And so 2011 is about to draw to a close… each year seems to pass more quickly than the previous one. Regardless of how fast time is passing though, we at nasty are always there for you with an annual Best Of… and gift guide cheat sheet:

and now, without further ado…

BEST REISSUE OR SPECIAL EDITION OF 2011 CONTENDERS–BEST BETS FOR YOUR GIFT GUIDES:

THIRD MAN: Check out the official TMR Revolution record player, TMR 45 carrying case,  and TMR cleaning kit– (see image below) separate shots of which are all readily available should you want to include them in holiday gift guides.

RYAN ADAMS: Ashes & Fire 3-D Deluxe Box (PAX-AM/Capitol)

ARCADE FIRE: The Suburbs Deluxe Edition (Merge)

BEASTIE BOYS: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two Deluxe Edition (Capitol)

PAUL McCARTNEY: McCartney I & II reissues (Hear Music/Concord)

NIRVANA: Nevermind 20th Anniversary Reissue (Universal)

QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE: expanded remastered reissue (Rekords Rekords/Domino)

STRAIGHT UP BEST OF 2011 CONTENDERS:

RYAN ADAMS: Ashes & Fire (PAX-AM/Capitol) – Hailed by ESQUIRE as  “the record we always suspected he had in him” and “too good not to write about,”  Ashes & Fire is eleven succinct and beautiful samples of Ryan Adams at his songwriting, performing and singing best. Produced by Glyn Johns, renowned for his work with the likes of The Beatles, Bob Dylan, The Clash and The Rolling Stones, and featuring guest turns from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench and Norah Jones, Ashes & Fire debuted at #7 on the U.S. album chart–tying the career high chart debut of Adams’ Easy Tiger in 2007. The album and its accompanying run of sold out tour dates continue to generate escalating raves at press time…

BEASTIE BOYS: Hot Sauce Committee Part Two (Capitol) –  DELUXE EDITION OUT NOVEMBER 25… In a 4 star lead review, ROLLING STONE called Hot Sauce Committee Part Two “the sound of master musicians in their comfort zone, doing everything their own way”–and the first B Boys’ album in seven years to feature both their legendary rhyming skills and their musical prowess wasn’t the only masterwork Mike and the Adams put out there in 2011: The all-star time traveling half-hour epic “Fight For Your Right Revisited” and the Spike Jonze-directed “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” mini action thriller (featuring Santigold) provided mind-blowing visual accompaniment to Beastie Boys’ unparalleled musical vision.

THE BLACK BELLES: The Black Belles (Third Man Records) – Released Nov. 8, a mere week after Olivia Jean, Ruby Rogers, Shelby Lynne and Lil’ Boo rocked NYC, The Black Belles’ debut album moved CONSEQUENCE OF SOUND to rave “Jack White’s Third Man Records has cultivated and released music from a wide variety of artists, but no act in White’s stable may be more interesting than The Black Belles. The band — comprised of basisst Ruby Rogers, drummer Shelby Lynne, synth player Lil’Boo, and guitarist/vocalist/organ player Olivia Jean — create a dark blend of ’60s garage rock and soul with a modern twist.”  And if you happen to be in Nashville Nov. 11 and make your way to their release party at Third Man, one of the 300 copies of pressed on TMR’s exclusive new “Absinthe vinyl” and featuring the censored original cover art would make a great twisted stocking stuffer.

DANGER MOUSE & DANIELE LUPPI: Rome (Capitol) – Hopefully the appearance of “Black” playing over the final scenes of the BREAKING BAD season finale’ reminded you what an incredible and unique piece of work this record was and is. Just as the combination of Danger Mouse and Daniel Luppi’s breathtaking score and Norah Jones’ smoky vocal perfectly complemented the denouement of possibly the best season of television in recent memory, so did Rome and its many other highlights–not least of which was “The Rose With The Broken Neck” featuring Jack White–pay sincere and stunning homage to classic Italian Western soundtracks like Ennio Morricone’s Fistful of Dollars or The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.  Danger Mouse and Luppi went to such lengths to preserve this aesthetic as traveling to Rome to use Morricone’s studio and musicians who actually played on these soundtracks. Vintage instruments were tracked down and bartered for, and every note was recorded in analog with no studio trickery or synthetic instrumentation.

