2009 Musical Crush & Sounds of the Savory Northwest

Having spent the winter months working and playing in sunny sunny SoCal, where I have decided to relocate to, I never got around to doing a re-cap of this year's highlights. Instead of creating a long list, I will stick to the one album that stands out the most in my 2009 retrospection. Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle by Bill Callahan (aka Smog). The first time I heard a song from Sometimes I Wish We Were An Eagle, I was driving home from the grocery store and Rococo Zephyr came on. I instantly fell in love. The Cello. The gaps of silence. The vocals. The lyrics. The entire emotion of the song... was pretty much perfect in my book. I had to pull over so I could hear the entire song before I got home. I had no idea who was singing and at first I thought it might be a Karl Blau song, but I looked up the playlist on KEXP to find out who it was and the very next day I picked up the album at Easy Street Records a block away from my office. I have listened to the entire album through and through hundreds of times and have yet to find fault with it. Bill has a feeling reminiscent of Townes Van Zandt. Perhaps it's his voice which is somewhat similar, or the purity of song and composition... I'm not sure. But if you were already a Smog fan you probably agree that whatever the formula is, it's working.

There have been many songs and albums that I've come across this past year, a few of which I have already written about in this blog and some which I may write about soon... or maybe I won't.

I am feeling a sense of sadness, excitement, and closure about leaving Seattle and heading to LA for personal and professional reasons. I wrote a bit about the things that I will miss about the savory Northwest in my DLF.TV blog, but the thing about the Seattle area that really gets me, besides the views of Mt. Rainier, the water, the nature, the people, etc etc... is the music scene.

I have gotten to know a lot of local artists because of doing this Eden's Hour show, and I am so grateful for that. So much good music coming out of the Seattle area (including Olympia, Anacortes, and Bellingham) these days. And Portland for that matter.

This is my Portland playlist, which admittedly is short because I don't live in Portland and am therefore not as familiar with the local scene, and I've thrown in some Oly based artists because there kinda in between SEA & PDX. I should really create an Oly list..... saving this project for a rainy day.

Below is a playlist of a few of Seattle artists I really like: