SOMETIMES MY JOB IS KINDA COOL (II)

L-R: Ozzy Osbourne, me.

TELL THE TRUTH, AGING PUNKERS

When did you ever imagine you'd see a piece by Raymond Pettibon on the New York Times op-ed page?

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN

Here are my album choices (I didn't vote for singles) for this year's Village Voice Pazz & Jop poll. Ten points each, as always, but this year I actually ranked them in order of the raw pleasure they gave me in '07 - the only real qualifier for such a thing* - instead of just listing them alphabetically, as I've done in previous years.

UGK, Underground Kingz (Jive)
Tego Calderón, El Abayarde Contra-Ataca (Warner Music Latina)
Baroness, Red Album (Relapse)
Arch Enemy, Rise Of The Tyrant (Century Media)
Belanova, Fantasía Pop (Universal Latino)
Skeletonwitch, Beyond The Permafrost (Prosthetic)
Machine Head, The Blackening (Roadrunner)
Wisin y Yandel, Los Extraterrestres 
(Machete Music)
Demiricious, Two (Poverty) (Metal Blade)
Behold…The Arctopus, Skullgrid (Blackmarket Activities)


*Though to be totally honest, if Pimp C hadn't died, my #1 and #2 albums would have switched places. That Tego disc is just bonkers.

I'M FAMOUS IN CANADA

The other day, a nice Canadian fella (is there any other kind?) called me up at the Metal Edge office, disrupting my enjoyment of Korperschwache's Sacrifice Of The Ouroboros (I See Your Bleached White Skulls On A Long And Pointed Row Of Bloodstained Sticks) to ask me some questions about Marooned and The Death And/Or Continued Zombie-Like Existence Of The Album. A few tiny snippets of that conversation, and a link to my L.A. Times op-ed from September, can be found here.

[Have I mentioned that Marooned makes an excellent holiday gift? Available now, at shockingly reasonable prices...]

BEST/WORST HEADLINE OF THE YEAR

Your call. (I laughed out loud.)