… and I don’t feel any different.

I wanted to do a ‘Best of 2004′ type thing, but I hate that. I can never pick and choose and come up with an adequate list. I either come up with too many, or too little. Each album/artist/song is so unique that it’s hard to put them in some kind of logical order, or measure them with a standard scale. They each have something that makes them good, to me. I’m sure I missed a ton, or am only focusing on the last 1/2 of the year, or something. Oh well, here it is: a list of bands, albums, artists, concerts, etc., that have stood out above anything else to me in 2004. This isn’t overall, or per-genre, or anything .. this is how Brandon has viewed 2004.

Top Albums of 2004

The albums that stick out when thinking back …

1. My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge I rang in the new year with their previous album. I loved it. Then this came out. I went to buy it on its release day, and Best Buy had none. Now, I hear they’re going to be on TRL next month. I guess that’s good, hooray for them. I’ll still love their music.
2. Anadivine - Zoo I was surprised to see this CD in the store one day. I thought, ‘woah, this is out?’, so I picked it up. When I got home, I found it in the mailbox; I had pre-ordered it from their record label. I’ve already talked about this CD once or twice, so I don’t have much more to say.
3. Underoath - They’re Only Chasing Safety I was talking to someone on AIM about music, I think I knew him via Listen-To. I had mentioned that I really liked Copeland, and he had asked if I heard the song that Aaron sang with Underoath. I hadn’t. He sent. I loved. The End. But really, this CD (dispite sounding like packaged screamo) is really good. And the keyboardist looks like Chris Farley; you can’t go wrong there.
4. Further Seems Forever - Hide Nothing I got an e-mail from Feeling Left Out, I believe, saying that I should pick up the new FSF album because at Best Buy because they carried a Best-Buy-only limited edition with three bonus acoustic tracks. Now, I am a sucker for anything acoustic, and I listen to (nearly) anything that musicians I like alot say, so I went out and bought it. I would’ve paid the $9.99 or whatever for just the acoustic tracks; they’re amazing. The rest of the CD is awesome, too, but the acoustic tracks .. dang.
5. Brandtson - Send Us A Signal I was in the Flagstar Bank drive-thru, getting money before going to a poker night, I think. I had just bought a few CDs, and had a smart playlist on my iPod with all 7-day-old music on random. This song came on, there was a sound of a glass bottle breaking. Then, this killer drum beat came in, and I was in love. Then, they started clapping to the beat of the song. The whole CD is really good; not a bad track on it, but Mercy Medical (as you’ll see below) is one of my all-time favorite songs.
6. The Beautiful Mistake - This Is Who You Are I bought the CD, and while doing so noticed that I could buy a pack of stickers to help promote it. I collect stickers, so I figured eh, why not. The website said ‘1 Package of 100 stickers, $1′. I figured that was a typo, and it was 10 stickers for $1. Boy, was I surprised when a big envelope of 100 stickers came in the mail with the CD. (Anybody want a sticker? Jess, I owe you a few still. I didn’t forget.) I was glad to see they are touring again, minus a member or two, I think. I read a review of this album a while back, and the URL vanished from my history and memory before I could bookmark it. They mentioned something about how everything on this record is insanely emotional, and they can’t brush their teeth without writing a song about how it stabbed their soul every time bacteria was cleansed from their mouth. Each stroke of the brush brought on heartache beside a feeling of a joyous cleanliness rapture. Ok, I made that last part up, but it was an interesting review.
7. Atreyu - The Curse Metal. I love the metal. The drummer in this band is awesome. Besides singing and drumming (both of which I can’t do very well separately) this guy was spinning the stick between beats during one of his songs. I was in awe. The lead guitarist is awesome, with his two hand tapping guitar technique (really got me, yeah .. might as well jump. im on fire.). Sometimes you need some metal, and Atreyu delivered with this album.
8. Sum 41 - Chuck Are you ready for some more metal? Ok, Adam. If I hadn’t heard this CD before, and there was no singing, I may be convinced that it was some old Metallica material that had been found in some vault somewhere. Ride the Lightning .. Master of Puppets .. Chuck .. they’re all on the same page.
9. Joey Cape & Tony Sly: Acoustic I stumbled upon an e-card for this on a webpage somewhere, and was excited. I love Lagwagon. I love No Use For A Name. The lead singers of both did an acoustic album of old Lagwagon and NUFAN songs? Awesome! This CD makes me want to go out and buy an accordian; acoustic guitar + accordian = soothing.
10. Chasing Victory - A Not So Tragic Cover-Up Jess, Ricky, Cori, and I went to see Cori’s friends band play. This band played after them. They were from Georgia. I was impressed by their show, so I picked up the CD. It was worth the $5 or $7 or whatever I paid for it. It keeps popping up on my playlist, no matter how many times I remove it for a change.

