#yearend 2018

[jeffhirsch]

When Stocks Are Up Big YTD Before Thanksgiving

S&P 500 is having another banner year up an impressive 25.5% year-to-date through yesterday’s close on pace for more gains today. When stocks logged double-digit gains YTD on the on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, in general market gains continued into yearend.

2024 is set to exceed my 2024 Annual Forecast best case scenario of 15-25% made 11 months ago. I expect more new all-time highs before yearend. I would not be surprised if the market outperformed the average December and ended up tacking on another 4-5% or more, pushing the index over 6200 for the year or upwards of a 30% gain for 2024.

There are a few blemishes in the 35 previous years, but most importantly, there are no major selloffs on this list. The big December decline of -9.2% in 2018 came after the S&P 500 was down -1.2% at this point in the year. After double-digit YTD gains the S&P 500 was up 70% of the time from the Tuesday before Thanksgiving to yearend for an average gain of 2.4%.

Also of note is that the Santa Claus Rally suffered only five losses in these years. But these four down SCRs in 1955, 1968, 1999, 2014 and 2023 were followed by flat years in 1956 and 2015, down years in 1969 and 2000, but solid gains in 2024. As Yale’s famous line states (2024 Almanac page 116 and 2025 Almanac page 118): “If Santa Claus Should Fail To Call, Bears May Come to Broad and Wall.”

[deals2travel]

Hawaii lodge charges on the rise for 2023

We’ve been monitoring the Hawaii lodge price knowledge since Hawaii re-opened on the finish of March 2022. Now that we’ve had over a yr’s value of information for the reason that reopening, we needed to share and chart our findings. The next chart reveals the information from April 2022 by means of April 2023.

Let’s take a more in-depth take a look at the information. Common Nightly Hawaii Lodge Charges 2022 to 2023 Every blue bar reveals the typical every day fee for a lodge room in Hawaii. The general common is $375 per night time. Least Costly Time for a Hawaii Trip The least costly month was September at a mean fee of $337 per night time. October, November and Might had been all noticeably beneath the annual common, too. So, the long-established, “most cost-effective” months to go to Hawaii, stay the identical. It’s a bit Ironic that the most cost effective months (Might, September, October, November) are additionally among the best months to visit Hawaii for great weather and avoiding crowds. The month of May is a fantastic month to visit Hawaii. It’s considered one of our favourite months for visiting Hawaii for climate and decrease prices.

Most Costly Time for a Hawaii Trip On the flip facet, the current knowledge reveals the most costly months  for a Hawaii trip are December and July. Traditionally these months have at all times been costly instances for a Hawaii lodge charges. December has at all times been the most costly month as a result of inflow of tourists celebrating Christmas and New Yr’s Eve within the Hawaiian Islands. July is a busy month for household holidays and Independence Day (July 4) festivities. Are Hawaii lodge charges up in 2022/2023 in comparison with current years? The reply is sure, positively, sure! So, let’s check out 2018 to 2019 knowledge and evaluate it to 2022’s yearend knowledge. Yr           Common Day by day Fee 2018                     $277 2019                     $283 (2% improve over 2018) 2020 – 2021        Irrelevant knowledge 2022                     $371 (31% improve over 2019) As you'll be able to see there was a 31% improve in charges between 2022 and 2019. That’s a major soar! Are some Hawaiian Island’s costlier than others for lodge charges? Sure, there are dramatic variations in Hawaii lodge prices by island. Maui County — which incorporates the islands of Maui, Lana’i and Molokai — is at all times the most costly of the 4 main island counties. The posh motels within the Wailea space of Maui and the high-end 4 Seasons resorts on Lana’i are massive drivers that make Maui County have the very best lodge charges. Right here’s how every island county compares based mostly solely on the date of April 2023. This knowledge is listed from most costly to least costly. Maui County – $609 Hawaii (Huge) Island – $430 (which is a 66% improve over April 2019) Kauai – $408 Oahu – $272 — Notes: — Did any of this knowledge shock you? Source link Read the full article

[thisaintascenereviews]

Circa Survive - Two Dreams

Late last year, the alternative scene was dealt a blow in the form of Circa Survive announcing their hiatus. If you don't know, that's a very important band in that world, as they're one of the pioneering bands of the mid-00s post-hardcore sound that took the genre into a somewhat progressive-rock direction. Thanks to their first couple of albums, a lot of bands went in that direction, such as Emarosa, Hands Like Houses, I The Mighty, and tons more, but they were at the forefront of it. Anthony Green, their vocalist, is also known as being the first singer of Saosin, another important band in the post-hardcore band. He came back to the band in 2018, too, but he was only on their debut EP from 2003. I say all of this, because one, there might be some people that don't know who they are, and second, I was never the biggest fan of this band, but their influence and importance is without question. Regardless of how you feel, they're an important band, and I've always been able to at least appreciate them. I like a couple of their records, especially 2007's On Letting Go, and 2010's Blue Sky Noise, but I just never have been able to get into anything else, thanks to how all of their stuff sounds the same to me. Even Green's newest band, LS Dunes, sounds like a retread of 00s post-hardcore, and not in a particularly interesting way. It was a solid album, but I didn't care too much for it, at least as much as other people did. Maybe I'm just not as crazy about that sound, but Circa Survive also released a new album, sort of.

Two Dreams is comprised of both EPs they released in 2021 and the beginning of 2022, entitled A Dream Of Love and A Dream Of Death. They just condensed them to a single record, mainly for vinyl release, I'm pretty sure, but I thought I'd check it out, just to see what the band has been up to since I last listened to them years ago. Honestly, I was quite surprised with what I found, because this is unlike they've ever done. This wouldn't have made it onto my yearend list if it had came out a few weeks beforehand, as this came out on the 16th of last month, and I did my list in the beginning of the month, but I don't love it that much to where I'd want to put it on there in retrospect, but this is really good. They went more in an indie route for this record, incorporating more indie, alternative, and even some synth-pop for this record. It's strange, but it oddly works. The album is very accessible, catchy in spots, and more experimental for them. It's not what you'd expect, and I can see a lot of fans that love the "older stuff" to be disappointed by this, because of how strange it is, but I don't know. It's kind of weird, but it's also catchy at the same time, so it's not like it's avant-garde. One song straight up has a synth melody in it, and it's the whole song, not just a part of it, or anything like that. It's like Circa Survive gone synth-pop, and it's kind of cool. With that said, though, this record is way too long, even for being two EPs. It's almost an hour, and with the record having a similar sound throughout it, it runs together. It's a bit too long, so I've only wanted to get a few listens out of this.

If anything, I've grown to appreciate this band more, because of how different this sounds compared to their other material, and it shows that even in the end, they wanted to change their sound, but because they could. They could have easily put out similar stuff, and fans would have eaten it up, but this is a bit different. I do have to say, too, that Green sounds great here. His vocals have gotten into the habit of sounding the same on every song lately, but he sounds different and revitalized here. Maybe it's the catchier melodies, or the synth-pop sound, but it sounds better, and he sounds like he's having a good time. Circa Survive has always been a band that I respect more than I like, although I do like them, and while it's sad to see them go for now, this is a good swansong. It's a little too long in spots, but it's a solid record. It's worth hearing if you're a fan, but if you're new to them, I don't know if I'd start with this. This is pretty different from their biggest material, so to speak. It's not a bad thing, but it's a far cry from their earlier material, so you might want to start with some of their earlier material first, and then move onto this, or vice versa. Check this out, see if you like it, and if you do, listen to their other material, because you may like that more, or you may like this more. I don't know, but one thing I do know is that this record is good. I'm happy I heard it, even if I don't feel like coming back to it that much, where it's so long, and it doesn't feel like it pays off in the end, just for how each song sounds the same. At least it's not their pseudo-progressive post-hardcore sound where it kind of got a bit pretentious after awhile, and it got sort of irritating, because it didn't do anything interesting, or lead to anything, but anyway, this is worth hearing, nonetheless. It'll be sad to see these guys go, but this is a good album to see them bow out to.

[dustedmagazine]

Broken bodies all the time: Ian Mathers’ year in review

Photo by Paul Husband

Since, let’s say, September, I’ve seen an increasing number of comments from people amazed at just how bloody long 2018 has been, pointing out that events that seem much further back (tide pods! an Olympics! that one political thing in the US, you know, the thing that feels like it was a decade ago!) actually happened this year. I’m no more immune to that kind of horrified, exhilarated realization than any of my friends and loved ones, but I also have a personal one that I can’t believe had fallen so far off my radar that I wasn’t originally conscious of it when I was trying to sum up my year for Dusted.

This past January I went and had surgery to remove a “grapefruit-sized” chondrosarcoma and a section of the three ribs on my left side where it had grown. Other than a noticeable lump in my chest there’d been no other symptoms, one surgery (and about 6 weeks off of work, with pay thankfully) dealt with it cleanly, at least according to the follow-up scans I’ve had and will have twice-yearly until 2022 or so. If you have to get surgery-necessitating cancer, basically, mine was just about the best-case scenario you could hope for (especially here in Canada, where I didn’t have to worry about bankruptcy as a result of medical costs). I don’t want to, and haven’t, made this entire essay about My Cancer Experience (in no small part both because I did have it relatively easy enough that I routinely feel guilty expecting any sort of accommodation for it, even when I was still very much knocked out by the surgery I’d had, and because when everyone wants to know about it you quickly realize it’s kind of boring to talk about), but it does strike that it’d be almost disingenuous to talk about my experience of 2018 without mentioning it. I did allude to it in passing in my 2017 essay here (as well as my wife’s diagnosis of a chronic autoimmune illness, something that honestly effects our day to day lives a lot more), but that was pre-surgery so I was too superstitious to give it a name in such a public forum. Now, when people who know me mention it, I almost have to remind myself that the scariest medical experience of my life to date happened not that long ago.  

I’ve been thinking about it a bit more since reading on Bandcamp Daily that, while Low didn’t really make this part of the narrative around Double Negative when it was being released, about eight months of that album’s gestation happened after Alan Sparhawk had a ski injury involving broken ribs and punctured lungs, and that the recovery process was arduous and involved a lot of prolonged pain. And that got me thinking about context. There are positive and welcomed uses of context, of course; personally, to take a few examples from this year, I think both Leverage Models’ Whites and Zeal & Ardor’s Stranger Fruit are great albums that only gain from some of the context around their creations. But, crucially, it seems the creators involved agree with me, which is why that context is presented up-front in the material around those albums. It’s different when it’s something that, while you might acknowledge its real effects (as Alan does above), you suspect people will blow out of proportion to make the only important fact surrounding what you’ve made. It got me thinking about my own resistance to people - people who love and care about me! - ascribing aspects of my behaviour or actions to the cancer and/or the surgery (and it definitely did have some effects… to take a pretty surface-level one I listened to a lot more records in 2018 than I did in 2017, but didn’t write quite as much). It got me thinking about David Bowie not wanting his last record to be received, at least initially, as his last record.  

And while Alan doesn’t make a big deal of it in that piece, I can see why he might want people to absorb the startling, abrasively gorgeous Double Negative (along with Whites, which I could describe in very similar terms, my favourite/most important record of 2018) on its own terms rather than our narrative-seeking minds possibly turning it into being just ‘about’ his injury (and, not incidentally, wiping out the contributions of the others who worked on the album). Those listeners who did find themselves responding to the record probably wouldn’t be changed that much by the extra information, but goodness knows that every piece of art that gets released has to deal with some dumb, reductive takes, and how would it feel to have those responses taking on (and inflating the importance of) something so personal and literally painful?  

2018 also potentially sees a bigger and less personal loss of context in the music/music criticism world, though. As much as I will maintain all day every day that the more consensus you get when it comes to things like records of the year the more boring you intrinsically have to get, I still felt an absence knowing that the Village Voice Pazz & Jop critics poll was going to vanish with the Voice itself. The interesting thing about every year’s poll was almost never the top ten most acclaimed albums and singles (not necessarily a shot at the quality of that music, just that we’d all been talking about them all year; inevitably, they were all very known quantities), it was seeing what had placed in the lower reaches of the standings, digging around in the votes of friends and colleagues, tracing odd connections and seeing how your own lesser-known favourites were regarded, if at all, by the larger group. And even more than that, I’d argue, what was fascinating and valuable about Pazz & Jop was the way it functioned as a kind of historical record, so that you could look back at a year from decades past and see, not what were the best or even longest-lasting records from that year but what the people who were engaged in listening to and thinking and writing about music thought was important and engaging. I say “potentially,” though, because I had just enough time to realize I was mourning an institution I’d kind of taken for granted (and to be fair, again, each year’s findings at the top seem kind of ploddingly obvious at the time) when I got a new ballot. It looks like some sort of continuation is happening, although only time will tell if this is a genuine resurrection or a last gasp.  

Either way, I haven’t yet tried to narrow things down to lists of 10 (and given that there’s still over 10 hours of music left in my playlist of 2018 releases I haven’t gotten to yet), so here is 25 of the records I’ll be thinking about as I try to figure that ballot out, strictly in order of when I added them to my list, with links to the ones I’ve written about on Dusted. (I didn’t have as much time to go over reissues as I’d like, but probably my favourite was the gorgeous one of the overlooked late Bark Psychosis album ///Codename: Dustsucker, which I reviewed here.) 

