Bawley (hearts) 2009: Top 5 Concerts of the year: Nick

2009 wasn't a vintage live music year for me, but it was a bunch of older, established acts who have honed their live show over hundreds of hours of performance who impressed me most. And The Metro continued to impress me as Sydney's best live music venue, with three of my favourite shows of the year taking place there.

5. The Hold Steady, Metro Theatre (04/02/09)
The Hold Steady seem to play every show like it's the most important one they've ever played, and despite poor sound (backing vocals and keys too low in the mix), and a less than full venue, they stormed through a great set of bar room rock and roll with bucketloads of energy and personality.

4. Elbow, V Festival Sydney(29/03/09)
I Wouldn't normally put a festival set in a list like this, but Elbow seemed to be having the time of their lives in Centennial Park on a perfect March afternoon, belting out songs like 'One Day Like This' and telling stupid jokes. The crowd were having the time of their lives too.

3. Gomez, The Metro Theatre (23/10/2009)
10 years and 6 albums into their career, Gomez know exactly how to work a crowd. Their back catalogue is big enough and strong enough to play almost entirely different sets over two consecutive nights at The Metro without diminishing the quality of the material. I was there on the second night and had a blast. But my foot is still sore from dancing too much.

2. Basement Jaxx, The Enmore Theatre, 03/03/09
Still the best live dance act in the world. (FasterLouder review)

1. My Morning Jacket, The Metro Theatre, 22/01/09
Last January I doubted I'd be going to a better gig than this one for the rest of the year. And I didn't.

Here come the Doves

It’s always good news when Doves come back. The band has just announced their fourth album, ‘Kingdom Of Rust’, which is due out 6^th April.

New track ‘Jetstream’ – available for free download from doves.net – sees Doves ‘going electronic’, as bands very often do when they hit their ‘mid-career crisis’. As comeback singles go, it’s no ‘There Goes The Fear’ or ‘Black and White Town’ but represents an interesting New Order-esque new direction.

Let’s see if they can do what fellow Mancuians Elbow did last last year and break through to a wider audience with their fourth record.

We Could Be Heroes

Bawley hearted artists such as Beck, Elbow, Hot Chip, Peaches, Franz Ferdinand, TV On The Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have recorded covers for an album raising money for charity.

War Child:Heroes is a compilation put together by the organisation War Child, which works to protect children in the world’s most dangerous war zones.

The War Child organisation has long used music to raise money and awareness for the cause. For their latest project War Child:Heroes they asked music legends like Blondie, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, The Ramones and The Clash to pick new artists to cover one of their songs.

The 15 track CD will be out in most countries on the 16th of February sadly Australians will have to wait until February 21st.

Here's the full track listing:

1. Beck - Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat (Bob Dylan)
2. Scissor Sisters - Do The Strand (Roxy Music)
3. Lily Allen - Straight To Hell (The Clash)
4. Duffy - Live And Let Die (Paul McCartney)
5. Elbow - Running To Stand Still (U2)
6. TV On The Radio - Heroes (David Bowie)
7. Hot Chip - Transmission (Joy Division)
8. The Kooks - Victoria (The Kinks)
9. Estelle - Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
10.Rufus Wainwright - Wonderful/ Song For Children (Brian Wilson)
11. Peaches - Search And Destroy (Iggy Pop)
12. The Hold Steady - Atlantic City (Bruce Springsteen)
13. The Like - You Belong To Me (Elvis Costello)
14. Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker (The Ramones)
15. Franz Ferdinand - Call Me (Blondie)

Bawley (Hearts) 2008: Bawley crew albums of the year: Nick

5. MGMT 'Oracular Spectacular'

The latest in a long line of masterpieces bearing the signature of super-producer Dave Fridman (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Delgados, Mogwai...). This album was everywhere in 2008: In every shop, every radio and TV station – but deserved to be.

4. British Sea Power 'Do You Like Rock Music?'

'Waving Flags' was the year's best pro-immigration song, 'No Lucifer' borrowed a slogan from notorious British wrestler Big Daddy and 'Canvey Island' drew a complex analogy between a bird flu virus and a devastating flood. Really, what more do you need from a rock record?

3. Lambchop '(OH) Ohio'

Approximately the 10^th (depending on how you count) album from The Best Band In The World That Nobody Has Heard Of. Not a radical departure, more an amalgamation of all the styles the band has toyed with over the last two decades. Wonderful, as ever.

2. TV On The Radio 'Dear Science'

Sharp, funny, angular, joyous, intense. Very, very nearly album of the year....

1. Elbow 'Seldom Seen Kid'

...But in the end it was the songs that won it for Elbow. Guy Garvey writes lyrics that you could write essays about, without a single word out of place, and they work brilliantly. Heartbreaking, life affirming, devastatingly beautiful and utterly essential.

Runners Up:

Bloc Party, 'Intimacy'; Delirious?, 'Kingdom Of Comfort'; Vampire Weekend, 'Vampire Weekend'; Dodos, 'Visiter'; My Morning Jacket, 'Evil Urges'; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, 'Dig Lazarus Dig!!!', Half Man Half Biscuit; 'CSI Ambleside'

In 2008 Mercury Bends Elbow's Way

Tonight Elbow have been named winners of the 2008 Nationwide Mercury Prize for their album The Seldom Seen Kid.

Beating out (among others) four time nominees Radiohead, hot favourites Burial, John De Lorean lovers Neon Neon, and Rascal/Monkey combo The Last Shadow Puppets.

After enduring a few difficult years; in which a good friend died and the band were dumped by their record label, this award is a tremendous return to form and good fortune for a group traditionally seen as the ‘band’s band’.

Thank you very, very much and have a top evening - Elbow

Early guesses at nominees for 2009: Monkey: Journey to the West, Franz Ferdinand, ..., ..., your suggestions are welcome below.

Mercury Prize Shortlist Announced. And It's Quite Good.

The twelve albums shortlisted for the Nationwide Mercury Prize have just been announced. The award, now in its seventeenth year, is for the best British album released over the previous twelve months, and is known for its unpredictability, with the winner normally alternating between a bland and obvious choice or something completely obscure. But unlike poor Kele's Mercury, this Mercury is not in retrograde, indeed the 2008 shortlist is probably the best, in terms of its strength, breadth and depth, for years:

• Adele - 19
• British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
• Burial - Untrue
• Elbow - The Seldom Seen Kid
• Estelle - Shine
• Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim
• Neon Neon - Stainless Style
• Portico Quartet - Knee-Deep in the North Sea
• Rachel Unthank & The Winterset - The Bairns
• Radiohead - In Rainbows
• Robert Plant & Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
• The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age of the Understatement

There certainly don't appear to be any duds on the list, or any obvious omissions. It's particularly pleasing to see British Sea Power receiving their first nomination - they're a wonderful but often overlooked band, and their third album, 'Do You Like Rock Music?' is a thrilling piece of work. The Last Shadow Puppets' nomination means that for the third year running, an Alex Turner album will be on the list, and maybe Radiohead will finally win their first Mercury Award for In Rainbows, easily their best in years.

If it was up to me, though, I'd hand the award to Elbow. 'The Seldom Seen Kid' is a magnificent epic of an album, made as a tribute to a dear friend of the band, and is in equal parts desperately sad and gloriously joyful.

The winner is announced on September 9th. What do you make of this list? What was missed off? Do you even care?