Top Songs of 2004

The songs that were played over, and over …

1. My Chemical Romance - To The End So send my resignation to the bride and the groom.. I’m upset that they didn’t play this live the few times I’ve seen them. Maybe one day..
2. Underoath - I Don’t Feel Very Receptive Today I have this weird love for songs that have parts consisting of odd sounding chords, no bass, and just some symbols crashing.
3. Brandtson - Mercy Medical See above. Crashing. Clapping. It’s all good.
4. The Rocket Summer - Skies So Blue This song makes me happy. This whole album made me happy this past year, but this song in particular.
5. Atreyu - Bleeding Mascara The opening lead guitar part is so crazy.

Best Shows of 2004

I loves me some live music; these shows stood out …

1. 7/26: The Intersection, Grand Rapids: Halifax, Punchline, The Academy Is…, Spitalfield, Funeral for a Friend, The Bled, My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail and Less Than Jake. This show was all day long. This show, I decided to end my ‘no more mosh pit’ streak, and get up close. This show was amazing. Team Emery beat Team Blue, hands down.
2. 10/19: Clutch Cargo’s, Pontiac: Coheed & Cambria, Underoath, 3 3 was interesting. Underoath was awesome, although they didn’t play ‘Down, Set, Go.’ Coheed & Cambria had a wicked light show, and played a great set.
3. 11/7: State Theatre, Detroit: Taking Back Sunday, Atreyu, Funeral for a Friend. FFAF sounded exactly like they did on their CD. It was scary. Atreyu, see above about the drummer. Taking Back Sunday was really good in concert. I’d missed them every other time they’d been in the area, so this was my first experience. I wish I could’ve seen them in a smaller place before they had become big stars and had 3000 16-year-olds screaming at them, but oh well.
4. 11/21: Clutch Cargo’s, Pontiac: Sparta, Copeland, Further Seems Forever There was a band from the Czech Republic that opened, and I honestly can’t remember their name. Copeland was amazing. I finally got to see them, after being snowed out in February, and sold out in July/August-ish. Further Seems Forever played all the songs I liked off every album, and did them well. I didn’t know many Sparta songs before going, but dang .. they played forever; and it was good. This show was weird because there weren’t nearly as many younger kids (16-19ish) as usual. The place wasn’t full at all, they had the balcony closed, and there was a bunch of open space. I liked it, but it was also weird to be there without a big crowd.

Favorite Artists of 2004

The guys I listened to the most this year …

1. Coheed & Cambria I wasn’t aware of the whole comic book, concept album(s), or anything. I feel so dirty not knowing for so long.
2. Thrice I don’t know what it is, but I really. really like Thrice. Teppei is my hero.
3. Ben Gibbard This guy’s everywhere. Death Cab for Cutie, The Postal Service, All-Time Quarterback. This guy writes a mean song; I can’t get enough. I’m glad he’s got so many projects he’s working on.
4. Ace Enders The Early November is one of my favorite bands. I was surprised to see a side project by Ace (I Can Make A Mess Like Nobody’s Business). It reminded me a lot of the acoustic stuff The Early November did. Again, I like side projects .. more music for us.
5. A Rocket Summer See above. Happy.
6. My Chemical Romance Maybe 2005 will be welcomed to Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge.
7. Brandtson See above. Crashing. Clapping.
8. Further Seems Forever See above. Acoustic.
9. Anadivine See above / elsewhere.
10. Number One Gun I won this CD in a contest. I mentioned them a little while ago. Their CD keeps popping on my playlist randomly. I wish they’d come around on tour, and not just in some small church a dozen cities over. One day, I suppose.

Wow, this got big. Oops. I guess this would’ve been much easier had Listen-To been up, too. It’ll be a happy day if/when I ever get around to re-writing that monster.

Happy Holidays.

