Bang Your Head On The Punk Rock: 2002 In Review - Installment One

As another year comes to an end and every other publication in the world is begins their tops list for the year 2002, Bettawreckonize finds it only fitting to share a few different perspectives from our most ambitious staff members….the deadline misersJ will shoot you the D.L. from their camps next month. Here goes:

Jeff Locher's favorite music and movies of 2002:

Beck - Sea Change
I've never been a huge Beck fan until now. Being unable to score tickets for his Seattle show with the Flaming Lips was one of my biggest disappointments of 2002.

Blackalicious - Blazing Arrow
Hiphop as it was meant to be in a traditional sense: beautifully produced, lyrically complex, non-violent, and hopeful. Perfect.

Bob Mould Live
Modulate was tough to swallow, and I had no idea how Bob was going to make it work live. But of course, he pulled it off simply and masterfully, and he did it with a multimedia presentation. Playing frighteningly loud guitar over the original Modulate electronic instrumentals, Bob stood alone on stage and poured his heart into the new songs. Behind him, video echoed his sentiments, at times with clearly homoerotic images. Although not as heavily attended as any Mould show I've seen before, it was refreshing to watch an artist, even though he's been around for decades, continue to evolve without compromising.

Bowling for Columbine
Finally, someone finds a way to hit people over the head with the message, "Stop buying guns," without making them read. The method? Make a movie with frightening, real examples, and use humor as much as possible. Michael Moore is a genius.

Ben Folds Live
Both the album and the experience are unbelievable. Rarely have I walked out of a theater feeling so fulfilled when there were no guitars played inside. If you're shopping for the CD, be sure to grab one with the bonus DVD, which contains a half hour of live footage.

Missy Elliot - Under Construction
Missy and Timbaland's mixed old-school flavor into their signature sound, and out came the best Missy E album yet. Just when you thought she was getting played out…

Igby Goes Down
It took me weeks to get out of the funk this film forces you into. After you see it, you'll wonder why you bother doing anything and what's the value in caring for anyone. Stunningly depressing, but so well done. Who knew one of the Culkin brothers was going to become such an awesome actor?

Pretty Girls Make Graves - Good Health
My favorite local band right now put out the album that I listened too more than any other this year. Can't wait for the next one.

Punch-Drunk Love
Paul Thomas Anderson may not have made a perfect film with Punch-Drunk Love, but he perfectly told the sweet story of an insecure neurotic who just needs love to make anything possible. Philip Seymour Hoffman, as usual, turns in an awesome performance, and Adam Sandler breaks out of the generic comedy doldrums to be the focal point of the movie.

Queens of the Stone Age - Songs for the Deaf
This down-tuned rock masterpiece is worth picking up for the first track alone. I was so close to so many speeding tickets this year thanks to The Queens.

The Streets - Original Pirate Material
I actually found it at a used CD store. Who would sell this? Probably the same people who put Bob Mould's albums into the bins.

Dan Rizer's Top 10 of 2002:

Sigur Ros -- ( )
MCA Records
Iceland's favorite sons of that winter feeling return with this amazing follow up to their previous, critically marveled album "Agaetis Byrjun." Sad, sad and sadder, you would have to be one stone cold motherfucker to not feel this. It's amazing an album this spacious and downtrodden could get stuck in your head for days and not make you miserable.

The Books --Thought For Food
Tomlab
Who would have thought that serious experimental music could be so much fun? A mish mash of hip hop beats, Dixieland jazz, sampledelica, avant garde... and well I could go on forever. I've never heard an album cover so much ground and not lose sight of its original intent. So good.

Clinic -- Walking With Thee
Domino Records
Pop music as heard through the ears of David Bowie if he was born a week before we had to abandon planet Earth in search of a more suitable environment. Everything comes full circle and music has certainly been rehashing its' past this year but only Clinic did it without sounding specifically like any one of their forefathers. Weirdly brilliant and fantastically catchy.

Beck -- Sea Change
DGC
Another Beck album another genre conquered. This time Beck takes the singer song writer approach and writes songs that sound completely passionate forgoing irony. Not the first time he's done this sort of thing but it's definitely the most accomplished. It's anyone's guess where he'll go next but this album will keep me deeply satisfied until he reveals his next vision.

Antipop Consortium -- Arrhythmia
Warp Records
You just know if Warp Records believes in a hip hop album enough to release it, it must be incredible. Your assumptions are right. High Priest, Saavid, Beans and Blaize return for what would be their final album as a group and create the electronically experimental distant cousin to the Digable Planets two jazz experimental albums. Incredible album artwork makes this as amazing to look at as it is to listen to.

Black Dice -- Beaches & Canyons
DFA Records
I liked Black Dice's previous forays into noise and violence but I love the uncomfortable beauty that Black Dice presents to us on "Beaches &
Canyons." People seem to be divided as to whether or not Black Dice are one of the most relevant bands around or whether they are just some spoiled art school brats with high pretensions. I personally don't know how anyone can listen to this and not hear the genius.

the Flying Luttenbachers -- Infection & Decline
Troubleman Unlimited
Weasal Walter's ever shifting Flying Luttenbachers project has moved into a new dimension of what he has sarcastically labeled as "Brutal Prog." It's a step away from his previous Luttenbacher's line up's more challenging yet harder on the ears improvisational chops but no less aggressive, violent or essential. This has become my favorite Luttenbacher's album and it will be the only one with the two bass line up as Walter has taken full control and is now doing the Luttenbacher's solo.

El-P -- Fantastic Damage
Def Jux Records
This album is fucking hard. Def Jux has reinvented raw sounding hip hop into something that seems exclusive to that label and the man at that particular wheel is El-P. Everyone was hyped for this as soon as Cannibal Ox's critically hailed and El-P produced "Cold Vein" was released last year, and I don't think anyone was disappointed. A true hip hop classic.

Xiu Xiu -- Knife Play
Five Rue Christine
It must be hard for Xiu Xiu to have released one of the best albums of the year and have it be their first album. There must be an incredible amount of pressure to be able to follow something this impressive up. However, the creativity shown on "Knife Play" and their keen sense of
using and not abusing their junk yard rhythms, uncanny arrangements, and dramatic vocals plus the recently released "Chapel In Chimes" EP should leave none of us worried that Xiu Xiu will continue to release important music.

Racebannon -- Satan's Kickin' Yr. Dick In
Secretly Canadian
Two albums this year from Indiana's Racebannon and both of them show incredible growth from their preceding albums. Earlier this year they
released "In The Grips Of Light" an amazing fusion of the raw aggressiveness of noisy hardcore and the skronk and confusion of avant garde. With the recently released "Satan's Kickin' Yr. Dick In" Racebannon take those elements and add more cohesion to their sound and even add in conceptual elements telling the story of Rhonda Delight. There will be legions of imitators.

Tim Anderl's Top 10 of 2002:

The Black Keys - The Big Come Up
Alive Records
After starring at the liner notes for some time, I still haven't quite figured out how Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney, a couple skinny white kids from Akron, Ohio, stomp out a delta-blues style soul album of this caliber. Hell, even my father-in-law has tucked this album in his record collection between timeless classics by Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jimmy Hendrix. I don't even need a nod from Miss Cleo to promise the following prediction: rock and rollers and blues aficionados from Motor City to the dirty south will be jocking these guys pretty hard within the year. Pick this up now and you'll soon be telling your friends that you were down "back in the day."

Blood Brothers - March On Electric Children
GSL
These guys are teeming with sinister visions, and they are unwilling to rest until the listener is frothing and resonating with anger at a world driven by abuses like fame and fortune, or until a smoky bars and basement shows are littered with sweaty bodies. Ballistic and sassy dueling vocals narrowly avoid collision, while bruising rhythms and tweaked, spiky guitar work twist and drive their art-damage, avant-hardcore. Brothers and sisters, The Blood Brothers have started a revolution, and it is a dichotomy of rabid, primal energy and progressive, post-modern concepts….did I mention you can dance to it?

Coheed and Cambria - The Second Stage Turbine Blade
Equal Vision Records
C and C are two dynamic characters caught in a sinister world of anthemic prog-metal that is fleshed out by a New York quartet with the same name. What the band has accomplished is a multi-dimensional album that mixes the melodic "heart and soul" of several decades and genres of music with the ambition of the great comic and musical storytellers. In short, singer Claudio Sanchez brings an unsettling tenor wail that rivals Rush's Geddy Lee into the new millennium. The strong rhythm section ignites explosive and staggering tempos that launch the guitars through a face-melting cornucopia of post- and prog-rock and metal riffs at break-neck speed. If that weren't enough, the lyricism can only be described as a schizophrenic collision course that bounces between epiphanies about heartbreak, murderous intensions, and pining for redemption. Expect world domination from these guys.

Desaparecidos - Read Music Speak Spanish
Saddle-Creek Records
Conor Oberst has it all - those pixie-ish good looks that all the flyest indie rock honeys go for, the bleary and soulfully distraught voice, a penchant for popping out uninhibited, and poetic indie-folk songs more prolifically than babies from a couple of horny bunnies, and now, the angry and socially conscious rock band. So, what is he so upset about? This time, the heavy subject matter tackles Oberst's disgust for corporate-America, the suffocating suburban life and routine, Coca-cola, SUVs, The Mall of America, public schools, Disney World, etc….*whew*. The music on the album is basically chunky, distorted guitar chords mingling with picked guitar and keyboard interludes, and a sometimes jagged but always steady rock rhythm section; for a reference point, think Dinosaur Jr., J. Church, Weezer, Jawbreaker, and maybe a little Replacements.