Xylouris White - Mother

Mesarthim - The Density Parameter

V/A - Black Panther: The Album

Well Yells - Skunk

Tangents - New Bodies

Tracyanne & Danny - s/t

Tove Styrke - Sway

Wand - Perfume

The Armed - Only Love

Low - Double Negative

Let’s Eat Grandma - I’m All Ears

Obnox - Templo Del Sonido

Nadja - Sonnborner

Pusha T - DAYTONA

No Age - Snares Like a Haircut

Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Chelsea Jade - Personal Best

Leverage Models - Whites

Aidan Baker - Deer Park

Robyn - Honey

Efrim Menuck - Pissing Stars

U.S. Girls - In a Poem Unlimited

Andrew Bayer - In My Last Life

Abul Mogard - Above All Dreams

DenMother - Past Life

And I can’t manage one of these every year, but this was an awfully good year for the EP, so here’s a top five: 

EMA - Outtakes From Exile EP

Underworld & Iggy Pop - Teatime Dub Encounters EP

IN / VIA - Treading Water EP

Protomartyr - Consolation EP

Hatchie - Sugar & Spice EP

[wigavivianingtiyas]

My People

Looking back on the fond memories I made with people from the past year. Cheers to those who made me feel the luckiest person alive, the people who I considered significant in my life, the people who expressed sincere love to me,  the people who burst me into laughter over small things, the people who burst me into tears for the deep talk we had, the people who asked me, "hows life, b*tch?", the people to share all the problems with that we started wondering why life was sooo "jahat" (HAHA!), the people who always reminded me to count blessings, the people who'd definitely make me cry my eyes out if they left, the people who gave me enlightenment and encouragement when I was at my lowest point, the people who I could open up to without the fear of being judged, the people who helped me shape my mindset and turned me into a more mature person. Not to mention, the people who taught me to celebrate success and embrace failures. Ily ({})

[makeshiftlove]

all the journals and notebooks i used this year. i think they're mostly filled about reflections on boundaries. peep my doggo using them for pillows 😂

[kylerdanyale]

meeting in the middle

and by middle i mean that part between beautifully [&] broken.

first off, I should say that i have been trying to write this for well over a week. each time I’ve gotten lost in the attempt to form paragraphs or sentences, for that matter, that will make sense to you. today, it seems to be coming together a bit more easily. 

beautifully broken is what i have come to realize best explains my 2018. a monumental year in my life, in which everything changed. 

trusting in God amidst the wind and waves. even thought he is fully aware that this girl has a deep love for steady waters and still air. 

____________

isn’t it funny how beauty and brokenness live so closely together, often sharing edges of land and pieces of our stories? 

this year the lord asked me to say yes to many things. most of which I felt in no way prepared for. but, I knew it was Him, and that I was meant to say yes. 

“Yes, Lord, walking in the way of your laws, we wait for you; your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.” Isaiah 26:8

it was a big season of transition:

churches

friendships

3.5 jobs

relationships

more travel than previous years combined

i feel like i’ve traveled through the end, the beginning, the middle, the end and back to the middle again. something i didn’t even know was possible in such a short span of time. 

so here I am, ending 2018 very much in the middle. 

more unknowns than I am comfortable with

a heart still trying to make sense of a lot of things

still in search of a “new” normal

in the midst of all my doubt, frustration, confusion, blessing, triumph and excitement, God has been so sweetly nudging me to remember the right things. 

To remember Him.

He is there through it all.

He hears.

He knows.

He guides.

He provides.

He delivers.

He opens.

He closes.

He is good.

[lupitamarilla]

Best nine 2018 ✨ #2018 #bestnine #bestnine2018 #yearend #newyear https://www.instagram.com/p/Br2skMtHt5X/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ucg22ackknac

[karlycond]

Después de tanto tiempo por fin decidí agarrar un lápiz y papel. . Estos meses han sido un ciclo de cambios para mí, todo como una montaña rusa divertida y que me da miedo a la vez pero me alegra estar viviendo todas estas cosas, he aprendido mucho y conocido gente cool. . Espero seguir creciendo el próximo año, feliz fin de año para todos. #draw #drawing #color #feelings #cry #planet #face #sketch #sketchbook #illustration #ilustracion #illustrator #illust #hair #shorthair #symbol #yearend #2018 #newyear #2019 (en Antioquia, Colombia) https://www.instagram.com/karlycond/p/BsEHdCKls6m/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1w9ngg2h0oxzz

