PEOPLE ANNOUNCE LISTS

Wow, apparently I didn't see any movies last year. Oscar noms are out, and for the first time I can remember, I haven't seen any of the movies nominated for Best Picture. Or Best Director. Or Best Supporting Actor and Actress. Or Best Screenplay (both categories). I suppose I should go see some of these movies, or maybe I should just finish my dissertation on why King Kong and Kung Fu Hustle were the best movies I actually did see last year.

Stereogum has what NME claims is the full 2006 Coachella lineup. A lot of bands on there I'd like to see, but considering the cost (like $150), the hassle of getting there (major), and the fact that the setup of the festival means you only get to see maybe a fourth of the bands you plan on seeing, I doubt I'll be going this year. The Pixies reunion got me to go two years ago, and it would take a similar cash-in (Talking Heads or, as rumored, Smashing Pumpkins) to bring me back. That said, however, the idea of seeing Sigur Ros play at sunset in the desert is appealing; they might be the only band on that list whose performance might be enhanced by the outdoor setting.

While we're visiting Stereogum, he's also got an MP3 of "Steady As She Goes," a song from Jack White's new project The Raconteurs. My gosh! Jack's in a band with a bassist and a decent drummer! What's next?

ATTN: PATTON OSWALT FANS

Some enterprising youngster has dug up a video of Super Nerds, a failed pilot created by Patton Oswalt and Brian Posehn for Comedy Central in 2000. I haven't been able to watch it yet; the video keeps freezing up. Maybe you'll have better luck. (Link via Ian Brill, who says it's not very good anyway.)

For more failed-pilot fun, here's Lookwell, written by Conan O'Brien and Robert Smigel, and starring Adam West as an actor who tries to solve crimes because he used to play a detective on TV.

ANOTHER PLEA FOR HELP

Anybody know where I can get an acapella track of "Gone" by Kanye West? Or, alternatively, how to isolate the vocals from an MP3? The fate of the free world hangs in the balance!

WINNAH!

Ryan wins the McSweeney's Website Humor Piece Title Contest with this entry:

"Some advice about the future from your dad before the apache raiders break our wagon circle"

Congratulations, Ryan! Your DVD is on its way. And I finally realized where I got the idea for the contest itself: this post on the BlaggBlogg.

A CONTEST

I have managed to acquire two copies of the first issue of Wholphin, the new DVD magazine from McSweeney's. This DVD magazine contains many things, including a documentary on Al Gore directed by Spike Jonze, an excerpt from the Gulf War documentary that Warner Bros. wouldn't let David O. Russell put on the Three Kings DVD, a few short films, a Turkish sitcom, Patton Oswalt doing something weird, and other stuff. I have yet to watch the DVD, so I can't confirm whether any of this is any good or not.

You have two options now:

1. If you do not want a copy of the first issue of Wholphin, do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING and a copy will not be sent to you, ABSOLUTELY FREE.

2. If you do want a copy of the first issue of Wholphin, respond by midnight tonight (PST, which means 3 am on the East Coast) with your best fake McSweeney's website humor piece title. JUST THE TITLE, unless you've got a lot of time on your hands and a desire to brown-nose. (N.B.: Writing an entire fake humor piece won't help you in the contest, but it will amuse me, and if you really applied yourself you could maybe get it published on McSweeney's yourself. What am I, your agent?) If you'd like examples of real McSweeney's website humor piece titles, here are a few recent ones:

"Like It or Not, You're No Bob Costas."
"Yes Front Man Jon Anderson's Instructions to His Dogsitter."
"Journal of a Seasoned COBRA Veteran."

You get the idea. At midnight, dressed in my ceremonial Black Mass robes, I'll throw all the entries into a bubbling cauldron, and the anguished souls of those I've killed will spit back the winner. Or, you know, I'll just pick the one I think is funniest.

PLEASE NOTE: This copy of the DVD is the one that came attached to The Believer, so it will not have the fancy cardboard sleeve. It will, however, include the informative booklet.

PLEA TO INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS

Anyone going to Hong Kong in the next onemonth or so? Because I want--nay, need--my very own copy of this book. In exchange, I'll get you something nice from LA. A jar of smog? Broken windowshield glass from a Paris Hilton auto accident? Whatever you want!

More Best of '05 (books, comics and movies) coming more-or-less soon, but now let's take a break for something that's actually somewhat timely:

MID-SEASON TV ROUNDUP! (1 of ??)

