As 2006 comes to a close, I just realized that when January rolls around I will be celebrating 14 years of Saturday afternoons on KEXP and also celebrating hitting that milestone of 40. KEXP has taken me from my mid-twenties - my first show was the day before my 26th birthday, all the way through my thirties (Troy, being 30 really doesn’t suck THAT much), and now into the next decade. I can’t believe it’s already that time of the year to put together another top ten list — 2006 has zipped by in record speed (and I don’t mean 33RPM). My Top Ten for 2006 is a mixed bag:

The Decemberists - The Crane Wife (Capitol)
Sufjan Stevens - The Avalanche (Asthmatic Kitty)
The Transmissionary Six - Radar (Roslyn): Infrared (MP3)
Bryan Harvey - Remember Me Well 1956-2006 (Plan 9 Music)
Mojave 3 - Puzzles Like You (4AD)
Steve Wynn & the Miracle 3 - …tick…tick…tick (Down There / Red Eye)
Alejandro Escovedo - The Boxing Mirror (Back Porch)
Deadstring Brothers - Starving Winter Report (Bloodshot)
Tarkio - Omnibus (Kill Rock Stars)
Midlake - The Trails of Van Occupanther (Bella Union)

Sufjan Steven’s The Avalanche features outtakes from the Illinois album, which topped my list for 2005. As a native Illinoisan I really enjoyed hearing Mr. Steven’s sing about Pittsfield and my hometown of Springfield. Portland’s Decemberists are now on a major label but that hasn’t changed their sound. The Crane Wife only gets better with repeated plays. Also making my list is Colin Meloy’s early band, Tarkio. Omnibus (Tristan and Iseult MP3) is a two CD release featuring recordings from 1996 to 1999 when Colin was majoring in English at the University of Montana in Missoula. With a stripped down alt-country feel, you can definitely hear the genesis of The Decemberist’s sound. One of the best in-studios I saw this year was Steve Wynn, that man can play guitar. His latest release, …tick…tick…tick (Freak Star MP3) is reminiscent of the guitar drenched sound of The Dream Syndicate. Midlake makes new music that sounds old, but not dated, think Fleetwood Mac meets Radiohead. They are one of those bands that when I would play a track on my show the phone would light up.

As the days count down and times runs out for grabbing gifts, here are a couple of suggestions for the music geek in your life:

XTC Action figures! Yes, you read that right, XTC has commissioned a set of collector figures in a very limited edition of 200 sets. The metal figures are made by Irregular Miniatures, a company specializing in tin solider figures.

Series No. 1 features Andy, Colin, Barry and Terry circa 1978 White Music. Imagine XTC faces the great armies of the ages. Who will prevail — soldiers and weapons or XTC and their instruments?

If you have a Neutral Milk Hotel fan on your list you are in luck. While Jeff Mangum hasn’t been recording lately, he has completed a limited series of weird collage Fender acoustic guitars. Truly a one-of-a-kind piece of playable art.

And finally, Joseph Arthur has released a limited edition book of original art titled “We Almost Made It” which also includes a CD of instrumental compositions. The book is limited to 5,000 copies.

I hope that you have a good holiday season and wonderful New Year. Here’s to 2007 and the music that it holds!

I started the day off at the KEXP booth before the gates where open. It was a good time hanging out in the booth with DJ Chilly and volunteer Scott, listening to the Latin jazz sounds of Seattle-based Mambo Cadillac with Tor Dietrichson, which sounded fantastic.

We had KEXP buttons, postcards and posters to give away along with all sorts of information from music advice to directions. The most asked question was if any shower radios where left. They went quickly the day before - all 1200 of ‘em. It’s really nice when someone heads straight to the booth with great enthusiasm, like Don who discovered that KEXP makes his commute from Snohomish to Redmond much more enjoyable.

I made it over to the Mainstage in time for the last song from The New Pornographers, “Sing Me Spanish Techo”, which is my favorite song off their last album.

It was lovely to take a break from the warm afternoon by ducking into the KEXP broadcast to see the live performance by Cloud Cult, which featured a couple new songs. If you missed the broadcast you can listen to it in the streaming archive until Sept. 17th. Stevie Zoom and Larry did a great job of taking Sunday afternoon’s on KEXP to the live side. Jack Walters also gets a big kudos make sure that things went smoothly.

Back over to the Mainstage for Spoon and the man in dressed in black, Britt Daniel. Britt sent out a nice shout-out to the station mentioning that KEXP supported Spoon in the beginning and how much he loves the station. There was a group of dancers that started out as five or six people jumping up and down and ballooned into a large circle of very energetic folks dancing in every which way. Maybe the tide is turning in Seattle and we are becoming a city that can move to music instead of standing there doing the head bob.