[afriquehotels]

YEAR END FUNCTION CELEBRATION TIME Celebrate with Afrique Group Make it a Night to Remember. Contact us: 011 918 8001 / info@afriquegroup.co.za #Godisgreat #function #venue #2018 #yearend #celebrate #memories #party #afriquegroup #dance #champagne #theme #dressup (at Afrique Boutique Hotel O.R Tambo & Conference Centre) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bnnsa7KBoEY/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5qdj9vjcqbmd

[dopesoulvibe-s]

What if i had told him how i felt?What if i had helped that boy with dexterity issues but couldn't because i was too afraid of what people would say what if i had told that girl who was anorexic that she was beautiful the way she was what if i had told the girl who committed suicide this afternoon that break ups dont mean anything because what has yet to come will be better than what has gone by what if i had told my mom and dad i loved them but couldnt because i was busy with my career and life and now its too late what if i wanted to compliment some stranger because he had nice eyes or a great talent and i did what if i had told my teachers that i was inspired by them because they helped me become what i am today what if i had told that one boy that i could see past his past and mistakes and still adore him for his pure heart what if i wanted to help someone overcome their loneliness and fall in love with themselves but couldnt because society would think it was strange what if I had told my siblings i am glad they exist because even though they are a mess sometimes but still they are my mess and mine what if i had told those men that degrading women wont make their thing any longer what if i had told those women that not all men are trash and that everyone is different what if i had thanked the comic book writers and movie makers for making my imagination more versatile what if i had thanked those poets who helped me get back my hope in humanity

What if......all these 'what ifs' are what i am going to take to my grave and with my last breath i say 'what if i had said it all and made the world a little brighter and better because of the pure love and reality....."

Life's too short,dare to say the truth and believe in yourself

[hot1minutecoldthenext]

So yeah, we went to Cavite just to celebrate the yearend party. Hahaha 🤣

[doonseries]

My #topnine2017 surprised me a bit...lots of OLIVIA TWIST and friend's books! 😁 I'm very much looking forward to #2018 and the release of the epic love story that is #OliviaTwist 🎩🌂♥️ 🌹What are you looking forward to in 2018? 🎉#yearend #2017bestnine #2017 #authorlife #booklover #author #authorsofinstagram

[thisaintascenereviews]

Kacey Musgraves - Deeper Well

Kacey Musgraves seems to be at a crossroads in her career, but I can’t blame her. Her last album, 2021’s Star-Crossed, was a pretty good album that really leaned into pop, and she seemed to have strayed too far from her country roots. A lot of people noticed that, and that album didn’t do as well as 2018’s critical darling Golden Hour (which also had pop in the mix but it wasn’t the focal sound of the record). It makes sense that her new album, Deeper Well, has a stripped back and sparse sound to it. Instead of going back to a purely country sound, this record is more or less a singer-songwriter and folk-pop album. I’m getting a lot of 1970s Laurel Canyon vibes from this record, but with a modern production sound. This record also shows Musgraves as a “cottagecore” girlie, because this album has a lot of themes and imagery of nature, crystals, wellness, and that whole thing, but it’s told in an interesting way. This album is more or less about healing, and from the looks from it, Musgraves is very burnt out by the spotlight, so this is a quaint back to basics album.

I’ve gotten into more into folk music over the last few years, especially starting to appreciate what it tries to do. Deeper Well is ultimately focusing on Musgraves vocals and lyrics, and like with a lot of folk, the sparse instrumentation is merely a backdrop for it. Truth be told, a lot of folk music can get kind of derivative, especially with how songs can start to sound the same and blend together. It also has a tendency to sound really nice, whether in its production and/or presentation, but not have much of anything else to say or do. Thankfully, Kacey Musgraves has a bit to say, and this album has some wonderful melodies to boot. This album has a lot of lyrics about healing, removing toxic people from your life, and even some existential questions. There’s a song on here where she asks to speak to God, or like the title of the song, “The Architect.”

Musgraves’ voice sounds great within this album, and some of these songs have gorgeous melodies. Songs like the album opener “Cardinal,” the title track, “Sway,” “Heart Of The Woods,” “Dinner Party,” “Lonely Millionaire,” “Heaven Is,” and what may be my favorite song on the record, “Anime Eyes” are ridiculously catchy and have some solid lyrics to boot. There are a few songs that blend together, and don’t do a lot for me, but even those songs are good, whether it’s for her lyrics, vocals, or both. Even when the instrumentation is slightly lacking, the song is still good. If anything, I really appreciate her further retreating into a different sound, versus course correcting and making a country album, because she could have easily done that and people would have loved it.

