!earshot Top 200 of 2021

The Best, The Worst and the Rest

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Tim Jones
is the Music Director at CHMA 106.9 in the sleepy little maritime town of Sackville , NB.   I host RADIO FRIENDLY (Thursdays 11-12) and cover the best new Canadian music that hits the station, regardless of genre.  My pride and joy, however, is RADIO UNFRIENDLY (Mondays 9-10) in which I play everything the rest of the station doesn't play enough of; namely, brutal hardcore, Soundgarden, rare Prince records, and canrock circa 1994.  By the end of the show it usually devolves into me playing really sad alt-country records and sobbing into the microphone.  This fall, I have played the cowbell with the Constantines , controller.controller , and the Sourkeys .

Best of 2004

1). Arcade Fire - Funeral - Merge

Believe the hype. Before I had heard a note by this band I saw them live in Toronto. Live music has never before stood the hair up on the back of my neck. The fervour this band inspires is religious, and it's easy to see why.

2). Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed - 4AD

Poetry. Find me a better songwriter working today. Now couple him with a real studio and some of his most intense songs. It isn't his best record, and I didn't get as personally attached to it as I did Tallahassee,

3). All-Purpose Voltage Heroes - The End of Daniel Jonathan Poole - Independent

This band ( average age eighteen oh my god ) is so tight, so catchy so fun, and so keyboardalicious . Everything they do is cranked up to eleven. I have so much love for this band it makes my knees weak. They are everything the Unicorns should be.

Most Under-Rated Record of the Year

The Hold Steady v The Hold Steady Almost Killed Me

Craig Finn from Lifter Puller's new project. It's gotten next to no ink up here, but it's just a dazzling record, chock-full of Finn's particular brand of sad-sack character sketches and lyrics that Charles Bukowski would wet himself over. All over killer power chords and wicked solos. It's wicked!

Honourable mentions to the Sourkeys and Andre Ethier.

Most Over-Rated Record of the Year

I try not to pretend that the new Wilco album, the new Beastie Boys album, the new Stars album, or the new Royal City album exist; I like their albums immediately previous FAR too much.

Best Local Release - Sackville

Shotgun and Jaybird - Sackville Classics for Simple Ukelele

All the way from the Yukon, this dastardly duo dropped a full-length recorded in the CHMA attic, and it's an absolute gem; thirteen little songs about small-towns and slackerdom and lovefoolishness.  Sounds like countrified Pavement or Jason Molina lost somewhere down Highway 61.

Most Anticipated Record for 2005

FROM FICTION IS RECORDING WITH STEVE ALBINI. Oh my stars and garters. See also: new Fembots, new Mountain Goats (w/John Vanderslice!)

Best Personal Campus/Community Radio Moment Or Experience of the Year

CHMA throwing a dance party at the Sackville United Church. The Hidden Cameras , All Purpose Voltage Heroes , and Shotgun and Jaybird were invited; fifty of our closest friends packed the area in front of the pews and shook it like their lives depended on it. One of our exec ended up in his underwear and a balaclava (which now hangs proudly over my desk � the balaclava, that is.)

A close second: the day that the Lowest of the Low , By Divine Right , Limblifter , and the dude from the Inbred s all charted at CHMA.  It was the same day I found a vintage Moist poster (and by vintage, I mean ten years old) at a thrift store and put it up in the office. For a second, I was convinced it was 1994. God I miss 1994.

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