Colin McCann’s Lord Dog Bird played Cake Shop last night.  Although there wasn’t a very big crowd in attendance McCann played beautifully.  It was almost haunting how one man could portray so much energy and passion on stage.  My only complaint was that McCann’s set was just 30 minutes long, but I felt very fortunate to see him on this very small tour.

[mp3] Lord Dog Bird- “The Shedding Path” (via CatbirdSeat)

Buy the album here!

for more on Lord Dog Bird click here.

*I’m a big proponent of not using flash photography at shows (unless they are big shows and there are flashes everywhere).  These pictures were taken on a point and shoot using a manual setting (something I haven’t played with in a long time), and there are a couple out takes from this show here.

I was just looking at ohmyrockness, and noticed something that I’m not sure that I was aware of…Lord Dog Bird is playing at the Cake Shop this coming Monday (April 27th).

Lord Dog Bird is the solo project of Wilderness guitarist Colin McCann.  The record is a basically a document of McCann’s bedroom recordings, and to me it comes across as timeless indie rock.  While  you might be thinking that that statement is just plain ridiculous, I mean it in the sense that this record could have come out anytime in the past 20 years.  On several occasions I have been listening to the record and people walked into the room asking what it was.  Saying it brought them back to the 1990′s.  The sound is familiar in a good way, and I think McCann put out a really nice record (one of my favorites of last year), but he didn’t get too much love from the mainstream indie media, but did get the attention of NPR (I’d take NPR over Pitchfork any day).

I got to catch Wilderness at Union Pool last year, and it was a really amazing show…while I’m not expecting McCann’s solo performance as Lord Dog Bird to be intense as Wilderness (James Johnson is overall a really great frontman), but I am expecting it to be a really great show.

I love going to a show to see an opening band, and Lord Dog Bird goes on at 10pm at the Cake Shop show, and it’s only $8.  Here are all of the dates:

04/24/09 Bethlehem, PA – Hard Bean Cafe   w/ Micah Blue Smaldone
04/25/09 Pittsburgh, PA – Morning Glory   w/ Micah Blue Smaldone
04/26/09 Washington, DC – The Lighthouse   w/ Micah Blue Smaldone
04/27/09 New York, NY – Cake Shop   w/ Micah Blue Smaldone

If you haven’t heard McCann’s Lord Dog Bird:

[mp3] Lord Dog Bird- “The Gift of Song in the Lion’s Den”

Buy the album from Jagjaguwar here! Or pick it up at the show.

This list has taken much longer than expected.  There were a bunch of albums that I liked in 2008, but I feel that this is pretty comprehensive, but the ones that made this list I truly liked from beginning to end…in my opinion solid records.

For example, I really loved the No Kids record (Come into My House), but I was much more into the R&B songs versus the world music songs…and for that reason it didn’t make my list.

Some things got left off because I didn’t get them til early 2009 (examples are Wavves- s/t and Castanets – City of Refuge), but somethings that I didn’t get into until the end of 2008 shot up to the top ten (mainly Grouper).  I was going to do a top 10, but I have been into the blogging and I wanted to do something bigger (also see my best of 7″ and 12″ singles of 2008).

Welcome to my Top 25 albums of 2008:

25. Vivian Girls – Vivian Girls (Mauled By Tigers Records / In the Red)

24. Eat Skull- Sick to Death (Siltbreeze)

23. Abe Vigoda – Skeleton (Post Present Medium)

22. Desolation Wilderness- White Light Strobing (K Records)

21. Matmos – Supreme Balloon (Matador)

20. Arthur Russell – Love is Overtaking Me (Audika)

19.  The Dodos – Visitor (French Kiss)

18.  Xiu Xiu – Women as Lovers (Kill Rock Stars)

17. David Byrne & Brian Eno – Everything that Happens Will Happen Today (self released)

16. Beach House – Devotion (Carpark)

15. The Magnetic Fields- Distortion (Nonesuch)

14. Titus Andronicus – Airing of Grievances (Troubleman Unlimited)

13. Bonnie Prince Billy- Lie Down in The Light (Drag City)

12. Lord Dog Bird - s/t (Jagjaguwar)

11. Burning Star Core – Challenger (Hospital Productions/ Plastic Records)

10. No Age – Nouns (Sub Pop)

9. Thee Oh Sees- The Master’s Bedroom is Worth Spending a Night In (Tom Lab)

8. Times NewViking- Rip it Off (Matador)

7. High Places- High Places (Thrill Jockey)

6. Karl Blau- Nature’s Got Away / AM (K Records / Whistler)

5. Grouper- Dragging a Dead Deer Up A Hill (Type)

4. Deerhunter – Microcastle / Weird Era Cont. (Kranky)

3. Mount Eerie- Dawn / Lost Wisdom / Black Wooden Ceiling Opening (P.W. Elverum and Suns)

2. The Music Tapes- For Clouds and Tornadoes (Merge)

1. Los Campesinos! - Hold on Now, Youngster / We are Beautiful, We are Doomed (Wichita/Arts & Crafts)