There was a time when a lot of music fans acted like she was the second coming of Christ, and she was the only good country artist, but times have changed. Not only is country more widely accepted, but there are tons of good country artists out there. I’m glad that she’s switched up her sound over the years, and this album is a nice folksy and bare bones album that shows she has nothing to prove to anybody. It’s a very pleasant record with some solid lyricism, wonderful vocal performances and melodies to match, and instrumentation that may not blow your mind, but in terms of folk-pop, it’s good stuff. This album may end up somewhere on my yearend list, because I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit.

[dustedmagazine]

“1, 2, 3, 4!”: Jennifer Kelly’s 2018 review

Jennifer Kelly is a frantic romantic.

Rock and roll forever, sure, but it’s hard to avoid the fact that the guitar/bass/drum idiom has been pushed way off to the side in the cultural conversation. Mainstream sites list “best rock records” as a weird, subcultural genre, with a slightly bigger audience, perhaps, than best cumbia records or top Hawaiian slack key recordings (but not much). Worse, to come up with a reasonable size list they include all kinds of things that don’t belong. I mean, really, is Mount Eerie rock by any definition?

Rock isn’t dead, but it’s been made to sit in the corner. The only time in 2018 when everybody thought at once about a guitar band was when Pitchfork’s Jeremy Larson dropped his scathing, hilarious review of the Greta Van Fleet. For a moment, we all snickered as one.

Big rock was terrible in 2018. It almost always is. Yet there’s something disingenuous about the genre of year-end write-ups that laser in on the absolute worst and most bloated of rock bands to make a point about the art-form as a whole. Sure, Imagine Dragons suck. Yes, “Africa” is a soul-destroyingly awful song no matter who sings it. No, I’m not wading into the whole 1975 thing. Who has time? Who has the heart for it?  

Because this year, against a tide of commercially viable horse shit, against a backdrop of monolithic indifference, rock bands of all configurations, from all countries (but really especially Australia), continued to make great punk and rock records. And, I, for whatever reason, heard more of them than usual, and it made me happy. And maybe that’s the secret to being happy in music, in any year…find your niche, listen to the best in it, forget about what the mega-corporations are trying to sell.

Also see it live. My big highlight this year was seeing the Scientists in October (with Negative Approach, too!), but it was a pretty great 12 months for live music. It started with a fantastic show comprised of Mike Donovan, the Long Hots, J. Mascis and his Stooges cover band and Purling Hiss (with J on board for one song) at the Root Cellar, a venue I’d never heard of before that show, and that ended up putting on a string of great events. I saw Marisa Anderson, Paul Metzger, Speedy Ortiz, Howling Rain, Trad Gras Och Stenar with Endless Boogie, that Scientists show and Gary Higgins at the Root Cellar this year, and I missed a lot of shows I would have liked to see. Other great shows happened outside the Root Cellar – The Thing in the Spring in Peterborough with William Parker, Bonnie Prince Billy and others, Amy Rigby and Wreckless Eric at the Parlour Room, Messthetics at the Flywheel. Western Massachusetts has been in a commercial chokehold for years, with one organization controlling most of the venues, but there were a lot of options this year.

So, here’s to the drummers with their sticks in the air, counting off the four. Here’s to the guitar player wrecking his knees jumping up and down as he/she furiously slashes away. Here’s to the sweat and muck and black humor of $10 shows with four bands on them, two of them still in high school. And here’s to the people (me at least and possibly you) who like these things. Eddie Argos of Art Brut, who used to top these lists and now merits a footnote, spoke for this tiny, beleaguered sub-cult when he urged “Wham! Bang! Pow! Let’s rock out.”

Indeed. Let’s.

Amy Rigby—The Old Guys (Southern Domestic)

The Old Guys by Amy Rigby

Let’s just set aside the fact that the first and best song on this album is an imagined email exchange between Philip Roth and Bob Dylan on the eve of the Nobel ceremony or that Rigby namechecks three of my favorite ever TV characters in “New Sheriff.” Let’s forget, too, how rare it is for a woman of roughly my age to be making her own music and controlling her own destiny even now in 2018. No, let’s focus on the songs which are sharp, smart and full of hooks, the clean, romantic chime of Rigby’s electric 12-string, the viscous pleasure of the arrangements. This is the very best kind of rock record, one that doesn’t attempt to remake the genre but somehow makes it bigger, brighter and more necessary. The songs sounded great, live, too, with the great Wreckless Eric in tow, and the two of them bickering like old married couples do, and Rigby glowing with triumph by the end of the show.

