Where have we been?

To hell and back. Fixing up this old house, painting, packing, moving, unpacking, hanging more curtains and shelves than Ikea keeps in stock, and working 12 hour shifts on the weekend at my new grown up job.

Yuck.

Fortunately I have an amazing wife who is a wiz at unpacking and organizing and my current work project should launch this week so things should be back to normal soonish.

Also, now that I’m in a house (just a few blocks from the Draught House!!!) and not in a tiny condo, I have this guy to console me through these trials and tribulations.

Here’s a brief wrap up of what’s going on in camp BTA:

• We have some great Over a Pint videos waiting in the wings (Sam of Dogfish Head, Rob of Allagash, Jamie of the Covey in Fort Worth…)
• A BTA out of Austin content crawl
• Possibly a Bike Pub Crawl if we can all get our shit on the same page
• Some cool info on the Great Austin Beer Festival
• Another round of Knockin’ em Back podcasts from Billy’s on Burnet (and one that we still need to publish…)
• A slew of anniversary parties and other local beer event write ups and videos
• Some more of the same -o- same -o half assed bullshit you’ve come to expect and love from Austin’s laziest beer blog
• A few possible events involving you and beer and the concept of free

So look out Crap Austin, Liquid Asshat, and I Love Butt, we’re back(ish) and hungry for blood.

[please don't rob me now that I showed a picture of stuff in my house on the Internet!]

YEAH!

SHIT YEAH!

Welcome to our final episode of Knockin’ em Back at Thunderbird Coffee Koenig podcast.

And boy is it a doosey.

Check out the other THUNDERBIRD COFFEE Knockin’ em Back episodes here, here, and here.

JIB, Shawn, Josh (Little Beard) and I finish out the evening on the rainy patio with beer news, a giving out of the gift card, Chinese internet cafe gang culture, a random guy who came by and cussed out his boss, how we would protect our homes and times that we didn’t, and some other shit (I tell a great story about catching people porking behind a Quizno’s dumpster).

[The banner photo is totally relevant... you have to get close to the end for it]

In the beer news we talk about the Uncle Billy’s/Austin Homebrew/Austin Zealots homebrew competition, the Real Ale barrel bottling project, the BJ’s Brewhouse Stone dinner, the arrival of the Sierra Nevada 30 yr Anniversary Fritz’s & Ken’s Imperial American Stout, and Saint Arnold possibly putting together some sampler sixers. I’m feeling lazy and am not going to link any of these. Do your own copy/past/Google-ing.

Big congrats to Dave (we didn’t gat a last name) for following us on Twitter and also being at Thunderbird and also approaching us and also winning the THUNDERBIRD COFFEE gift card. Good job, Dave.

So just like the last one, we are working hard on earning our “EXPLICIT” label in iTunes, so don’t play this for kids. Maybe find another beer podcast for kids.

Thanks thanks thanks to Chris and Ryan at Thunderbird for sponsoring this month’s podcast and to Josh for coming on as our fourth seater.

“Thunderbird Coffee, the cheapest place to be a hipster” -Dave

Enjoy!

Audio

Direct link to the mp3 HERE

Subscribe to the Podcast

More photos…

So we’re kicking around the idea of doing a bi-monthly Podcast just for fun.

Here’s the logic:

We go out a lot, we drink, we talk about local beer stuff, the more we drink the better our conversations get and they often draw in random participants. We like, it so we thought others might like it too (can I sound anymore conceited?)

Also, it’s easy content.

This first episode was recorded 2-7-10 at Flying Saucer with Chris, JIB, Shawn, and Josh on the mics. We’re still figuring out the format, so forgive this one being a little rough, but don’t expect them to get much slicker, either. We only had two mics and tried to mix it via a Peavy PA down into Garageband… so it doesn’t sound too pretty, but it’s not bad (also, we were in a bar… drinking beers.)

We don’t get too explicit, but maybe listen via headphones if your mom is around…

Thanks to Flying Saucer for hosting us. We’ll be recording our next Podcast there on Sunday, 2-21 at 9pm if you want to come out and join, and if you listen more than half way through, we announce a small contest in which we’ll give away a $25 Flying Saucer GC “live” during our next recording.

Again, this is not content or for serious, just for fun. It’s better than sitting in traffic in silence.

Enjoy!

Direct link to the mp3 HERE.

We’re currently submitting the feed to the iTunes store so it should be up on iTunes shortly.

Also, maybe we’ll remember to bring a camera along next time and have some photos… or at least a better logo.

Ok, who’s ready for part II?

Read part one for the rundown on what’s up here (not much).

Because You Like Beer YOU LIKE TOP 11 BEST RECORDS OF 2009 LISTS! PART TWO!

6. We Were Promised Jetpacks – These Four Walls

So this record pretty much motivated me through a summer internship of migrating content from a legacy agency site to a CMS agency site. It has highs and lows and emotion and intensity and mostly motivation. Enough to keep you going through 40-ish days of copying and pasting the same monotonous government approved copy with less than 10 minutes of actual human interaction per week.

