I've made and my excitement at the thought of the delightfully festive and haunting tunes I've posted in years past the punk fueled goth tinged tunes that I've worn down and still enjoy and I wonder if I've covered it all?

What a scary thought to think of the idea that it's all been done that there's no reason to exist because anything and everything you could ever want is gone and will never come back? Your life is nothing more than chilling in a cold dark room with the glow of a computer monitor keeping you company and a blank screen ever present like the ever present state of being just a small glowing bit of nothing in an ever expansive and blank world that has no use for your very existence?

It's a cold dark world full of nothing and your very existence is nothing more than fuel for that psychopathic serial killer creeping up right behind you right now.

Don't worry that was all a joke everyone knows this former pagan celebration of the harvest is nothing more than a day to overload on sweets, get drunk dressed as your favorite bit of pop culture, and have an excuse to enjoy all things creepy without the fear of being judged by the world around you and while I'm still taking some time for a future article I figured I'd take the time to post a tune to add to your yearly playlist of ghoulish grooves and since I covered a local act last year around this time I figured I'd share another delightfully festive tune in the form of my good friends Vigil and Thieves and this 2016 cut, "Haunting," which gives off these eerie vibes with some wonderfully echoing guitar tones and lyrics that are as bleak as the title.

Happy Halloween folks stay tuned for sometime around Thanksgiving when I finally announce what's going on but until then BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

R.I.P. Grant

It's been confirmed that former drummer and co-vocalist of Husker Du Grant Hart has passed on today and to say that it's deeply saddening to myself is an understatement.

That song right there is the song that got me into Husker Du and to this day remains honestly one of my favorite pieces of music to ever be put to tape and the fact that the man responsible for belting that awe inspiring piece of work is no longer with us tears me up because Grant spent his whole post Husker Du career battling addiction and life threatening diseases that no person really deserves to deal with and at the very least I can accept the fact that he's in a better place not having to live with the demons that haunted him his whole life but still one of my musical icons is now gone and watching that performance just makes me swell up in a way that I haven't in a long time I'm listening to Sorry Somehow as I type this out and I'm at a loss for words.

It's a sad day indeed and I'm for lack of a better way to put it shook up and ready for a drink or 7 but I can at the very least know that Grant Hart your music is truly some of the most important discoveries of my life and I very much appreciate your life's work and will continue to hold the songs and the memories attached to them close to me and as I willow in a pool of sadness tonight I'll know for sure that he'll continue to be a source of not only inspiration but joy.

R.I.P. Grant you were an underappreciated legend of your time and I can only hope that people will now take the time to truly come to appreciate the phenomenal catalog of music you've made.

Announcement Time people

Damn I suck at keeping this thing updated don't I? 

In all seriousness though Sam's Birthday Bash 2 was a RESOUNDING SUCCESS!!! and to all the bands that played you the best but with that in mind I'd like to announce that I'll be laying dormant for the next few months with maybe some potential for post on here if the right thing comes up but I have other endeavors that must be meet before I can really devote much thought to music at this time but I will say that December will be the month to follow for sure because those who've been following me for years will most certainly know what's to come but until then for slightly better updates I'll link you to the Facebook Page for this blog because it's a bit more active in terms of updates:

OFFICIAL FACEBOOK PAGE!!!!

but to round this out nicely here's a few pics that I managed to get from the show enjoy the sight of a very drunk Sam