This is Eleanor Friedberger’s first solo album after recording eight with her brother Matthew as Fiery Furnaces. Her distinctive voice — especially how Eleanor speeds and slows her words’ tempos, makes it harder to separate her solo work from her FF discography. But this song has a wholesome, hand clap groove and steady melody. There are some interesting and wacky instrumental choices on “My Mistakes,” but each new sound is introduced gradually and given time to recreate the main melody so they don’t feel jarring or out-of-place. Listen:

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Pavement’s on their way to a long summer of festivals and one-off gigs, but curating an ATP is a sweet way to get things started. (It’s also a sweet way to get in some time with their side projects — both Spiral Stairs and Steve West’s marble valley played sets.) Avi Buffalo started the weekend, while Pavement headlined Saturday night and the Fall headlined the main stage on Sunday. Since Pavement chose the bands, it seemed like there were an especially large number of North American groups: The Walkmen, Broken Social Scene, Calexico, Fiery Furnaces, etc. Photographer Elena Morelli said Steve Malkmus called the “Knitting With Kelley” workshop with Kelley Deal from last May’s ATP a “for the ladies” event and promised something a bit more intense for their workshop. There was no more mention of it, so she thought it was a just a bit of jokey stage banter, but Pavement drummer Steve West held a stone masonry workshop at the “Bob The Builder” yard a day later. The workshop flyer said “no alcohol premitted” [sic] because masonry and booze go terribly together. (It should be noted that Kelley Deal started knitting as part of her sobriety program. So knitting isn’t just for the ladies — it’s for ex-addicts of all kinds.)

Maybe it was these tough economic times — the sinking music industry, everyone downloading shit for free, rising unemployment. Or perhaps
folks just are getting stir crazy from lack of fresh air, sitting in front of their laptops/4-tracks while their bodies slowly give way. Whatever the case, bands were super bitchy this year. Some fights went no further than name calling; in at least one case, though, punches were thrown. The messiest? Band-on-band urination. In honor of a contentious 12 months, we’ve cataloged over a dozen of the year’s most compelling static. And we’re not even gonna mention this guy.

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