my 10 favourite blog entries this year

This is completely arbitrary, you understand.

ET Recommends - 56: 雅だよ雅

Someone linked me to this on Facebook, thus proving that 1) I'm ridiculously easy to please and 2) My taste is way predictable.

ET Recommends - 55: Anna Calvi

As a Newsweek article about the Internet had it, back in 1995, "When most everyone shouts, few listen". So I choose to longer shout, but instead link.

ET Recommends - 54: Velociraptor

There's a dinosaur exhibition down the Science Museum on the Southbank: and Isaac's favourite part of it is the video of the dinosaurs singing, "Danger, danger/Velociraptor/Danger, danger/He's got the hook claw".

ET Recommends - 53: Bitch Prefect

This recommendation comes courtesy of the fine Eternal Soundcheck blog.

ET Recommends - 52: Ivy St.

Nasty, in that late 70s/2010 Melbourne way. Full of challenges and silence. Reminds me of awkward Brisbane sweethearts Kitchen's Floor. The sort of music I would have thrashed around to, angrily, 30 years back. (Christ, I'm old.) The sort of music I might yet thrash around angrily to, if I ever manage to see this Tasmanian 3-piece play onstage and they live up to the promise of their recorded sounds.

ET Recommends - 51: The Hot Toddies

Just pulled this one in as a last-minute replacement for my new Bust column...and couldn't resist sharing them with you, they're so great - like a sharp-tongued, velvet-voiced Oakland CA sister band to my forgotten Canadian heartthrobs The Diskettes. (And they even have a song about Seattle!)

ET Recommends - 45: Complaints Choir of Tokyo

Susie O'Neill recommended this on Twitter with the words, "This lovely vid of Tokyo Complaints Choir throws off the stereotype of the Japanese as meak  mild".

ET Recommends - 44: Malvina Reynolds

I don't know the first thing about this lady, only that Jessica Hopper recommended her on Twitter with the words, "How did I manage to get this far along and not know Malvina Reynolds? This song kills me".

ET Recommends - 43: Peepholes

Again, I'm reminded of the section in the infamous Steve Albini article/tirade against major labels, originally printed in The Baffler, wherein he wishes that bands would try to sound more like Metal Urbain instead of The Beatles. Because, as I've written before, it seems that we've turned full circle - at least in the circles formerly known as "underground" - and bands like No Age, Crocodiles and Vivian Girls are way taking the side of the late 70s French punk experimentalists.

ET Recommends - 42: The Thin Kids

Just go give them a listen.

Loene Carmen vs Betty Davis

I've been meaning to write about this awesome Light In The Attic reissue for some time. Still haven't got round to it. So I thought I'd welcome in a guest blogger, Sydney's own Loene Carmen, to talk about it. The following is reprinted, with permission, from her MySpace blog, with a note from the lady herself that Betty Davis' fourth album was actually recorded at a "studio in the country", not at Muscle Shoals as stated below.

ET Recommends - 41: The Tielman Brothers

Damn, but this is just about the greatest pair of videos I've seen today. No, wait. This week. No, wait. This month. Etc. Etc. The Tielman Brothers! They're like the Dutch Indonesian rockabilly Monks! From 1960.

My New Favourite Blog, pt 4

Well, I'm not going to be able to resist this for long. Now am I?

ET Recommends - 40: Mika

Listen, don't act so surprised, I have form here - OK?

ET Recommends - 39: Bridezilla

They couldn't play live for shit when I saw them at ATP in January, but neither could Mazzy Star back when I last saw them in 1990, now I think about it.

ET Recommends - 38: Songs

Yep, Songs.

ET Recommends - 37: Bitter Springs

...and just when I'm feeling low - lower than I have for weeks - Simon sends me through the video for the new Bitter Springs single.

ET Recommends - 36: Kitchen's Floor

As I said somewhere else just now, I keep forgetting how much I remain in love with the thrill of live music.

ET Recommends - 35: Blank Realm

I so rarely go out to shows any more, I keep forgetting how much in love I remain with the thrill of live music.