New Years Eve is today... best of 2009?

Hey Hey all...

first!
2009!

Oh! released all of these... kinda... we'll have to wait for the Whipping Wind...
but still! SO EXCITING! so many albums!

second!
what was I listening to this year?

or

best of 2009...

in no particular order...

Timber Timbre - S/T
absolutely amazing album.
Easily one of the best shows I saw all year.
Taylor has so much mood and emotion in the music, it's incredible.
Lyrics. Folk music. Amazing. I can't say much other than this is probably my favourite.

Dirty Projectors - Bitte Orca
I was talking with Edward, and I admitted that, "sure Animal Collective is amazing, but I know how to write an Animal Collective song... but I have NO IDEA how to really write a Dirty Projectors song..."
This album is so original, and weird, and quirky, and AMAZING!
It's much different than Timber Timbre, so I can't say that it's better, but it's
just something I can't stop listening to... crazy guitar work, and crazy crazy vocal work. So much time and skill went into this album. I've never heard anything like it.
also, one of the best shows of the year.

Animal Collective - Merriweather Post Pavilion
I'm almost afraid to bring this up because it has become so hip and almost over hyped... but really. It's brilliant.
For me, this is the most exciting band in music right now. I'm most excited to listen to their music, and most excited to hear what comes next...
which over the past few days has really given me a writers block for the ol' folk music I'm supposed to be writing (so perhaps I'll have to put Timber Timbre on today)
but really, this album even deserves all of the pretentious Pitchfork bs...
Animal Collective, and this album in particular, are really leading the way.

Animal Collective - Fall Be Kind EP
This EP is more experimental than the above, and is therefore more exciting--at the moment--and has therefore not left my turntable since I bought it... well, it did once, after maybe 40 consecutive listens because Edward was complaining...

Grizzly Bear - Veckatimiest
The songwriting and production on this album are incredible! It's really arty indie pop music. This album is really exciting because they use fairly traditional instrumentation for a rock or an indie rock band, and really push it to it's artistic limits. Tyler and I can't stop listening to this album.
Oh, and then there are all of the vocal harmonies and crazies.

Dark Was The Night Compilation
Using the above to tie into this, this compilation basically comes across as a greatest hits album of 2009 from all of your indie favourites... with a bonus, all songs are unreleased anywhere else.
Oh! and the tie-in... the Grizzly Bear/Fiest song "Service Bell" is AMAZING. "boom" amazing...

Rubik - Dada Bandits
Open House booked a show with Rubik this year at the Blackshire Pub with The Ghost is Dancing and Beard Season... I had never heard of this band... and they BLEW ME AWAY! Rubik was the greatest surprise of the year, completely blew me away (repetition for emphatic reasons of course), everything going on at once... dancy, experimental, indie rock, horns, percussion, crazy vocals.
all over the place.
and then I was very pleased to find that the album was just as good as their live show... oh so happy with this band, all the way from Finland!

Beirut / Realpeople - March of the Zapotec / Holland --double EP
Zach Condon and Beirut go to Mexico, and record a gem! and then touch it up back in New York with some help from one Chris Taylor (Grizzly Bear). This work from Beirut probably features some of Condon's best arrangements, which makes it a fantastic album, however with this he has started to move away from some of the indie-rock-hooks which perhaps helped garner him such a large audience... but I still love it. As for the Realpeople disc (this is a double EP with himself... Realpeople actually being a project he started before Beirut, or so I've read) it is straight up interesting and dancy electronic music... think Scenic World from Gulag, but not trying to disguise itself as Beirut music. Very good. If you didn't get enough pop/indie hooks on the Beirut part of this douba-EP... then this has it for you!

...also just interesting, Zach has way more listens on Myspace than Animal Collective!

Bob Dylan - Christmas In The Heart
Bob Dylan is very close to my heart. We all laughed when we heard he was coming out with a Christmas album, but it's for a good cause, and the album is actually very good. He comes across as a rougher 1930s crooner singing the old standards or perhaps your grandfather singing on Christmas day, but with great production.
...just check it out.

Also, check out some of those Beatles remasters! Although the remasters came out this year, I can't really count them as albums from this year... those belong to my favourite decade, the 1960s... really though, The Beatles catalog is the best of all time!

