I know this is late, but I thought this was still important for me to publish this
Best of 2007
Phenomena - Akron/Family Can You Feel It? - Apples In Stereo Shine In Exile - Beat the Devil Fiery Crash - Andrew Bird Detlef Schrempf - Band Of Horses Cherbourg - Beirut Worst Trip - Dr. Dog Sad Songs - The Frames Jesus Saves, I Spend - St. Vincent Oh No - Lavender Diamond Let's Duet - Dewey Cox Pink Light - Laura Veirs Florida - Modest Mouse Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse - Of Montreal Our Mouths Were Wet - Oh No! Oh My! The Ruby Ring Man - Page France Section 23: Get Up And Go - The Polyphonic Spree Turn On Me - The Shins The Shadow Government - They Might Be Giants All My Mistakes - The Avett Brothers These Truths - Luddite Machine
2007 SXSW
HeavyMetal - Bisc1 Robin Zander - The Breakup Society Space Mission - Brute Force & Daughter of Force Teenage Crimewave - CPC Gangbangs Patience - Damien Dempsey Love In New Wave - Electrico Eight Arms To Hold You - The Gear Shaking Like A Flame - Glossary Summer of the Evening - Goldenboy Elephant In White - Hot IQs According To Plan - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness Ozark Empire - Listener Our Eyes Fill Up With Water - Tulsa
2007 New to me
This Is Not The End - Laura Gibson People Get Ready - The Frames Don't Let Me Explode - The Hold Steady Dance For Me - Pony Up! Growin' Old - Pigeon John Borneo - The Fiery Furnaces Postcards from Italy - Beirut Trampoline - Page France Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go - Jason Molina Tangled - The Black Heart Procession Lord Stop The Bar - Our Lady of the Highway Second Option - Caitlin Cary And Thad Cockrell Vervain (Volume 9) - MF Doom Take It Off - Tender Forever funeral face - Suburban Kids With Biblical Names Icebound Stream - Laura Veirs Love And War (11/11/46) - Rilo Kiley New Partner - The Frames Song My Friends Taught Me - Laura Veirs
Note: I have been holding onto this list for too long. I am really late publishing this. Even the Village Voice has already published the Pazz & Jop results. This means I am really late. I know the I have to public this tonight. Even if I do not write about every album, I am still going to public this entry tonight.
Top Albums of 2007
I know this list goes up to 11. That is because it is one higher than ten and sometimes you need to rock that much harder.
I will admit that part of 2007 was really rough for me. Around my May and June were pretty rough for me. Some times just when you need it you find an album to help you through those times. The Avett Brothers Emotionalism was that album for me at that time. The album is incredibility personal and emotional.
The Avett Brothers straddles the country side of Alt. Country, but that is nothing to be afraid of. Any fan of well written songs will enjoy this album. The Weight of Lies and
All My Mistakes has become one of Kate and I songs. It is shows the optimism that comes out even in the darkest moments. The song makes me smile and tear up at the same time.
the Shins - Wincing the Night Away
If there ever is an album to sing to your thinking about a past love, this is it. While this is not as good as the last Shins album, they still give me the feeling that they are getting better.
It is great to hear a band mature right in front of your ears. I listen to Dr. Dog because Peter Conrad cannot shut up about them. Last year he kept on talking about their EP Takers and Leavers EP. If it were not for him, I would not given them a chance. This album is much better than last years EP. This album creates an interesting sound environment. Dr. Dog's has a strong 70's influence without getting lost in the past. Their songs have strong arrangement and simple vocals in just the right combonation. Check out the songs Worst Trip, Old News, Keep a friend, and Ain't It Strange to see what I mean.
From the first note of this album I was gripped hard and not let go. This album is full of pop structures and joyful guitar licks. The opening track, Can You Feel It? is the kind of song that makes me want to put down the windows and drive very quickly. It also gives me one of my favorite lyrics of the year, "Turn Up Your Stereo, Drown out the bullshit on the FM Radio." I know that some people this this record is excessive because its 24 tracks, and some of them are just interludes and connectors. I think that songs like Same Old Drag, Joanie Don't U Worry, Sundial, and Energy totally make it work it.
This album is just full of earwigs. I most have listed to this album ten times the week I got it. Suffer For Fashion, The Past Is A Grotesque Animal, and She's A Rejecter all made me not want to put my head phones down. Heimdalsgate Like A Promethean Curse is the kind of song that makes me want to sing at the top of my lung.
Of Montreal is past the point of being "just one of those other Elephant 6 bands" to being a great band on their own right. they are so good I just want to hear more and more of what they are doing. I doubt they will ever gt the credit they deserve.
