While I saw lots of great shows this year – 166 total (fests are counted one a day) – they mostly didn’t reach the highs of last year. My favorite shows of the past year:

1. Robbie Fulks Residency @ The Hideout
– This year the residency had less individual stand-out shows than last year. This ranking is cumulative, but I still feel it is deserved as top ranking. Over the course of this year I saw 31 of the shows. There were more than 400 different songs performed by Robbie and his friends, over 250 of which weren’t performed…

Even harder than picking my favorite albums and putting them in some kind of order is accepting how many albums I haven’t heard (or heard enough) that might otherwise have been on my list. That said, my favorite albums at this point in time:

1. The Deep Dark Woods - The Place I Left Behind:
– In picking songs for my year-end mix it hit me how much this album as a whole is better than its individual songs. Don’t get me wrong, the songs are great, but I LOVE this album. I love the sound of this band –…

So the first half of 2011 has come and gone. Thus far I’ve been to 77 concerts and these are my ten favorite shows (with one video selected from each):

6/3 Teddy Thompson @ SPACE: Teddy drastically changed up the setlists between the two nights. But I think it was the atmosphere I liked more on the second night more than one setlist being better than the other. Such a beautiful voice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OntVxsBRluk

6/2 Teddy Thompson @ Schubas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7g4vTlXBG8

Jan-June Robbie Fulks residency @ Hideout: I continue to be in awe of Robbie's diversity. In the first half of the…

The first year of Robbie Fulks's residency ended. I attended 31 of the 38 shows he performed. I started the year as a big Robbie Fulks fan, but this residency has greatly increased my admiration. The breadth of his repertoire is outstanding – roughly 400 different songs were performed in the thirty-one shows I saw and, in addition to country, included pop, jazz, blues, bluegrass, folk, and even classical. If you're ever in Chicago on a Monday night, I can't recommend highly enough seeing Robbie Fulks at the Hideout.

My previous journal was a running posting of setlists with…

1. Otis Gibbs - Joe Hill's Ashes
http://onechord.files.wordpress.com/2010/03/otisgibbs.jpg?w=300&h=300
An Americana artist who mixes the political and personal. This is his fourth album (not including his Christmas album) and he becomes a better lyricist with every release. With the last album he stepped up the production and it’s continued to this one. His voice manages to be uniquely smooth and rough at the same time.

2. Codeine Velvet Club - Codeine Velvet Club
http://hangout.altsounds.com/geek/gars/images/1/2/4/7/5/codeine-velvet-club.jpg
A project started by Jon Fratelli of The Fratellis, a Scottish rock band, who joined forces with Scottish cabaret singer Lou Hickey. The results were fantastic. Also…

In February, Robbie Fulks began a Monday night residency at The
Hideout, which is scheduled to last throughout at least all of 2010
(whenever Robbie is available). Few artists would do such a thing
with as great a diversity as he has thus far. So I'll use this journal
to keep a record of the shows, updating it throughout the year.

On October 31, 2010, the Chicago Sun-Times ran an article on Robbie's residency: http://www.suntimes.com/entertainment/music/2844886,music-residencies-103110.article

Feb 1 - with Robbie Gjersoe
http://www.robbiefulks.com/blog/posts/112-2010-weekly-residency
I'm starting this Monday, Feb. 1, with something safe and sound: my duo with the incredible Robbie Gjersoe.…

There are far too many great albums that I left off my top of the decade list, but I can't see not including anything I have here. These are the albums I have listened to most, which seems the surest indicator of favorite. I couldn't bring myself to go so far as to limit each artist to one album, but in an effort to avoid seeming like a complete obsessive and to get more great artists on the list, I did limit it to two. No 2009 albums and I was extra hard on 2008. This was out of a…

I don't know why everyone is in such a hurry to wrap up this decade. So many forums (along with Pitchfork) are already making their best of the 2000's lists. As is the music list I participate in. It seems to me a more appropriate date would be January 2011, but absolutely no earlier than June 2010. Give people time to listen to 2009 releases for awhile and try to get a feel for whether they hold up. Not to mention that most of us discover albums the year after their release, as they get written up on year-end lists…

For someone who generally doesn’t care for it, I’ve listened to a fair amount of hip-hop over the years. I’m not comfortable not liking an entire genre so I try and find something I like in every broad style of music. I saw and fell in love with Boots Riley on the Tell Us The Truth tour back in 2003 and ended up buying several albums by The Coup and seeing them in concert a couple times. I don’t just think it’s pretty good for hip-hop, I rate this toward the top of any music I listen to. Having discovered…

A handy place for me to keep a list of albums that I think are coming out, especially since several of these aren't discussed by anyone I know so I may forget to keep an eye out.

Have been promised:
The View - Which Bitch (2/2 UK release)
Dan Auerbach - Keep It Hid (2/10) X
Lily Allen - It's Not Me, It's You (2/10)
Deep Dark Woods - The Winter Hours (2/17) X
M Ward - Hold Time (2/17) X
Robbie Fulks - 50-Voice Doberman (February) X
Justin Townes Earle - Midnight At The Movies (3/3) X
Neko…