Best Of 2013: Danny R. Phillips

This is the best/worst time of the year for me. I love year-end lists but I hate compiling them. It is a masochist thing for me: I stress on it, torture myself, then as soon as it is done, I want to change it. I’m never satisfied. For the record, all included here may or not be from 2013. My list contains things I’ve re-discovered throughout the year. It happens. Enough of the bullshit: here it is in no particular order (with exceptions for favorites).

Music:

Album of the Year: True North, Bad Religion

Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Story of Big Star, Original Soundtrack
Get On With It, Black on Black
The Consequence of Trying, Many Moods of Dad
CBGB Original Soundtrack, Various Artists
At The Scene of the Crime, Stiff Middle Fingers
Silence Yourself, Savages
Hollowtown, Pale Hearts
No Other Animal, Matthew Coman
IV, The Bronx
Lonerism, Tame Impala
You Asked for It, Missouri Homegrown
In Utero 20th Anniversary Re-Issue, Nirvana
The Argument, Grant Hart
Psychic Surgery, Bloodbirds
Wolf’s Law, The Joy Formidable
Country Singles, The Grisly Hand
Rat Farm, Meat Puppets (review)
Modern Vampires of New York, Vampire Weekend
. . . Like Clockwork, Queens of the Stone Age
Vanishing Point, Mudhoney
Pushing The Sky Away, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
My Shame Is True, Alkaline Trio

Movies:

Film of the Year: The Conjuring

A Band Called Death
Nothing Can Hurt Me: The Story of Big Star (Best music-based documentary this year or EVER)
Every Everything: The Life, Music & Times of Grant Hart
Salinger
Man of Steel
Out of the Furnace
Sound City
Dallas Buyers Club

Books:

Book of the Year: Everybody Loves Our Town: An Oral History of Grunge by Mark Yarm

Jesus: An Unauthorized Version by Mian Ridge
Nirvana: An Illustrated History by Bob Gendron, Charles Cross, Gillian Gaar, and Todd Martens
The Replacements: Waxed Up Hair and Painted Shoes by Jim Walsh and Dennis Pernu
The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History by Jim Walsh
Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead by Neil Strauss
Hellfire: The Jerry Lee Lewis Story by Nick Tosches
Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon (my habitual re-read along with Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity)
Waging Heavy Peace by Neil Young

Television:

Best show of the Year (and ever): Breaking Bad
Elementary

Concerts:

Bad Religion (w/The Bronx at Granada Theater in Lawrence, KS)

Jon Spencer Blues Explosion (at The Recordbar in Kansas City, MO. Best intimate place in KC to see a show. Go there; do that!)

Bob Mould (at The Bottleneck in Lawrence, KS. I met him in the lobby of the hotel the next morning. Apparently, we were staying at the same hotel. A complete and total shock over my complementary hot breakfast. Very nice man)

They Might Be Giants (at CrossroadsKC at Grinders in Kansas City, MO. The opener, Moon Hooch, was awesome.)

Cupcake/Scruffy & the Janitors/Universe Contest (at Rendezvous Bar in St. Joseph, MO)