Desert City Soundtrack - Contents of Distraction
Deep Elm Records Inc.
The six songs on Contents of Distraction possess some of the most stunning, and consequential moments in post-hardcore this year (and possible on this side of the millennium). Surreal and dark, crisp and terrifying, the Portland, Oregon quartet (including ex-members of Edaline) will captivate you with aching piano arrangements, heart-laid-bare vocals, twisting and blistering guitar, drums and bass, wedging themselves neatly into your record collection between Engine Down's Pretense of Present Tense and Pleasure Forever's self-titled effort.

The Dream Is Dead - Letter of Resignation E.P.
What Else? Records
Spinning this record is like stirring a nest of angry hornets; don't do it unless you are ready to get stung. In just over eleven minutes, the pissed-off hardcore quartet from Indiana draw back their ears, bear their teeth and attack a wide range of topics. Left bloodied and beaten in the wake of singer Clark Giles fierce vocals are corporate slave masters, armchair revolutionaries, religious and political zealots, and those who make punk a commodity. Would one expect less from a group comprised of members of Burn It Down, Harikiri, and Sutek Conspiracy?

Gold Circles - Abuse The Magic
Copter Crash Records
If you play this record backwards, and listen to the faint whisper of the hidden track, one just might make out the words, "Kent, Ohio is the NEW D.C., Kent, Ohio is the NEW Chicago, Kent, Ohio is the NEW New York" looped over and over again. Evidence of this phenomenon is overwhelming - as Northeast Ohio has been the stomping grounds of post-punk/rock innovators Harriet The Spy, The Party of Helicopters, and The "New" Terror Class. Fans of decadent rock soloing, chunky and dissident chording, painful and strained vocals (in league with Dinosaur Jr., Sugar, and Hum), look no further. But, beware, playing the record backwards will convince you to demolish and deface your record collection, and build an evil shrine to the rock gods of yesteryear with the pieces.

The Party of Helicopters - Space…And How Sweet It Was 2XCD
Troubleman Unlimited
This Kent, Ohio powerhouse flawlessly combine the delicate rock intricacies of Led Zeppelin, Brian Wilson, My Bloody Valentine, The Fucking Champs, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, and Van Halen . Space…And How Sweet It Was is finds the rhythm section taking an equitable role as the driving force behind POH's rock hurricane, making this their most cohesive effort to date. Singer Joe Dennis has also stepped up his craft, mixing the pop-sensibilities developed while they were Fairy God Fighters with the slick production they picked up on the road to Mt. Forever. Jamie Stilman's lightening quick fingers riffing is just the icing on the cake. If you missed this release punch yourself in the junk.

Pretty Girls Make Graves - Good Health
Lookout! Records
Pretty Girls Make Graves know that nothing is better for your health than starting a revolution against a static crowd and thrashing with abandon, and what better band to bring it to you than one comprised of ex-members of Kill Sadie, Death Wish Kids, Beehive Vaults and Murder City Devils. While PGMG's post-punk craft is strangely familiar, it isn't easily aligned with a style or genre. It is, purely and simply, sassy, inspiring, buoyant, and danceable. Good Health is one of those releases that will be relevant 10 or 20 years from now, and for that, my hat is off to these Seattle-natives, with a promise that I will spin this record weekly, if not daily, for years to come.

Waking Kills The Dream - Depending on Tomorrow
Goodlife Recordings
I'll probably get crap from my friends for having this release on my list because my brother is the current singer but, I've had my eye on these guys since their demo dropped almost two years ago. Comprised of ex- and current-members of Morning Again, Dead Blue Sky, and Twelve Tribes, this release has hardly left consistent rotation in my car stereo. Matt Shetler's songwriting, Kevin Byers ballistic growl, and Matt Tacket's acrobatic guitar work are spit-polished and flawlessly executed, to create hardcore record that is clearly in league with greats from both the emo and hardcore genres. For fan's of Cave In's Beyond Hypothermia, and Elliott's False Cathedrals alike.

(Note: If I wasn't so lazy, I'd have stretched the top-ten list format to include kick ass releases by Cex, -Tall, Dark and Handcuffed (Tigerbeat 6); The Good Life - Black Out (Saddle Creek); Engine Down - Demure (Lovitt Records); The Cinema Eye - Demos (Self-released); Tegan and Sara - If It Was You (Vapor Records); and Liars - They Threw Us In A Trench and Stuck A Monument On Top (Mute). Sorry.)