Anyone else a little disheartened if not downright perturbed that Fort Worth Star-Telegram pop music critic Preston Jones’ top five “local” albums of 2010 includes only one album from a Fort Worth-based band, The Orbans’ When We Were Wild? I mean, he’s writing for the FORT WORTH Star-Telegram. Though I understand that the Startlegram’s coverage encompasses all of North Texas, not just Tarrant County, I guarantee you that most Star-T readers live in the 817 and are more concerned with what’s happening in their backyards than in backyards 30 miles to the east or north. A body could argue that Jones’ other four choices might as well have been from, say, Pennsylvania. Of them, I’ve heard only one, Sarah Jaffe’s innocuous Suburban Nature, so I’m not about to go claiming that they are any less stellar than any of the notable LPs and EPs produced by Fort Worth talent in 2010, though I’m wondering if Jones ever initially even deigned to alight from his lofty Denton-of-the-mind perch to actually listen to EPIC RUINS’ Void Mariner and the Mystic Boogie of the Sacred Line, The Burning Hotels’ Novels, Shea Seger’s Shea Seger, The Foxymorons’ Bible Stories, Analog Rebellion’s Ancient Electrons, Stella Rose’s Drag, Whiskey Folk Ramblers’ … And There Are Devils, Eaton Lake Tonics’ Rancho Folly IV, Hentai Improvising Orchestra’s A Box of Hentai, The Dangits’ Greatest Hits Vol. 1, Titanmoon’s We All See Stars, Cityview’s Big on the Inside, Luke Wade and No Civilians’ Tomorrow’s Ghosts, LAZËR’s Twatobahn, Dru B Shinin’’s Dirty Money Painting, Sean Russell’s Mystery of the New, KatsüK’s Skeleton Key, Chatterton’s The Cold Open, David Matsler’s We’ve Changed, Merkin’s Scatology, Keegan McInroe’s From the Wall & In the City, Villain Vanguard’s McMontezuma’s Revenge, JoCo’s A Troubling Noise, The Cush’s Between the Leaves, Elizabeth Wills’ Love Comes Home, Warbeast’s Krush the Enemy, God’s Joke’s Greatest Misses, Jefferson Colby’s Semantics (Metaphysical Mood Music), In Memory of Man’s The Reckoning, Waking Alice’s The Shaping, Darrin Kobetich’s Songs for a Muse Meant, 800 Mile Monday’s In the Fertile Gardens of Freedom, Naxat’s Chambers of Naxat, Igneous Grimm’s The Man Outside, and, of course, our 2010 Fort Worth Weekly Music Awards compilation CD (featuring new or un-released tracks by the Whiskey Folk Ramblers, Clint Niosi with The Theater Fire’s James Talambas, Pinkish Black, and Browningham, among many others). Seriously, of all of that 817-local production, only one album was good enough to crack Jones’ top five? For reals?! At the very least, the guy could have trotted out a top 10 or top 15 list, incorporating more Fort Worth-based artists. Why thumb your nose in your readers’ faces? The good news is that we now know where Jones’ heart and alligiences lie, precisely where some of us have always suspected: in Dallas and Denton and not in Fort Worth.
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Preston has been kind to my work, but this is disappointing. I promise that the Dallas papers will not be so generous. They shun the 817 scene. FW Star has traditionally been such an advocate of “it’s own”. Thank you for your faithful support FW Weekly, anthony, and jimmy.
I know you’re never one to let facts get in the way of a good rant, Anthony, but you might do well to actually look at my full list (http://www.dfw.com/2010/12/29/383690/albums-and-concerts-hitting-the.html) before making unsubstantiated assumptions about me, my work and my “heart and allegiances.”
I’ve written about nearly all of the albums you list above, but again, that easily researched fact completely undermines your “argument.” Stick to worrying about what your publication does and does not cover and spend less time crafting straw-man broadsides and breaking your arm to pat yourself on the back.
Oh, sorry. Of your top 10 best music-related products and events from 2010 (from your link), four are by Fort Worth artists. Four. And no one ever said you didn’t write about any of the albums above. (Re-read what I’ve written, please.) My (tongue-in-cheek) point, not an argument, is that the “daily paper of record” is infatuated with parts east and north of here. And what “facts” could I possibly be overlooking? I’m referencing a story that you penned: your top five “local” albums of 2010. If I had cared to write about your other story, I would have mentioned IT by name. And I’ll continue patting myself on the back as long as I damn well please (though there isn’t ONE MENTION of Fort Worth Weekly’s local music coverage throughout the entire piece).
My apologies. I believe I’ve given Preston way too much credit. Of his 20 — twenty! — top albums and concerts from 2010, only four are by Fort Worth artists. Damn, those pesky facts!
We knowz for a fact Mr. Jonez listened to “Twatobahn”, otherwize the time-bombz we planted inside the digipak would’ve destroyed hiz office.
Hiz accidental omission of this album from hiz Local Top 10 will also be overlook this time, az LAZER technically still doezn’t having our U.S. citizenz-ship.
Early favorites for 2011:
The Quaker City Nighthawks – Torquila! Torquila!
Walker Wood – We Apologise For The Inconvienence
Both very promising, Fusion. And we also should mention the ones forthcoming by Calhoun (Heavy Sugar) and Telegraph Canyon.