Author: gail

in case you missed them, here you may read round one, round two and round three as well!

chickfactor editor gail’s top 20 records of the year

1. grass widow, internal logic
2. jim ruiz set, mount curve avenue
3. tender trap, ten songs about girls
4. lightships, electric cable
5. frankie rose, interstellar
6. sharon van etten, tramp
7. saint etienne, words and music
8. corin tucker band, kill my blues
9. veronica falls, veronica falls (technically 2011)
10. lambchop, mr. m
11. beachwood sparks, the tarnished gold
12. the hangover lounge box set, various artists
13. amor de días, the house at sea (technically 2013)
14. yo la tengo, fade (technically 2013)
15. samara lubelski, wavelength
16. black tambourine, onetwothreefour (ramones covers!)
17. songs of the year: grass widow, “disappearing industries” 7”
18. grass widow, “milo minute” 7-inch and video
19. withered hand, “heart heart”
20. dump, “nyc tonight”

mike slumberland’s ten records I listened to the most in 2012

1. four tet, jupiters 12″
2. robert hood, motor: nighttime world 3
3. liechtenstein, fast forward LP
4. lightships, fear and doubt 10″
5. linden, bleached highlights
6. moodymann, why do u feel 12″
7. saint etienne, words and music
8. sea pinks, freak waves
9. various artists, time to go: the southern psychedelic moment: 1981–98 LP
10. young guv & the scuzz, a love too strong EP

sean price’s (fortuna pop!) top ten list

1. chain and the gang “in cool blood” (k records). ian svenonius has now been in three of the greatest rockandroll bands of all time. go figure.
2. the precise moment during “mission bells” when linton and gary olson’s twin trumpet attack kicked in and shattered the mirrorball. (chickfactor 20th anniversary, bush hall, london)
3. ben rivers “slow action”. dreamy, hypnotic and disturbing film installation only bettered by the scotch egg and gallery-brewed real ale I enjoyed in the café afterwards. (hepworth gallery, wakefield)
4. the imposter (dir. bart layton). a documentary that thinks it’s a thriller.
5. dan greene “knife thrower”. illustrations from the mind-blowing alternative universe of the butterflies of love / mountain movers man, on card, wood and whatever else came to hand. (intercambio gallery, new haven)
6. bill fay, life is people (dead oceans). spiritual music.
7. amour (dir. michael haneke). one day he’s going to stop making these crowd pleasing feel-good flicks and turn his hand to something serious.
8. jeremy deller “joy in people”. marvelous, life-affirming art about stuff that matters. (hayward gallery, london)
9. leonard cohen live. three hours of laughing len in concert. at a castle in copenhagen. beat that. (rosenborg castle, copenhagen)
10. porgy & bess. I hear the songs of georgie gershwin. possibly transposed to apartheid-era soweto. (cape town opera, ENO)

rachel blumberg’s top ten music experiences

1. watching black tambourine and small factory at chickfactor NY, brooklyn, ny.
2. playing many happy hours with michael hurley and the croakers at the laurelthirst, portland, oregon.
3. playing with the the cascadia ensemble (me, tara jane o’neil, tender forever, dragging an ox through water, lisa schonberg) at the keep portland weird festival, paris and metz, france.
4. playing with tim rutili (califone) to live film at midnight at huichica music festival, sonoma, california.
5. watching beachwood sparks, old light, and sea of bees at huichica music festival, sonoma, california.
6. playing with tara jane o’neil and mirah at the keep portland weird festival, paris and metz, france.
7. playing with michael hurley and the croakers at my going away party, type foundry studios, portland, oregon.
8. playing with the secret drum band, all over oregon and california.
9. watching sad horse in a very wonderfully crowded valentines, portland, oregon.
10. watching alela diane at the woods stage with friends at dusk at the all around amazing pickathon music festival, pendarvais farm, oregon.

sadie underhill’s (jeffrey honeybunch’s daughter and japanese vocaloid specialist) top ten vocaloids

1. rin kagamine
2. IA
3. CUL
4. gumi
5. len kagamine
6. SF-A2 miki
7. piko utatane
8. lily
9. aoki lapis
10. KAITO

gail’s top ten things to avoid so we can stop climate change

1. meat
2. fish
3. big stupid supermarkets
4. non-recycled loo roll
5. bottled water
6. long-distance food
7. plastic bags
8. big stupid cars
9. waterfront property
10. monsanto

rachel blumberg & jeffrey honeybunch’s top ten cities we visited

1. savannah, georgia.
2. st. augustine, florida.
3. kingston, new york.
4. saugerties, new york.
5. new bedford, massachusetts.
6. woonsocket, rhode island.
7. rochester, new hampshire.
8. tarpon springs, florida.
9. arcata, california.
10. port orford, oregon.

