HEY, REMEMBER 2006?

I meant to post this a long time ago, like weeks and weeks ago, but now is when it's happening, so that's that. Check out X-Ray Records (and tell Dave hi from Emmet!) on the right for a bunch of other lists somewhere down the line.
Here's my favourite albums from last year in no particular order. Keep in mind that I more or less stopped being on top of music like I had for the previous ten years around September, so I mighta missed some things, like maybe that new Black Keys, which I've only heard one song from, but that one song sounded like I'd like it.

1. Two Gallants - What the Toll Tells (Saddle Creek) - I first heard these guys on a 2005 Loose Music compilation called Start Your Country, which also featured faves like Parkas and Roger Dean Young, and sometime this year I became really addicted to "Steady Rollin'", the second track on this album. There's a sort of a jugband quality to that song, and the usual Two Gallants rightous throat bleeding.
2. Howling Hex - 1-2-3 (Drag City) - Another year, another 2 albums from Neil Hagerty and his band(s). I haven't really warmed up to the other one, Nightclub Version of the Eternal yet, but sometimes it takes me a while.
3. Hylozoists - La Fin Du Monde (Boompa) - I saw Paul Aucoin's mostly instro combo twice in Oh-Six. Once in Regina and once in Vancouver. The Regina was way better, for a variety of reasons. But the album is really, really amazing.
4. Rah Rah - Songs for Pasquala (self-release) - Oh how I love these kids.
5. Ghostface Killah - Fishscale (Def Jam/Universal) - Pretty much for "The Champ" alone, from which this blog got its name (via Rocky II, as well, long live Burgess Meredith).
6. Prototypes - Je Ne Te Connais Pas EP (Minty Fresh) - fun, dumb, French pop. This EP is a FREE DOWNLOAD at the Minty Fresh website.
7. Ray Davies - Other People's Lives (V2) - I don't know. I think I'm overrating this. There are some really brilliant songs, but I honestly haven't listened to OPL since, like, May. So maybe it doesn't belong here.
8. the Parkas - The Scars to Prove It (Little Records of Concrete) - not really an album, but another EP, and so far only available with the DVD A Life of Crime, which is REQUIRED VIEWING for anybody who wants to tour Canada with a rock band. The songs are absolutely killer, though, and the Parkas have already two newer tracks on their mySpace page. HUZZAH! The Parkas are sort of turning into a less fun band than they were on their debut record, Now This Is Fighting, which is too bad, but they're probably actually even better, and they're sorta really kick-ass and tough now. Like on their first record, they were sorta mouthy and cheeky punks, and then they got theirs (see the movie) and now they've become sort of what they where acting as if they were. I don't think that makes any sense. But, like, I think of the Parkas as a street gang. On their first record, they were a street gang from Grease. Now they're a street gang from, um, a Martin Scorsese movie. Anyway, the Parkas remain wickedly smart and terrific, and, little known fact: their drummer writes their lyrics! Just like, um, Mudhoney, I think.
9. Chad Van Gaalen - Skelliconnection (Flemish Eye/Sub Pop) - Another album I didn't hear was C Van G's Calgary buds The Cape May's new one. I should seek that out. I really liked their last one, Central City May Rise Again. Anyway, C Van G has a new album and it's real good. Favourite track: Wind Driving Dogs.
10. Various Artists - Congotronics Vol. 2: Buzz & Rumble from the Urb'n Jungle (Crammed Disc) - AWESOME.

Stuff I'm looking forward in 2007: new albums/music from RTX, Parkas, Goldenmile AND HOPEFULLY ANDREW VINCENT GODDAMNIT. And also picking up some stuff I missed last year.

NEXT YEAR IN METROPOLIS

That's right folks. NO ONE has asked me to do a top ten/year's best list at all this year, but I'm doing one anyway. I might even do two! I'm not making any promises, but what the heck, maybe we can even squeeze a third list out these old steam-powered branez before the sun comes up.

Okay, let's start with something easy. Let's start with my favourite 10 comics of the year.
EMMET'S TOP TEN COMIC BOOKS OF 2006

10. Green Lantern Corps (DC) - While I'm pretty much at the breaking point as far as the main Green Lantern series goes, the spin-off has been loads of fun. Lots of aliens, lots of crazy ideas, great art from Patrick Gleason and Dave Gibbons and even new (fill-in?) writer Keith Champagne (best known as the former inker for JSA, and writer of one of the dullest JSA stories ever, and that's saying something!) has managed to keep this series worth reading. Also of note in the DC sci-fi team books category is the new Omega Men series, where Flint Henry is doings some boffo Bisley/Sienkiewicz-esque art.
9. Marvel Tales Spider-Man (Marvel) - Despite the awesomeness Adam Beechen (2007's Dan Slott???) and covers by Ty Templeton, DC's line of superhero comics for kids are too dependent on being Saturday morning tie-ins, and thus being a little too overtly FOR KIDS. Marvel's Marvel Tales line of books don't tie in to anything. They're just fun comics. Kids (hopefully) know when they're being pandered to. (I know, this entry is more of a dis on something else than accolades for MASM, but just go get the Fing Fang Foom issue, okay!)
8. 52 (DC) - It's not actually 52 itself that endears DC's weekly comic to me. It's the weekly format, which has more or less been my only reason to visit the comic shop most weeks, and Douglas Wolk's fantastic companion blog 52-Pickup that makes 52 fun.
7. Superman Archives (DC) - I'm not even sure if this came out in 2006, but I'm including it anyway. This full-color reprint of the first year or so of Superman and Action Comics was nothing less than a revelation to me. The raw energy of the early Man of Steel is exhilerating and almost foreign to someone who grew up with the tail-end of the Curt Swan Era Superman.
6. Tales Designed to Thrizzle #3 (Fantagraphics) - Michael Kupperman's humor mag flops as often as it soars, but that's part of the fun of comedy. He's willing to flop, he's trying out ideas. It's never boring and it's usually savagely hilarious.
5. Absolute DC: The New Frontier (DC) - I spoiled myself with this de luxe edition of Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece. I couldn't help myself. It's oversized and has annotations and sketchs and NEW PAGES OF STORY!
4. "Up, Up and Away" in Superman and Action Comics (DC) - As you've already seen and as you're about to further witness, I got WAY into Superman this year. I daresay that with this storyline, and Kurt Busiek's subsequent stuff in the Superman mag, this is the best the mainline Superman comics have been in my lifetime.
3. Showcase Presents Superman Family (DC) - All of the wackiness unearthed in 2005's Showcase Presents Superman pales (okay, not quite) when Jimmy Olsen takes centre stage in these reprints. After reading this 500+ page tome, I finally understood why Lex Luthor sees Superman as nothing more than an extraterrestrial interloper hindering humanity's maturation from cosmic adolescents and keeping them (us) from being captains of their (our) own destiny.
2. All Star Superman (DC) - OH YEAH! I LOVES ME SOME SUPERMAN! Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely infrequently present some of the most glorious ideas about Superman. Issue #5, where Clark Kent visits Lex Luthor in prison and goes to SUPER lengths to conceal his dual identity just might be the most beautiful Superman comic ever.
1. Action Philosophers! (Evil Twin) - THE GREATEST THING SINCE SLICED BREAD. Sassy & irreverent, but also concise and informative. It's like Mad Magazine meets Classics Illustrated. Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunleavy are awesome. GET YR COPY NOW!