And the latest awesome DIY musician to jump on the bandcamp bandwagon? Why it’s Austin-via-Iowa-City singer-songwriter-rapper-improviser-keyboardist-presidential-candidate The BassTurd From Las Vegas, Nevada! This is awesome news. So far he has up the first 3 in his 2005-2008 series of 20 EPs, but I’m sure we can expect a lot of rare gems to surface if he manages to stick with what is surely an epic project of uploading his notoriously voluminous discography. Maybe, if we’re super lucky, he’ll digitize some of his old cassette releases, or maybe we’ll finally be able to download Live From Your Mom’s Bedroom.

In Iowa City’s news and culture monthly Little Village, quoth Kent Williams on the subject of Congratulations On Your Suicide, “The songs owe a debt to sludge-rockers like Soundgarden and The Melvins, but Hoffman is more of a surrealist.” He says a few other quite nice things too.

In “Iowa musicians making classic lost DIY recordings available online” news, Cedar Valley rap/goof collective Hip-Hop Illuminati have a Facebook page now and put the 2000 split CD by Itty Bitty Titty Committee and The Joke Crackers up here on Soundcloud. Freakin’ sweet.

Lawdy, this bandcamp thing is catching on. Deservingly so. Iowa City pop-punk girl-boy group Lipstick Homicide are the latest Centipede Farm acquaintances to make their sounds available on the DIY music platform. Right here.

I knew I wouldn’t finish writing about albums from 2010 before 2010 was over. A little over a year ago as 2009 was drawing to a close Dan thought it would be a fun band project for each member of Why Make Clocks to make their top-10 albums list for the year. Will completely ignored the call, but I posted mine and Dan’s to the Why Make Clocks web site. I’m not going to bother linking to it.

Dan emailed us his top-10 for 2010 a few days ago. Here it is:

1. Superchunk “Majesty Shredding”
2. Dew Scented “Invocation
3. Beach House “Teen Dream”
4. Bettie Serveert “Pharmacy Of Love”
5. High On Fire “Snakes For The Divine”
6. The Budos Band “III”
7. Giant Sand “Blurry Blue Mountain”
8. Boston Spaceships “Our Cubehouse Still Rocks”
9. Retribution Gospel Choir “2″
10. Sleepy Sun “Fever”

That’s it

close calls:

Red Sparowes
Intronaut
Triptykon
Witchery
Band Of Horses
Sun Kil Moon
Frightened Rabbit

As for me, I haven’t been able to keep it narrowed down to 10. It was a really intense year for music. I think there was for more and better music released in 2010 than usual. It’s as if everyone finally realized that all bets are off — nobody was going to be making big money in music anyway, so all bets were off and you might as well make the album you really want to rather than the album you think people will buy, and result, as music nerds have been saying for years, was that even as big-business/mass-media music was worse than ever this year, a ton of really amazing music also got made. But I’m just speculating.

So I’m not even going to try to limit it to a number, I’m just going to go nuts. Here’s my over-long top list, in no particular order:

• High On Fire “Snakes For The Divine”
• Beach House “Teen Dream”
• Retribution Gospel Choir “2″
• The Walkmen – “Lisbon”
• The Black Keys – “Brothers”
• Das Racist – “Shut Up Dude”
• It’s True! – “It’s True!”
• Swans – “My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky”
• The National – “High Violet”
• Samuel Locke-Ward – “Barely Regal Beagles”
• Neurosis – “Live At Roadburn 2007″
• The Posies – “Blood/Candy”
• Killing Joke – “Absolute Dissent”
• Zoroaster – “Matador”
• Harvey Milk – “A Small Turn Of Human Kindness”
• Sleepy Sun – “Fever”
• The Poison Control Center – “Sad Sour Future”
• Coolzey – “Coolzey And The Search For Hip Hop Hearts”
• Darkthrone – “Circle The Wagons”
• The Fall – “Your Future Our Clutter”
• Pharmacy Spirits – “Teen Challenge”
• Orthodox – “Matse Avatar” EP
• Olde Growth s/t

(I suppose I could wait to put Olde Growth and Killing Joke on 2011′s since that will be KJ’s US release and Olde Growth’s reissue on MeteorCity…)

And here’s a second list of albums that either : (a) I liked a lot, but not quite as much as the above list, or (b) I only heard a time or two, but if I’d given them more attention, might have deserved a spot therein. It’s noticeably metal-heavy, too, but not for any particular reason:

• Jesu – “Opiate Sun” EP
• Triptykon – “Eparistera Daimones”
• Tribella – “Thirteen”
• Ufomammut – “Eve”
• The Wounded Kings – “The Shadow Over Atlantis”
• Hawkwind – “Blood Of The Earth”
• Yakuza – “Of Seismic Consequence”
• US Christmas – “Run Thick In The Night”
• Mondo Drag – “New Rituals”
• Ludicra – “The Tenant”
• Cough – “Ritual Abuse”
• Kylesa – “Spiral Shadow”
• Agalloch – “Marrow Of The Spirit”
• Das Racist – “Sit Down, Man”
• Thou – “Summit”
• Mondo Drag – “New Rituals”
• Ramesses – “Take The Curse”
• The Howling Wind – “Into The Cryosphere”
• Electric Wizard – “Black Masses”
• Enslaved – “Axioma Ethica Odini”
• Castevet – “Mounds Of Ash”
• Awesome Color – “Massa Hypnos”
• Bison B.C. – “Dark Ages”
• Black Mountain – “Wilderness Heart”
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – “Beat The Devil’s Tattoo”
• A Forest Of Stars – “Opportunistic Thieves Of Spring”
• Geronimo! – “Fuzzy Dreams”
• Grave – “Burial Ground”
• Grails – “Black Tar Prophecies Vol. IV”
• Interpol – “Interpol”
• Knut – “Wonder”
• Kongh – “Shadows Of The Shapeless”
• Lantlôs – “.neon.”
• Maegashia – “The Stark Arctic”
• Melvins – “The Bride Screamed Murder”
• Mouth Of The Architect – “The Violence Beneath” EP
• Robedoor – “Burners”
• Spoon – “Transference”
• Roky Erickson w/Okkervil River – “True Love Cast Out All Evil”
• Superchunk – “Majesty Shredding”
• Intronaut – “Valley Of Smoke”
• Roareth – “Acts I – VI”
• Wooden Shjips – “Vol. 2″

And finally, here’s a wild-card/question-mark/friends-of-mine/promising/want-to-check-out list:

• Apostle Of Solitude- “Last Sunrise”
• Derek Lambert – “The Forest Floor”
• Ember Schrag – “Jephthah’s Daughter”
• Lou Barlow + The Missingmen – “= Sentridoh III”
• The Mire – “Volume: I” EP
• Pony Time – “Pony Time Can Drink 100 Wine Coolers”
• Sun City Girls – “Funeral Mariachi”
• Titan – “Sweet Dreams”
• Rhonda Is A Dead Bitch – “Laos” EP
• Twilight – “Monument To Time End”
• When The Deadbolt Breaks – “Last Day Of The Sun”
• Wovenhand – “The Threshingfloor”
• You Are Home – “Funzzz”
• 1349 – “Demonoir”
• Grinderman – “II”
• Boston Spaceships – “Our Cubehouse Still Rocks”