Top Ten Music-Related Things I Have Enjoyed In 2006
1. The Rolling Stones concert: Keef. Mick. That dressing gown. ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. ‘Sympathy For The Devil’. The sense of overblown occasion and history…one to tell the grandkids about.
2. So So Modern’s first steps on the road to world domination: This year, it seemed you couldn’t leave the house without running into a So So Modern gig inside the neighbours’ letterbox. Even John Campbell likes them now.
3. Hateful Chris and Jonny Funtime knocking Johnny Rotten out of the water with a stunning rendition of ‘Anarchy in the UK’ at the post-ASPA karaoke.
4. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ second album Show Your Bones: In case anyone was left in any doubt, that is how you follow up a groundbreaking debut.
5. The Casiotone For The Painfully Alone gig: apart from being heartbreakingly good, Owen Ashworth is a funny dude with a spotless Smiths collection. I want to marry all six foot, hundredodd kilos of him.
6. Belle and Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit: Quite clearly my favourite band ever, I still don’t think I’m being one-eyed saying this is release of the year territory.
7. ‘Advice For Young Mothers To Be’ from the Veils sophomore album Nux Vomica– three weeks later, it shows no sign of giving up residency in my brain.
8. Carl Barat’s Dirty Pretty Things debut: It’s no Libertines. Hell, it’s no Babyshambles. But it was all we got this year from the wreckage of the good ship Albion. And ‘Gin and Milk’ was pretty fucking amazing.
9. That letter we got this year from the rabid Jarvis Cocker fan, after I wrote a Pulp Album For All Occasions. Hey buddy, I hear you. We’re out there, and we’re pretty obsessive.
10. The opportunity to force my ‘indie snob’ tastes down the collective Salient readership’s throat. In my ideal club, Whiskas would DJ every night while an impeccably suited Futureheads held the d-floor hostage and the Long Blondes ran the bar. I had that sentence made specially.
Traditionally the last issue sign-off calls for emotional “thanks for the memories” histrionics. I’ve left little room for that, so instead would like to dedicate my remaining words to my co-editor. Far more restrained, less hateful and generally more knowledgeable than I, he’s saved me from making an arse of myself in print more times that he knows. Thanks Chris, it’s been so much less scary than I dared hope.