The Frames - The Cost
I want to say that The Frames are the most underrated band in the world right now. This was before the song from Once won the Oscar. This means that they might get more attention now. You should still check out The Cost.
They Might Be Giants - The Else
It has been years since I have really liked a They Might Be Giants album. I gave up on them awhile ago thinking my tastes and their tastes no longer matched. I guess that was not true. I do not want to say that these songs sound like their debut album or Lincoln, but you can hear the musical history. I'm Impressed, Take Out the Trash, Climbing the Walls, The Shadow Government, Countrecoup, and Feign Amnesia, are all first class songs. The Mesopotamians is a strange combination of musician frustration and history lesson. Yes, They Might Be Giants is a little smarter than their fans and they are willing to let us know.
Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank St. Vincent - Marry Me
Honorable Mention: Page France - ....And the Family Telephone The Fratellis - Costello Music Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis
Special Mention Tim Kite - Over the Counter Culture
This album was not enjoyable, but it was the most challenging. Challenging in the way art that asks the listener to look at them selves should be.
I started writing the State of My Heart Addresses back when I was in college. That goes back over 10 years now. The only old State of My Heart Address on line are the ones since I started to keep a blog. Here is your chance to see my old collected State of my Heart Addresses. This is a good reason for me to keep this blog going. Tomorrow you will see my State of my Heart Address for 2008.
Here is a good reason to use eMusic, 12 of Rolling Stone's top 50 albums of 2007 are on eMusic. I know that means that you need to go else where to get the other 38, but the price you will get those 12 albums on eMusic will not be beat.
Total Photos Posted by 12/31/07: 7275 Photos Posted in 2007: 3947 Photos from 2007 posted: 2772 Month with the most posts: 686 Month with the most photo: 1005
Views: Photos 806,720 Photostream 190,243 Sets 63,936 Total 1,060,901
Take a photography everyday (Failed) Post at least 200 pre-2005 to Flickr (Failed) 200,000 Views of my flickr Photostream (Failed) Post 2000 photo to flickr (Pass) Spend the night at 12 places outside of San Jose (Pass) Use my text messaging more. (Pass) Use up all 500 of my monthly text messages at least once (Pass) Blog at least 150 photos. (Pass) Be open to the changes that come (Pass) Listen to 120 new albums (Pass)
I got 7 out of 10 passing. I am not sure that is a passing grade because the three hardest are the ones I failed at. I think it is important to keep track of these things.
I am getting ready to post my top ten of 2007 list and my best of 2007 CD mix. When I see these lists from other people, I wonder what they had listened to during the year. This is the list of everything released in 2007 that I listened to in 2007. I hope it helps when you see the other posts.
Artist - Album Yeasayer - All Hour Cymbals Ryan Adams - Easy Tiger The Avett Brothers - Emotionalism The Earlies - The Enemy Chorus Hal Hartley - FAY GRIM Original Soundtrack Beirut - The Flying Club Cup Josh Ritter - The Historical Conquests Of Josh Ritter The White Stripes - Icky Thump Stars - In Our Bedroom After the War St. Vincent - Marry Me A.R.E. Weapons - Modern Mayhem The Go! Team - Proof of Youth Blonde Redhead - 23 Pela - Anytown Graffiti My Morning Jacket - At Dawn & Tennesse Fire Demos Package Band Of Horses - Cease To Begin The New Pornographers - Challengers They Might Be Giants - The Else Spoon - Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga Lavender Diamond - Imagine Our Love Akron/Family - Love Is Simple Bruce Springsteen - Magic Paul McCartney - Memory Almost Full Electrelane - No Shouts, No Calls Tim Fite - Over The Counter Culture Panda Bear - Person Pitch Architecture In Helsinki - Places Like This Mirah and Spectratone International - Share This Place: Stories and Observations Iron & Wine - The Shepherd's Dog Rilo Kiley - Under The Blacklight Luddite Machine - We Build The Destroyer CocoRosie - The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn Andrew Bird - Armchair Apocrypha Calvin Johnson - Calvin Johnson and the Sons of the Soil The Frames - The Cost Deerhoof - Friend Opportunity The Good, The Bad & The Queen - The Good, The Bad & The Queen Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? Neil Young - Live At Massey Hall 1971 Ted Leo / Pharmacists - Living With The Living Arcade Fire - Neon Bible Apples In Stereo - New Magnetic Wonder Laura Veirs - Saltbreakers Son Volt - The Search (Deluxe Version) Dr. Dog - We All Belong Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank Bloc Party - A Weekend in the City The Shins - Wincing The Night Away Kaiser Chiefs - Yours Truly, Angry Mob Explosions In The Sky - All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone Page France - ...and the Family Telephone Dinosaur Jr. - Beyond The Fratellis - Costello Music Christian Kiefer - Dogs & Donkeys Richard Swift - Dressed Up For The Letdown The Sea And Cake - Everybody The Twilight Sad - Fourteen Autumns, Fifteen Winters The Polyphonic Spree - The Fragile Army The Clientele - God Save the Clientele The Broken West - I Can't Go On I'll Go On Art Brut - It's A Bit Complicated Jarvis Cocker - Jarvis Wilco - Sky Blue Sky The Comas - Spells The State Champs - The State Champs The Rakes - Ten New Messages Crowded House - Time On Earth The Ponys - Turn The Lights Out