sukhdev sandhu: ten books bought in london at the end of 2012

1. christopher fowler, invisible ink: how 100 great authors disappeared
2. eddie johnson, tales from the two puddings: stratford, east london’s olympic city, in the 1960s
3. kathy battista, renegotiating the body: feminist art in 1970s london
4. daniel poyner (ed.), autonomy: the cover designs of anarchy, 1961-1970
5. metrozones (ed.), faith is the place: the urban cultures of global prayers
6. jason eskenazi, by the glow of the jukebox: the americans list
7. born in flames
8. karren ablaze!, the city is ablaze! the story of a post-punk popzine, 1984–1994
9. maria fusco and richard birkett (eds.), cosey complex
10. hito steyerl, the wretched of the screen

joe brooker (the pines, foxgloves): top ten sentences from james joyce’s ulysses (only one per episode)

1. woodshadows floated silently by through the morning peace from the stairhead seaward where he gazed.
2. on his wise shoulders through the checkerwork of leaves the sun flung spangles, dancing coins.
3. listen: a fourworded wavespeech: seesoo, hrss, rsseeiss, ooos.
4. those homely recipes are often the best: strawberries for the teeth: nettles and rainwater: oatmeal they say steeped in buttermilk.
5. pineapple rock, lemon platt, butter scotch.
6. hot herringpies, green mugs of sack, honeysauces, sugar of roses, marchpane, gooseberried pigeons, ringocandies.
7. miss douce halfstood to see her skin askance in the barmirror gildedlettered where hock and claret glasses shimmered and in their midst a shell.
8. lady sylvester elmshade, mrs barbara lovebirch, mrs poll ash, mrs holly hazeleyes, miss daphne bays, miss dorothy canebrake, mrs clyde twelvetrees, mrs rowan greene, mrs helen vinegadding, miss virginia creeper, miss gladys beech, miss olive garth, miss blanche maple, mrs maud mahogany, miss myra myrtle, miss priscilla elderflower, miss bee honeysuckle, miss grace poplar, miss o mimosa san, miss rachel cedarfrond, the misses lilian and viola lilac, miss timidity aspenall, mrs kitty dewey-mosse, miss may hawthorne, mrs gloriana palme, mrs liana forrest, mrs arabella blackwood and mrs norma holyoake of oakholme regis graced the ceremony by their presence.
9. nevertheless, without going into the minutiae of the business, the eloquent fact remained that the sea was there in all its glory and in the natural course of things somebody or other had to sail on it and fly in the face of providence though it merely went to show how people usually contrived to load that sort of onus on to the other fellow like the hell idea and the lottery and insurance which were run on identically the same lines so that for that very reason if no other lifeboat sunday was a highly laudable institution to which the public at large, no matter where living inland or seaside, as the case might be, having it brought home to them like that should extend its gratitude also to the harbourmasters and coastguard service who had to man the rigging and push off and out amid the elements whatever the season when duty called ireland expects that every man and so on and sometimes had a terrible time of it in the wintertime not forgetting the irish lights, kish and others, liable to capsize at any moment, rounding which he once with his daughter had experienced some remarkably choppy, not to say stormy, weather.
10. furthermore, silly milly, she dreamed of having had an unspoken unremembered conversation with a horse whose name had been joseph to whom (which) she had offered a tumblerful of lemonade which it (he) had appeared to have accepted (cf. hearthdreaming cat).

may we present round three of our 2012 lists! in case you missed them, round one is here and round two is here.

joe brooker (the pines): top ten attractive modernist writers

(all to be pictured at their peak, c. eg mid-20s: no alluring oldsters here)

1. mina loy
2. katherine mansfield
3. jean rhys
4. w.b. yeats
5. ezra pound
6. william carlos williams
7. james joyce
8. arthur rimbaud
9. t.s. eliot
10. virginia woolf

+ one hollywood wild card: anita loos (pictured above), ‘the soubrette of satire’ (photoplay), more stunning than any of them.

 

stephin merritt: movies I liked in 2012

1. life of pi
2. searching for sugarman
3. detropia
4. a separation
5. this is not a film
6. photographic memory
7. dark horse
8. bear city 2: the proposal
9. how to survive a plague
10. die nibelungen (restoration)

calvin johnson’s (k records) 2012 favorites in no particular order

1. laura leif, rough beast CS
2. priests, “radiation” 45 (sister polygon)
3. dent may, do things LP (paw tracks)
4. quintron & miss pussycat, “haterz” 7″ (rhinestone)
5. my friend wallis / watermelon split 45 (student loan)
6. channels 3 and 4, christianity LP (gelgongo)
7. cold warps, “slimer” 45 (fundog)
8. christian mistress, possession LP (relapse)
9. briana marela, speak from your heart LP (bicycle)
10. stickers, buy my nightmares CS
11. the evens, the odds LP (dischord)
12. ballantynes, “misery” 45 (la-ti-da)
13. hysterics, EP plus CS
14. weird TV 12″ EP (perennial)
15. nite prison, compilation LP
16. memory boys, send it across to me LP
17. fred thomas, night times LP (frameworks)

