Memorial Day weekend is a wonderful time – the unofficial start of summer, with BBQ, fun in the sun, and general good vibes for all on a three-day break. But it always used to have a pretty stellar soundtrack – the WOXY Modern Rock 500. If WOXY were still around, you bet I would be listening and listing everything I heard. The WOXY crew compiled a list of some of the finest songs to ever grace alternative radio, new and old, and the #1 song was different every year. After 97X left the FM dial and WOXY went Internet-only, the countdown continued until last year, when the station was suddenly taken from us. But we still have the music and the memories, and so, as a tribute this Memorial Day, I leave you with a sampling of tracks we might have heard today on WOXY.COM.
This year I made the big move from Lubbock to Austin, and the transformation has done wonders for my live music fix. I should have been writing down all the awesome bands I saw this year (and the years before, for that matter) but alas, hindsight, she is 20/20 once again. I think this post covers the highlights more or less, however. There’s plenty of great live music I saw this year that I’m leaving out, but after the jump, in no particular order, are twelve of the best shows I witnessed in 2010, eleven of them right here in the Live Music Capital of the World.
And for the record, I wanted to put the Sleigh Bells show on here, as fun as it was once they finally started playing, but everyone who attended knows Beauty Bar is at fault for that show’s omission. What a disaster.
Today I continue my ten-part series showcasing my personal picks for the best songs of last year.
90. IYAZ – Replay
Usually in December of every year, I go home for Christmas. The indie world is dead at the end of the year, so I usually do research on the pop charts, listening to songs I have missed for most of the year. Nearly all of the songs I am happy to have avoided, but there are always a few candidates that make the cut. I’m a sucker for well-crafted pop music, as everyone knows, and IYAZ’s first single had my head bobbing enough for it to make my year-end list. It’s charming, super-infectious, and it name-drops a common household item that no one owned ten years ago (that would be the iPod).
None of you reading will even come close to understanding what this means to me, except for maybe my former KTXT cohorts (and fellow WOXY peers). I just finished listening to an archived mp3 I kept of Bakerman’s final words before WOXY-FM went dark in 2003. I was listening that night, and, like today, I wept tears for the staff, listeners, bands, and friends who had lost their cool older brother – the one that introduced them to so much cool music. I was only in high school, and I had only been listening to 97X for maybe two years – but, man, what a great station.