EPs
Gomez - Live at Austin City Limits Music Festival 2006: Gomez M. Ward - To Go Home EP Joanna Newsom - Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band EP The Decemberists - Live from SoHo (iTunes Exclusive) - EP Oh No! Oh My! - Between The Devil And The Sea
San Jose, CA Andalusia, AL Montgomery, AL Seattle, WA Kennewick, WA Louisville, CO Albuquerque, NM Cambria, CA Navato, CA San Diego, CA Coalinga, CA Scottsdale, AZ Selina, CA Warminster, PA
Airports San Jose, CA - SJC Houston, TX - IAH Montgomery, AL - MGM Sea-Tec, WA - SEA Pacso - PCS Portland, OR - PDX Denver, CO - DIA Albuquerque, NM - ABQ Phoenix, AZ - PHX Las Vegas, NV - LAS Philadelphia, PA - PHL
I am happy that my company did not come up in the PC World list of the 15 biggest disappointments of Tech. To be honest, some of the things on this list are pretty odd. I am not sure how many people are really disappointed at Unbox. I am not sure anyone is expecting anything out of Unbox. This is an interesting article, but I think it is missing the point a little. Nothing blew off my socks in the world of tech. That is the big disappointment. I do not see anything in 2008 that will be life changing either.
For the fifth year in a row I have done National Novel Writing Month. That is the challenge where people write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November. For all five years I have completed the challenge. That means that in all five years I have written 50,000 words. If I had to testify in court, I would not say that every year my 50,000 words would add up to a novel. Only one year has the story come to a nice neat conclusion in close to 50,000. Most years the novel is no where near being complete. It is usually a mess of text that would take major work before it could be as a novel.
Every year I track to see how long it takes me to write. I track to see how many hours the novel takes me and how many words per hour I write. This year it took me 57.75 hours to write a total of 50200 words. That means I averaged over 850 words an hour. Some of those hours were total clunkers that I wrote a total of 77 hours. I also know that I rounded down some of the time. For Argument sake, lets say it took me 60 hours to write 50000 words or 830 words an hour.
When I go to a write in I try to write 1000 words an hour. I can do this with minimal distraction. Back in college I was told that 1000 words an hour is what the average person can compose and write. That is a good 50 minute hour of writing. I have noticed that I can usually keep this pace up for about 4 hours at most. More things creep in that really pull me away from writing. Simple things like eating and using the bathroom can really put me away from working on my novel.
I think that if it takes someone more than 80 hours to write the novel they will never do it. That means you need to write for 3.2 hours a day. I will admit that I have never written from 30 days in month. I have never written for more than 25 days in a month. Between work and having to interact with other human beings, writing 25 days in a month is really hard. At writing 15 days, that is writing 3.2 hours a day. That is where it starts to get hard. If you set the goal of 2000 words a day, that give you five days free during the month.
I have always found write-ins key to getting nano done. It is hard to explain why this is. Most people see writing as a solitary experience that you have to do for yourself. Somehow write-ins change that expense. I find that there is something special about writing around other people. It inspires me to get past blocks. If I need help with something other people are right around me. It gets me past all the the distractions of life.
In some ways write-ins help me compete with people. I am not really interested things like word wars and the kind of on line things people have come up with. Being around people who are either in front or behind me helps me. I want to catch the people in front of me and I look down my nose at people who are behind me.
One of the keys it to use your time well. It can take me 10-20 minutes to get to a write in. I have been asked in the past if it would be better for me to stay home and have that extra 20-40 minutes of round trip minutes to write. For me I have to say no. There are ways t use that time well. If I am leaving from work to go to a write in, that time is useful for me to switch from a work context to a writing context. If I bring all the ideas from work to writing I will be distracted.
If I do not have to come down from work, I can use this time to think about my novel. The key to writing quickly is to have already thought about where you want to go. Have some ideas in your mind. be ready to hit the keys once you are in front of your computer. I do not totally know what is going to happen until I sit down to write, but it is good to think about what might happen.
