INTO THE NEON FILLED NIGHT - The Best of 2011

Ed Note: Bernie Trotsky is a Duran Duran obsessed quasi-hipster living in Peterborough, Ontario. He enjoys a good harlequin novel and has been known to start flat-earth debates. 

This year's installment is the largest one yet. I was finally able to whittle down my list to the top 30 songs of the year. As always, an artist or musical act may not be represented on the list more than once. Listed below are  honourable mentions, songs that were disqualified due to my asinine stipulation that artists may not be represented on the list more than once, and, if this wasn't hipster enough as it is, a reference to last year's list. Anyways, check it out!

The Best of 2011 and beyond

It's been some time since I last posted anything and for the three people that read this blog, I apologize. There really hasn't been a lot to write about in the past two weeks. Combine that with the holidays and you have a recipe for apathy. However, I promise that there will be more posts as soon as 2012 gets going. And Lord willin', there'll be more topics to cover.

Of course, this is the time of the year that all of the major music publications and websites have their "best-of" lists. Yes, they tend to get played out, and I know that I've only had a few posts and haven't reviewed anything yet, but I figured that an end of the year "best of" list is in order. After all, this is my favourite thing to write about it. I love doing these lists because they tend to spark great debate and discussion amongst music lovers.  First, I'll post my top 25 songs of the year, then my top 10 albums. I'll also have a post discussing Rolling Stone magazine's top albums of the year, which is always worth a laugh or two.

I especially enjoy reviewing my picks with Bernie Trotsky, since he and I share very similar AND very different tastes. Trotsky is a friend of mine that takes his music quite seriously. Once in a while on Drums and Wires I'll have him chime in and give you his opinion on things. For his inaugural post, he will give you his Top 30 Songs of 2011. It will hopefully be the first of many posts for Mr. Trotsky.

Well, enjoy the posts and the rest of your holidays. If you like a post, please share it on facebook, twitter and the like.

This Week in Utterly Repulsive Facist Bullshit: Indonesia State Declares War on Punks

If you haven't seen filmmaker/anthropologist Sam Dunn's "Global Metal", a documentary profiling the heavy metal genre's influence in all corners of the globe, please go see it. If you have, then you'll know the part when Dunn travels to Indonesia to seek out some the country's prominent metal bands and diehard fans. It is mentioned in the film how strict Indonesian culture is regarding popular Western music, particularly music like heavy metal and punk with their themes of defiance and anger. Some of the interviewees, including drummer Lars Ulrich, describe Metallica's first concert (about 3:30 into this clip) in Jakarta, in 1993, where a riot broke out outside the stadium walls. Not wishing to set a good example for the young rioters, the police and military declared open season on batting the shit out of any young person outside the stadium wearing a black shirt. Even if they had a ticket to get in.

The British Are Coming... for Your Number 1 Spot

Don't get between a Brit and his music. After all, this is the island that produced some the best music the world has ever seen (The Beatles, Led Ze...blah blah blah). They've also produced some of the worst (Spice Girls, Spice Girls, etc.). Regardless, Britons are rabid about their tunes.

Exhibit A: there is a somewhat large faction of British music fans that are fed up with the way their charts are dominated by pop tarts. Most of these pop tarts are from shows like Pop Idol or the X-Factor. Simon Cowell is involved with most of these shows. Therefore, the Brits have a huge hate on for Simon Cowell. In the eyes of many, he is the symbol of all that is wrong with British music.

DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE: The Sheepdogs

With the social media tools we possess in this day and age, the Hype Machine is more powerful than ever. We are told what to like on a regular basis. Whether it’s your local active rock radio station or Pitchfork, there’s some dumbass radio DJ or some pedantic hipster telling you what you should be in to. This is a regular feature (I hope!) on DAW that attempts to eliminate all the white noise and give you the straight truth. So don’t listen to other people. Listen to me.

THE SHEEPDOGS

I’m sure you’ve all heard the story by now. The hard-working, beard-bearing Prairie quartet pulls a Jed Clampett and strikes oil in a contest to get their mugs on the cover of a magazine whose relevancy has all but vaporized with the stale pot smoke of their post-hippie readers, save for the opinions of a film reviewer and a social commentator. By winning the cover contest, the Sheepdogs gained enough media attention to be heralded as heroes for all the bands out there that are workin’, travellin’ and honing their craft. Without having so much as a single on the radio, the Sheepdogs were already garnering more attention than they ever could have imagined. Even before wining the contest they were doing a plethora of radio and TV interviews. After winning, every DJ, VJ and blowhard in Canada (and to a certain extent, the US) was mentioning their name and had an excuse to sing that fucking stupid Dr. Hook song. The Hype Machine gears were turning.

Welcome to Drums and Wires

Welcome to Drums and Wires.

In my hundreds of wasted hours scouring the internet for tasty nuggets of information (a.k.a porn), I noticed a couple of things. Firstly, there didn’t seem to be a lot of blogs about music. Sorry, let me rephrase that – there didn’t seem to be a lot of good blogs about music. Secondly, I would sometimes leave my computer looking like this guy after reading the Toronto Sun commenting section. I wanted to voice my opinion but I needed the proper medium. I didn’t want to become just some asshole that comments on blogs and internet articles. So I thought “Hey! Why not become some asshole that writes a blog”. So here we are.

My goal with this blog is to look at pop music in a different way from your regular music sites, try to have some fun with things and roast the big boys every so often. Hopefully I can do the occasional long-form article, op-ed piece and, of course, review some albums and songs. I can be opinionated, so go ahead and disagree with me. I welcome angry anonymous internet assholes. But please keep the mothers out of it.

So I hope you enjoy. If you like the blog, share it on Facebook as I’ll be posting my articles on my account as soon as they’re done. I’ll try to be updating the blog at least twice a week and maybe more, depending on the reaction. If you don't like the blog, you probably like John Mellencamp, and that's your fault.