Is it really a new year? Isn't it just the same familiar bullshit, trapped on repeat? Aren't we just winding our way down to the inevitable cosmic fart cloud of 2012?

Hell no! It is a new year. And the shows we've got to make this annual exeunt worthwhile are enough to make this epitaph for the '08 calendar a worthy death mass. From Vampire Hands to Eyedea and Abilities, it's a night that leaves no appetite wanting. Enjoy it. 2009 is about to begin. Make it count.

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Twin Cities News:
-- The Rap Up names Atmosphere's When Life Gives You Lemons, You Paint That Shit Gold the second best rap album of 2008.
-- How Was The Show reviews Dosh & Dark Dark Dark @ The Cedar.
-- City Pages & Perfect Porridge both profile Meredith Fierke.
-- CP also reviews Spirits of the Red City's Hunter Moon.
-- Metro Mag says 2009 will be the year of Caroline Smith & the Goodnight Sleeps, Greycoats and Kristoff Krane.
-- Gimme (yesterday's) Noise: Twin Cities music channel launched on YouTube and Year in music 2008 - even more lists.
-- Culture Bully recaps a variety of local musicians' favorite musical moments of the past year. Included are Soviet Panda, Bill Mike, Lazerbeak, Little Man, M.anifest, Military Special, The Roe Family Singers, Chris Koza, and more.
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Tonight is the single biggest night of the year when it comes to your chances of getting laid by a total stranger: New Year's Eve.

The odds of you pulling some hot, anonymous tail on New Year's Eve are better than Valentine's Day, Sweetest Day and Secretary's Day combined (the only holiday that stands a chance is Groundhog Day, or so Bill Murray has led me to believe).

Now, just because it's a big night for getting laid doesn't mean it comes effortlessly. That's why I'm going to breakdown my three-point checklist to guarantee you start 2009 covered in KY and shame.

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Jon Wurster is the man I would most like to have a beer with. There's a number of reasons for this, including but not limited to the fact that he's played with just about everyone awesome in indie rock, either live or in-studio: aside from his main gig drumming for Superchunk, he's also performed with Bob Mould, Portastatic, Rocket From the Crypt, the New Pornographers and the Mountain Goats. He's also half of Scharpling and Wurster, a radio comedy duo that plies their trade on New Jersey radio station WFMU and puts all the Morning Zoo Crews of the world to gibbering, droop-shouldered shame by turning call-in conversational segments into spectacular studies of cluelessness, delusion and hostility.More >>

There were a lot of great flyers floating around this week for New Year's Eve, a notoriously busy night for local music. Here's one of my favorites, for tonight's NYE Transmission party hosted by DJ Jake Rudh.

Ben Gibbard, lucky S.O.B.

Here's something for people who are too proud to pick up a copy of The Inquirer: Zooey Deschanel, best known as the pie eyed, much adored older sister in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, is officially engaged to Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie and Postal Service.

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Vampire Hands in Duluth, MN

The Twin Cities have always boasted a remarkably diverse, robust music community. But too often, shutterbugs and videographers are preoccupied with the national acts that crowd the First Avenue Mainroom, looking for that perfect shot of MGMT that might fetch a few hundred views on a music blog.

Nick VonBargen, by contrast, is more interested by the home-growns, the local bands that inhabit the Entry, the Turf Club, the Triple Rock. A performer himself (he plays bass in local outfits Dudedawg and The Whathaveyous), VonBargen began filming his own shows to hone his on-stage performances.

The leap from filming his own enterprises to others' was a snap, and on December 29th, he launched his own YouTube channel, called MSP Music, which lovingly archives the endeavors of many of the Twin Cities' best and brightest. VonBargen was kind enough to grant Gimme Noise a quick interview, and access to a few of his videos. Enjoy!

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Little Man, opening for Ike Reilly on Thanksgiving Eve. Photo by Alexa Jones.

I've never been particularly fond of year-end lists. (I know, I know, what kind of musichead am I?) There's just something so dumbed-down about the process of making a list, as if a year's worth of art and music can be distilled into a set of easy-to-read, plainly numbered lists that lack any real explanation or analysis. It's something I tend to complain about each year as the list-making season rolls around, but given the status of our blog-fueled musical discourse these days I always end up folding under the peer pressure and making my own lists anyway. More >>

"OK, guys, we're doin' this. We've got the Rickenbackers all restringed, my voice is in top shape, I've memorized all the lyrics to 'Over Under Sideways Down', and we're gonna win that ten grand. So, what'cha gonna do with your share of the money, Tony?"

"Aw, geez, Phil. Y'see that brand-new AMX they got in the window at the American Motors dealership? That orange one with the Go Package? I'm buyin' that. Wait'll I pull up to Suzy's front door and take her to the prom in that machine! What about you, Jimmy?"

"I was thinkin' of just going on a summer-long vacation through Europe, y'know, maybe find myself. I hear they got some crazy action happening up in Paris, like, a bunch of college kids took over the city or something. I bet anything goes up there, man."

"Pfft, fine, you two can buy your sports cars and your trips through France if you want. Soon as you get back from your little joyrides, I'm renting us a studio and we're cutting our first LP. We're gonna make The Infinite Tangerine into household names the moment we win this."

"Yeah, so long as we beat those guys with the Afros, we've got it made."

"Wait, what guys with the Afros?"More >>

Gay Witch Abortion, the Twin Cities' prized metal duo, are no strangers to unconventional show spaces. Early in their lifespan, the dynamos of doom metal made a series of highly mobile, nomadic  appearances at the 7/7/7 festival, performing from the cargo hold of an Econoline at multiple venues. Later that year, they entertained Doomtree's devoted as they waited on line for entrance to the annual Blowout extravaganza.
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