 

gilmore tamny’s (the yips, wiglet) 2012 list

1. LOIS at the CHICKFACTOR NYC show
2. bill orcutt and chris corsano show
3. how to be black by baratunde thurston
4. various and sundry major stars shows
5. sweet tooth by ian mcewan
6. sara marcus reading/benefit for girls rock camp alliance
7. the endless boogie CD I bought that I don’t think even has a name
8. jean comaroff lecture “divine detection: crime and metaphysics of disorder”
9. native cats show
10. nw by zadie smith

 

james mcnew (dump + yo la tengo)’s list

1. allen callaci
2. “check it out w/ dr steve brule”
3. jing wei
4. sightings
5. “delocated”
6. lambchop, mr. m
7. great restaurant (stay away)
8. great coffee place (stay away)
9. great pedal (don’t use)
10. “jon benjamin has a van”

 

brian nelson’s (black tambourine) top ten

1. hanging with my black tambo fam
2. folkroom records
3. breaking bad
4. building stories by chris ware
5. neil halstead show at IOTA
6. chickfactor’s back!
7. honeybunch t-shirt
8. ibuprofen (25 year running)
9. anchor steam christmas beer
10. cut the rope

 

jennifer o’connor’s top 13 things of 2012 in no particular order

1. running a half-marathon
2. my dog paco
3. james mcnew
4. touring with tom beaujour, tim foljahn, jon langmead, michael brodlieb and amy bezunartea
5. funkbox
6. having my music on TV a lot (thanks lyle!)
7. rihanna’s “diamonds” and singing it with amy bezunartea at the final our hit parade
8. monthly songwriter’s night with amy, jim, larry, bridget and david
9. vanessa’s dumplings in williamsburg
10. “bad religion” by frank ocean
11. “the bill is due” by mark eitzel
12. kelly hogan, I like to keep myself in pain
13. “goldie,” A$AP rocky

 

joe brooker (the pines): one line each from top ten go-betweens songs

1. “his father’s watch – he left it in the shower”
2. “I wish you had a big house and that your work would start to sell”
3. “you’ll get hurt if you play with crooks”
4. “I can only say it when we’re apart”
5. “but then the lightning finds us”
6. “the mangroves go quiet”
7. “her father works, her mother works in exports”
8. “I took their top prize and paid them back with rain”
9. “and I ride your river under the bridge”
10. “please take out the garbage”

 

rachel blumberg & jeffrey honeybunch’s top ten tantalizing tastes we treasured

1. homemade cured ham ginger rhubarb biscuit at huichica music festival, sonoma, CA
2. sliced beef brisket with collard greens, butter beans, and banana pudding – prince george barbecue, chester, VA
3. pepe’s white clam pizza, pepe’s pizza, new Haven, CT
4. portuguese brown stew, antonio’s, new bedford, MA
5. laksa, taste good malaysian food, elmhurst, NY
6. phillipino style breakast plate at love bites, saugerties, NY
7. ramen with kimchi greens and smoked pork shoulder, biwa, portland, OR
8. falafel, l’as du fallafel, paris, FR
9. shiso wrapped tuna, daikokuya ramen, los angeles, CA
10. grilled ginger and plum muffin and side of hand cut bacon, the kitchen, providence, RI

 

michael grace jr’s (the secret history/my favorite) top events/things/phenomena

1. barack obama/elizabeth warren/sherrod brown are elected/re-elected
2. the revealing self-pity/fake outrage/fatalism/denial amongst the right upon this occurring
3. the aislers set & the pines at chickfactor NYC
4. dr. maz’s DJ set after the secret history/smittens/summer fiction NYC popfest run-up show at rock shop in gowanus.
5. the northside fest’s “jameson’s artist lounge” remarkably makes free whiskey & ginger beers for about 22% of williamsburg’s population for 3 days straight.
6. I spin quite a yarn for joe pinefox and carrick blair about my family’s historic ties to the sicilian mafia whilst all at dumont burger.
7. the moma exhibits robert longo’s “pressure” in the contemporary collection.
8. the opponent-confidence-sapping genius of andrea pirlo’s chip penalty kick in europe 2012.
9. west ham united earn promotion back into the premier league.
10. the debut season of the wythe avenue beatnik basketball association ends with zero fatalities.

