#i got orca noises stuck in my friends head bc i played orca sounds on the way to school

[todaysbiggesthits]

The Exam

Best Music Moment of 2018:

Nasty: Hearing Red Eyes live. I've already said it on TBH, but seeing your favorite band in their relative prime is such a cool thing. 

BC: Since partying all night with my favorite band fell within the short window between Bestuv '17 ending and Bestuv '18 beginning, I'd have to say:

1. Kacey Musgrave's performance of "Slow Burn" on SNL

2. Radiohead perfectly executing "There There" which transported me back to Lollapalooza in '08 3. Despite the annoyance of sitting in lots of Indy500 traffic due to a new parking situation, I quite enjoyed working through half of the Stones' catalogue with Bronco riding shotgun and Codemin listening in from the flatbed of Dillon's pickup

Codem: Spending what was New Year's Eve for the central timezone in the USA at a Fijian medical bath facility listening to music, playing cards, downing tequeel and getting ringworm with my blushing bride. -hearing peter hook play the bass line from shadowplay live and in person. -Arden, JD and JJ encouraging me to go talk to Kyle from Swearin'. -Silver Jews and Westing (By Musket and Sextant) came to Spotify. -Watching "Random Rules" video for the first time

Larse: Sitting behind this massive (I mean orca fat) guy at the CHVRCHES show, feeling really bad for him before the show started because he was all alone and kept looking around and worrying about letting people in his row and things. As soon as CHVRCHES came on though, this guy was exactly where he was supposed to be that night. Sang the words and danced to every song and just made my day with how happy he was to be there. Jotted down every song of the setlist into his smartphone and just had an all around great time. And some of you motherfuckers won't even go to a movie by yourself!

JD: May: A moody Chinatown stroll with the new Grouper album in the rain. July: Soaking up some good tunes at the housewarming party to ring in our new pad. July: Some hilariously rambunctious youths having at it when “House of Jealous Lovers” came on during a full play of Compilation 1 at the DFA summer party. One of them (who must have been ~8 in the bygone days of 02) screamed out “this is the song that started it all!” to a crowd of stationary gawkers and I felt a brief moment of hope for the youngs. August: Shaking a leg at Pete’s wedding (also featuring a delightful hojl spin). September: A rowdy spin of “Sentient Oona” on the Levee juke with an impromptu digital jukebox dance party at the Turkey’s Nest with jj’s cousin and his lovely girlfriend. October: The best music cue I’ve ever seen at the end of Beau Travail.

Bronco: Taking John to his first concert, and that first concert was Mastodon. That was pretty awesome to be able to share that experience with him. He was super into it, and so were the metalheads at the show. "Dad of the Year" was definitely shouted more than a few times, and I thought to myself, "fuckin-A right."

Chap: My kids saying "Papa" when "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals comes on.

Best Shows Seen in 2018:

C: Open Mike Eagle at Pitchfork

Bronco: Sleep

Laser: CHVRCHES at Riverside Theater; Chromeo at Summerfest

BC: The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Radiohead

Nasty: The War on Drugs. 

Code: kraus - schubas peter hook - metro no age - the bottle swearin' - bowery eleanor friedberger - lincoln hall my bloody valentine - aragon "quickly climbing the ranks of my nice" ballroom kraus - the bottle pictureplane - bottom lounge soft moon - the bottle book of love - chop shop

JD: 1. Shame at Market Hotel 2. Hamilton Leithauser at the Carlyle Hotel 3. Beach House at United Palace Theater 4. The Voidz at Elsewhere 5. Parquet Courts’ Wide Awake! mid-day album release show with my morning coffee at Rough Trade

6. Flasher at St. Vitus 7. Deafheaven at Brooklyn Steel 8. Panda Bear at Brooklyn Steel 9. No Age at Brooklyn Bazaar 10. CCFX at the DFA summer party at Elsewhere with my girlfriend in full blown rem sleep standing up with her head on my shoulder 11. Alex Cameron at Warsaw 12. Gang Gang Dance and Interpol at House of Vans Of note: Dekkar at On Cinema Live at the Bell House.

Confession of 2018:

JD: I have a real TBH confession that I held until now. I was thoroughly enjoying the Flasher album on a recent evening after a few too many drinks when a burning urge to see them washed over me. They had a show coming up at a bar just a few blocks from my apartment, so I enthusiastically snapped up tickets for me and jj. Thinking this might be a good opportunity for a TBH outing, I emailed Chap trying to peer pressure him into attending the Flasher show and gauging his interest in a Parquet Courts concert that would be happening the following evening. No response.

We later received an invitation to a holiday cocktail party at a friend’s apartment on the same night as the Flasher show, and I hatched a cockamamie scheme to go from our home in Greenpoint to the party in Soho, leave after an hour to catch the concert back in Greenpoint, head back to the party in Soho, and finally retire back to Greenpoint. JJ wisely passed on such a scheme and I left the party to trek off to the concert solo with an extra ticket in tow. 

Awash in good cheer and excitement while Flasher set up, I thought what the hell, might as well take a flier on reminding Chap of the show. Maybe the twins are asleep, he’s just sitting around, can jump into a cab, claim the extra ticket, watch the show, and cruise on back. Mid-text I paused, wondering just why he never responded to the initial email weeks ago. A quick gmail search, and there sat my drunkenly composed beseechment to join, rotting in the drafts folder unsent. 

A couple of the dudes from Parquet Courts were bouncing around the bar, and I decided it would make more sense to hit up Chap about attending their show the next day than explain the whole snafu and extend a ludicrous invitation that required dropping everything and leaving immediately for a show he didn’t even know was happening. I ate the extra ticket, had a blast watching Flasher, zipped back to the party, drank myself into oblivion, and was way too hung over to even consider the Parquet Courts show the next day. NICK SORRY NICK! (editor’s note: too long)

Larson: I saw Timberlake at Fiserv Forum

BC: My neighbor invited me to see Imagine Dragons. I lied and said I had to travel for work. "On a Saturdee?" he inquired. "Yeah. Totally sucks," I awkwardly replied. I hid inside my house all weekend.

Bronco: I'd rather see shows by myself than with my buddy. He likes going to shows, and I keep inviting him, and we have a fine time, but he doesn't live in town anymore, so I gotta worry about him drinking too much and driving an hour home. And his wife is a psychopath and that complicates shit. Too much. And it's just so much more freeing being able to not give a fuck about anyone else during that time, to just soak it all in, it feels good and right.

Codem: -despite all of the bad things that kanye said, i still liked listening to his catalogue throughout the year. i even liked his EP that came out in 2018.   -i really liked the beach house album!   -i liked the snail mail album, skipped two opportunities to see her and then by --the end of the year, i thought the album was sort of boring.   -Arden and i went to see pictureplane open for alice glass and thought that the show sucked and pictureplane played such stupid songs. three months later, he put out my favorite album of the year and i can't stop thinking that i hated all of the same songs the first time i heard them. -i read an article on a bright fall saturday morning that exhaustively detailed the Cardi B and Nicki Minaj feud and i watched all of the instagram story clips that showed Cardi B scrolling through her phone with those outlandish nails of hers. it took me two cups of coffee to get through it all, but get through it i did. [i couldn't think of nicki minaj's name just now so i stared at the ceiling and kept running through names in my mind's eye: missy, kim, cardi, kelis, kim??, eve, trina. i couldn't remember. so i finally googled "kanye monster" and found her name. easy.]

Nasty: I'm done with new music. It’s over. I didn't listen to a single new album - I don't even know if I could name a new album. Realistically, I did like Daytona. 

Biggest Disappointment of 2018:

Nasty: MAGA Kanye

Larse: Timberlake at Fiserv Forum

Bronco: Black Tusk, Alice in Chains

BC: Getting into The Orwells literally two days before #MeToo chewed 'em up and spit 'em out

Chap: Car Seat Headrest. Can't believe he's gay! jk the album was the disappointment.