Maybe you have notice by this point that the merits of this list are purely personal.

Listed album=personal nostalgia/connection/memory/preference/shitty taste/etc.,

Seriously, if you can get beyond the sophomoric moniker, this is a great album. To me it sounds like Explosions in the Sky went with their harder stuff, got a vocalist and some balls. It’s emotional enough, but not so much you’re watching Project Runway and eating a pint of Ben and Jerry’s. And vocalist Adam Thompson really comes off like the sort of guy I’d want to share a pint or two with.

5. Sonic Youth- The Eternal

I was highly satisfied with this record.This record featured the return of the groups stolen equipment and that made all the difference from their  2006 release, Rather Ripped, which was somewhere between a let down and a church camp soundtrack.

Did anyone watch Jesus Camp?

The Eternal is all the weird freak out stuff I wanted, a little bit harder and polished at some points, and has a nice does of Kim Gordon’s off putting and sexually charged (“Anti-Orgasm”?!?!)  vocals. This was one of the few records this year that made me fantasize of picking up my Tornado and rocking some jams. Nope, just went out and drank beer.

4. Phoenix- Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

If you don’t like “Listomania” you have no future. Just quite now. If you’re wearing sunglasses take them off cause your future aint bright.

WAP came out in May, and it was just in time. In my opinion, this was one of the better Spring to Summer transition records of all time (how big is that category?)

Phoenix found the perfect medium between quirky and poppy on this record with solid vocals, interesting synths/beats, poppy guitars, and a nice balance between dance music and pop-rock. I’ll even venture to say this is the funnest most fun record on this list of eleven.

3. Sunset Rubdown- Dragon Slayer

OK, I’m not even kidding, Because You Like Beer you should fucking love this record.

Seriously, I just bumped this record from #4 to #3, sorry Phoenix, freedom isn’t free Frenchies (but this band is Canadian?!?! [shut up!])

It’s almost guaranteed (have you ever been able to spell “garunteed” correct the first time?) that I’ll be a fan of anything Spencer Krug is involved with, but this record is amazing on its own. It rocks out, it’s weird, it’s epic, it’s contemplative, I’m venturing into trite descriptives territory, and it’s the third best record of 2009.

In the song “Dragon’s Lair”, Krug pens “I’m sorry that I’m late/I went blind/I got confetti in my eyes/I got held up at yesterday’s parties/I was needed in the congo line” followed by an anthemic “YOU’RE NOT A WIDOW YET.” I don’t exactly know what Krug is singing about in these lines, but I sing them as loud as I can (in my car).

Number three, baby!

2. Modest Mouse – No One’s First and You’re Next

If any of you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you may have caught on that I was working on this big paper last fall. Well, Modest Mouse was the Red Bull to my Five Hour Energy throughout that ordeal. And this record EP was the meat to my Modest Mouse potatoes.

It’s eight songs that have been released at some point between 2005 and 2009, but never as a whole. I like that it covers ground on the various aural landscapes that Modest Mouse treads (Good News for… bluegrass, Smiths/Johnny Marr-ish, OG MM guitar freak-outs, and the softer Ugly Casanova influence).

For as eclectic as the EP is, it’s extremely listenable, especially by Modest Mouse standards. I like that Brock pulls no punches, yet still accomplishes creating something honest and approachable. It gave me hope after the boringly flat We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

1. The Flaming Lips- Embryonic

I first heard the Flaming Lips on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. I liked it a lot, then dug a little further and realized that the guys behind this happy/melancholy-future/nostalgia-doom/hope record used to make music that rocked, too. And I liked that. And then I got excited about the next album, At War With the Mystics, when I heard the single “The Wand”, thinking it might be a return to the Lips’ guitarier stuff.

Nope. It was lame. And even had songs in a Sponge Bob movie and a Dell commercial. Real lame.

So when I began to hear rumors and tidbits (what a weird word) about the new Flaming Lips’ record, I didn’t let myself get excited. I guarded my heart. Just like the Jonas Bros and Miley Sirus I was in Flaming Lips abstinence and pledging my next Flaming Lips experience to to the right Flaming Lips record that God had picked out for me before the blah blah blah.

Then I heard a stream of it on NPR and lost my Flaming Lips purity ring shit.

I remember when it happened. I was at work. It was better than sex at work (I’ve never had sex at work, so that statement can’t be quantified).

The record is loud and weird and brilliant and epic and personal and genius and everything I had hoped for. It’s an excellent mix of the psych-rockout from the earlier In a Priest Driven Ambulance days with the epic sonic-motional surreal-ness of the Soft Bulletin and Yoshimi Battles… era.

Mr. Coyne and Co, it’s good to have you back.

————-

Hmmk, that’s it. If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Let me know in the comments section if you agree/disagree and feel free to post your top whatever records of 2009.

Cheers!

