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It’s here… time to begin our look back at the year which was 2013. In true E2TG style, for the remainder of 2013 we will shuffling up a special playlist which includes some of our favorite songs from the past year. I’ll let the song speak for themselves, but we will be highlighting some of our favorite E2TG related albums of the year as we move along.
About Band of the Year. After two successful Band of the Year polls (by page view numbers, Band of the Year and Band of the Month polls dominate our statistics page for most viewed), so it is only after careful consideration that I’ve decided to forgo the Band of the Year poll for 2013. Basically, it comes down to the fact that I would rather see independent bands cooperating and collaborating than competing. We had some memorably good fun with some of our polls – especially the first annual Band of the Year poll and the legendary February 2012 Band of the Month poll that came down to a dogfight between MAKAR and The End Men. As time went by, and I began featuring more and more bands, the idea no longer seemed to be in the spirit of this site.
I will be naming the third annual Band of the Year within the next couple of weeks. Meanwhile, enjoy yourself as we relive this year that almost was. If you feel so inclined, share some of these posts with your friends near and far.
Before we jump into the first of our Favorites’ shuffles for 2013, I need to rectify something….
#E2TG Hall of Fame (Notable Omissions):
More names will be added to the Hall of Fame in early 2014 – and my progress on the completion of the Hall of Fame page has hit some unexpected delays, but I’ve became increasingly uncomfortable knowing that two of my favorite E2TG artists have not been added to the Hall as of yet.
1. Ubiquity Machine/Howard Rabach – In using the tagging feature to determine our Hall of Fame, one thing I failed to take into account were the many fine bands/artists you came to prominence in the months when E2TG was still housed on the now defunct Posterous site. Howard Rabach was one of the first readers of the blog to step out of the shadows. His band, Ubiquity Machine, was one of our early Bands of the Week. The band finished second in our first annual Band of the Year poll, and he has remained a good friend of Ear to the Ground ever since. UM has been kind of dormant of late, as Howard has been doing some freelance stuff. Check out his Facebook page here. So it is with great pleasure, that I usher in UM/HR to a spot of honor in our Hall of Fame.
2. The Grimm Generation – Another thing I failed to take into account in my tagging system of Hall of Fame eligibility is the variant tagging which sometimes occurs. Blogger places a 200 character limit on tagging so sometimes I have to shorten band names – like leaving the “The” off. That is the only explanation I have for The Grimm Generation not being in our top 20 tagged artists. Still this unique and frankly awesome collective from Connecticut (headed up by the amazing Jason Krug and Carmen Champagne), are well deserving of a prime spot in our Hall of Fame. Hell their latest album, The Big Fame even has “fame” in the title. They have consistently made music which I love and which seems timeless in its wonderfulness.
Now… let the 2013 Shuffles begin
“When I Cry” by Jeanette Lynne (from You’ve Got Me)
“Infatuation” by Dog Without Warning (from Bark)
“Temporary Thought Exchange (AKT A Cappella) by Its Teeth (from Divided)
“Goodbye Summer” by Jonny Fritz (from Dad Country)
“Spittin’ Lies” by Nikki Sue and the Bad News (from Nothing Gold)
Highlights: Of note, in our first shuffle of the year end playlist, we have a couple of talented female artists from the Northeast who came my way directly or indirectly via the visionary music guru Popatunes. Jeanette Lynne is from Philly and Nikki Sue is from New Jersey. They both write great songs that fall into the Americana/Countryish/Folk-like genres (if you are into genres). The important thing is that make great music and they both had releases which were among my favorites for 2013.
Dog Without Warning hail from the greater bay area of California. They came to my attention via CXCW and I featured some music off their indie flavored concept? album Go Girl. The follow up was released as an EP earlier this year, and it was a revelation. Bark uses acoustic arrangements which serve to highlight the songwriting skills and humor of this band. Bark quickly moved into my favorites category and has stayed there as the year has progressed.
We recently featured the Its Teeth track which features Gabriel from The Gabriel Construct as well as the Jonny Fritz track from the fantastic Dad Country album.
http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=322653748/size=medium/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/
http://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2506126944/size=medium/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/transparent=true/ Visit Our E2TG Year End Favorites Store (to be expanded daily)
WATCH (our special year-end Video Playlist to be expanded daily)
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E2TG: MUSIC/WORDS 