On the verge of 2010, Ben’s idea was simple. He and I and six other of our music-loving buddies would each make a ten-song playlist featuring one track apiece of what we thought were the best records of the Aughts. We would then have a party at one of our houses in Chicago to drink beers, listen to the records, and see what happened from there.
The party that resulted lasted seven hours, a shitshow run through with crowd-surfing, fighting, singing, dancing, and lots and lots of drinking. A roaring success, in other words, that has become a sloppy tradition (minus the fighting…that first one came at a strange time for all of us) celebrating our group of friends’ love of music in one glorious, concentrated moment.
The next year, we invited a few more people, traded Milwaukee (where half the crew lived) for Chicago as host city, and have gone back and forth ever since. We’ve also altered the format slightly: no longer are we interested in anyone’s statements about the “best” albums of a given year so much as to what each person was listening, and why. Still ten songs a piece, but now from whenever, by whoever, included for whatever reason.
This isn’t taste-making, it’s taste-presenting. Not “HERE’S THE MOST IMPORTANT STUFF HAPPENING RIGHT NOW” but “Here’s what I’ve been into, let’s get shitty.” The number of attendees has fluctuated over the five years we’ve been doing this, from a low of that initial eight to a high of fourteen to this year’s ten.
Ten men. Ten records. Ten songs each. Let’s do this.
First, my list:
“A New Life”, Jim James – I’m desperately in love with Jim James’ music. Just about all of it.
“If I Needed You”, Andrew Bird – If Andrew Bird made nothing other than tasteful, melodic Townes Van Zandt covers, I’d be his #1 fan.
“Weight”, Mikal Cronin – The current undisputed champ of summer driving music.
“The Ballad of the Kingsmen”, Todd Snider – The best songs on East Nashville Skyline are some of the best songs, period.
“Smith Hill”, Deer Tick – I know men like this narrator, and wish them nothing but the best.
“God Rest My Soul”, Dawes – This rabidly chewed my ear all year.
“Unbelievers”, Vampire Weekend – Picking a favorite song from my favorite record of 2013 was impossible, so I took a fun one (about going to hell).
“Ludlow”, Houndmouth – If you don’t know who Houndmouth is, find out.
“Change”, Blind Melon – I respond to certain songs in ways similar to what I imagine church is like for true believers. This is one of them.
“Take Your Mama”, Scissor Sisters – When friends flash mob your wedding reception to sing and dance to a beloved old party jam, it closes out the year-end list.
(Apologies to first runners-up Funkadelic, Kurt Vile, and Dr. Dog)
This year, we headed back to Chicago, Palmer Square, hosted by Klaus, his lovely wife taking their kid to her parents’ for the weekend so we could have the run of the place (thanks again!). After waking from Friday night’s mellow preamble, coffee at 9 led to a Bloody Mary breakfast at 11, which gave way to the lists kicking off around 11:45.
The Top Ten records lasted until 7:30-ish, and I have to add that “ish” because I honestly have no idea when the presentations ran out and random jams took over. There were no clocks, no outside world at all, save the meandering sun on the other side of windows keeping out the winter chill. Locked in our universe of sound, we took the day as it came in Klaus’ humble abode, his speakers blasting out the 100 songs as soundtrack to conspicuous consumption and energetic participation.
And it is “participation”: from the group-wide sing-and-clap hoe-down brought forth by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s”Will the Circle be Unbroken” to laughing hysterically at the band name Personal & the Pizzas during their propulsive party rock; from shared lamentations that only one Lou Reed tribute made it in (“I meant to!” – everybody) to all of us head-banging and jumping into each other during Queens of the Stone Age, we did what came naturally during any given song. When “Lose Yourself to Dance” drops, that means dancing. But less-danceable tunes allowed instead for fond memory-sharing, loud singing, or, in the case of a late Thee Oh Sees track, Jimbo running up on and jumping off of a futon to surf the crowd a while.
Music hits, an idea forms, and you act on it. In the end, that’s pretty much the entire point of this party.
As I struggled through Sunday’s Headache-and-Ennui Festival of a hangover, I couldn’t escape a doom-y train of thought.
We’re getting older. Once, conversations revolved around drinking and drugs and girls and whatever else was the coolest shit we could think of to discuss; they now revolve around houses and children and our professional situations. There was a time I’d have slept fitfully on a couch in front of a drafty window in my underwear with no blanket, using my pants as a pillow; this year I slept on an air mattress next to a crib in a baby’s bedroom, warm as could be, totally at peace. A few years ago, it was a 50-50 split among attendees between those that lived in Chicago and those that lived in Milwaukee; starting next year, it will be 10 in Wisconsin, 3 in the windy city, 1 in San Francisco and another in Asia.
No one works in Service anymore. Most have insurance. The last ones awake this year were in bed by 11.
In light of this, do we continue to reserve the right to rock? Is it even a good idea, as we mold the shape of lives to attend this party instead of wallowing in days and weeks without much at stake? Smart, considering some now have progeny, and our 25-year-old selves disappear further into the rear view with every year’s new ‘dig?
By nightfall my serotonin caught back up, and you’re God damn right we do! It’s one weekend, and we still all love music. Once a year, we should hold Jimbo aloft in someone’s apartment after drinking way too much because one of his favorite songs is blasting from nearby speakers.
Isn’t that what friendship is all about?
I was nervous about my Blind Melon selection, and it dropping as the second-to-last song on the second-to-last disc, six hours in and no telling if anyone was ready for it. But then those first strains of tunage fluttered from the speakers. The acoustic guitar, the mournful wail. A few heads shot up. Ben laughed.
“Holy shit, is this Blind Melon?”
Those in the know sang every word.
Whatever music means to each individual, it goes for everybody to say that it is – remains – Important. And the memory, on a cold and dazed Chicago night, elicited by a song recorded two decades earlier, by a band whose lead singer’s been dead since 1995, doesn’t surge forth any other way. The sensory recognition, the profound realization, that one has been alive, that one has lived, and one has enjoyed the ride.
Such a good feeling, so long ago, and here it is again, and nothing else matters, aside from new memories created, simultaneously, in this sacred space.
Cancel the Top Ten Party? May as well cancel Christmas.