Riot Fest Staff's Best of 2009

Dec. 25, 2009

Sick of the year end lists yet?  Don't be because you haven't read the picks from the staff of Riot Fest!  Well, three of us at least, but that's all the response I got last week so we'll have to deal with it.  Do you have a personal best of list?  Tell us what it is and where to find it! 

Justin Maynard

How about 7?

Hugs McMaynard's "Listened and Liked" List:
One Day As A Lion - One Day As A Lion
F.I.B. - FigureDropped Once - Letters To Kingston
Propagandhi - Supporting Caste
Alborosie - Escape From Babylon
The Swellers- Ups and Downsizing
Riverboat Gamblers - Underneath The Owl

Bill Molloy

Top 15 LPs
1.  Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans (Sub Pop)
2.  Baroness - Blue Record (Relapse)
3.  Wasted Time - Futility (Grave Mistake)
4.  No Slogan - Aversion Therapy (Residue)
5.  Destino Final - Atrapados (La Vida Es Un Mus)
6.  Future of the Left - Travels With Myself And Another (4AD)
7.  Punch - Punch (625 Thrash)
8.  Social Circkle - City Shock (No Way)
9.  Sacred Shock - You're Not With Us (Residue)
10.  Kylesa - Static Tensions (Prosthetic)
11.  Flipper - Love (MVD Audio)
12.  Converge - Axe To Fall (Epitaph)
13.  Cult Ritual - Cult Ritual (Youth Attack)
14.  Propagandhi - Supporting Caste (G7/Smallman)
15.  CoCoComa - Things Are Not Alright (Goner)
Listen to one song from each of the album albums, streaming and legally thanks to 8tracks.com

Honorable Mentions:
Mika Miko - We Be Xuxa (PPM). Government Warning - Paranoid Mess (Grave Mistake/No Way). Limp Wrist - one sided 12" (Limp Wrist). Marked Men - Ghosts (Dirtnap). Mi Ami - Watersports (Quarterstick).

For further listing including EPs/7"s, reissues, singles collections, pictures, song samples and actual reasons why I picked those records, click over to my blog.  You should read it because it's awesome. 

Mike Petryshyn

Best Festival of the year
Fun Fun Fun Fest: Danzig and The Jesus Lizard -- awesome. Hands down the best curated festival every year. Fun Fun Fun Graham is a genius when it comes to this game.

Best Reunion of 2009
PIL: Like him or not, John Lydon wrote some amazing songs for Public Image Limited, and I'm personally 100% behind them making a new album. The world needs a little more Rotten to stir shit up. (Jesus Lizard is a close second.)

Best 7-inch
Naked Raygun Series 1: Obviously, I'm not objective about this one bit, but, NR's new 7" is some of the best stuff they have written. Simply, the band still has it and they are still as creative as they have ever been.

Best Album
Chuck Ragan ("Gold Country"): Everything Chuck Ragan touches, whether it's with Hot Water Music or his solo stuff is always ahead of the curve. I'm just hoping that more people start to realize how much talent Chuck possesses.

Best Tour
Bouncing Souls: Really don't need to give an explanation for this one. They're just awesome.

Best Performance at Riot Fest 2009
I couldn't see all of the bands play b/c there was so much going on, but Cock Sparrer was fucking amazing. They were better than I imagined, and I have not heard one bad thing about their performance during their stint in Chicago. If anything, I think all of the kiddies who came to see NOFX play were blown away by a band that they never heard of before.

Best Secret Show of 2009 (there's a tie)
The Falcon: Brendan Kelly should do stand up. He made the whole AAA room laugh their asses off -- the music was pretty awesome too.
Riverboat Gamblers: The band tore up Cobra Lounge -- literally. Could have been possibly the second best show ever at Cobra Lounge (Raygun will always be tops on that).

Biggest Surprise of 2009:
Screeching Weasel still has it. I saw the band perform in Austin and thought it was good. In Chicago, however, they destroyed. There was no banter between songs -- it was straight ahead gold. No matter who's in the band (with the exception of Ben and Vapid), the band can still bring it... I think they now own the record for the biggest pit in RF history. People were actually losing their minds during "Supermarket Fantasy."

Posted by Bill

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