It expresses the loveliest side effect of playing original music: the communities of lifers that coalesce around the love of tunes and bars and beers and laughter and drama. It reminds me that, while I write music because I’m driven to, the friends and times that come with it are often every bit as important to me as the words and the chords.

Scott articulated my thoughts on the community aspect of music, the friends, and the incredible experiences that come with being involved with music. I saw Two Cow Garage last night and they are just one of those bands that makes you so thankful that you still make it out to see shows.

Scott, thank you for sharing your experiences with Drag the River.

Drag The River: Thanks, Guys by Scott Harrel [Nine Bullets]

Ralph and Brandon have been fine-tuning the Suburban Home Records’ site and today, we are really proud to share with you all the hard work they put in. Please take a minute and visit Suburban Home Records Dot Com. While you are there, be sure to check out our new Listening Station that Ralph designed. You can stream the upcoming re-release of Micah Schnabel’s “When the Stage Light Goes Dim” and pretty much the entire Suburban Home catalog. If you want to stream one of the albums in the player, just drag the cover art to the left and it will begin playing. Want to stream something not shown? Just find the pull down menu in the lower right hand corner and it will pull up the album you want to hear.

We still have a few things that we plan to work on, but do us a favor, check it out, and let us know what you think. Thanks.

Top 10 Records of 2009
1. Portugal the Man “The Satanic Satanists”
2. Portugal the Man “The Majestic Majesty”
3. Micah Schnabel “When the Stage Lights Go Dim” (since we didn’t originally release it)
4. Phoenix “Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix”
5. Chuck Ragan “Gold Country”
6. Gregory Alan Isakov “The Empty Northern Hemisphere”
7. Good Old War “Only Way to Be Alone”
8. Mariachi El Bronx “S/t”
9. Have Gun Will Travel “Postcards from the Friendly City”
10. Joey Kneiser “The All-Night Bedroom Revival”

Honorable Mentions: William Elliott Whitmore “Animals in the Dark”, Deer Tick “Born on Flag Day”, Horse Feathers “House With No Name”, American War “Rhetoric”, Sidekicks “Weight of Air”, Langhorne Slim “Be Set Fire”, Cobra Skulls “American Rubicon”, Revival Tour Compilation, Rodriguez “Cold Facts”, Michael Dean Damron “Father’s Day”, Builders and the Butchers “Temptation is a Deep Dark Well”
Know that I would put all of our recent releases on this list, but i figured I should make my selections from non-Suburban Home releases.

Top 5 Movies/Shows
1. Mad Men
2. Up
3. True Blood
4. The Hangover
5. Up In the Air

Top 5 Books
1. Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcom Gladwell
2. Free: The Future of a Radical Price by Chris Anderson
3. What the Dog Saw by Malcom Gladwell
4. Pow! Right Between the Eyes! by Andy Nulman
5. Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman

Best Moments:
1. Our 14th Anniversary party surpassed my greatest expectations. People from all over the world came out, so many of our bands came out, and everyone had a blast.
2. The Chad Price brewery tour was probably the greatest day of beer drinking I have ever experienced. 10 breweries, 8 shows, and one wild crazy day/night
3. Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground’s instore performance at Angelo’s and later that night their hangout session at my house which involved them pulling out instruments and singing songs; my 3 year old son was so inspired, he pulled out his instruments and played along. I almost cried.

Worst Moments:
1. Tom Pfaeffle being shot to death for accidentally trying to open the wrong hotel room door.
2. 2009 was a tough year for Suburban Home/Vinyl Collective. I am really glad the year is over. 2010 will be much better for everyone.

Favorite Beers

1. Barrel Bourbon Stout by Odell
2. Olde School Barley Wine by Dogfish Head
3. Life and Limb by Dogfish/Sierra Nevada
4. Hercules double IPA by Great Divide
5. (tie) Brown Shuga by Lagunitas and Black Butte XXI by Descheutes

Favorite Food

1. Great Divide beer pairing dinner at Osteria Marco
2. Stranahan’s Whiskey Dinner at the Lobby
3. Mussels in Red Curry w/ Israeli Couscous at Root Down
4. All You Can Eat Sushi at Go Fish
5. Anything at New Saigon

Mastodon – Crack The Skye
Russian Circles – Geneva
Digger Barnes – Time Has Come
Gregory Alan Isakov – This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Baroness – Blue Record
Micah Schnabel – When The Stage Lights Go Dim
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Cobra Skulls – American Rubicon
Vic Chesnutt – At The Cut
Fake Problems – It’s Great To Be Alive

5 Quick Movies Reviews:

1. Avatar – Wish I saw it in 3D.
2. The Life Aquatic – Still awesome.
3. District 9 – Cool ass aliens and a good story. Watch it I say
4. Zombieland – Zombie Bill Murray is the best part but I liked it all
5. Adventureland – “You deserve a double sac whack for telling a lie like that.”

