The end of the year

Well, this past year had it’s ups and downs just like every year, but I feel that this year had way more ups than anything. I have some what became comfortable where I am at in life, or at least accepted the career situation I am in. I feel as a parent, I am starting to figure some things out, such as when to pick a battle and when not too. As a husband/friend I am always trying to be better each day. As a person, I am still holding on to what makes me….me.

This past Christmas was to me the first Christmas where Kristen and I really became in tune to what we felt was important, and that was to make the Christmas the best Christmas we could for Sloan. The best two Christmas presents I think I could have had was to see Kristen graduate after all her hard work and the things she had to miss due to school. The other was just seeing Sloan really understand what Christmas is about and as a parent knowing you gave her a great Christmas.

As far as a New Years Resolution, I have three that I am going to keep up with. I feel we make a list for New Years and we stumble on one thing and throw the whole list away. I am going to keep mine some what simple, but challenging as well. My first one is, I really need to get rid of my gut I have obtained over the years. It was my fault once I quit smoking that I didn’t hit the gym and keep from gaining weight. So I am going to try very hard to lose some weight. The second is, as much as I love music, I really don’t know how to play an instrument. So I am going to find a way to take some lessons and learn how to play the guitar. The other one is to be the best husband and father I can, or at least improve on what I am doing now. I figured the best way of keeping to them is to put it out there on my blog. Of course I also want to at least see one live band a month, depending on schedules, etc. Those are my three top goals of 2010.

I hope everyone that reads this, had a great Christmas and a great 2009, if not, let’s make 2010 a great year. Do what you can to make sure you have a great New Year.


The Final Top 19
Ok, so I missed last week and well I have to cram the last 19 albums on here. I won’t write much here, but please check out some of these albums, they were great albums and you might miss out on something you might like if you don’t. So enjoy.

19. Dirty Projectors-Bitte Orca
18. The Airborne Toxic Event
17. Bon Iver-Blood Bank EP
16. School of Seven Bells-Alpinisms
15. Green Day-21st Century Breakdown
14. Blakroc
13. Arctic Monkeys-Humbug
12. Ben Harper and Relentless 7- White Lies for Dark Times
11. Monsters of Folk
10. Raekwon- Only Built 4 Cuban Linx pt. 2
9. The Dead Weather-Horehound
8. Metric-Fantasies
7. Yeah Yeah Yeahs-It’s Blitz
6. Dan Auerbach-Keep it Hid
5. Bob Dylan-Together Through Time
4. Silversun Pickups- Swoon
3. Pearl Jam-Backspacer
2. Passion Pit-Manners
And #1……………Phoenix-Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
I have some new music, and will see you faithful readers in 2010.

“Surprise me” for Christmas

Well, it’s that time of the year again, and for me the hardest time of the year. Having to get Christmas gifts for the ones that you love. For me it’s even harder, not only did I grow up with a mother (who I love a lot) that always year in and year out would say the magic words “I don’t need anything” or “Surprise me”. Well now that I am grown up and married, I get to hear these magic phrases again. Sloan is easy; a kid always knows what they want. A wife on the other hand has no idea the anxiety they put their husband through during Christmas or anytime they have a holiday to get a present.

For me, the “surprise me” thing means something totally different than what they mean. Surprise me, means it’s up to me what to get. That could be a million different things and it’s never the thing they want. It does not help that close to Christmas time they decide to do a little shopping and get things that were going to be gifts. That makes it even easier for me to “surprise” them. Although, I do think that Kristen and I will surprise Sloan with something she really wants for Christmas this year. We are hoping it gets us out of the embarrassing parent’s category back to the cool parents list for her.

As for Kristen, she loves to make it difficult for me. I am easy; anything to do with music, sports (Mets), movies, or video games is golden. She always likes to say I am hard to shop for, but if you stick to my guide lines of shopping, it’s all laid out. Parents is another story, they never want much, but you always want to pay them back A) for being great parents, and B) for getting the loudest, noisiest, most obnoxious toy ever for your kid. I like to mix both A and B together to surprise them when they open it. Something for them to use with the grandkid. I always love to make sure to always bring the loud toy over to their house anytime I get a chance just to pay them back for an hour or so.

As for my sister, I get to give her the gift or music. At least give it back to her, she is wanting what I have from Led Zeppelin, and Derek her husband wants everything I have from Pearl Jam (I don’t know if he understands just how much I have). Plus I am going to sneak some of my favorites from 2009 into their music they want, just to give them something new. All in all, I think I will surprise everyone with something they wanted, and hopefully come out without too many scars from trying to “Surprise” Kristen. I do hope she wanted the autographed picture of Darryl Strawberry for Christmas.