I don't think I'm still watching any of the Fall '05-premiering shows (okay, I still TiVo How I Met Your Mother, but that's more for career research than because it's any good, though it's certainly better than the first show examined below), so it's good the networks are throwing more stuff at the wall to see if it sticks. Does it? Let's find out!

Four Kings (NBC, Thursday 8:30)

The new sacrificial lamb in NBC's Thursday-at-8:30 spot that previously hosted...Inside Schwartz, maybe? Veronica's Closet? I can't even remember. That's the point. This junk comes from David Kohan and Max Mutchnick, creators of the nearly-as-lame Will & Grace and Twins. Four twentysomething assholes, one of whom is Seth Green, move into the same lavish apartment and...ah, who cares. You know how shit like this works. There are a few decent lines here and there (e.g. the formerly fat asshole's nickname in middle school was "Carnie Wilson," which is cruel, but I laughed), but a few decent lines isn't nearly enough. What Four Kings is mainly good for is proving for the umpteenth time that the multiple-camera, live-studio-audience sitcom is an obsolete format. It moves so slowly, it's like watching a bad play underwater. This lethargy is even more pronounced when compared to the shows that now follow it on Thursday nights, My Name Is Earl and The Office.* The latter is brilliant, as previously noted, and the former continues to improve (last Thursday's episode was the best so far--the writers are loosening up and letting the weirdness play out to a greater degree, and the actors are settling into their roles nicely). Earl and The Office might not be the future of TV comedy, but they're definitely the present, and Four Kings is stuck in the past. If its presence in the lineup somehow ensures The Office's survival, fine, but otherwise I give it a month before it gets cancelled.
Verdict: LET US NEVER SPEAK OF THIS AGAIN.

In Justice (ABC, Friday 9:00)

Kyle MacLachlan stars as big-shot lawyer David Swayne, who heads Project Justice, an organization that seeks to free wrongly convicted people, but the real lead here is Jason O'Mara as Charles Conti, Swayne's more hands-on partner. MacLachlan's role is more akin to that of William Shatner on Boston Legal--the brilliant-kooky guy everybody has to listen to (though in speech and mannerisms he's more like Sandy Cohen). It's not a bad show--MacLachlan and O'Mara seem to be having fun, and it's nice to see David Mamet associate/memorable former The Shield guest star Rebecca Pidgeon show up as Conti's ex-wife in the show's one ongoing subplot--but there's nothing here to bring me back. I prefer more serial storytelling in my TV, and that's just not what this is. The case is set up, there are a few twists and turns, MacLachlan says something quirky, and the case is solved. But if you like Boston Legal or Cold Case, you could probably do worse on a quiet Friday night.
Verdict: BRING KYLE MACLACHLAN ONTO THE OC AS SANDY'S LONG-LOST HALF-BROTHER.

The Book of Daniel (NBC, Friday 10:00)

The best of the new shows I've seen so far. Aidan Quinn stars as Episcopalian Reverend Daniel Webster (yes, he's a relation), who has a whole host of quirky dramedy issues: he pops Vicodin, he's got a drug-dealing daughter, a gay son, an adopted Chinese son, and a martini-swilling wife, he's pals with a Catholic priest with Mafia connections, his mom has Alzheimer's and his dad, a bishop, is dating his own bishop, etc. etc. And he talks to Jesus, which has proven to be somewhat controversial with the usual suspects. The Jesus thing is hardly controversial (see below), nor is it the centerpiece of the show; the plot so far is focused on Daniel's brother-in-law absconding with $3 million from the church's bank account, and the ramifications thereof, but the heart of the show is Daniel's dealings with his quirky TV family. Aside from some vocabulary-related confusion over what exactly daughter Grace is up to (she was selling pot to finance an online comics project, but everybody keeps using manga and anime as interchangeable terms, so I'm not sure if she's trying to get her comics online or animate them or what, but unless you're a giant nerd like I am you've probably already stopped reading this parenthetical), the family stuff is unusually sharp and well-observed, despite the massive potential for groan-worthy contrivances. I especially enjoyed the dominant/submissive relationship between Daniel's wife Judith and her sister (whose name I've unfortunately already forgotten, and IMDb is no help), which is that of pre-teen girls as acted out by forty-year-old women. And the Alzheimer's angle is surprisingly powerful so far, though it's also quite similar to a plot from the second season of Rescue Me**. It's a nice mix of drama and comedy, and though it's hardly breaking new ground--if FX is HBO Lite, then this is FX Lite--it's at least putting in the effort.***

