My year in music 2018

Instead of ranking bests and favorites and whatnot in any kind of preferential order, I'm going the info-dump route this year with a list of all the new and reissued albums released in 2018 that I purchased with the money earned from my soul-destroying job (are there any other kinds?), the live shows I attended of my own free will, and the bands my band played shows with, in chronological order, plus some other music-related 2018 biz. I think it's pretty clear from these lists that I'm a 41-year-old man, but it's also clear I'm not dead yet. As I said to the cars blocking my exit from work and the guy driving the wrong way down the one-way street last Friday, "Happy fuckin' new year, assholes!"

2018 New Releases I Heard, Liked, and Bought
La Feline - Triomphe
NADINE - oh my
Berry - Everything, Compromised
Ty Segall - Freedom's Goblin
Cash Rivers & The Sinners - Blue Balls Lincoln
MGMT - Little Dark Age
Guided By Voices - Ogre's Trumpet (live)
Field Music - Open Here
Superchunk - What a Time to Be Alive
Oneida - Romance
The Breeders - All Nerve
Nap Eyes - I'm Bad Now
The Men - Drift
Bonny Doon - Longwave
Guided By Voices - Space Gun
Yo La Tengo - There's a Riot Going On
Neil Young + Promise of the Real - Paradox
Mint Mile - Heartroller
Charnel Ground - Charnel Ground
Melvins - Pinkus Abortion Technician
Janelle Monae - Dirty Computer
Eleanor Friedberger - Rebound
Afternoon Freak - The Blind Strut
Yonatan Gat - Universalists
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks - Sparkle Hard
Split Cranium - I'm the Devil and I'm OK
Neko Case - Hell-On
Michael Rault - It's a New Day Tonight
Express Rising - Fixed Rope II
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - Hope Downs
Protomartyr - Consolation
Death Grips - Year of the Snitch
Dead Cross - Dead Cross EP
Spotlights - Hanging by Faith
Mike Patton - 1922
The Carters - EVERYTHING IS LOVE
Ty Segall & White Fence - Joy
Chad Popple - A Popple People
Mudhoney - LiE (Live in Europe)
Mark Lanegan & Duke Garwood - With Animals
White Denim - Performance
Oh Sees - Smote Reverser
Papa M - A Broke Moon Rises
House of Feelings - New Lows
Terry - I'm Terry
Beak - >>>
Cat Power - Wanderer
Mudhoney - Digital Garbage
Marissa Nadler - For My Crimes
Cash Rivers & The Sinners - Do Not Try to Adjust Your Set I Am the Horizontal and the Vertical
Daughters - You Won't Get What You Want
Kurt Vile - Bottle It In
Jo Passed - Their Prime
Ty Segall - Fudge Sandwich
J Mascis - Elastic Days
Jeff Tweedy - Warm
Planet B - Planet B
Guided By Voices - Wine Cork Stonehenge 7"
Guided By Voices - 100 Dougs 7"
Mark Dippel - Mild Agoraphobia (got the download, record appears to be lost in the mail)

2018 Archival and Reissued Albums I Heard, Liked, and Bought
Various - Eccentric Soul: The Cash Label
Laraaji - Vision Songs, Vol. 1
Pastor T.L. Barrett & The Youth for Christ Choir - Do Not Pass Me By, Vol. II
Eula Cooper - Let Our Love Grow Higher
Weirding Module - A Newer Age
Various - Eccentric Soul: The Saru Label
Foreign & Domestic - Your Mountain vs. My Iceberg
Apolo - Live in Stockholm
Bernadette Carroll - Laughing on the Outside 7"
Neil Young - ROXY: Tonight's the Night Live
Various - W2NG: 89.9 FM
Happy Rhodes - Ectotrophia
Various - Technicolor Paradise: Rhum Rhapsodies & Other Exotic Delights
John Somers - I Dreamt the Dreams that Kept Me from Sleep
Zuider Zee - Zeenith
Various - Teen Expo: The Cleopatra Label
Homeboy Sandman - Nourishment (Second Helpings)
The Scientists - Weird Love
Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Kamal Keila - Muslims and Christians
Various - Switched-On Eugene
Various - Basement Beehive: The Girl Group Underground
Colin Potter - A Gain
Blondie - Heart of Glass 12"
Spontaneous Overthrow - All About Money
The Scientists - The Scientists E.P.
Thelma Jones - I Can't Stand It 7"
Chhoti Maa - Caldo de Hueso
Normil Hawaiians - More Wealth than Money
Rodion G.A. - Rozalia
Neil Young - Songs for Judy