The continuation of my Top 50
Well, I have actually been busy this week getting things tied up before we leave work for Christmas. I know there are so few of my “fans” that are waiting for the rest of my top 50 of 2009. I did just get the Rolling Stone issue and I have to say, U2 really? I think they missed a lot of really great albums to put Springsteen and U2 on their top 10 list. I do wish to retract my #40 The Xx and would like to put them at #10A on my top 10 list. So where they dropped the ball, I guess it’s my burden to pick it up for them, with that said here is 29-20.

29. Mumford and Sons-Sigh No More
A friend from high school let me know about this band from England. I have got into a lot of folk music this year for some reason, but this band is great. Great song writing, great music, and they rock (yes a folk band). Check out the song Little Lion Man.

28. M. Ward-Hold Time
This was my first album into my folk music time of 2009. I had been hearing a lot of good things about M. Ward and decided to give him a shot. This is his 7th full studio album he has released. I think this woke me up to some great folk music that is out there right now. I really like the song Jailbird off this album.

27. Eminem-Relapse
Well, sometimes it’s hard to put things on a list, but you can’t deny Eminem. He writes some great hip-hop lyrics, then you add Dr. Dre to the equation and it’s always a great album. I think everyone was waiting for this album to be finished. It still didn’t crack the top 15 for me for hip-hop albums, but it is a great one for this year. I like the songs Bagpipes from Baghdad and Old Time’s sake.

26. Portugal. The Man- The Satanic Satanist
I liked the album Censored Colors from 2008 and was please this album was getting high marks for this year. PTM is another great band, and this is their 4th album, which they also released an acoustic version of this album called The Majestic Majesty. I really love the first song on this album People Say.

25. Mike Posner and the Brain Trust-Matter of Time
This is probably the second pop album on my list so far (Lily Allen is the other). Mike Posner is still a student at Duke University, but if anyone in the music Industry has any sense he won’t be for long. I love this album and I got the chance to catch him at ACL this year. He should have big things in the future, check out the songs that should be on radio, Cooler Than Me and Still Not Over You.

24. Bell X1-Blue Lights On The Runway
Bell X1 is a bad I heard of that was playing at ACL this summer. This is the 4th studio album from the Irish rock band. After listening to this album I actually went back to listen to their older stuff. I like the song How Your Heart is Wired.

23. Jay-Z- The Blueprint 3
Ok, so two hip-hop albums in this group, and I am sure you are wondering what album cracked the top 10. I love Jay-Z, and this album is great. Maybe the Black Album ruined it for all of his albums after that, being so great. Either way, this is a solid album from Jay-Z, if you don’t have it by now go get it.

22. Dinosaur Jr.-Farm
Another band from my foundation of music that I have. I got turned onto Dinosaur Jr. in college and they are in my top 10 most favorite albums of all time with the album “Without a Sound”. I was excited to when I found out they were releasing a new album. I love the song Ocean In The Way.

21. Deer Tick- Born on Flag Day
This is the bands second album, and it’s another great indie folk album. Lead singer John
McCauley has a raspy twang to his voice which blends well with the music. Another great
songwriter for the indie folk scene, I like the song Smith Hill.

20. The Decembrists-The Hazards of Love
This is the bands 5th album, coming off the break through album The Crane Wife. I really enjoyed The Crane Wife, and I had heard so much about The Hazards of Love that I had to check out this album. This is an amazing album, and it took a lot for me to list it this low. I really wish I could have seen them at ACL, and I plan on seeing them live when I get the chance. I really like the song The Rake’s Song.

Next week is #19-#11; hopefully I have something more fun to write about while on vacation. Happy Holidays.

A proud Husband and Daughter, and the start of the top 50

Well, this week marks a huge milestone in the Huffine household; Kristen is finally done with nursing school. It has been a long 3 ½ years of long hours of us not seeing much of each other, and sometimes the unfortunate reality that I am sometimes taking care of Sloan. That would mean me teaching her different pop culture references to greet mom as she walks in the door, or me letting Sloan listen to the Beastie Boys, Pearl Jam, The Grateful Dead, or (almost) anything else she pulls out of my album collection out of curiosity.

I have to give it to Kristen not only did she work her butt off in school, she also worked full time and was a parent full time during school. She also had to do all of this around my busy schedule for work. Not to mention both of our parents pitching in to help when we needed them too, this was a lot of the time. And we are so thankful for awesome loving, and supportive parents that we have. There is no way we could have done this without them. Long story short, Kristen will be graduating this weekend, and just one other step of taking the state boards she will be a certified nurse, which is awesome. Other than Kristen being proud of herself, I think Sloan and I are probably the most proud of her. Now all we have left is for all of our families to get in town this weekend so we can celebrate. I just have to make sure we have all the pictures of her childhood displayed at her Mom and Dad’s this weekend for everyone to see. Hopefully the glamour shot/body glove picture isn’t “lost” before I get there. Just a thought, but I might need to make some copies of that for blackmail reasons alone. Well done Kristen, I don’t think any of us could be prouder of you for doing this.