Unfortunately, the show's weakest link so far is also the one element that intrigued me the most pre-airing: Garret Dillahunt as Jesus (see the previous post for why I was excited). As the show's producers have said, Jesus is intended to be Daniel's pal, and he's certainly that; he's a veritable Buddy Christ, complete with thumbs-up in his final scene in the pilot. I don't know what the AFA could possibly be angry about, since all Jesus does is warn Daniel from taking the Vicodin, offer platitudes, chuckle knowingly, and nudge him gently towards doing the right thing. Of course, dramatically speaking, there's plenty wrong with that--so far, Jesus is adding nothing of value to the show. In what really seems like an effort not to piss off religious groups, Jesus as written is so blandly inoffensive as to be useless. The most personality he displays is a mild riff on Jesus-centric self-help books (e.g. "Tuesdays with Jesus," chuckle knowingly, and scene).

Ironically, given my earlier praise for Dillahunt on Deadwood, he may be a big part of the problem. Jesus may be Daniel's buddy, but Dillahunt, as an actor, doesn't exactly exude camaradery and amiability. Though Jack McCall and Francis Wolcott were polar opposites as characters, the one thing that united them was their position just outside the society of Deadwood. Neither one of them fit in. Even in his small role on The 4400, Dillahunt played an outsider, someone who enters a previously closed community that deems him untrustworthy. His delicate features--like those of a child actor who grew up yet still looked doll-like--and refined, almost formal speech patterns are not suited to a Jesus who chuckles knowingly, pats Daniel on the shoulder and gives the thumbs-up. IMDb research reveals that Dillahunt played one "Charlemagne Moody" on One Life to Live ten years ago, and that character name pretty much sums up the combination of nigh-ridiculous courtliness and brooding aloofness he usually gives off on-screen. I could see Dillahunt doing a great job with a different take on Jesus, but as of yet this seems to be a bad fit.
Verdict: SEASON PASS (though we'll see if I watch it every week or just let the episodes accumulate until I decide it's not worth it anymore)

*Even compared to Friends, the last multi-camera sitcom to be any good, Four Kings is slower than molasses. And it's not just the pace; even at its icky-cutesy, self-congratulatory worst, Friends had sharper writing and acting than the cast and crew of Four Kings seem capable of mustering.

**Come to think of it, Rescue Me already did the talking-to-Jesus bit too.

***Also note the show's DVD-menu-ready bumpers. Right before each commercial break, the scene freezes and stained-glassifies, and then it's revealed that this image is just one pane in a whole window made up of six panes, each one corresponding to an intercommercial segment of the show. It looks just like a DVD chapter menu, and I can only assume it's been done with an eye on the eventual DVD release of the show, and on lowering the budget of same by getting some of the design work done for the show itself.

BEST OF '05 2: TV

Don't read this if you haven't finished watching Season 5 of Gilmore Girls.

Best Shows

1. Deadwood
2. Arrested Development
3. The Office
4. The Shield
5. Veronica Mars
6. Rescue Me
7. Lost
8. Extras
9. Beauty and the Geek
10. Rome

Great Moments

1. Ben Hawkins heals Jonesy's leg (Carnivale)
The second season of Carnivale was uneven at best, but this one beautiful moment made the entire journey worthwhile: in the middle of the desert, under a clear blue sky, Ben gave Jonesy everything he wanted, and Jonesy took off his brace and ran.

2. The reveal of the hatch (Lost)
All the frustration and narrative dead ends mean nothing when put up against such a perfect scene as the one that opened season 2 of Lost. A man wakes up in a strange room, puts on Cass Elliott's "Make Your Own Kind of Music," exercises, eats breakfast, washes the dishes and injects himself with a strange drug. And as we slowly realize where this man is, we're filled with the heady thrill of discovery that only Lost, at its best, can provide.

3. Pam kisses Jim after the Dundies (The Office)
A year ago I never would have thought I'd rank the American remake of Ricky Gervais's brilliant The Office over Gervais's own new show Extras, but it's moments like this that have made the American Office genuinely great on its own terms. Retrofitting what was essentially a miniseries into the open-ended American sitcom format could have proved disastrous, but the show's writers (many of whom, like the "Dundies" episode writer Mindy Kaling, also star on the show) have made this open-endedness a virtue by teasing out the Pam/Jim flirtation into exquisitely torturous new permutations. This will sound like blasphemy to Tim/Dawn fans, but there's every reason to believe that when this kettle boils over it will outstrip even the original in intensity, and it's moments like this that set expectations that high. After getting drunk over the duration of the embarrassing office awards show, Pam kisses Jim in the Chili's parking lot, an act which she instantly regrets and which throws our poor hero Jim into even more confusion.

