Highlights (and lowlights) of 2006

2006 roundup

Highlights:

Bringing up baby was the everyday highlight of 2006 and everything else kinda pales into insignificance behind that.
Consequently I went to about half as many gigs as usual, and I didn't go on holiday anywhere so this isn't going to be as sprawling as previous years!

Every year there seems to be more and more cultural overload - so much DIY web based music and writing it is now impossible to keep on top of everything. Frustratingly there is always something great we are missing!

I'm still wading through albums released this year - Carla Bozulich is playing as I type, not an easy listen, but neither was Scott Walker's the Drift nor Joanna Newsom's sumptous 'Ys', but in this current musical climate they are too extraordinary to ignore.
Other albums jostling on a bit piece of paper which started out being a top 20 of the year include Destroyer's Rubies, Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, Sonic Youth, Bonnie Prince Billy, Current 93, Asobi Seksu, Midlake, Burial, Lambchop, Jarvis, AFX's Chosen Lords, and about 30 others. I will attempt to bash this into a coherent list this week.
I bought a lot of jazz albums this year, this proves that I am properly old.

Gig wise the year started brilliantly with an astonishing performance from We Are Knives in the first week of January in the Empire Music Hall.
What else? Crazy antics from Dj Scotch Egg and co in Laverys (twice!), an impressive but overlong show from Broken Social Scene in QUB and a lovely intimate performance from the Evens in the City Church Hall just as spring arrived. Ian MacKaye hang around at the end and let people have a go on his Danelectro gtr.
Quack Quack played on the floor of the Pavilion, Lightning Bolt showed up late and deafened everyone with their seven foot tall stack - the first night I tried my new earplugs as well, they worked a treat!
Boredoms (or whatever they are called now!) were simply astonishing in Dublin in May, gig of the year by miles. Six Organs of Admittance became a psychedelic trio in the Pavilion, Arab Strap just pre-retirement got it together in the Empire, Sunn0)))) did their satanic pantomime in the Black Box, complete with Attila from Mayhem crawling up the venue's altar, and Acid Mother's Temple faithfully recreated 70's prog excess at a blistering gig in Auntie Annies.

A few new good music venues in Belfast, in particular Lavery's Bunker. Locally the leading lights for me are We Are Knives on a good night (believe me when they are good they are very very good!) and the cutting edge electronica of Boxcutter. There will always be something going on, the scene is vibrant at the moment.
Local festivals seemed to be thriving as well, and the biggest of all in October brought the fancy Spiegeltent to Belfast.

The rise of YouTube added to the cultural overload - unearthing all that archive music material is amazing, not to mention the quick share of the wrong guest on BBC News 24, or RTE's Late Late Show heckler - and the rise and rise of blogs and podcasts shows no sign of slowing.

Season 5 of Curb your Enthusiasm, the final season of the Sopranos, Pulling and Tittybangbang on BBC3, great archive music on BBC4, I can't remember any other great TV off the top of my head. Oh, and Charlie Brooker's TV critiques of course.

I only went to the cinema twice - enjoyed both 'A Cock and Bull Story' and 'Little Miss Sunshine'. I will go to at least 3 films in 2007 I hope!


Lowlights

Some people that I have greatly admired for a long time died this year - Ivor Cutler, Arthur Lee, Syd Barrett and most shockingly of all the Go-Betweens Grant McLennan.

The general lack of good music TV and radio in the UK, and the absence of good music magazines (bar the Wire and the occasional OMM) it REALLY IS all about the internet now - which is actually a good thing I think!

I missed a few shows I wanted to see - Autechre, Mazarin, Comets on Fire, and particularly Casiotone for the Painfully Alone, the latter because I thought I had caught mumps and had to stay in!

'Lost' getting swallowed by Murdoch and his Sky empire, leaving us long standing fans to ignore the message boards and wait for the dvd.

The England cricket team performance - I mean, wtf!! Ireland nearly took them in June in Belfast.

The worrying trend on TV food shows that because you see the animal being bred and killed 'humanely' that this is somehow alright. "OK kids, let's see make friends with the turkey before we kill it and eat it".

Gillian McKeith and her shitty tv programme. I don't hate a lot of things but I hate everything about that show.

TV con announcers talking over the end music on programmes (sadly a trend that it is here to stay), especially the super-loud BBC 3 announcer who seems to have some sort of music-ducking compressor on his mic which sends the whole thing into overdrive.