*Be careful of days where you get nothing done. If you are writing very slowly, it might server you better to close up for the day and put things aside.
*Keep your per hour average writing high. It does not work to write a lot of hours and get little done. If you are not getting things done, stop, and plan for the next time you can write.
*Set up what you are going to write before getting to write ins. If I have a little time watching TV before or after a write in, I plan for the next write in. I jut down some notes setting up what I will write next.
*Have more than one plot line going at the same time. This structure makes it easier to get the writing done. I find when I hit a block with one plot line, I can switch to the other plotline. I will admit that sometimes I have to write something to make the story work, but I am not interested in writing it. This is when having another storyline comes in helpful.
*Don't be afraid where the story might take you. I know that everyone might think they know where they want the story to go, but it is good to go with it sometimes.
I am not going to make a total of 200,000 views this year for my flickr account. I have less than 190,000 views right now. I do not see anyway to get a 10,000 view boost this month. I guess I am going to miss that one.
If you want to look at what I think are good photos you should check out my set, "Should Have 100 Views." This is a group of photos that I think are underrated in my flickr stream. Go look and tell me if you agree.
One of my stupid resolutions for this year is I want 200,000 views of my flickr stream. I know it does not mean anything, but it still makes me feel good. I know that Flickr comes up with this number in a way that does not make sense to me. I still want to get 200,000 views before the end of 2007.
Currently I have 181,632 views. That means I need to get another 18,478 people to look at my photos. That said, go over and look at my photos.
I set a goal of blogging 150 photos this year. This photo will be number 102. That means I have to blog another 48 to mean my goal. I already missed my goal of taking a photo every day. I have made my goal of spending a night in 12 cities other than my home. It seems like a mixed bag for resolutions so far this year.
I have listened to 100 albums this year. About 80 of them have been from 2007 or 2006. I am obsessed with listening to music. There is so much music I have never heard before. I want to spend all my time listening to that. I want to hear the best new music. I want to listening to music that is great.
What should I make sure I hear before 2007 is over? What are you listening to right now? What is going to make your best of 2007 mix?
One of my goals for 2007 is to get 200,000 views for my flickr photostream. I know that is a kind of sad goal, but I am obsessed with flickr. Part of that obsession is how many views my photos get and how many views my photostream gets.
I just figured out that I need to average 350 views per day to get to 200,000 by the end of the year. I know that this is not about averages. Events like Maker Faire and Comic Con spike my views. I need to get as many views out of those events as I can. As long as I can find cool photos, the pub about those events do the rest.
This feels strange because I feel that I can do very little about getting more views for my photostream. I know what having my photos in groups get more views for my photos in general, but I cannot predict how a specific photo will do in a specific group. It is the same thing with blogging a photo. I can never predict how blogging a photo will effect the view count.
I am here once again to look at the state of my heart. The last year have not been kind to me in terms of romance. I had some good times in 2007, but they were not to last. Abigail broke up with me twice in that time. The first time really screwed me up, the second time just made me feel like crap.
I really loved Abigail. Both times she broke up with me really hurt. I am still not sure what happened the second time. It really did not make sense to me. I guess that is what happens when you try to restart something. It might be for the best because now I can put it all behind me now.
Loving Abigail taught me something about myself. I know that I can totally put myself out there for someone. I know that I can get past all of those worries and anxiety to really connect with someone. In the past I was worried that I would be able to do something like that at all.
The problem in the post-Abigail era is that It is harder to be alone. I find myself being lonely more often. Before I meet Abigail I did a pretty good job of being alone without being lonely. Since the break up I find myself wanting to share things with someone else. There are more nights when my bed feels empty and I know it will not change anytime soon.
That being said, I am in rush to find someone. There are a bunch more things in my life that I am focused on. I would like to resolve those things first. I do not have the energy to put into looking for a relationship. If a relationship happened unexpectedly I would not walk away from it because I am not ready. I just think that I need to work on other things first. Things that would just get distracted by a relationship.
St. Valentines Day is here again and I am alone again. That is par for me. I have been alone many more years than I have had a Valentine. I wish I have someone to spend the day with. It would be nice if I had someone, but I will not be crying myself asleep because I do not.
I did not make any resolutions for 2006. It seems like I take some years off. I am not sure these are really resolutions. They are goals. I know that these are not that challenging. It still stuff I want to try to do this year.
Take a photography everyday Post at least 200 pre-2005 to Flickr Use my text messaging more. Use up all 500 of my monthly text messages at least once Blog at least 150 photos. Be open to the changes that come