Taking a little break from the music, I checked out the End of Summer: Three Views of Bumbershoot, which featured pictures from last year’s festival and my favorite photographer, William Anthony. I recommend checking this exhibit out. Be sure to see the photo of Iggy Pop, I’m not sure how to describe the feeling I had looking at it and would love to hear what other people think of it.

I rounded out the night back at the Mainstage for Blue Scholars and Kanye West. I saw so many people trip and couple people fall on a step by where I was sitting in the bleachers that I was sure I was going to see someone get really hurt. Blue Scholars put on a good show and the crowd was fantastic, nothing like seeing a sea of arms raised with lighters. Then came Kenya to close off the night. To be honest, I’m not very familiar with his music but do like “Gold Digger”.

I was completely exhausted by the time I got home. For the final day of Bumbershoot tomorrow, I’ll be taking it easy and heading over in the late afternoon for Breakestra, Nouvelle Vogue and the show that I’ve been looking forward to since the line-up was announced, The English Beat.

The first time I saw them play was in 1982 when they opened for The Police. At the time Special Beat Service was a tape that didn’t leave my Sony Walkman II and I had to beg my mom to drive a friend and I to Peoria and then sit in the car while we attended what was my first real rock concert. Twenty-four years later I’ll be see them again and will be announcing the show which I am very excited about.

After wrapping things up at the station, I was able to catch a couple of songs from Ann Arbor’s Nomo. While it was a tight fit for Nomo when they stopped the KEXP studios in June, they had plenty of room up on the Bumbrella Stage.

Next I found myself backstage at the Backyard stage while getting more & more nervous about announcing Of Montreal. It is so easy to hit on the mic button in the studio, but getting up on stage is a different matter. The waiting before is the worst. Thankfully, it was over in a matter of minutes and the fabulous Of Montreal took stage. They were wearing an amazing array of skirts, dresses, and hot-pants. I only stayed for their opening song, which sounded pretty darn good.

The reason I didn’t stay long at Of Montreal was I had to head over to the Mural stage to see Alejandro Escovedo, my mother’s favorite and one of mine, too. He looks healthy and sounded great. For more about his almost career and life-ending illness, read this article from Harp magazine.

After Alejandro, I headed over to the KEXP booth next to the Bumbrella stage. Sharon Jones & the Dap Kings where already in full swing and everyone was having a great time. You could definitely feel the music.

I ended up losing steam and left before I had to make a decision of whether to see Lady Sovereign or Badly Drawn Boy. As I was leaving, I did see the third Utilikilt of the day. Every year I end up counting ‘em. It’ll be interesting to see if Monday is still the day with the highest Utilikilt count. I’ll let you know.

Tomorrow I’ll be starting the day at the KEXP booth. It’s super easy to find, it’s the yellow booth to the right of the Bumbrella stage. Stop by between 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and let me take your picture to post with Sunday’s wrap-up!

I’ve never liked jewel cases. Actually, I hate those three pieces of plastic. They crack and break. The thing that is suppose to hold the disc never holds it tightly so it spins, the spokes eventually break, and the disc get scratched. My biggest complaint is that for a small object they consume quite bit of space, thirty jewel cases need one foot of space on a shelf. Albums can be squeezed together tight on a shelf, but you’ll end up with a pile of cracked plastic if you try it with jewel cases. My living room walls are covered with Billy bookcases from Ikea to house my CD collection. Kevin Cole has a basement that is filled and people talk about in hushed tones of amazement. Most jewel case replacement options, like plastic sleeves or binder pages, don’t have space for the tray card, the back piece with track listings and the title spines. My sister replaced all of her jewel cases with sleeves and threw away the tray cards. I could never do that. I already feel short-changed on the amount of space that CD packaging has for information, I’m not getting rid of anything.

I was thrilled to discover MM Designs’ DiscSox CD Pro storage sleeve, a perfect solution to jewel cases. The sleeve is made with clear high-quality vinyl and protective fabric. Booklets fit easy in the front with no worry about ripping them, even if they are thick (I can’t tell you how many booklets in my collection that have fallen victim to the little teeth of jewel cases). Each sleeve will fit a double CD. The surface of each disc faces fabric, keeping them dust free and cleaning them each time they are removed. The tray card fits along the back. Nifty.

I have fifty discs in DiscSox sleeves so far, which fit in the same space as thirteen CDs in jewel cases. I’ll eventually replace all the jewel cases, but it will take time with over 1000 CDs. Also on my wish-list is a Teal Blue Can-Am Media cabinet to keep my collect in. It’ll hold up to 2000 CDs in DiscSox sleeves, will accommodate other media, like DVD’s and VHS tapes, and can be expanded and modified to fit audio and video equipment. Can-Am even has cabinets that albums will fit in, which I’ll need to be thinking about since my record collection is traveling west this September after a fifteen year separation (more about that some other time).

I know exactly what to do with all those empty jewel cases once I’ve made the conversion to DiscSox sleeves, I’ll be able to recycle them by replacing the many broken ones in the KEXP library!