On Warmer Music's 10 Favorite Concerts of 2012

Radar Eyes At The Bottle Just Missed My List
But The Camera Didn't Miss Me

One thing about end of the year lists is that there's always this unrealistic patina of omniscient and impartial judgement about them. With the internet, it's now assumed that all music writers (most of whom, like me, do it for nothing more than the exposure and the cheap thrill of being able to spout their opinions publicly) have heard every album on the ever-increasing list of good or potentially good album released in a given year. Not only that, but that they've given each several hearings and formed utterly informed opinions. Not only is that impossible, but it's laughable. Music sites will aggregate their writers opinions, try to form a diverse, yet meaningful selection and yet still end missing much great music and over-hyping other, less-deserving music - it's the nature of the beast.

A nice feature of about live shows is that they're inherently finite. You can't see all the concerts, not even all the bands. Especially not if you want to know the music of the bands you are seeing. Plus there's surprise shows, booking conflicts, unexpected illnesses and any number of factors that make the live experience still something that cannot be truly duplicated or fully "shared" instantly to everyone around the world. 

With that in mind, I present my favorite concerts of 2012. Looking at this list, I'm immediately struck by the lack of hip-hop representation which I chalk up to a combination of my own bad planning combined the unfortunate tendency of hip-hop shows to be washed-out, bass and hype-men heavy messes that one can't fully get behind, no matter how much one REALLY wants to have an amazing show. Still, I'm lucky to live in a city with this much great music and I could have easily doubled this list without running out of amazing musical experiences that made my life better this year. Thanks to the musicians and my audience members for sharing these with me, it was really, really fun.

Happy National Radio Day, Here's A Mix!

Poles who speak English have an oddly charming way of turning phrases. I think it's the combination of the nation's famed "poetic soul" and the almost-familiarity of a second tongue. One of the things I enjoyed most when I lived in Poland was people's habit of describing things as "something terrible, but also something wonderful".


I couldn't think of a better description of radio than "something terrible, but also something wonderful" for music. The radio has exposed millions to mind-altering music and turned many a group of hopeful teens into prophets with an audience of millions. At the same time, radio has also always been a great homogenizer, sanitizer and censor of music, a trend that grows ever worse with Clear Channel playlists increasingly dominating the commercial dial.