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY: Take Care, Take Care, Take Care (Temporary Residence Ltd) – Here at nasty, we like living in a world where Austin, Texas’ foremost all-instrumenal act Explosions In The Sky can see its fifth album Take Care, Take Care, Take Care debut at #16 on the Billboard Top 200–nearly doubling the first week sales of the band’s previous album, 2007’s All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone. Equally amazing was seeing Explosions In The Sky take its widescreen cinematic live experience–called “one of the most ecstatic displays of loud rock I’ve ever seen” by THE NEW YORKER–to the stage of Radio City Music Hall, where they headlined for the first time earlier this year, and beyond…

FOO FIGHTERS: Wasting Light (Roswell/RCA) – Finally! Foo Fighters’ seventh album was the band’s first to hit #1 in their native U.S.–not to mention 11 other countries! And who have we seen work harder for these just desserts here at nasty than the Foo Fighters since we started working together some 16 years ago? We weren’t alone in hailing the artistic and commercial triumph of Wasting Light and its all-analog glory as captured completely on tape by Butch Vig and the boys in Dave Grohl’s garage: Wasting Light has generated some of the most positive critical notices of Foo Fighters’ career. In a four star Rolling Stone lead review, David Fricke called Wasting Light “the best Foos album since the first two,” while Us Weekly hailed the album as proof that “rock is not dead,” while People’s four star lead review lauded the Foos’ “undiminished intensity,” and Entertainment Weekly awarded it an A- summing up “Here’s the miracle, though: Foo Fighters never feel like a backward-looking band. Light is a muscular rock & roll throwdown, featuring the Foos delivering exactly the kind of catchy, pummeling anthems they’re known for, with total disregard for the whims of the masses.” What’s more, the band’s every triumph and tragedy of the band’s career was chronicled in the Foo Fighters: Back & Forth documentary (directed by Academy Award winner James Moll) which received similarly rapturous reviews upon its theatrical and video release.

GORILLAZ: The Fall CD & digital release (Virgin) – The album created largely on iPad throughout the Gorillaz 19-date North American Tour last autumn and gifted exclusively to members of the Gorillaz fan club on Christmas of 2010 was finally released commercially this spring. Recorded on a daily basis in various hotels and venues, and produced by Gorillaz and Stephen Sedgwick, The Fall, is a 15-track sonic diary of that amazing journey.

PAUL McCARTNEY: Ocean’s Kingdom orchestral release (Hear Music/Telarc/Concord Music Group) – Paul McCartney’s first foray into the world of dance, Ocean’s Kingdom marks the first time Paul has written an original orchestral score or any kind of music for dance and is the result of a collaboration between Paul and New York City Ballet’s Master in Chief Peter Martins, who worked together to present the world premiere of the ballet for in September. Conducted by John Wilson, produced by John Fraser and performed by The London Classical Orchestra, Ocean’s Kingdom saw Paul approaching the project in the same way he writes all other music, driven by his heart rather than his head and inspired by feeling rather than specific technical knowledge. An hour long score featuring four stunning movements – “Ocean’s Kingdom,” “Hall of Dance,” “Imprisonment” and “Moonrise” – the ballet tells of a love story within the story of an underwater world whose people are threatened by the humans of Earth. A potently expressive and richly varied work, the score is Paul’s most challenging and emotionally complex yet. As he explains: “What was interesting was writing music that meant something expressively rather than just writing a song.  Trying to write something that expressed an emotion – so you have fear, love, anger, sadness to play with and I found that exciting and challenging.”

PJ HARVEY: Let England Shake (Vagrant) – “Is Harvey still the single most uncompromising, restless presence in modern rock?” asked THE NEW YORKER. If Let England Shake was any indication, the answer was a resounding yes. Recorded in a 19th century church in Dorset with longtime collaborator Flood–who co-produced with PJ Harvey, John Parish and Mick Harvey and also mixed the record–Let England Shake addressed the state of the world through a uniquely personal lens, resulting in a remarkable album unlike any other in the PJ Harvey canon–or anything else for that matter. Let England Shake recently took the prestigious 2011 Mercury Prize–the first time any artist has won the Mercury Prize twice in his or her career–and is destined for similar honors atop the Best of 2011 of any discerning musical aficionado.

RADIOHEAD: The King Of Limbs (tbd) – Any year when Radiohead does anything at all is a good year here at nasty–and for the world in general–so 2011 is bound to go down as one of the best: the February surprise self-release of The King Of Limbs, followed by its March physical release, the “Lotus Flower” video, the newspaper album, the two historic shows at the Roseland here in New York City, new songs “Staircase” and “The Daily Mail debuted respectively on this year’s Saturday Night Live season premiere and a one-hour special edition of The Colbert Report, the surprise Late Night with Jimmy Fallon appearance… it’s the little things. Except that these weren’t little things at all. From the “open your mouth wide” exhortation at the start of album opener “Bloom” (which would miraculously metamorphosize into one of Radiohead’s fiercest live grooves ever) to the sublime closing of “Separator” and its “wake me up” refrains, The King Of Limbs was everything we wanted and needed in a Radiohead album: challenging, divisive, revelatory in a live setting and out this year!

