The new releases from this year that i liked the most. You can read about most of them.

1. We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes/Forbidden Love EP by Death Cab For Cutie
2. Furnace Room Lullabye by Neko Case
3. Crooked Fingers by Crooked Fingers
4. The Great Eastern by The Delgados
5. Man on Stilts by Sharkquest
6. Lift Your Skinny Fists Like An Antenna To Heaven/He Has Left Us Alone, But Shafts Of Gold Sometimes Grace The Corners Of Our Room by Godspeed You Black Emperor/A Silver Mt. Zion
7. Alabama Ass Whuppin' by The Drive By Truckers
8. Sweet Bird of Youth by The Rock*a*Teens
9. Down to the Promised Land, a 5 Year Anniversary compilation from Bloodshot Records
10. Secret South by 16 Horsepower

Well, above you have my 10 favorite releases. Here are some other things i listened to a lot:

1. A Gesture of Kindness by The Karl Hendricks Trio. Karl! KARL! Are you Karl?
2. Emergency and I by The Dismemberment Plan. PostLibyan made me a tape for driving. I bought the CD eventually. Yeah, they're that good.
3. Kid A by Radiohead. It's not bad, it's just not all it's cracked up to be.
4. Early Tracks by Old 97's. Get a beer. Drink it. Get another one. Drink it too. Repeat. Now put on Cryin' Drunk and just try not to wail along to it.
5. Seconds Before the Accident by Archers of Loaf. I wanted more, but hey, it's the Archers, you know?

I go to less concerts that Tracers or PostLibyan, but more than you, most likely. I don't really take notes during the shows. I prefer just to enjoy shows and critique the recorded stuff. That's just me. But here's the ones I remember.

1. The Waco Brothers with Country Teasers at The Star Community Bar, Atlanta: Anyone who thinks "rock is dead" needs to go see The Waco Brothers play live. John Langston is quite possibly the world's coolest man, a hybrid of old-school British punk, art-school self-reflexive irony, post-Marxist labour politics, and balls out rock-n-roll hero. And he plays American Country the way no one has played it since Haggs and Cash were bangin' around Folsom. From Wales.
2. Superchunk/And You Shall Know Us By The Trail Of Dead/Crooked Fingers at The Echo Lounge, Atlanta: Um, well, it's Superchunk, see. And it's Crooked Fingers, see. The screaming rampage of And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of Dead sandwiched in between was loud, if nothing else. It would have been just an ordinary show, but the encore was simply spectacular. 'Chunk covered Harnessed in Slums with Big E. playing lead and Jim Wilber singing. Classic. All of 'Chunk and most of AYSKUBTTOD banging out Springsteen's Born to Run would have been enough, but then Bachmann plows back onto stage with an alto sax and drops a perfect note-for-note solo into the bridge and it becomes surreal.
3. Sharkquest at The Caledonia, Athens: Everything went wrong for the band. Sara's mandolin wasn't strung and even after an hour's delay she couldn't get it tuned and working. The crowd was getting testy and the venue didn't seem too terribly happy either, so Laird and Scott decide to get the show going regardless. Sara ends up playing her mandolin parts on the banjo (note, there's a lot fewer strings on the banjo) with the two guitarists covering her between their parts. If you've ever heard Sharkquest's music you'll realize how amazing of a musical feat that was. Once the show got rolling the cello and drums more or less took over the spotlight and waylaid anyone who had the patience to stick around through the tuning nightmare.
4. The Drive By Truckers at The Caledonia, Athens: Album release party for Alabama Ass Whuppin'. Beer, Patterson, RAWK! Met "The General" who was impressed by our buying five copies of the disc.
5. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Choir with the Morehouse College Glee Club at Symphony Hall, Atlanta: Five year anniversaries are hard to come by. Lisa loves Christmas music. The juxtaposition of the ASO's selections from the Nutcracker suite and the Choir's traditional Latin hymns against the Morehouse Glee Club's amazing renditions of Mary Had a Baby (The Train Done Gone) and Bethlehem, sung in the traditional tribal dialect of Nigeria complete with drums and dance-claps, was phenomenal.