So, things have changed on the site, obviously (you may need to Shift+Refresh). Some things are gone. Some will stay gone and others are only temporarily gone. Take a look around, it’s neat (and colorful, eh?). I got the images in the bottom right over at iStockPhoto. I used a bunch of different brushes from 8nero.net.

Doing this design made me remember how much I hate Internet Explorer. I designed it all without looking at a browser, went to Firefox, loaded up the page, and it was pretty much how I had expected it. I had to tweak a few things here and there, but for the most part it was painless. I moved over to IE to make sure others were seeing what they were supposed to, and of course, I’ve messed with the site for a few hours trying to get it looking decent in IE. It was a good learning experience, but a pain in the butt.

You should really, really, download FireFox and give it a try if you haven’t. There are a million reasons why, and you can find most of them here.

Games? Sure. I stole this from Jess

Step 1: Put your (winamp, itunes, etc.) on random.
Step 2: Pick your favorite lines from the first 25 songs that play.
Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what song the lines come from. (no googling!)
Step 4: Cross out the songs when someone guesses correctly.

Game over. Nobody guessed #6, #8, #10, #15, #16, #17, #19, #20, #22, #23, #24, #25.

1. The 50K I make this year will go anywhere I please. Where’s the problem? - NOFX / Lori Meyers
2. I say your name and I wish I could have done things right. - Saves the Day / All-Star Me
3. I shut my eyes when you’re around. I hold my breath to kill the sound. - Thursday / How Long is the Night
4. Tell your mom… to stop callin’ me. Don’t lift your leg… on my family tree. - Jimmie’s Chicken Shack / Trash
5. Now you see me, now you don’t. Now you need me, now you don’t. - From Autumn to Ashes - Autumn’s Mologue
6. You have your voice on tape .. in a southern accent .. screaming at me! - Saosin / Translating the Name
7. Say what you will, say what you mean. You could never offend, your dirty words come out clean. - Incubus / Clean
8. Why are you here? Are you listening? Can you hear what .. I am saying? I am not here. I’m not listening. I’m in my head .. and I’m spinning. - 30 Seconds to Mars / Fallen
9. She had fish fries, cookouts, on the child’s birthday I ain’t invited. - Outkast / Ms. Jackson
10. I can’t believe the things you’d say. I can’t believe .. I can’t believe the price— you pay. - Metallica / …And Justice for All
11. In between the moon and you, angels get a better view of the crumbling difference between wrong and right. - Counting Crows / Round Here
12. I believe in love. But what else can I do. I’m so in love with you. - Copeland / Coming Around Again
13. She don’t like my woah-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhhh. - Less Than Jake / Jen Doesn’t Like Me Anymore
14. I’m falling into memories of you, things we used to do. - Yellowcard / One Year, Six Months
15. Your back is begging sweetly for my knives. - Thrice / Betrayal is a Symptom
16. And I stood proud in the gallerrrrryyyyyyy… - Say Anything / Woe
17. Breaking rules and promises. Blaming faces, undone. - Rufio / Selfishness
18. In the morning, laughing happy fish heads. In the evening floating in the soup. - Barnes & Barnes / Fish Heads
19. Feel like there’s something behind that could be worth my time. - Staring Back / X-Out
20. Cause when we were skatin’ .. you would make the metal sign. \m/ - Goldfinger / Chris Cayton
21. This thing’s at a frat house, the people are cool there, reluctant I followed … - Blink182 / The Party Song
22. That’s right I got a floor .. so what, so what, so what. - NOFX / Linoleum
23. Even though she was no stranger .. chose the one keep me out of danger. - The Urge / Jump Right In
24. You’re perfect … you’re perfect … you’re perfect … you’re perfect … you’re perfect … - Laymens Terms / Perfect World
25. Could you be my answer? Could you tell me that I am … the perfect one for you? You’re the perfect one for me. - Number One Gun / On & On

I bet there’s a few that Google couldn’t even help with, but Google’s not allowed. I’m tricky.

Ok, a few things ..

1) Thank you, Julia, for nominating me for Best Music Blog. Total surprise. (and thanks for those who have seconded & thirded the nomination, since then)

2) I found a funny music video / spoof. It’s a boy band singing about Weapons of Mass Affection. It reminds me of 2Ge+her, if you remember that. (thanks to A Whole Lotta Nothing for the link.)

3) Redesign of this site is in the works. Stay Tuned.

… more soon.