I love top 10 lists, I love end of year lists, and I love records, so you know I”m going to LOVE this list.

Disclaimer, I’m not posting this so you know how cool I am and how cool my music taste is. I was in Bird’s waiting to get some hairs cut and picked up the latest copy of Spin and read their top 20 of 2009 list and mostly disagreed thinking, “I could do a better list than this… so I will”/am.

If you’re not into current music, then you can check out now. But I like beer and I like finding new music so…

Because You Like Beer YOU LIKE TOP 11 BEST RECORDS OF 2009 LISTS! [yup, i'm going with 11 again]

11. …And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead – The Century of Self

Yeah. This was a great record. A great comeback record, in my opinion. I loved …Trail of Dead when I first heard Source Tags and Codes, then I loved them just a little less when I heard Worlds Apart, then I didn’t even bother to look for an illegal download free sample of the next record, the one wt the anime CGI girl in the honeycomb… So I was pretty hesitant when I heard Century of Self was coming out. I had really expected that the …Trail of Dead guys had dried out, got married, kids, jobs at Dell and lots of tattoo regrets. Then they released Century of Self and succinctly proved to me that they could still produce Lon- Star-chugging-American-Spirits-hot-boxing-standing-in-a-sweaty-crowd-of-hipsters worthy music. Thanks guys, I always think of you when I wake up in the middle of the night to throw up cause I had too many Lone Stars and American Spirits.

10. Animal Collective- Merriweather Post Pavilion

Hmm… am I cool enough to listen to these guys? Even though I wear knock off Ray Bans, Vans with laces, and ironic grandpa sweaters, no, I am not cool enough. No one is cool enough.

So how cool do you feel now, Animal Collective, you only made #10.

Really though, I liked this album a lot. Panda Bear’s 2007 Person Pitch really won me over, and I heard a lot of that same vibe on MPP.

This record is definitely more poppy and approachable than their other stuff, and it’s a lot of fun, too.

Don’t be intimidated, check it out.

9. Flight of the Conchords- I Told You I Was Freaky

In my opinion, where the second season of the show dropped the ball, the second Sub-POP release picked it back up. I watched season two, was a little let down, then heard the record, and now like season two better. MAGIC!

Too Many Dicks (on the Dance Floor), Sugalumps, You Don’t Have to be a Prostitute, and Hurt Feelings all do it to it.

I really think this second record is stronger than the first. I can only remember a handful of songs from that record, and when I can’t remember much about something, most of the time it means it wasn’t as good as I Told You I Was Freaky.

8. David Bazan- Curse Your Branches

According to my wife, this is my man. Admittedly, I do have a lot of a crush on him. I went through the stereotypical girlfriend-cheated-on-me-I-was-failing-French-becoming-disenfranchised-from-blah-blah-blah Senior year of college, and Pedro the Lion pulled me through. I’m so predictable it’s gross. Anyways, I sort of developed this survivors’ relationship with Mr. Bazan, and have paced my “growing up” along his songwriting/band development. Hmm… that’s pretty personal. Anyways, he writes great songs about drinking too much, being married, having kids, having parents, having religion, not having religion, etc., and Curse Your Branches doesn’t stray from his usual MO. Unfortunately, he has somewhat departed from his semi allegorical story telling parable approach, which I liked a lot. Still a good record, but only a #8 good record.

7. Danger Mouse & Sparklehorse- Dark Night of the Soul

David Lynch was also involved in this. If I was doing a top 11 list of best albums to be recorded but never released in 2009, this one would be on the top. There’s a back story (check the link, I’m sure Pitchfork did the leg work on explaining it) to why it was never released, but it was paired with a photo book, and when you bought the book it came with a blank disc intended for you to burn your downloaded free sample of DNOTS to. I just put mine on my iPhone.

Chock full of exceptional guest vocalists and collaborators, this record is truly great. I love pretty much everything Danger Mouse does, and I’m also a huge Sparklehorse fan, so it makes sense that I love this record. I’m just sad that it was so high on the list. I’m feeling guilty about that now. Listers remorse.

…to be continued!

[if you can stomach anymore of this, I'll finish the list before the week's over]

Yeah, so if you haven’t noticed already when we’re feeling lazy/unprepared/uninspired we throw up a top ten/eleven list.

And those are fun. But they are very one sided and only represent my opinions (JIB and Shawn have often disagreed wt my top picks).

So this time, we want your opinion!

Take our BeerTownAustin’s Best Stuff of 2009 Reader’s Poll survey and let us know what you think were the best Austin beers, brewers, bars, brewpubs, beer stores, events, and personalities of 2009!

We’ll close the survey on SUNDAY, JANUARY 3 and post the results on MONDAY (we know you have more important stuff then taking our dumb survey in the next few days, so we cut you some slack).

Take the Survey!

[Dear USABeerTrends, don't worry, we're not planning on making a habit of taking surveys... (if you don't already, take the USABeerTrends surveys!)]

[photo credit]