* And lest we forget, TKOL RMX 1234567, the accompanying double album compiling the Radiohead-commissioned remixes of The King Of Limbs material, was also released this year.

SEASICK STEVE: You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks (Third Man Records) – We knew this album was going to be incredible when Seasick Steve provided one of jaw-droppingest highlights of this year’s South By Southwest. Playing without a band and wielding a bare bones arsenal of the trusty and well-worn guitar known as the three-string trance wonder and the wooden stomp box christened the Mississippi Drum Machine, Seasick Steve slayed the  SXSW crowd with tracks from the then-unreleased You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks. In the months since, You Can’t Teach An Old Dog New Tricks, which features contributions from nasty little man’s beloved John Paul Jones, has gone gold in the UK–where Steve played this year’s Reading, Leeds and Isle of Wight festivals and sat in with Dave Grohl and John Paul Jones for an encore at one of the Foo Fighters’ two sold out shows at the 65,000 capacity Milton Keynes Bowl.

BEST LIVE SHOW OF 2011–TELL US IF THERE WAS ONE WE MISSED:

All this and we still have RYAN ADAMS at Carnegie Hall, FOO FIGHTERS at Madison Square Garden coming up…

ARCADE FIRE at Coachella – The orbs have it.

EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY April 6 at Radio City Music Hall – There are no words… in more than one sense.

FOO FIGHTERS at Lollapalooza – Man against nature… and man won.

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM April 2 at Madison Square Garden – “The Long Goodbye” indeed!

PAUL McCARTNEY July 15 & 16 at Yankee Stadium – Just when NYC thought it couldn’t get any more incredible than Citi Field ’09

RADIOHEAD September 28 & 29 at the Roseland – Come back soon please…

RAMMSTEIN anywhere–but especially their U.S. network TV debut on JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE.

Happy Holidays,

nasty

BOTH SONGS AVAILABLE NOW ON iTUNES

DANGER MOUSE-PRODUCED DEBUT ALBUM OUT SPRING 2012 ON DOWNTOWN

“This new L.A. electro-soul-pop group mightily impressed me… a great vocal range, seamlessly switching from clear falsetto to soulful baritone…pretty much irresistible.”–NYLON

Having taken NYC by storm over the course of multiple appearances at last month’s CMJ Music Marathon, Los Angeles’ own Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton–collectively known as Electric Guest–have finally made available two tracks from the duo’s forthcoming first album: Yesterday’s KCRW Today’s Top Tune “Troubleman”(http://www.kcrw.com/music/programs/tu/tu111101electric_guest_troub)and “American Daydream” (currently being previewed at RCRDLBL: http://bit.ly/ue4wIh) are both on sale now via iTunes.

The subtly and gradually building atmospheric epic “Troubleman” and the sharp hooky chorus-driven “American Daydream” showcase two shades of the potent and diverse sonic spectrum of Electric Guest’s Danger Mouse-produced debut, due out spring 2012 from Downtown Records. The few tracks to seep out this year and the handful of live performances that have followed continue to hint at the potential and scope of this remarkable talent and record.

Speaking of, Electric Guest has just confirmed two more west coast dates: a November 8 date at the Soda Bar in San Diego, and a November 10 appearance at the Rickshaw Stop in San Francisco for that week’s Popscene night. Don’t miss the “electric kick” that NYLON lauded in Electric Guest’s live performance.

300-PIECE ORIGINAL PRESSING WITH RECALLED COVER ART AVAILABLE ONLY AT NOVEMBER 11TH RECORD RELEASE SHOW

New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore Dates Supporting Le Butcherettes Confirmed

http://thirdmanrecords.com/

November 8 will mark the appropriately Autumnal and highly anticipated full length debut album from The Black Belles, available on that date directly from Third Man Records, iTunes,  and all finer record stores. Pre-sale info will be announced shortly as well.

The album’s release will be preceded by a trio of dates supporting Le Butcherettes November 1 at Santo’s Party House in New York, November 2 at Milkboy in Philadelphia and November 3 at Ottobar in Baltimore, with further dates to be announced soon.

The piece de resistance of the Black Belles upcoming regimen, however, is a November 11 record release show at Third Man. Aside from a guaranteed night of top notch live music, the record release event will be the ONLY opportunity to purchase one of the 300 limited edition Black Belles vinyl LPs featuring the poorly-testing, gross, offensive and ultimately recalled cover art.