5 Websites You Should Check Out:
1. Ugliest Tattoos
2. wwtdd.com
3. There, I Fixed It
4. This is Photobomb
5. Sorry I Missed Your Party

Things I love:

1. My dog

Things I Hate (the short list):

1. Most stuff and/or things

Frank Turner – Poetry of the Deed
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
Converge – Axe to Fall
Damien Suomi – S/T
Good Old War – The Only Way To Be Alone
P.O.S. – Never Better
William Elliot Whitmore – Animals in the Dark
Gregory Alan Isakov – This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Fake Problems – It’s Great To Be Alive
Mariachi El Bronx – S/T

Movies I watched and like this year

Up
Inglorious Bastards
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs
God Grew Tired of Us
Anvil

Some restaurants I enjoyed eating at last year

City O’ City
Watercourse
The Hornet
The Lobby
20th Street Cafe

Books I’ve read recently

They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Running With Scissors
You Better Not Cry
Coyotes: A Journey Across Borders With America’s Illegal Migrants

Some stuff that ruled last year:

Getting an apartment with my girlfriend Jen
Putting out my first solo record
Playing the Fest with Only Thunder
Becoming a “professional” music writer
Hearing my nephew call me “D” and watching him turn into a little person

Things I Hate
1. You

Your friends at Suburban Home are slowly compiling their top records of 2009. While we share some of the same likes, we all have quite different tastes in music. I wanted to share Brandon’s with you. Expect more soon. Did any of Brandon’s top records make your list?

Top Albums of 2009 (in no particular order):
The Flaming Lips – Embryonic
Colour – Anthology
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
Doves – Kingdom of Rust
Silversun Pickups – Swoon
Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
David Bazan – Curse Your Branches
RX Bandits – Mandala
Gregory Alan Isakov – This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Mute Math – Armistice
the Life and Times – Tragic Boogie

Your friends through music (myself and Brandon) will be pouring beers at an upcoming beer festival at the Wynkoop in Denver. The good folks at the Wynkoop are hosting some of the greatest craft breweries who will all be showcasing their dark ales (Stouts, Porters, Barley Wines, etc) and we have been invited to pour beer. We will be using this opportunity to hand out mix tapes, talk shop, sell our Craft Beer T-shirts, and maybe even sell a few records. If any of you good folks are gonna be around Denver on Saturday, January 16th, I highly recommend that you come to this beer fest. Even if you haven’t had a lot of dark ales, I suggest you give this event a try. They will have $1.00 samples or $25 all you can drink beer. I posted a photo of Olde School Barley Wine (my absolute favorite beer on the planet in hopes that Dogfish will be pouring this at their table). As a big beer nerd and even bigger dark beer fan, I am so excited.

Below is the all the official announcement:

Wynkoop Brewing Company is having another “microfest” event (a la the brewpub’s recent Beers of the Year bash) on Saturday, January 16th, 1-5 PM.

It’s called the Parade of Darks.

It’ll feature a hearty list of about 25 brown ales, porters, dopplebocks, stouts, dunkels, barley wines, dubbels and other richly colored (and flavored) beers.

Beers will be from Wynkoop and special guests including Lost Abbey, Left Hand, Stone, Dogfish Head, Great Divide, Back Country, Breckenridge, Bull & Bush, New Belgium and several more.

Attendees get 4 oz samples for a buck a piece, or a wrist band and unlimited samples for 25 bucks.

Raffle prizes will be given throughout the day, and all SOCIAL members will get a $5 discount.

Recap:
What : Parade of Darks, Dark Ale Beer Fest with your friends through music (Myself and Brandon)
When: Saturday, January 16th, 2010, 1pm to 5pm
Where: Wynkoop, 1634 18th Street, Denver, CO
Why: If you like dark beers and want to explore, there is no better place to be.

Vinyl Collective Gift Certificates ($25, $50, $100)

It isn’t too late to purchase a gift certificate for a loved one for the holidays. I will be able to send them out as pdfs today and part of tomorrow. Just remember to email me the recipient and who it is from. We still have discounted Gift Certificates, the $50 GC is $40, the $100 GC is $80.

And note that the 12 days of Xmas sales will end on December 26th. Take advantage of all of the great deals while they are still available.

Happy holidays everyone.

Here’s a photo from Look Mexico’s annual hunting trip. They had a videographer along this year to document the trip. The footage will be used for their video of ‘You Stay. I Go. No Following’, the first single off ‘To Bed To Battle’.”

Speaking of their single, we are awaiting Test Pressings for the 7″ single for “You Stay. I Go. No Following”. We should have test pressings in early January and once approved, we will be posting a pre-order. The album is currently being mastered, we have slated a release date of March. If you ask me, the new album is their strongest album to date. .

photo credit: Amanda Lee Costello.

Thanks for your help. Please Retweet and pass along to anyone who you think might help. Please make sure you send us photo credits, too.

While talking about Micah, have you picked up the first pressing of his debut solo album? We have 8 copies left. Get it here or from Micah on tour. Did you see him on tour? What did you think? Man, he was amazing in Colorado. Download the Denver show here.

And if you haven’t seen the live video of him playing American Static, check this out:

Two Cow Garage – “American Static” from TCSG on Vimeo.