Albums from 2009 which I missed, and need to check out:
Evening Hymns - Spirit Guides
Atlas Sound - Logos
Phoenix - 1901
The Antlers - Hospice
St. Vincent- Actor
Patrick Watson - Wooden Arms
...plus all the ones you should list in comments below...

Other albums I've listened to a lot recently, but aren't from 2009:
Fleet Foxes - S/T
Daft Punk - Discovery
Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam (is it better than Merriweather!?!?)
Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
One Hundred Dollars - Forest of Tears
Vince Guaraldi - A Charlie Brown Christmas

Favourite shows of 2009
Fleet Foxes - Massey Hall --crazy, could they pull those harmonies off live?!? yes yes they did. They killed it! in the encore Robin Pecknold did a completely unplugged version of the traditional 'Katie Cruel'... amazing

Beirut - Phoenix --one of my favourite bands, so very entertaining and charming. Good work Zach! the horn work between Zach and Kelly Pratt was amazing

Dirty Projectors - Opera House --everyone was in awe the whole time, and openers Tune Yards completely blew the audience away.

LOLA festival - it was a lot of fun to play this show myself... hang out with Final Fantasy, see Final Fantasy, get introduced to Slaraffenland's music, enjoy the jazz on Saturday afternoon, and then experience the crazy NOMO/audience jam.

Oh!Fest - so much fun doing this festival this year. My favourite show was AHAHB/The Ghost is Dancing/Lioness... because it was hot, sweaty, and crazy... plus I'm a bit biased... but seeing Sick Friend the next night was crazy! and the beautiful music in the church the night before!

Timber Timbre - Yale Street Speakeasy --incredible. One of the coolest things I've ever seen. Also one of the most moving musical performances I've ever seen.

Pick a Piper played two shows with Oh! this year... I really enjoyed the one at Yale Street (it was SO loud) and the one at Blackshire with Ace Kinkaid and AHAHB.

A HORSE AND HIS BOY - album release show at Museum London. Such a fun night to share our music with our friends. Sick Friend and Exit 2012 were such great openers too. Love.

My own album release show was fantastic. So much fun. So much love. So many friends. Handsome Dan and the Gally and Aaron Lozynsky were fantastic. Thanks for coming out!

I had a great time at the Oh! Holiday show, at the FOTO photography opening at EVAC... I had a lot of fun at EVAC this year actually. EVAC put on a lot of great shows.

Olenka and the Lovers at Call The Office was a lot of fun... it felt more like a celebration than a show (to me anyway)...

I'm sure there are more, I just can't think now...

Looking ahead to 2010, I'm just really excited for everything to continue as it is, which will mean things will continue to get better and better.

very exciting.

lots of love,
-Sam.

vlog 1

Sam, bored, tired, at work... updating.

promises to be more exciting and excited next time!

realizes if he filmed this at home he could have shown newspapers, instead of just talked about them.

hope all is well,
love,
-Sam.

AHAHB / James Reaney

Hey Hey all,

so last night we had our only full A HORSE AND HIS BOY rehearsal
in what will be 3 months... as I've been very busy with releasing
'Landscapes' and Jeremy has been off to China to work. It was a very
fun rehearsal and today I have new AHAHB songs stuck in my head. The new
material just keeps getting better and better, so look forward to the
new year... new songs, new album?, shows, tour, beards, etc...

Last night we talked about Animal Collective's album 'Strawberry Jam'
which Aaron and I think is better than Merriweather Post Pavilion... although
when I got home, Edward tried to convince me otherwise... regardless, if you
don't own these albums, go pick them up!

We also talked about Menomena's song 'Water'...

be sure to check that out too!

What else, oh, AHAHB left me with huge blisters on my right hand,
so much so that it hurts to type this (a bit). (due to not rehearsing
for some time...)


Today I went into the Free Press with Adam to drop off a copy
of 'Landscapes' to James Reaney... James was as awesome as always.
...he said that 'Landscapes', along with the other Oh! releases this year,
are going to be up for his '10 albums of the year'... very cool.

Other than that, Olenka & The Autumn Lovers should be AWESOME at
Call the Office tonight, and I'm VERY excited for the Sick Friend
CD release on Wednesday with The Whipping Wind! (you should remember Sick Friend from the AHAHB album release in
September...)

SEE YOU THERE!

hope all is well,
love,
-Sam.

