J'taime. Photo: Anna Karina and Jean-Paul Belmondo in 'Pierrot le fou'
Every year around Valentine’s Day I embark on a personal music project: create super-duper, holiday-themed playlist for a coterie of friends who care to listen. I really enjoy the process and absolutely adore V-Day, however constructed and commercialized it may be. Any excuse to shamelessly play Roxette, right?
A memorable concert moment among headstones
Now is a time for reflection, for looking back over the past year—oh, God, the past ten years—as the first decade of this millennium comes to a close.
It is a time for list-making.
I love lists. I hate lists. Making succinct, inevitably inadequate run-downs of my favorite something-or-others—films, designers, albums, ice cream flavors—is alternately fun and maddening. As soon as I think I’ve locked one down, I’m plagued with the guilt of having left off a borderline contender, or left wondering if I’ll look back on my Top [insert number here] with embarrassment or regret some time down the road. I now have mixed feelings about the Top 10 films I submitted to the San Francisco Bay Guardian for publication last year, for instance.
Yet like a smitten kitten I keep going back, because I love reviewing what’s been released, moments that have stuck with me, and searching the recesses of my culture snob soul to cobble together something that vaguely reflects my taste. So I suppose I’ll keep at it, though why anyone should care about what little ol’ me on my little ol’ blog has to say is not something I will dwell upon.
I may release these in a piecemeal fashion, or perhaps this is the only post I’ll dedicate to bulletpoint-ing…stuff. In any case, here is the first (last?) installment in Heidi’s End-of-Year reflections, in no particular order.
Top Five Live Shows of 2009
1. M83 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, March 7
Highlights: The Phil’s rendition of Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres,” a soaring, orchestra and choir-backed take on “Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun.”
2. Thom Yorke Secret Show at The Echoplex, October 2
Highlights: Crazy-ass, funk-a-licious “Harrowdown Hill” and “Paperbag Writer,” a song I never, ever thought I’d hear live—with Thom’s shirt unbuttoned the whole time, no less.
3. Bon Iver Sunrise Show at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, September 27
Highlights: Waking to a Buddhist blessing ceremony, the pure romance of “Flume,” a sing-a-long to “The Wolves (Act I and II)” followed by Justin Vernon’s cryptic farewell to the audience.
4. MSTRKRFT at Coachella, April 18
Highlights: As usual, the transition from Ugod’s “Ugodzilla” to “Easy Love,” which never ceases to inspire embarrassing, beat-bumping gyrations in me. That, along with John Legend’s surprise appearance for a finale of “Green Light”/”Heartbreaker” (whatever half-lip synching he was doing notwithstanding).
Lowlights: My friend almost passing out in the Sahara tent pre-show and getting drenched in the sweat of shirtless 21-year-old frat boys, but that goes with the territory.
5. Junior Boys at the El Rey, October 14
Highlights: “Parallel Lines,” the ever-so-sexy (and even moreso live) “Count Souvenirs”
Lowlights: A few technical problems and opener CircleSquare. Oh my suck.
Also, I need to stop using song titles as post titles so frequently.
*Edit: Sasha Frere-Jones is much better at this than I am.