4. Lorelai proposes to Luke (Gilmore Girls)
If you're a fan of the show, then, well, you don't need me to explain why it was such a big deal. Made all the more excruciating by the three-month wait to find out his answer.

5. Richard kisses Krystal (Beauty and the Geek)
Why is a dumbass Ashton Kutcher-produced reality show on my best shows list? Because of moments like this. Ubergeek Richard (think a young, exponentially more annoying and less funny Woody Allen) has never kissed a girl. In fact, his ever-present chyron (the little identifying nametag at the bottom of the screen) reads "Richard: Has never kissed a girl." But in the third episode, Richard and his partner Mindi face off against Brad and Krystal in the final elimination. Richard and Mindi win, and as they hug the losers goodbye, Richard plants one on Krystal. Instantly, his chyron changes to "Richard: Has kissed one girl." It was both sweet and hilarious, a combination that extended to the rest of the show. It had fun with its characters without ever humiliating them, which is a rarity in the reality-show biz. Even the dimmest Beauty and the most insufferable Geek (i.e. Richard) were revealed to be real, complex human beings. Plus you've gotta like any show that makes heroes out of nerds.


Great Performances

1. Garret Dillahunt as Francis Wolcott, Deadwood
After playing Wild Bill Hickock's murderer Jack McCall in season 1, Dillahunt returned in season 2 as Francis Wolcott, chief geologist for George Hearst. On the surface, Wolcott was courtly, elegant even, an incursion of civilization into the wild town of Deadwood; but as the season progressed, Wolcott revealed his true nature, even more savage and debased than the other degenerates inhabiting the town. In a 180-degree departure from his season 1 role, Dillahunt gave a high-wire performance as this urbane monster, tackling some of the show's most impenetrable dialogue (e.g.: "Would you not have, too, your brother Charlie resurrected? Would you stipulate your envy of him being purged? Surely, you insist that Charlie retain certain defects - his ineffable self-deceptions, for example, which were your joy in life to rebuke, and purpose, so far as you had one. I suppose you would see removed those qualities which caused you to love him, and the obliviousness to danger which allowed you to shed his blood.") and oozing menace just by standing there. (Dillahunt also showed up on The 4400, beardless, in a much less interesting role; starting this Friday he'll be playing a hallucinatory Jesus on NBC's The Book of Daniel, so let's hope that a bearded Dillahunt can again make for riveting television. And if not, hey, maybe he can come back for the hat trick in Deadwood season 3.)

2. John Scurti as Kenny Shea, Rescue Me
Denis Leary gets most of the flashy monologues, and Steven Pasquale is the go-to guy for dimwitted comic relief, but Scurti's Lt. Shea is the heart of the show, the sardonic, world-weary glue that holds the station house, and the show, together (he's Rescue Me's Hurley). He shone this year in what could have been a hackneyed plot--decent guy falls for a hooker who turns out not to have a heart of gold after all--by allowing you to see each layer of doubt and and resistance peel away, until his naked soul was exposed, raw and bleeding.

3. Michael Cera and Tony Hale, Arrested Development
In a cast made entirely of professional scene-stealers, these two managed to stand out by committing fully to the show's bizarre emotional logic, making their characters all the more real. As sheltered man-child Buster, Hale joined the Army, lost a hand to a man-eating seal, and turned a one-joke character into both the series' biggest human freakshow and its most painfully decent, innocent soul. And Cera, as youngest child George Michael, plays his straight-man role with Method precision and a perverse, subversive wit--in a lot of ways, George Michael is the weirdest character on the show.

4. Ray Stevenson as Titus Pullo, Rome
The vulgar brute who turns out to have a heart after all is a common character in action movies and serial drama, but few have played it with such wit and sly intelligence as Stevenson. His reluctant friendship with Lucius Vorenus was engrossing television, but even better was his unrequited love for the slave girl Eirene; and when those two threads collided in his desperate gladiatorial fight, it made for one of the most viscerally emotional moments of any show in 2005.

5. Glenn Close as Captain Monica Rawling, The Shield
News flash: Glenn Close in "excellent acting" shocker. But her season-long appearance on TV's best cop show could have been stunt casting, a glorified cameo, or a chance for the movie star to shamelessly chew small-screen scenery. Instead, Close clicked right in as part of a great ensemble cast, so disarmingly low-key as Farmington's new captain that at first it was almost like she wasn't there. But her professional relationship with Michael Chiklis's rogue cop Vic Mackey became one of the show's most complex and rewarding, an even mix of mutual respect and distrust--a wary master slowly teaching a wild dog to heel. And watching them learn to work together, only to have it all fall apart from under them, was both thrilling and heartbreaking.