Code: -somebody hacked my spotify account and wiped all of my music and replaced it with raggaeton and halsey. i was able to get my music back, but i lost all of my meticulously cared for folder structure. -i wanted the simple minds album to be cool; it was not.   -i wanted the swearin' album to be really great; it was okay. -pictureplane and ovlov did not tour their albums.   -i had to eat two tickets to my bloody valentine after buying four. the original show sold out and i thought i was going to be able to sell my extras for a profit -- they ended up announcing a second show and there was no secondary market for the original show.   -no CCFX followup ):  

JD: Got to Hammerstein Ballroom for MBV and there was a line longer than an entire avenue. They were already on by the time we made it into the heinously oversold venue and we were stuck by the bar in the lobby surrounded by people constantly shouting in an effort to compete with the apocalyptic noise.

C: Terrible sound at Tame Impala show

Most Overrated of 2018:

Code: -probably that kacey musgraves album; i got absolutely nothing out of it. also, i liked the robyn album, but i wanted to love it after many years between releases. i think i'm just being greedy.   -i'm going to get killed for this, but the throwing the baby out with the bathwater approach to artists' criminal behavior or inflammatory tweets is pretty overrated right now. 

Bronco: Ghost - I like their schtick, with rotating members and the whole inverted church thing. It's campy but they're sticking to it, and that's fine, but their music isn't metal. It's poppy glam shit about the devil, and that's also fine, but I don't get why it's on anyone's list. Production value maybe? But the music itself isn't anything to write home about. I just don't get it.

JD: n/a. The thick layer of nonsensical, Pynchonian obfuscation the platform economy dollops over everything has made it impossible to understand how anything is rated. Almost feel bad for the click driven publications that have to just throw out a guess.

C: Mitski

Chap: Snail Mail

BC: Kanye. His new music is no longer good enough to put up with his bufoonery.

Laser: Timberlake at Fiserv Forum

Nasty: Clemson. GOARSH. 

Make It Stop 2018:

Nasty: DJT, anytime now. 

Bronco: Party politics. No more labels allowed. You can have a list of stuff you support and a list of stuff you are against, but that's fucking it. No more this side vs that side for reasons as caddy as an R vs. a D. Also religion having any influence whatsoever in the way our country is run. Believe whatever you want to believe, but don't force your bullshit on anyone else. You want to torment yourself with a lifelong christian guilt trip, that's your boat to float, but don't go poking holes in my boat just because you're a miserable fuck. Just stop. Also, Jack White.

Larse: Timberlake at Fiserv Forum

Chap: Baby Shark

BC: My shrinking attention span

JD: The cultural currency of clapbacks, shade, and tea.

Code: trap music playing from a phone's external speaker while i'm trapped on public transportation.  i'm going to go broke buying enough earbuds to distribute to these offenders.

Biggest TBH Regret of 2018:

Larse: Timberlake at Fiserv Forum

C: Not seeing Low at a church on University of Chicago's Campus

JD: -Hearing about a Grouper show at a church around the corner from my pad after it sold out. -Not necessarily a regret because I didn’t know it was happening, but oh how I wish I had seen Jon Glaser and Jon Benjamin as Dave Farina and Dave Franz, Dennis and Dennis’ sons, at a Bowery Ballroom Yo La Tengo show.

BC: -I wish I would've cooked up a way to see Shame play a midnight show in Bloomington.  I just want that kid to scream "Concrete" in my face. -I probably should've seen Smashing Pumpkins when they rolled through town too. 

Code: my flight got delayed and i missed the swearin' show at that place in brooklyn that "smelled like hot fish"

Bronco: Not a regret so much as I was super-bummed when High on Fire dropped out of the tour I saw in November. The venue we were at put my buddy and I right next to the stage. It would've been crazy awesome to see HOF there, but they've rescheduled at least, and I'll see them in January.

Bin: I haven't listened to any Kanye this year. I thought it would feel gratifying by year end - it doesn't. I'll probably still avoid this most recent album, but I'm going back to the well. I'll continue to talk shit about him though. Take that Ye!

Chap: No regrets 

Detective Murtaugh of 2018:

Larse: Getting too old to keep up with all of this new music and put a worthwhile list together at the end of the year…

Nasty:

Code: i added book of love show to my top ten concert list because Arden and i were able to take a seat on the ground in the balcony section. we had to continually move our spot on the floor to be able to peer through the railing and a mass of bodies in order to catch a glimpse of the stage.

JD: -Two of my favorite music related experiences of the year were seeing Hamilton Leithauser in the cafe of the Carlyle Hotel and the extended Niles family in The Nutcracker at the NYC Ballet. -When I googled “Detective Murtaugh” just now it was mostly pictures of Damon Wayans (Jr. no less!) playing the role on the Lethal Weapon CBS series.

Bronco: Putting up with shit instead of speaking up about it. There's room on the train but I'm squished by the door because some self-absorbed dinks won't move in? "Could you please move in?" It sounds so simple, but breaking that silence barrier was a scary thing. Now I don't give a shit. I'm on train for two stops, and I'm not going to see you again, so fuck you, move in or I'm going to move myself in and it aint gonna be pleasant for you.

Chap: A hipster female barber said I was a silver fox. AYFKM?

BC: What the hell is Fortnite?

Resolution for 2018 Update:

Larse: get my list in on time! How it went: probably horseshit! (editor’s note: it was early yet!)

NACK: While I didn’t have the occasion to catch shows this year, I anticipate doing so in '18 due to some changes afoot. How it went: Joe Dons has yet to let me know of a concert going on and I have no other friends here, so I blame him for my failure

Bin: I’m just going to keep saying “get to NY for a show with JD” until I make it happen. How it went: Didn't get to NY for a show with JD.

JD: See you gents more often with or without a show attached.  How it went: Fairly decent, but is it really ever enough?

Bronco: Get in shape. I want to stick to a schedule of running all year round. I ran a 10K back in June, then needed to recover for a bit, been recovering ever since…Fat Dad needs to keep running all year round without excuse, especially given that we go skiing between Xmas and New Year’s and I’m gonna be a floppy legged mess. During those runs, I’ll try to listen to new material each time. How it went: I ran a 5-miler in May. Haven't run since. Though I have been reasonably consistent with my prison workout (situps and pushups before bed time), so now there's a hint of muscle under my fat dad layer. Just gotta combine the two now somehow.

Code: make more playlists for my wife How it went: i said that i was going to make more mixes for my wife. i made one year-end mix for her and i'm sure she's loving it :*

BC: No more resolutions How it went: 2018 Resolution was "No More Resolutions," so pretty darn good!

Resolution for 2019:

Laser: ---

BC: Listen to one new album a week; reboot the Classic Album Review Club

JD: Greater consciousness of how I’m using my attention - an ineffectual and meaningless protest of the ways the world is burning down in pursuit of it.

Bronco: Read more 'classic' books. I didn't read many of them, even in school (especially in school? Never could read a book I was told to read). But I'm leaning in the sci-fi direction of 'classics'. I just read Dune this summer, and wrapped up Fahrenheit 451 the other day. I'm feeling an unexplained need to beef up my nerd credentials and this seems the way to accomplish it.

Chap: Learn Piano; Guilt Joe Dons into finally inviting me to a concert

Nasty: I'm sticking with it - get to NY for a show with JD.

Code: catch ovlov, pictureplane, washer, chromatics, EMA and colleen green live this year.

Most Anticipated of 2019:

Bronco: Tool. Fifth year's the charm. I'm actually hopeful this time around. In fact, I half expect them to drop it on New Year's Eve or something, just so it's post Listicle season, but not quite 2019 so it can't end up on those lists either. They're such dicks like that.

BC: Still waitin' on dat Vampire Weekend yet

Chap: Vampire Weekend, Chromatics

C: Lin Manuel in Mary Poppins... I kid, My Bloody Valentine

JD: Going to put Frank Ocean out into the universe, MBV take 2, Grimes, Panda Bear, Kanye’s escape from the Black Lodge

Codem: chromatics - tommy, MBV, washer, colleen green, EMA(?), DoM

Laser: no idea what's even on the docket

Nasty: Mueller's Report