 

joe brooker (the pines): one line each from ten stephin merritt songs: only one per LP

1. “and we picnic in the winter on maple syrup and snow”
2. “we will dance in the autumn with the leaves in our hair”
3. “there’s no point pointing pistols at me”
4. “after all those trains and all those breakdown lanes”
5. “a crime, crime, crime, sin and illness is time”
6. “summer left its light green lipstick on our wet faces”
7. “in fact that’s where music comes from”
8. “it’s drunk – I’m three”
9. “the rain won’t change my heart at all”
10. “I can’t make it twang and beep”

 

janice headley’s (cf, kexp, fantagraphics) top ten comics of 2012 (in no real particular order)

1. big questions, anders nilsen (drawn & quarterly)
2. the voyeurs, gabrielle bell (uncivilized)
3. ticket stub, tim hensley (yam)
4. marbles, ellen forney (gotham)
5. my sincerest apologies, jessica campbell (oily)
6. the cartoon utopia, ron rege, jr. (fantagraphics)
7. barack hussein obama, steven weissman (fantagraphics)
8. building stories, chris ware (pantheon)
9. the making of, brecht evens (drawn & quarterly)
10. sunday in the park with boys, jane mai (koyama)

 

rachel blumberg’s top ten places in providence so far for eating & drinking

1. red fez
2. AS220
3. the kitchen
4. julians
5. white electric
6. e and o tavern
7. coffee exchange
8. seaplane diner
9. palmieri’s
10. la lupita

robert mctaggart: top ten cities

1. copenhagen – because my heart is where home is.
2. manchester – for all your faults, you were good to me for 27 years.
3. helsinki/stockholm – for friends, and the joy of being by water.
4. buenos aires – infuriating, polluted, conceited, thrilling, colourful and completely alive.
5. tbilisi – kala’s warren of ramshackle beauty. being escorted to narikala by teenagers singing beatles songs. kachapauri. and this building…. (see above)
6. rio de janeiro – every day brought an “I can’t believe I’m here” moment.
7. istanbul – architecture, atmosphere and the sheer pleasure of squandering an afternoon with nargileh, mint tea and good company.
8. vilnius – green and bohemian, warm nights and cold beer at uzupio kavine.
9. moscow – bloody-minded, a little bit terrifying, thoroughly exhilarating. the new tretyakov gallery and the patriarch ponds.
10. berlin – because at night, the possibilities just seem so endless.

if this has done anything it’s served to make me want to go to the far east, the west coast of the US and everywhere else. I am aware that I have neglected entire continents. that is something I promise to put right in the near future. and I only left out paris because it seemed too obvious.

 

mark robinson’s top ten list

1. haruki murakami 1Q84 (book).
2. moonrise kingdom (film)
3. miranda july – it chooses you (book)
4. national geographic (magazine)
5. la kings tee-shirt
6. estoner the stump will rise (lp)
7. the truth (podcast)
8. roxy music, the complete studio recordings (boxed set)
9. too much information (wfmu podcast)
10. lana del ray, “video games” (single)

 

yoshi the aislers set’s top ten list

1. chickfactor new york – lois!
2. chickfactor london – the pastels!
3. game of thrones
4. deerhoof, breakup songs
5. grouper and jeffre cantu-ledesma performing circular veil at HAU2 in berlin
5. jiro dreams of sushi
6. françois & the atlas mountains, e volo love
8. janet cardiff & george bures miller exhibit at haus der kunst in munich
7. je suis animal at indie pop days in berlin
8. finally getting around to reading middlesex by jeffrey eugenides while on the beach in sardegna.

 

rachel blumberg: top ten hot sauces of 2012

1. saucesome – red (from portland!)
2. saucesome – green
3. matouk’s calypso sauce
4. salsa huichol
5. poblano hot sauce – red jalapeno
6. pepper plant sauce – chunky garlic
7. cholula –  original
8. tabasco – smokey chipotle
9. tapatio
10. sriracha

 

lisa the mad scene: 10 things I enjoyed the most in 2012 (in no particular order)

1. harold lloyd film festival at film forum
2. fence awaygame festival on the isle of eigg in july
3. seamus fogarty god damn you mountain lp and live performance (counting as one under the seamus fogarty umbrella)
4. reading little dorrit (dickens)
5. the song “heart heart” by withered hand
6. james yorkston I was a cat from a book lp
7. drinking bourbon cocktails
8. olo worms, yard is open lp
9. volunteering with taran at the woodstock farm animal sanctuary
10. walking up an sgurr and spending some time at the top sipping scotch and eating cheese with ade, mark and offramp, and then walking back down again.

 

top ten artists gail would like to see reactivated in 2013

1. opal / kendra smith
2. squirrel bait
3. containe / the pacific ocean
4. marine girls
5. shitstorm
6. dolly mixture
7. glo-worm
8. salem 66
9. the cocteau twins
10. the sundays