Well, as you know on top of keeping friends and family abreast of what is going on in our little world and my sarcastic take on it, I also like to mention music on my blog as well. I am by no way an expert on music, I just love most music (country does nothing for me, unless it’s Johnny Cash or Willie Nelson), and since I can’t be a writer for Rolling Stone, this is my way of being a “music writer”. I have been known by some of my friends of being a music snob when the topic of music comes up. Dave can agree that I do become defensive and sometimes a little too sarcastic when it comes to talking about music. So with that said, I wouldn’t be much of a music blogger (I use that term very loosely). I planned on doing this last week, but fell short, so I am going to start with #50-#30 to catch everyone up that is keeping score at home. So with no further fan fare we will start my top 50 albums of 2009.

50. The Features-Some Kind of Salvation
They are the first band on the Kings of Leon’s music label. Their debut album is some good old fashioned rock. I would give them a chance even sitting at 50.
49. The Black Crowes-Before the Frost…Until the Freeze
You always have a soft spot for some of your favorite bands, the Black Crowes are one of my soft spots. The Robinson brothers came back with some good old Black Crowes music for this album. One of my favorites this year.
48. Gomez-A New Tide
I was curious one day and gave Gomez a shot, and I have to tell you after the first listen of this album, I had to go back and listen to their whole catalogue. One of the most under rated bands I have listened to in a while. Great band from England.
47. 50 Cent- Before I Self Destruct
I am a huge fan of 50, his recent albums have fallen a little short, but he always seems to find that hidden gem of a single to help his album sales out. I was excited to hear Dr. Dre was going to help him out on this album. It’s good, I was hoping for a little more, but it’s still 50 Cent.
46. Tegan and Sara-Sainthood
A music writer for ESPN mentioned their album “The Con” in one of is columns and I decided to give the twin sisters from Canada a listen. I was very pleasantly surprised listening to them and decided to get their new album once it came out. I really like this album more than “The Con”. I am now fans of Tegan and Sara.
45. Stellastarr*- Civilized
Once again another band that I have read about for a while and decided to get their latest album. Stellastarr* has been around for a while, but sometimes you don’t get a chance to listen to their earlier stuff. I have to say after listening to Civilized I am going to check out their earlier stuff.
44. Blind Pilot- 3 Rounds and a Sound
Blind Pilot hails from Portland, Oregon and has opened up for some big bands this past year while on tour. The first leg of their tour to me is the most unique of all bands, seeing the rigged a way to haul their equipment up and down the west coast by their bicycles. Please give this band a listen, you will not be disappointed.
43. Dashboard Confessional-Alter The Ending
I have always been a fan of Dashboard; I do hate the nickname of “The godfather of Emo” that has been placed on the lead singer. They put out another good album, I think this is better than their last album they put out. I do recommend the acoustic version of the album the band put out though.
42. BLK JKS-After Robots
Since I have listened to this album, every time I listen to it I find something else now that I love about it. BLK JKS hail from Africa, and I would say they closely resemble TV On The Radio, if you want a comparison. They mix rock with African musical beats and it is amazing.
41. Lily Allen-It’s Not Me, It’s You
The second album from Lily Allen is just as good as her first album. I have to add some pop to my Top 50, and this album is what made it. If you want something that is a great pick me up, get Lily Allen.
40. The Xx-XX
The Xx are just now coming out on the music scene (I can’t believe I just said that), I missed them playing down in Austin with the Friendly Fires, and do regret it. They remind me of Smashing Pumpkins just a little. They will be big in not long.
39. Miike Snow
This band is from Sweden, and once I heard their first single “Animal” I was once again wondering why some music gets played on popular radio and some great music that should be getting air play doesn’t. This is a band that should be blowing up pop radio, and here lately finally has along with Owl City. If you like Owl City, you will love Miike Snow.
38. Coconut Records-Davy
This is the second album from Phantom Planet founder Jason Schwartzman. I really like the feel of his new band and it’s something you can put on while sitting at home on a Sunday just hanging out. Also pick up their first album Nighttiming.
37. Mason Jennings-Blood of Man
Mason Jennings is about as close to country music as I can get, and he isn’t even close. He writes amazing lyrics and plays a great guitar. It was tough for me to put this album this low. Please go get this album when you get a chance.
36. Wolfmother-Cosmic Egg
The second album from the band from Australia rocks even more than the first. You can’t go wrong with a band that just wants to play some rock and try to melt your face off while doing it. If you loved their first album, this one is better.
35. Weezer-Raditude
Another band I have a soft spot for, they brought me back with the Red Album. I was a little excited to hear they were coming out with a new album. Rivers Cuomo decided to make a more poppy album for this one, and I have to say it is great. A lot of people have bashed this album, but I feel Cuomo did a great pop rock album.
34. Wilco-Wilco, The Album
My best friend from college got me turned on to Wilco recently and I am glad he did. Another great album from Wilco.
33. Tanya Morgan-Brooklynati
Ok, as most of you know, I am a huge hip-hop lover. One of the hardest days of my life was when Tribe Called Quest broke up. Tanya Morgan reminds me a lot of the Tribe/De La Soul side of hip-hop. Love this album, and if you love hip-hop you should get it.
32. White Lies-To Lose My Life
When I first listened to this album, I thought it was good, but it didn’t register with me right off. Then I got the luxury of seeing the live at ACL and I was blown away, these guys are amazing live. I then started to listen to the album more and this is a great album, a must get.
31. Them Crooked Vultures
For my generation, Dave Grohl is one of the best drummers around. I have always been a fan of the Foo Fighters and of course his time with Nirvana. I started listening to Led Zeppelin at a young age thanks to my sister, and I also started listening to Queens of the Stone Age in college.So when I heard Grohl, Josh Homme, and John Paul Jones decided to form a group I was ecstatic. Great rock album.
30. Sonic Youth-The Eternal
I would like to call this band one of the founders of the Seattle music scene of the 90’s. They keep putting out cutting edge albums every time. I was totally bummed when they couldn’t play ACL. If you love Sonic Youth go get this album, SY is an acquired taste so some won’t like them.

