Top 3 Albums of 2009:
- Sigur Ros – Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust
- Silversun Pickups – Swoon
- Doves – Kingdom of Rust
Best Show of 2009:
- The Decemberists – “A Short Fazed Hovel” tour
Most Anticipated in 2010:
- Spoon – Transference
- DEVO
- She Wants Revenge
- Arcade Fire
- Massive Attack – Heligoland
- The Rapture
- Gang of Four
- MGMT – Congratulations
Most Overrated in 2009:
- Vampire Weekend
- Muse
- U2
Favorite Musical Memory of the Decade:
- One my fondest musical memories of the past decade was the Snake River Conspiracy “Bush And Gore 2000” tour. SRC was the short-lived band with Jason Slater of Third Eye Blind and the incredible vocals of Tobey Torres in a sexy, industrial rock wrapper. This was the last show I saw at The Masquerade in Atlanta before moving across the country to San Francisco, the place SRC and I would both call home. While the show was memorable on its own merits, the diminutive venue was really the star as it was a regular destination for countless live music shows during college. It’s the kind of place that will punish you with its awful acoustics and will leave you wondering if the three perforated floors (Heaven, Hell and Purgatory) would hold up to the nightly torture from enthusiastic fans. And, there was always the chance that you would arrive for a show to find that the city had decided to demolish the building altogether.
Over the years, The Masquerade was the place for me to witness incredible performances before the bands graduated to larger stages. In 1989, there was the 100-degree Nine Inch Nails “Sweat-Fest” where the entire 1000-person capacity crowd gathered shirtless under a lone ceiling fan lazily spinning at about twenty revolutions per minute. Then there was the vicious Niter Ebb show that left everyone with a temporary case of full-body tinnitus. And, at the other end of the spectrum was Björk in a pre-swan dress show where she shushed the music emanating from the other floors of the club during her performance of “It’s Oh So Quiet.”
The Masquerade is the kind of place that will treat you like garbage, completely pummel your senses and otherwise abuse everyone who climbs her rickety stairs. But, like a relationship in need of some serious therapy, she always knows you’ll be back because of all the glorious memories you have together.