Best Villain Not Named Francis Wolcott

Robert Knepper as T-Bag, Prison Break
God, how I hate motherfuckin' T-Bag. Why did Abruzzi have to see Jesus? Why, lord?

Runner-up: Anthony Anderson as Antwon Mitchell, The Shield
Who knew Anthony "Kangaroo Jack" Anderson could act like this? Dude held his own against Glenn Close, for god's sake!

Best Theme Songs

1. "Tea for the Tillerman" by Cat Stevens (Extras)
As they did with "Handbags and Gladrags" in The Office, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant have chosen a classic-rock end-credits theme that casts the comedy that preceded it in a melancholy yet hopeful light. The song, a simple piano melody that briefly breaks forth in choral triumph, shapes the experience of the show for you and acts as a benediction, sending you out into the real world with wishes for a better one. Seriously, I don't think the show would be half as good without this song.

2. "Banter for the Common Man" by Sam Winch (Comedians of Comedy)
The theme song to Patton Oswalt's comedy-road-trip documentary series fits right in with the intelligent-regular-guy image Oswalt (and to a lesser extent his tourmates Brian Posehn, Zach Galifianakis and Maria Bamford) tries to project on the show. But just as Oswalt and co. are unable to contain the clear superiority they feel to many of the places they drive through and people they interact with, nor can this song resist taking sneering shots at its titular Common Man. Like the Comedians' comedy, it's an indictment of a mindset (the good ol' boy, in all his variations) from within that mindset (i.e. Winch's Southern-fried rock, and the fact that at least Oswalt and Galifianakis are native Southerners transplanted to LA).

3. Squidbillies theme by Billy Joe Shaver
Mary's already said it all.

BEST OF '05 1: MUSIC

Oh how the masses are clamoring for me to make a pronouncement on the crap that distracted us from real life this year!

Best Singles Songs of 2005*

1. 1 Thing - Amerie
2. Tribulations - LCD Soundsystem
3. Gold Digger/Gone - Kanye West**
4. Hounds of Love - The Futureheads
5. Since U Been Gone - Kelly Clarkson
6. Venis - Rah Bras
7. Mr. Brightside - The Killers
8. Hollaback Girl - Gwen Stefani
9. Good Weekend - Art Brut
10. Do You Want To - Franz Ferdinand
11. Jimmy Carter - Electric Six
12. Sigourney Weaver - Edie Sedgwick
13. I Turn My Camera On - Spoon
14. Helena - My Chemical Romance
15. Blue Orchid - The White Stripes
16. Glosoli - Sigur Ros
17. Stay Fly - Three 6 Mafia
18. Only - Nine Inch Nails
19. John Wayne Gacy, Jr. - Sufjan Stevens
20. Skullcrusher Mountain - Jonathan Coulton


*I think most of these actually are singles, but I have no idea anymore what's a single and what isn't--I get most of my new music info from blogs (particularly Fluxblog), as this list will attest. Also, I'm not gonna write about these, because do you really need one more person trying to explain why "1 Thing" or "Since U Been Gone" are great? You don't.

**I'm putting them both here because "Gold Digger" is a brilliant single, but "Gone" is the highlight of Late Registration--the one time when Kanye's and Jon Brion's distinct aesthetics fully merge into something new and unexpected--it starts out all Kanye, just a beat and an Otis Redding sample, but then gradually Brion makes his presence known via cellos underscoring Kanye's lyrics, until he fully takes over at the 3:35 mark and vamps for a bit until Kanye comes back and they both do their own thing and it somehow makes both of them stronger.


Best Stuff Provided by the Internet

1. Venis - Rah Bras
You'll notice this is in the Best Songs list above, but it's a song that I've heard nowhere and read nothing about except on Fluxblog. Aside from it being just insidiously infectious (plus, thanks to Perpetua, I can't hear it without picturing Youngblood and X-Force getting down), it's a perfect example of why music blogs are still going strong and are probably even more necessary now than they were a year ago--there's no other way we're going to hear this stuff.