We are all caught up, for next week #29-#20.

A vacation and a birthday

Well, as you can tell from last week, I took a little much deserved vacation over Thanksgiving. (Or should I say the pre-Christmas holiday formerly known as Thanksgiving, still bugs me that as a nation we skip over Thanksgiving now.) Due to football, volleyball, and the start of basketball my time has been stretched over the past three months. So I needed a few days off to recharge and hang out at home.

Over this holiday, my birthday came and went (Sloan still reminds me that I have turned 35 almost everyday since then.), and as my birthday goes, it was a really great one. Kristen surprised me with a membership in the Pearl Jam 10 Club, which was awesome, I got some Mets stuff, and played a bunch of video games to make me feel younger than 35. Sloan got me some ties and a nice shirt for work, and she picked them out and did very well doing it. Due to our schedules we had to spend Thanksgiving at home, which was strange for me. I always like doing the holiday thing with family and I missed not eating my mom’s cooking and I also didn’t get my green bean casserole this year, which just threw me off all together for thanksgiving.

So as of right now, turning 35 has been uneventful much like turning 22. I have to say having almost a week off was nice. I got to catch up on some movies and TV shows I haven’t watched. I got to play some new games I got which were cool. Also got to read a new book that I am almost finished with. It’s called “Under and Alone”, a true story about an undercover ATF agent in a motorcycle gang. I have to say this is the first blog I have written that didn’t have much to say. Sloan has started basketball practice and the best thing of all, Kristen is in her last week of nursing school, which is awesome.

Not much to write about this week or from last week. I am hopefully going to be getting to some new shows once Kristen is done with school. I am taking this time to relax before basketball season gets really busy, plus before I know it, it will be baseball season.

Music for this week:
Well I am actually still going through some music that I had stored away. Some of its old stuff, some of its new. Here is what I have listened to the past few weeks.

Bell X1
This band is from Ireland that has now released four albums. I decided to check out “Blue Lights On The Runway” to listen too first. I do have to say after listening to this album I went ahead and decided to listen to all of their albums. They do measure up to the acclaim they are getting. Check out the songs The Rib of a broken umbrella.

Blakroc
I am been waiting to listen to this album for a long time. It is a collaboration effort from Dan Auerbach and Patrick Carney of the Black Keys (which is one of my favorite bands). They also brought in some great hip-hop names to put lyrics to their garage blues. This is probably one of the best albums that have come out in the past few months. Check out What you do to me.
Tegan and Sara-Sainthood
This is the sixth album from the twin sisters. I did like the album The Con they released before this album. So I decided to pick this one up, and I feel that the sisters from Canada are really putting out some great music here lately. Check out the songs Arrow and Don’t Rush.

Them Crooked Vultures
So this is the band I have been waiting for this album to come out for a while. I was a little upset that I missed them playing a few days before I went to ACL this year. This is the group that Dave Grohl formed with Josh Homme and John Paul Jones. I really like this album, it did leave me wanting a little bit more, but I am sure we will get more from these three before it’s over. Check out the song New Fang.

John Mayer-Battle Studies
I have always been a big fan of John Mayer, even to the point of seeing him live. He is a great guitarist and a great song writer. I have listened to Battle Studies a few times, and although most of it is a little slow, it is still a good album. I really like the first song Heatbreak Warfare and the song Who Says.