2018 Live Shows Attended
Martin Rev w/ Heavy Times, The Hentchmen, and Elisa Ambrogio
SXSW: Ex-Girlfriends, Painted Hands, Will Courtney & The Wild Bunch, Suspirians, Nameless Frames, Big Foot Chester, Waco Brothers, Ramblin' Deano, Moaning, Speedy Ortiz, Kurt Vile, Big Bill, Tommy Wright III, Yonatan Gat & Eastern Medicine Singers, Ice Cold Singles, John Doe
Chrome w/ Mind Spiders and Burnt Skull
Xylouris White w/ Charalambides and Soft Healer
Tejas Nights
Built to Spill and Afghan Whigs co-headlining tour w/ Ed Harcourt
Dollar General
John Wesley Coleman III w/ Abigail und Hansel and Evening Mirrors
Guided By Voices w/ Park Doing
Dead Random
Body/Head w/ The Austerity Program, USA/Mexico, and Exhalants
The Scientists w/ Meet Your Death and Teenage Cavegirl
John Wesley Coleman III w/ The Ripe and The Crack Pipes
Dollar General w/ Rocket 808
Lyres w/ Oneida, The Ugly Beats, and Semihelix
Ty Segall w/ Emmett Kelly
Kurt Vile & The Violators w/ Jessica Pratt

2018 Bands My Band Shared a Bill With
A group of bellydancers
Abstract Class
Chamberlain Greene
a bunch of musician friends at a hootenanny in our practice space
Abigail und Hansel
Suspirians
SXSW: The John-Pauls, The Crack Pipes, Kay Odyssey, Popper Burns, A Place to Bury Strangers, OBN IIIs (I could also say Obnox and METZ, but I was about to collapse from exhaustion, too many tacos, and too much alcohol, and missed their sets to go home and sleep)
Abigail und Hansel (again)
Aurora Plastics Co.
Alma Lee
Book of Shadows
ST 37
Gheri Signfeld's Atrophied Sac/Liquid Mice supergroup
Baby Robots
My Education
Dollar General
The Oysters
Apopka
Chronophage
Woozyhelmet
UtinUtin
Electric Mushrooms
Como las Movies
Matt Hoopengardner
Baby Robots (again)
Local Shadows
John Wesley Coleman III

Playing that shit
My band, The Early Stages, recorded a full-length album with a friend of ours over the summer, and we are in the dispiriting, humiliating, discouraging process of trying to find someone to put it out. We will probably end up putting it out ourselves. We have never been what this town or its various punk rock scenes want, but we keep grinding away, doing our thing, and finding kindred spirits in other local oddball groups who don't quite fit in with what the gatekeepers and schmoozers are perpetuating and promoting. I am proud of this record and glad we did it. I hope you can hear it next year.

In the process of trying to get someone interested in our record, I've been shamelessly sending it to musicians I like. Mostly I get a thank you and no further response, but someone who gave me solid feedback was Kid Millions from Oneida. Because of those message exchanges, I had the opportunity to take a drum lesson from him while he was in town playing a show, and it was a great experience. Besides being a really nice guy, he was an enthusiastic and effective teacher who helped me break some bad habits and improve my stick control technique, which has reduced the hand cramping that occasionally bothers me when I play. He also suggested I buy a drum pad and a couple rhythm pattern books, which I did, and practicing these patterns has become a meditative habit for me. I get sucked into it and lose track of time, and it's been a great thing for me this year, when depression keeps kicking me in the face and my job's bringing me down. And it's great to learn new things and improve at an instrument I've been playing since I was 10 after I'd hit a wall and leveled out.