 Shopping—The Official Body (Fat Cat)

The Official Body by Shopping

Bubbly in a hard way, strict and minimal in a manner requires body movement, this album arrived early and stayed on my go-to list all year. For Dusted, I wrote, “You could bounce a quarter off the bass lines in this third Shopping full-length. They’re pulled hard and tight against minimalist syncopated drums, the leaning, waiting, anticipating space between the thwacks as important a character as the beats themselves. The London-based trio harks back to the funky, stripped down post-punk of bands like ESG and Delta 5, with hints of the boy-girl bubble and pop of the B-52s and Pylon.

 Salad Boys—This Is Glue (Trouble in Mind)

This Is Glue by Salad Boys

Always weak for NZ lo-fi and equally a fan of the early R.E.M., so of course I fell for this buzzy daydream of a record. “Psych Slasher” bursts with immoderate, glorious joy in the chorus, then cuts back to uncertainty in the verse, the ideal blend of rambunctious rock and wistful pop. “Exaltation” is a gentler sort of classic, just as radiant but moodier, its murmur-y vocals disappearing into cloud banks of fuzzed guitar tone. The whole record sits on the knife edge of rock and indie pop, leaning one way and the other, but never falling over.

 Patois Counselors—Proper Release (Ever/Never)

Proper Release by Patois Counselors

I went all in for “So Many Digits” in my Dusted review this year, but the two great punk songs on Proper Release are “The Modern Station” and, especially, “Target Not a Comrade.” This latter song chugs and lurches on guitar and bass, trembles with wheedly keyboards and crests in a massive, hummable refrain. It’s a catchy, twitchy punk tune that’ll hit you in the part of your brain where you keep Wire and the Buzzcocks, hooky as hell in a weird, distorted way.

 Bodega—Endless Scroll (What’s Your Rupture)

Endless Scroll by BODEGA

Flipping the gender cliché, Bodega is an all-woman band with a male singer. Its tight, nervy, jangles wrap around themes of internet-age dislocation and movie references. Smart, sarcastic, ironic, sharp, Bodega bristles with what you want from a garage punk band but reveals a surprisingly soft heart uncovered round about “Charlie,” a wistful song about a boy who died too soon.

 Bardo Pond—Volume 8 (Three-Lobed)

Volume 8 by Bardo Pond

The eighth in a series of improvised albums, this year’s Bardo Pond record towers and surges with monumental heaviness. I wrote at Dusted that, “The sound, vast and muscularly monolithic as ever, seems more like a demon summoned periodically from a ring of fire, than the product of any sort of linear development.”

 Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore—Ghost Forests (Three Lobed)

Ghost Forests by Meg Baird and Mary Lattimore

This year’s most beautiful album, Ghost Forests undergirds lyric folk melodies and angelic pizzicato harp plucks with roiling, violent darkness. My Dusted review observed “The best and most interesting [tracks] juxtapose the muted violence of electric guitar with a harp’s serenity. A guitar howls from a distance throughout “In Cedars,” pushing a simmering turbulence up under sun-dappled lattices of harp picking. Later “Painter of Tygers” does the same trick of joining muscle to fairy dust, the electric guitar raging from far away, while harp and voice spread delicate magic over the tumult.”

 Seun Kuti & Egypt 80—Black Times (Strut)

Black Times by Seun Kuti & Egypt 80

Fela Kuti’s youngest son inherited his dad’s fierce political commitment, his rhythmically unstoppable Afrobeat style and a few of his band members, but this wonderful album is more alive and present than a tribute. “Struggle Sounds, “ with its hard-bounce of a beat, its blurting sax, its ecstatic backing chorus, its swagger of horns and fever-dreamed keyboards dances through history right up to the modern day. “Last Revolutionary” enumerates past African heroes and connects them to the now. I wrote, “Kuti extends his father’s legacy, its tight rhythmic interplay, its fervent political engagement, its relentless exhilarating uplift, while bringing it a bit further into the present.”