Review of Album Release show Western's Gazette

Hey Hey all, just a link to the Gazette's
review of the Album Release show, written by Drew Whitson, with Photo by Sam Chang-Gardener.

read it here.

hope all is well,

-Sam.

Landscapes Release show

Saturday was a fantastic night, and it'll take some time I'm sure for it to fully sink in, but I feel motivated now to write a few words about the night.

First off I'd like to thank Edward, Stuart, Kelly, Mike, Alex, and Simon for playing with me. You each put a lot of time, effort, and skill into the night, and I couldn't be happier with your performances. All standout performances. Thank you for everything leading up to and including the night, and I'll hopefully see you all soon at a future band rehearsal! so much LOVE to you!

A big thank you to Dan, AJ, Sam, Jake, Blair, and Kevin in the Gally. You guys sounded so tight and professional, but at the same time were just the fellas doing what the fellas do best. The friendship beamed out of your band! Thank you.

Thanks so much to Aaron for bringing such excitement to the show from the get go. Aaron your positive energy and enthusiasm, combined with your incredible rock-a-billy performance, was such an amazing addition to the night. Thank you.

A tremendous thank you to all of my brothers and sisters in the Open House Arts Collective. Alex, thankyou for singing, organizing, and driving everything. The show would not've happened with out you. Blair thankyou for helping to organize and play in the show, and for your deep sexy stage voice. AJ, thank you so so much for helping create the entire physical album. It would not exist without your hard work. Thanks also for performing. Sara! thanks so much for the INCREDIBLE blossoms! those blew me away, I still can't get over how amazing they are. Thanks also for working the door. Stuart, thanks for putting in the time in your busy schedule to play, and for helping with press/web/organizing. Paterson thank you for MCing, the beautiful poster, and helping to organize. Thanks so much to all of you.

Simon! thanks so much for setting up the whole room for sound! and then doing sound! even with some snags along the way it sounded really great. thanks so much.

and thank you so much to everyone who came out! with a special thanks to all those who picked up an album!

anyway, it's been a long time coming, so thankyou to everyone who helped me live out a dream...
funny, at the start of the year I was joking that I'd be living out my dream twice in the summer by releasing an album with A HORSE AND HIS BOY and my own... it took a little longer than we thought, but now it's here and I couldn't be happier...

so thankyou.
hope you had fun!

some highlights off the top of my head:
-driving around with Aaron to pick up stuff before hand, having a blast listening to Johnny Burnette
-meeting with Dan and Aaron downstairs before Aaron's set... "we're the dudes, man!"
-running into Stuart and Edward before our set for an impromptu huddle of our own.
-Alanna and Amanda dancing along to 'Lost In the Leaves'
-'The Sound of Plenty' accapella
-Aaron's rock-a-billy stance
-Blair's deep, sexy voice... "here's another one for ya..."
-Dan's handsome-ness
-the cherry blossoms
-over-sized glasses of water
-Stuart's bad-ass-bass-dance
-Edwards guitar solo in 'Lost In The Leaves'
-Edward joining us for the encore.
-making eye contact with both Kelly and Alex while singing harmony with them and getting faces
-Kelly, "are you Uncle John?!"
-My family's expressions while I played, and then afterward
-everyone clapping and singing along in the audience at the end
-everyone jumping up on stage to sing Mountain Top Chorus Song with us!
-most of the women's expressions while Aaron and then the Gally played... what a handsome bunch!
-Scott: "So Handsome!"
-audience expressions while I stared out at them while I sang.
-shaking so many happy hands, and seeing new and familiar faces
-somehow finding a way home with all the gear and the van broken.
-sitting on a stoop on Richmond St eating french fries in celebration afterwards... late at night with the bars all letting out, Aaron: "We're livin' in the city!"
-talking with Simon / Edward about the show once we got home
-all of the smiles

awesome. I'm sure I've missed so much in this 'note' and I'm sure more will come to me... feel free to add and I will too...

if your curious, here is the set list we played:

1. Cowboy Song
2. Woodland Whispers
3. Lost In The Leaves
4. Would You Love Me
5. Troubles
6. Long, Long, Long (The Beatles, George Harrison)
7. Meadow Boy
8. Goodnight
9. Mountain Top Chorus Song
10. Rain On
11. Sail Away

such a great night.