Maria Taylor needed a bigger room

Wednesday night. Patrons were shoulder-to-shoulder in the cozy back room at Tangier to

catch a set from the 32-year-old songstress, one-half of Azure Ray. [Our favorite fan was Lucinda Williams, who at the offer of special

consideration from the promoter, declared: "I don’t want to be on the guest list —

I want to support the artists."]

Williams and everybody else who ponied up the $10 cover were rewarded with a

warm-and-fuzzy set that included material off Taylor’s second solo album, "Lynn

Teeter Flower," released last March. Taylor’s willowy vocals and smart lyrics

obviously have their fans; this show was booked less than two weeks in advance, and the

room was nigh full when up-and-coming L.A. singer-songwriter Robert Francis played his 9 p.m. set.

Performing with five backing musicians he called the Small Town Talk, Francis (newly

managed by heavy hitter Bill Silva) wrestled with a difficult mix, but his material,

especially the title track from his debut, "One by One," still shined.

A nice start to 2008.

||| Download Taylor’s "A Good

Start" from her MySpace page.

◊ ◊ ◊

A heads-up, in case you haven’t seen the notices: Indie rock is

coming to the Orange County Performing Artscenter.

(Pardon the link, OCPAC has a MySpace page.)

Nice lineup too — Peter Bjorn and John and Sea Wolf on Jan. 24; the Walkmen and the

Delta Spirit on Feb. 28; and local heroes the cold War Kids on March 27. The shows will

be in the 500-seat Samueli Theater as part of OCPAC’s Off Center series. They aren’t

cheap tickets (for instance, it’s $30 to $60 for PBJ/Sea Wolf and $20 to $40 for the

Walkmen/Delta Spirit), but then again, these are quality bands playing nice digs. Should

be interesting to see how the monthly series (which continues through June) flies.

◊ ◊ ◊

Highlights for Thursday, Jan. 3

This just in — the show at Pershing Square

tonight has been canceled due to threatening weather.

You can

warm up (or cool down) for a night of club-going by hitting downtown’s Pershing Square

at 8 — the Mezzanine Owls will

perform at the temporary ice skating rink there. … Their debut album almost

finished, local quintet the Airborne Toxic Event kicks off a

Thursday night residency at Spaceland with support from, among others, up-and-coming

quartet the Henry Clay People.

… Over at the Echo, there’s a big, free (if you’re over 21) show with Light FM, among others. … The Bowmans start a Thursday night

residency at the Hotel Cafe — the always-great Patrick Park is playing tonight. … The Mae Shi play tonight in the series of

shows celebrating the Smell’s 10-year

anniversary. … And young Orange Countians the Jakes play early at the Roxy.

Photo: Saddle Creek Records

A bit stultified from New Year’s activities? Me too. I prescribe a beautiful pop song

with a driving beat, so here’s the video for Minipop’s "Like I Do." Tangentially,

the song is on the year-end mix CD I made for some friends, and no song on the disc has

elicited more reaction than this one. As far as I’m concerned, the San Francisco quartet

can’t get back to L.A. on tour soon enough.

Recommendation for tonight, Jan.

3

Double-dose of goodness tonight at Tangier,

where Azure Ray vocalist Maria Taylor

breaks loose with her solo material and young L.A.’s Robert Francis offers up his

spellbinding folk.

Happy New Year.

And good riddance, 2007.

The year brought an avalanche of music, and the recent holiday week of rumination and

CD-sorting etched in my mind the idea that a whole lot of it was … well … pretty

good. Yeah, pretty good, uttered with my head slightly tilted, as if I never

thought once of saying "great" or "really good." If I ever had the

radical notion to rate albums on a 10 scale,

I would swear that half the records I received this year logged somewhere between 6.5

and 6.7 — a percentage that’s skewed because all six copies of the Magic Numbers album that somehow found

their way to my desk would get a 6.2.

Maybe this was the year that trying to

keep up with new music, nationally and locally, finally overwhelmed me, what with every

baby band in the universe engaging in viral marketing, hiring publicists, working with

managers, leaving me polite entreaties on MySpace and generally undermining any belief

that a band can merely grow organically. I attended about 185 shows in 2007 too, many to

follow up on those advertising blitzes.

But after compiling my humble lists

below, I fast-forwarded to December 2009, when all good geeks will be sweating over

their seemingly inevitable Best-of-the-Aughts list. And guess what? Not a single album

from 2007 has a chance of making mine. All of the bands I consider indie icons — and

I’m sure you can spank me for leaving out people you think are iconic — released other

albums this decade that are superior to their 2007 releases. For the record, that

pantheon houses the National, Spoon, Modest Mouse, Arcade Fire, Bright Eyes and

Interpol, with other personal faves such as the Shins and Stars living in the backhouse.

Those heavyweights each added to their estimable catalogs, yes; it’s just that I’m not

going to pull "We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank" off the shelf first

when I want to hear some Modest Mouse a few years from now.

At least, I don’t

think.

The lists follow. Thanks to everybody who sends me music — really —

and a special shout-out to the bands on the L.A. scene who’ve made my life so much

richer over the past 5-plus years.

My Favorite 10 Albums of 2007

1. Blonde

Redhead, "23"

2. The National, "Boxer"

3. LCD

Soundsystem, "Sound of Silver"

4. Against Me!, "New

Wave"

5. Spoon, "Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga"

6. The Cribs,

"Men’s Needs, Women’s Needs, Whatever"

7. Arcade Fire, "Neon

Bible"

8. Lupe Fiasco, "Cool"

9. The Shins,

"Wincing the Night Away"

10. Softlightes, "Say No to Being

Cool — Say Yes to Being Happy" *

Comments: It’s scares me how much

this list largely parallels other blogs/music mags. Yes, Fiasco’s album just came out,

but on first, second and third blush it’s a long-range keeper. And that’s right, no

Radiohead. So sue me. 6.8.

* See final list

Buzz Bands’ Top 10 L.A. Albums of 2007

1. Foreign Born, "On the Wing Now"

2. John Doe, "A Year in

the Wilderness"

3. Sea Wolf, "Leaves in the River"

4. CoCo B’s, "CoCo B’s"

5. Eleni Mandell, "Miracle of

Five"

6. Earlimart, "Mentor Tormentor"

7. Culver

City Dub Collective, "Dos"

8. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club,

"Baby 81"

9. Rilo Kiley, "Under the Blacklight"

10. Great Northern, "Trading Twilight for Daylight"

Comments:

Foreign Born is just plain good. CoCo B’s self-released disc is a great surprise. Culver

City Dub Collective’s genre-mashing is sublime. Eleni Mandell — who needs Feist? And

Rilo Kiley’s album just kept growing on me.

Ten L.A. Bands Whose Debuts Made Me Anxious for the

Sophomore Album

1. The Deadly Syndrome, "The

Ortolan"

2. The Broken West, "I Can’t Go On, I’ll Go On"

3. Robert Francis, "One by One"

4. The Parson Red Heads,

"King Giraffe"

5. Delta Spirit, "Delta Spirit"

6. Frankel, "Lullaby for the Passersby"

7. Year Long Disaster,

"Year Long Disaster"

8. Sara Bareilles, "Little Voice"

9. The Minor Canon, "No Good Deed Goes Unpunished"

10. No

Age, "Weirdo Rippers"

Ten L.A. Bands Whose 2007 EPs Made

Me Want More

Castledoor, the Airborne Toxic Event, the Weather

Underground, the Black Kites, Voxhaul Broadcast, Sam Sparro, Manic, Radars to the Sky,

Sara Lov, Aushua.

Three Albums From Bands Whom I Loved in the ’90s and Still

Do

1. Buffalo Tom, "Three Easy Pieces"

2.

Dinosaur Jr., "Beyond"

3. Smashing Pumpkins,

"Zeitgeist"

Five Hip-Hop Albums I Would Recommend If

Anybody Believed I Recommended Hip-Hop Albums

1. Lupe Fiasco,

"Cool"

2. Kanye West, "Graduation"

3. Brother

Ali, "Undisputed Truth"

4. El-P, "I’ll Sleep When You’re

Dead"

5. Aesop Rock, "None Shall Pass"

Under the Radar: Six Overlooked Albums

1.

Softlightes, "Say No to Being Cool — Say Yes to Being Happy": Cinematic

electro-pop that recalls Grandaddy at its finest.

2. The High Strung,

"Get the Guests": Catchy and clever, hold the irony, with peripatetic melody

lines that do not quit.

3. Minipop, "A New Hope": Gorgeous and

beautifully layered shoegaze-pop with rhythms that will drive you right into a dreamlike

state.

4. The Blakes, "The Blakes": Soulful garage rock that’s good

for your summer sweat.

5. The Comas, "Spells": Distortion-heavy

power pop arrives in bursts, may leave marks.

6. Young Galaxy, "Young

Galaxy": Other Canadian exports (Kevin Drew, Sunset Rubdown, Feist, et. al.) earned

more buzz, but this album feel like a warm waking dream.

Comments:

Somehow I saw Softlightes play live 10 times in 2007. I left each show in a better mood

than when I arrived.