In addition, the 300-piece original art pressing of The Black Belles debut will be released on TMR’s exclusive new “Absinthe vinyl,” which glows in the dark and conjures the glow of the Belles’ favored pre-show cocktail and the visions it’s been known to induce.

The not-suitable-for-mass-consumption original cover actually features a shot from the also-withheld-in-the-name-of-decency video David Swanson directed for the Belles’ “Honky Tonk Horror” single. Though while the “Honky Tonk Horror” video has been archived for the foreseeable future, Third Man has unearthed the previously “lost” video for the B-side to the first Belles 45: “Lies,” directed by Jack White and edited by Kevin Carrico, can now be seen for the first time at  http://youtu.be/XfdhawjgN-M

For further information on all of the above and a Black Belles single 3-pack–all three 45s for $15–go to http://thirdmanrecords.com/ NOW.

Brooklyn-based Missouri-bred White Rabbits will return to the road for a series of North American dates beginning November 29 at the Ninth Ward in Buffalo, NY. Tickets become available on Friday, October 14th via whiterabbitsmusic.com

White Rabbits’ live performance has been lauded by the likes of ESQUIRE as “9 Shows a Man Should See” and by NPR as “winning over fans with its energetic live shows–thanks in part to its unusual two-drummer lineup… intense rhythms and sweeping, melodic choruses… catchy and often sinister.”

These November-December dates come in anticipation of the early 2012 release of the band’s follow-up to 2009’s critically acclaimed It’s Frightening. The band has been working on the record for the better part of the year in Austin, Texas.

For further information, see the list of dates below, check whiterabbitsmusic.com or contact Laura Eldeiry or Amy Grote at amy@nastylittleman.com

November 29 @ Ninth Ward, Buffalo, NY
November 30 @ The Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, Toronto, ON
December 1 @ The Crofoot, Pontiac, MI
December 2 @ Radio Radio, Indianapolis, IN
December 3 @ Cactus Club, Milwaukee, WI
December 5 @ The Mill, Iowa City, IA
December 6 @ Record Bar, Kansas City, MO
December 8 @ Zanzabar, Louisville, KY
December 9 @ Exit/In, Nashville, TN
December 10 @ Newport Music Hall, Columbus, OH
December 11 @ Ottobar, Baltimore, MD

Ra Ra Riot takes its “romantic pop rife with heavy drumming, vintage keyboard riffs and haunting string passages” (THE NEW YORKER) back on the road canada goose pas cher once more for a series of North American headline dates kicking off today (October 6) in Toronto and running through late November.

In addition to encore visits to multiple venues the band sold out in the wake of its release of sophomore album The Orchard (Barsuk) last August, the tour will
http://www.achatdoudounepascher.fr feature a visit to NBC’s LATE NIGHT WITH JIMMY FALLON on October 11.

RA RA RIOT on tour:

10/06/11 – Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace &
10/07/11 – Ottawa, ON – Mavericks Bar &
10/08/11 – Montreal, QC – II Motore &
10/13/11 – Gainesville, FL – University of Florida
10/14/11 – Pensacola, FL – DeLuna Fest
10/20/11 – Boston, MA – Paradise *
10/26/11 – Washington, DC – 9:30 Club *
10/28/11 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle *
10/29/11 – Atlanta, GA – The Earl *
10/30/11 – Birmingham, AL – Bottle Tree *
10/31/11 – Memphis, TN – Hi-Tone Cafe *
11/02/11 – Oklahoma City, OK – ACM @ UCO *
11/03/11 – Dallas, TX Granada *
11/04/11 – San Antonio, TX Backstage Live *
11/05/11 – Austin, TX – Fun Fun Fun Fest
11/07/11 – Santa Fe, NM – Santa Fe Brewing Co. *
11/08/11 – Tucson, AZ – Club Congress *
11/09/11 – San Diego, CA – Belly Up Tavern *
11/10/11 – Los Angeles, CA – El Rey *
11/11/11 – San Francisco, CA – Great American Music Hall *
11/12/11 – Mammoth, CA – Mammoth Mountain Canyon Lodge
11/14/11 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge *
11/15/11 – Boulder, CO – Fox Theatre *
11/16/11 – Lincoln, NE – Bourbon Theatre *
11/17/11 – Iowa City, IA – Blue Moose Tap House %
11/18/11 – Chicago, IL – Metro *
11/19/11 – Madison, WI – The Sett *
11/21/11 – Pittsburgh, PA – The Warhol @ Carnegie Lecture Hall #
11/22/11 – Harrisburg, PA – The Abbey Bar

& w/ Dinosaur Bones
* w/ Delicate Steve and Yellow Ostrich
% w/ Mates of State and Generationals
# w/ Delicate Steve