Best of 2006 - Arts and Entertainment

[gordonzola]

My Favorite Albums
Honorable Mention: Sister George – "Drag King" released a decade ago but I just got a copy again this year. Awesome early ‘90s queer punk. Hard to find but I hear crusherrrr has a bunch under his bed.

5. Neko Case – "Fox Confessor Brings The Flood" I burned this for dairryiere and found myself listening to it all the time. It sounds profound even if I don’t really know why it would be. Everything I like about country folk rock

4. The Ex – "Singles. Period. 1980-1990" Classic Ex from their Dutch anarcho-squatter punk period. Can we call it political percussion punk?

3. Veronica Lipgloss and the Evil Eyes – "The Witch’s Dagger" Awesome Rough Trade-ish queer punk from a now defunct San Francisco band. Not quite the Raincoats or Delta 5, but pretty damn good. They put on the best shows in the city until they went under.

2. Hey Willpower EP MORE! We want more! Four songs is not enough.

1. Kirb and Chris – "Niggaz and White Girls" Oh man, questionable theme aside, this is great. SF new wave hip hop. Gary Numan, The Police, The Go Gos, Talking Heads… so many songs you never wanted to hear again re-mixed and rapped over.


Best Shows

5, Wanda Jackson/Rosie Flores Great Rockabilly woman rocking bimbos 365 Club. Except for a couple of minutes of Testimony to Jesus, it was great.

4. Joan Jett at the Marin County Fair If Marin was like that all the time I never would have left.

3. ESG even though I felt sick and left early they were awesome.

2.Mutants at Cafe Du Nord The full reunion with my teen crush Sally back and singing.

1. Hellakraptor in my friends’ backyard on Labor Day. Teenage punks playing for old punks. Soooo cute

Best show for boys:
Hard Skin Skinhead shows are boys only!

Most Unintentionally Funny Moment of a Show
When The Slits brought up an audience member to dance onstage for the song "Shoplifting" and it was someone we had banned from our store for shoplifting.

Favorite Books in no ranked order

Indecent by Sarah Katherine Lewis
OK OK. I’ve known SK since the zine days, of course I’m gonna list her book. But seriously, it’s refreshing that this book, among other things, looks at sex work as work. The ass on the cover is certainly helping it sell, but this could be filed under Labor Studies if we lived in a better world where most bookstores had such a section. aparcedia does a good review here and she’s impartial.

Jokes and the Unconscious Daphne Gottlieb and Diane Di Massa
Non-linear graphic novel about death, hospitals, sex, family and a lot more.

The Traveling Death & Resurrection Show Ariel Gore
Hold up! I actually don’t know Ariel though it seems like I might. No, I bought this at a reading and it was one of the best things I read all year. Obviously this book has religiousy bits, but what I loved was the formation and struggles of the book’s created family. It was one of those books where I got really sad that I had finished and wouldn’t know what came next for the characters.

Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City Anne Thomas Soffee.
I hate LA hair metal. I do not like it seriously and I do not like it ironically. But I loved this book about Soffee trying to become a rock journalist in ‘80s LA. It’s good enough that I’m gonna go find her book about belly dancing even though I have even less interest in that than in bad metal. That’s how much I enjoyed this book.

Cant Stop Wont Stop Jeff Chang
Rip it Up and Start Again Simon Reynolds
I know Can’t Stop came out in 2005, but read these together. The exhaustive history of hip hop and the city and/or theme oriented origins of Post-Punk. When read together you can see the cross-pollination going on in music that is often categorized by race. Two incredibly well-done books about the untold history of the ‘80s most important musical subcultures.

Favorite Movies
I think I went to less movies this year than in any year since I was in the single digits. The only ones worth mentioning were the deeply flawed, but still fun, "V for Vendetta" and the awesome but only for the already converted "Kiki and Herb: Reloaded". More movies next year.

I will happily critique any movies you thought were good though, whether or not I've seen them.

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

Yes! to the Reynolds and Chang together. I didn't read them that way but when I read Reynolds it was impossible not to hear echoes of Chang's book, too.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I didn't intentionally do it that way, but I started alternating chapters and it improved both books. and both books are pretty fabulous. I hear the UK version of Rip it Up has like 100 extra pages of even more obscure bands.

[crabbypattie.livejournal.com]

Rip it Up was my favorite book I read last year. I lent it to someone who reads really slowly, and it is agonizing waiting for it to come back!

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

I totally dug Rip It Up... and checked out Can't Stop... last year. I wish that the latter would have delved more into the cross-currents and influence of Latin music on hip-hop, but I think this is an underrated discussion in nearly every quarter covering the latter, so I guess it's not a shock.

I have to keep a list of books I read this coming year; I didn't do so for 2006 and yet tore through more books in a single year than I have since childhood. My pick for best book is probably Fun Home.

[gordonzola.livejournal.com]

I liked Fun Home a lot but it wasn't quite a super duper favorite for me. maybe I need to try it again because I am a big Bechdel fan.

[jillbertini.livejournal.com]

That was my pick for best book of 2006, too.