Ovlov—Tru (Exploding in Sound)

TRU by Ovlov

I first noticed Ovlov at the Thing in the Spring Festival, on an eclectic Thursday night in a book store, where the sweet surge of guitar sound felt solid enough to body surf on. Later, for Dusted, I said of Tru that “Ovlov churns a monumental fuzz, a wave of surging, undulating, feedback-altered sound …. You can almost poke it with your finger, this onslaught is so palpable. It stirs your hair like an oncoming breeze.”

Speedy Ortiz—Twerp Verse (Carpark) 

Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz

There’s something so bendy and unpredictable about Sadie Dupuis tunes. They hare off in unexpected ways. They stop and start. They interpose weird little intervals of pop and noise. They refuse to behave, and end up exactly as they should be, though never what you’d expect. Twerp Verse takes more pop turns than other Speedy joints, but in the tipsiest, most eccentric way, with acerbic asides in the lyrics that catch like fishhooks and stay with you. “Speedy Ortiz offers a serrated sort of pop pleasure, full of rhythmic complexity and gender confrontation,” I observed in my Dusted review.

 Had enough rock? Me neither

Here are some more punk rock and garage records that I couldn’t squeeze into the top ten overall, mostly in the order that I thought of them, but Constant Mongrel and Richard Papiercuts are pretty great and that’s probably why I thought of them first.

Constant Mongrel—Living in Excellence (La Vida Es Un Mus)

Richard Papiercuts— Twisting the Night (Ever/Never)

GOGGs—Prestrike Sweep (In the Red)

Hank Wood & the Hammerheads—S-T (Toxic State)

Obnox—Bang Messiah (Smog Veil)

Zerodent—Landscapes of Merriment (Alien Snatch!)

Sleaford Mods—Stick in a Five and Go (Domino)

Ethers—S-T (Trouble in Mind)

IDLES—Joy as an Act of Resistance (Partisan)

Bad Sports—Constant Stimulation (Dirtnap)

Lithics—Mating Surfaces (Kill Rock Stars)

Art Brut—Wham! Bang! Pow! (Alcopop)

 Whoa, slow down!

Also a shout to the musicians who made more than one really excellent album this year. Ty Segall made five, I think, but I didn’t love all of them as much as Freedom Goblin and Prestrike Sweep.

Obnox—Sonido del Templo/Bang Messiah (Astral Spirits)/(Smog Veil)

Mount Eerie—Now Only/(After) (Elverum & Sons)

Ty Segall—Freedom Goblin (Drag City)/GOGGs—Prestrike Sweep (In the Red)

Ryley Walker—Deafman Glance/The Lillywhite Sessions (Dead Oceans)

  Nevertheless, they persisted

And finally, hats off to the bands and artists that have been going forever and continued this year to produce great music.

Kinski—Accustomed to Your Face (Kill Rock Stars)

Low—Double Negative (Sub Pop)

Loma—S-T (Sub Pop) (Shearwater’s Jonathan Meiburg plus Cross Record)

Oneida—Romance (Joyful Noise)

Wreckless Eric—Construction Time and Demolition (Southern Domestic)

Messthetics—S-T (Discord) (The great Fugazi rhythm section plus a young guitar ripper—one of the best live shows of the year for me.)

Charnel Ground—S-T (12XU) (This is Kid Millions from Oneida, Chris Brokaw and James McNew from Yo La Tengo, and as you’d expect, it’s really good.)

[jeffhirsch]

December #2 Small Cap #3 Large Cap Tepid Start Solid Finish

Trading in December is holiday-inspired and fueled by a buying bias throughout the month. However, the first part of the month tends to be weaker as tax-loss selling and yearend portfolio restructuring begins.

December is the number three S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrials month since 1950, averaging gains of 1.5% and 1.6% respectively. It’s the second-best Russell 2000 (1979) month and fourth best for NASDAQ (1971). It is also the third best month for Russell 1000 (1979).

In 2018, DJIA suffered its worst December performance since 1931 and its fourth worst December going all the way back to 1901. However, the market rarely falls precipitously in December and a repeat of 2018 does not seem highly likely this year.

When December is down it is usually a turning point in the market—near a top or bottom. If the market has experienced fantastic gains leading up to December, stocks can pullback in the first half of the month.

In the last eighteen midterm years, December’s rankings slip modestly to #5 DJIA (0.9%), #3 S&P 500 (1.2%) and #7 NASDAQ (–0.3% since 1974). Small caps, measured by the Russell 2000, also tend to soften in midterm Decembers. Since 1982, the Russell 2000 has lost ground just three times in ten midterm years in December. The average small cap gain in all ten years is 0.3%. Midterm December performance had been stronger prior to previously mentioned December 2018.