2. The works of Jonathan Coulton
Another Fluxblog find. "Skullcrusher Mountain" is the hit, but his site is full of literate, witty musical comedy that stays out of Weird Al territory by avoiding parody and by being just wonderful songs in general; change the lyrics to "Skullcrusher Mountain" and I could see it being a big hit on CMT. And his white-boy covers of "Bills, Bills, Bills" and "Baby Got Back" sound funny on paper, but he plays them so sincerely they're actually kind of moving.

3. Creep (a la Tom Waits) - Jon Brion
Found on Recidivism. Recorded I don't know when and I don't know where (though Largo is a good bet), this is Brion, in response to what sounds like an audience challenge, playing a saloon-piano version of Radiohead's "Creep," which naturally reminds him of Tom Waits, and so he sings the last chorus in Waits's signature gravelly growl. No matter how premeditated it was, it's both hilarious and a startling display of musicianship, and though it's essentially one joke, it's had me singing along to other incongruous songs (e.g. "Nothing Compares 2 U") as Waits. Great fun.

4. "Slagkicks" by Goes Cube
From Stereogum. Bleepy gothy band Goes Cube adds music to snippets of insane person Marguerite Perrin's rantings from Fox's Trading Spouses: Meet Your New Mommy. Terrifying.

5. Jack White berates a fan at the Greek Theatre, Berkeley, CA, 8/13/05
So some fan jumps up on stage and grabs the mic during The White Stripes' traditional closer, "Boll Weevil," and Jack stops the show to lead the audience in mocking him. Choice quotes: "I'm real scared, playa" and "Did mommy and daddy drop you off at the rock concert?" More ammunition for the Stripes backlash, but for those of us still fascinated by the theatre of the absurd that was Jack White's 2005, this was manna from heaven.


Best Non-2005 Songs I Heard for the First Time

1. Freak Scene - Dinosaur Jr.
Best song ever written about platonic love and why it can't become anything more? Probably. Great guitar solo too.

The rest of these I heard/saw on The Alternative, VH1 Classic's 80s/90s alt-rock video showcase:

2. 100% - Sonic Youth
Video features a pre-Earl, pre-Mallrats Jason Lee, back when he was still a pro skateboarder. It's amazing what you can do with four notes and a bunch of feedback.

3. Dominion - Sisters of Mercy
Apparently, if you were in a British new-wave/goth band in the 80s, you were obligated to make a video in which you ran around a jungle and/or desert in a tan linen suit. This video has that scenario (desert version) plus a sword cane. Sword canes make everything better.

4. No New Tale to Tell - Love & Rockets
I had no idea their lead singer was a skinny blonde guy who looks like Stephen Merchant.

5. Freedom of Choice - Devo
An amazing artifact of early MTV, shot on video and literalizing the lyrics; i.e. there's a guy in a dog mask running around a cheap ancient Rome set. Plus more skateboarders.

Best Albums

Wow, how surprising are these. Again, you probably don't need me to tell you why...

1. The Sunset Tree - The Mountain Goats
2. Illinois - Sufjan Stevens
3. Get Behind Me Satan - The White Stripes
4. Late Registration - Kanye West
5. Arular - M.I.A.
6. Extraordinary Machine - Fiona Apple
7. LCD Soundsystem
8. Takk... - Sigur Ros
9. Guero - Beck

Best Live Shows

I didn't see many concerts this year, but the ones I did see were excellent. The Arcade Fire show was the most revelatory, but any of the rest could vie for second place. M.I.A. was better the first time, but LCD Soundsytem more than made up for her too-similar performance; and though I left Living Colour early to hang out with some old friends, the part of their show I did see was enough to satisfy my inner eighth-grader. Now I've seen the top two bands on my Bands I Never Thought I'd See Live list (Pixies were #1, obviously); Talking Heads, you're next!

1. The Arcade Fire (Troubadour, 1/15)
2. The Mountain Goats (Troubadour, 6/25)
3. LCD Soundsystem/M.I.A. (El Rey, 5/15)
4. M.I.A. (Knitting Factory, 2/3)
5. Living Colour (Knitting Factory, 9/9)
6. The White Stripes (Greek Theatre, 8/17)
7. Joanna Newsom (Troubadour, 2/24)
And special mention goes to the incredibly tedious local bands that opened for Mia Doi Todd at the Echo on 2/28. It's called "melody," folks; look it up.

For more music fun, go here for an exhaustive list of 2005's best music videos; I'd only seen a few of these previously ("Tribulations," "The Denial Twist," "Evil") but I can vouch for their awesomeness, and the two from the list I've watched so far ("Glosoli" and "I Gave You") are really incredible. This guy has done everybody a legitimate service.

More pronouncements coming in the following days.