Sonic Parthenon's The Year In Music 2008: Part 3

Fair Game
The show was canceled in the middle of the year and it will be missed for two things: 1. The host, Faith Salie and 2. the music. Fair Game served as a live library of a lot of the great bands of our time, from Camera Obscura and the National to Clare & the Reasons and Magnetic Fields. How the Black Lips got on there I will never know, but I do know I miss Faith a whole hell of a lot :(

Flogging Molly
"Requiem for a Dying Song" and a reinvigorating live show at Pier 54 brought one of the marquee bands of the first half of this decade back from the bog and it felt very good.

Frightened Rabbit
"The Greys" and reports of solid live work were more than enough for this budding band from across the pond to make a mark in 2008.

The Gaslight Anthem
At the end of this year in review, you'll see a list of honorable mentions, pretty much all of which are about one songs with no real backstory. One of a few exceptions to this list, a band that gets a special extra bit of attention is the Gaslight Anthem for the title track from The '59 Sound. Take everything you like about anthem-heavy rock 'n roll, throw away all the excess and dead-eyes suburban inanity, and you have one of the great songs of the decade.

Laura Gibson
Sweet, wonderful Laura Gibson stole the show and pretty much all of the winter in early 2008 with her folk guitar, touching voice, and melancholic lyrics. She could have done near stole my heart too if wasn't for all the competition.

Sebastien Grainger
Right up there with the Gaslight Anthem and Maps of Norway, the one time one-half of DFA 1979 offered up one song that was enough to leave a lasting mark on the year and the decade. "American Names" is going to be one of those songs you give to your kids right off, to show 'em what it's like to make rock n' roll. And the best part of this very American song, is how Canadian the author is. Whatever "how Canadian" means. But oh yeah, he puts on a hell of a live show with some other songs to back it all up.

Flogging Molly; O'Death @ Pier 54

Flogging Molly; O'Death
@ Pier 54
New York, NY - July 31, 2008

It's been a couple years since I've seen Flogging Molly, and I was a bit hesitant. A distinct Irish and Punk band from Los Angeles, Flogging Molly made three excellent albums between 2000 and 2004. Without question, this band - who first came across my radar with a performance on Late Night with Conan O'Brien - were one of the best bands in the world during that time. Dave King wrote and sung with a ferocious spirit and ultimate authenticity, backed by one of the country's most talented bands. But the band went into a quiet phase following 2004's Within A Mile Of Home, perhaps to just finally revel in their hard earned success. They only finally released another complete LP of material this year, called Float. Either I've moved on or they've exhausted themselves because the initial listens of Float came off weak, with the exception of "Requiem for a Dying Song". But how would it be live still? The band always put on a hell of a show but would the new record's diminished strength do the same to the live show?

Feckin' no. Dave is as enigmatic and wonderful as ever and the band is as tight and professional as ever. Though I had to leave about 5 or 6 songs in so I could catch another Los Angeles band on the rise and making an appearance on Conan, it was clear that FM was still a band to rave about. On a beautiful Manhattan night, supported by an excellent sound system, King and company recalled all those great, spine tingling feelings they engineered in the first half of this decade. They still got it.

O'Death is probably the most fitting opener yet attached to Flogging Molly. The band's Appalachian sound, descended from the Scotch-Irish, matches well with the direct Celtic fury of Flogging Molly. Though the band is sloppier, grittier, and grimier than FM - and appropriately so - they not only got the crowd enthused, they gave the overwhelming throngs of drunken macho suburbanites a taste of what's cooking here in the city.

Dream Ticket: Flogging Molly and O'Death

That Pier 54 free show with Flogging Molly on July 31? Yeah, O'Death is opening.

An Interlude with Flogging Molly

After all that Flogging Molly referencing in the Gogol Bordello review, it's only fitting: