Rather, America's most iconic bar band will be striking out on yet another set of North American dates this spring, still pushing their best of '08 kind of release Stay Positive along the way.

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The Gaslight Anthem's '59 Sound is the proud owner of the coveted #2 spot in our annual countdown of the best albums of the year, and now the band is making plans to hit the road. We'll just assume it's to celebrate such an enormous accomplishment.

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While the Bay Area's been a'buzz for the dramatic, guitar slinging ways of local band Audrye Sessions for quite some time, we're playing soothsayer here and predicting '09 will be a very noteworthy year indeed for the band on a national level. Yes, they've been scrapping their way through the country for the last year and half on tour. But it'll be the band's February debut on Black Seal Records that ought to be the most telling sign of the good times sure to come their way.

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Here's a band we'll really be pulling for in the coming year. Honestly...we know nothing of what Romantica might have planned for '09. But we're hoping, fingers crossed, that golden-voiced Ben Kyle and the rest of his band mates (Luke Jacobs, James Orvis, Jessy Greene, Tony Zaccardi) will be busy.

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For those of you keeping score, we declared Oren Lavie's "Her Morning Elegance" the perfect sort of tune to bid the summer ado. That was in August, and finally, the Israeli born, London educated, New York cultured, and current Berliner is preparing to release his American debut The Opposite Side of the Sea on his own Quarter Past Wonderful imprint this coming February.

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From the fine folkies that brought you Page France comes a placid new piece of subtle, backwoods psychedelia that just might be your go to record for icy winter mornings when leaving your cozy confines is just not an option. A new project from Michael Nau and Whitney McGraw, Cotton Jones' soon to be released record Paranoid Cocoon (Suicide Squeeze) is a woozy one indeed.

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Though it took an encouraging nudge from dashing, gal pal Jenny Lewis to get started, expect the bright, bold, and beautiful sounds of The Whispertown 2000 to be a mighty hot topic in the coming New Year. The charming, country kick these handsome LA creatures spike their tunes with is as alluring as the star crossed city they hail from. Just ask Gillian Welch and David Rawlings. They snagged up Whispertown to be the first project for their recently launched Acony recording label, releasing the band's debut Swim this past October.

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...a crazy drummer drumming (plus, everyone else in HEALTH going ape)
So this is it...the end of the line. We've spent the last two and a half weeks recapping some of our favorite concert moments from '08. Our Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown has been has been a fun little trip back in time through a fun, anything but little, kind of year. Wrapping our countdown up, we take you back to a brouhaha on the first day of summer.

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So here we are, our toes dangling ever so carefully over the cusp of a brand new year. Here at Baeble, everyone's more than ready to take the big, dramatic plunge into '09. Already, artists like Andrew Bird, Animal Collective, Grizzly Bear, Neko Case, and Wilco (to name a few) are dangling curious recorded carrots in front of us. And there of course will always be the scores of artists we've yet to hear from who stop us in our tracks with all-impressive debuts. But before all that, we'd like to give thanks to the artists and albums that helped make '08 the exceptional year in music it was. After all, it is the ever-exciting list making season, is it not? All over the web, the healthy annual chatter of the year's crowning achievements is buzzing about...you didn't think we'd just sit on the sidelines, did you?

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...shearwater a-rook-ing
Hard to believe we're but a few days from Christmas...harder still to imagine '08 coming to an end. In an appreciative look back, we're honoring the best concerts of the year with Baeble's 12 Days of Christmas Countdown. Today, we're celebrating a special evening last May, when Shearwater unveiled their stellar album Rook with an incredible track by track performance.

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Sexed up Santa with no where to go? That's the sorry sort of predicament Amber Lee Ettinger - a.k.a. Obama Girl - finds herself in, in this miraculous, holiday tale. A best of '08 kind of countdown of our favorite concerts, but with a sexy, seasonal twist, Baeble's Heartland Christmas Special takes you over the river and through the woods...to Obama Girl's home you go!

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If for some strange reason the Christmas season hadn't yet sunk in around these partsif by chance we missed the lights, the insane shoppers on the sidewalk, the bountiful bunches of holiday cheer/frustrating jeer, Mother Nature dumped a nice phat reminder on NYC today. Snow, Sleet, Rainit's a real mess out there. Which is why we'd rather stay inside and continue counting down our favorite concerts from the year with Baeble's Twelve Days of Christmas. Today we're on to #10.

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Hard to believe it's only a week until Christmas. Of course, we've been celebrating the arrival of the big day the last week or so with our Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown. Today, we're up to Day #9.

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San Diego's Delta Spirit bury their roots deep into the kind of classic topsoil that once sprouted the redwoods of rock. The Beatles, Dylan, and Springsteen: these are some of the forces that fertilize the batch of songs that inhabit Ode to Sunshine; the young band's debut album.

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For the eighth day of Baeble's Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown, we thought we'd crank up the heat just a bit, and whisk you off to the Caribbean...all while not leaving the comfort of wherever you happening to be watching this.

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photos by Maureen Pitz. See more photos HERE.
You'll have to forgive the delay in posting our follow-up to this one. Saturday evening's performances by My Brightest Diamond at (le) Poisson Rouge took a bit of time to sink in. After all, it's not everyday we're treated to a trained operatic singer weaving her trade into sophisticated batches of bedazzling chamber rock.

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See more photos HERE.
For the artist who dare dabble in acrobatic prose, a thorny path is often his/her reward. Say too much, he/she runs the risk of being smacked with that damn-pesky, elitist label. Say too little and it's down an unwelcome path blazed by previous wannabes and charlatans. It's a tricky tight rope for sure...one I've never been completely convinced Okkervil River's Will Sheff tip toes accurately enough across on a consistent basis.

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File this one under oh so very appropriate. In anticipation of their soon to be released album The Century of Self on their own Richter Scale record label, ...And You Will Know Us By the Trail of the Dead have announced plans to blaze a...err, trail...across the US in support of the February 17th release.

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Today is a momentous oneat least in terms of Baeble's Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown. You see, today we scream on into the second half of this seasonal, best of '08 collection of concerts...kicking it off with the band that might have provided the biggest surprise of the year!

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...the kills down in austin

It's a new week here at Baeble...but the Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown goes on. Getting things started this week, we take you back to SXSW, with this spectacular performance from The Kills.

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...5 extra golden rings (ba dum dum dum)

It's time our Twelve Days of Christmas Countdown include a bit of international flavor...which obviously means we're celebrating the performance Extra Golden allowed us to film.

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So you could use a hook up, huh? Well, Baeble's got you covered...again. This time around, we're celebrating the release of our latest concert from Dr. Dog with a spree of prizes that'll let more of you in on the hot hook up action. Follow the jump for all the details.

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Though hot and heaty Austin dodged a storm named Ike - the monster hurricane auspiciously scooting by somewhere to the East the very day this concert was shot Texas' greatest town couldn't avoid the eye of Dr. Dog's storm when the Philly band descended upon the Parish for this performance.

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Back with the album they were destined to make (apparently) are Philadelphia's pysch-rock heroes, Dr. Dog. Fate (Park the Van) is full of songs that make the comparisons to The Beatles and The Band apt ones, if only for the style of it, not the significance. This isn't Dr. Dog's breakout record. But it's still fun to listen to.

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...a bunch of dodo birds

Four days in, still going strongit is a good way to characterize the little 12 Days of Christmas Countdown we're currently caught up in. Of course, these kinds of year-end, celebratory lists are easy considering the kind of talent Baeble was blessed with filming this year. Today, we're featuring a band we can honestly say we had never heard of at this time last year. Of course, the minute the psycho-folk groove of the The Dodos's dumbfounding debut The Visiter found its' way to us, we knew we just had to have them. Our day would come in late September at a magnificent venue on the East River.

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photos by Maureen Pitz. See more photos HERE.
A triple shot of content is a good way to kick off any week. Good thing that's exactly how we got this here work week started. This past Sunday night, Baeble bundled up and trekked out through some of the coldest mother-bleepin' weather the city has seen yet this year...and wouldn't you know it? We were rewarded with one of the most cleverly diverse lineups we've ever had the privilege to shoot for our site.

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You can't stop our 12 Days of Christmas Countdown. So please, just submit to those shows we consider to be the very best of the year that was. For our third day, we're featuring a band we're pretty sure have ended up on Santa's naughty list more than a few times in their life...but we'll let you be the judge of that.

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Continuing our 12 Days of Christmas Countdown with style, we're pleased bring you one of the most surprising, energetic, and all around outstanding performance from the year that was...

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We're kicking our count down off with the messiest performance of '08...courtesy of the craziest band we filmed all year. The stage is totally trashed, the songs are slightly sloppy and slap dash in their own right, and...in all honesty...the leader of this pack of Shrines is a bit of an Amtrak pileup.

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You know, everyone here at Baeble is getting into the spirit. It's December, it's cold, there are Christmas lights up everywhere...It's sort of inevitable. I mean, we're not just going to sit here and deny the wholesome holiday cheer going around. We'd rather embrace it, and pass it along to you...starting today.

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...Kanye West doesn't care, or perhaps more accurately, he's not afraid to show us that he does. As an artist he's unique in that he's in the coveted position of being able to transcend the inherent limitations of his own genre. He's afforded the same rarity of free reign granted to Prince, Michael Jackson, the Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles, and Thom Yorke before him; the only difference is that Kanye does it while tight-rope walking through the faster than light blogosphere of the 2k generation; between Kanye West, the man, and Kanye West, the larger than life ethos. He's the only artist alive bigger than his own giant sound, bigger than his own art, and that's what makes his recent release of 808s and Heartbreak so damn fascinatingit's hip-hops biggest idol violating every cardinal rule that hip-hop has ever held sacred, and, above all else, doing it in style.

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Surf's up Portland. Ready to wade on in to some sunny Southern Californian vibes? We thought you might...which is why we're debuting a new batch of productions filmed in Rose City with this blissful, election night performance from Costa Mesa's Japanese Motors. Beaming the Strokes' simple sort of, LES sweat and swagger three-thousand miles west, Alex Knost, Nolan Hall, Daniel Michicoff, and Andrew Atkinson trim tunes like "Single Fins and Safety Pins", "Better Trends", and "Crooked Gun" with tons of twang, slightly rockabilly rhythms, and lyrics that cover the beach culture basics. Surf, sun, chicks, and beer; the Motor's know what their brand of surf rock demands. All they ask from you is that you enjoy the show. Cowabunga.

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As the calendar begins to dial up the dead and dreary winter months that lay ahead, it's sometimes all to easy for those folks who actually have to put themselves through the four season cycle to mourn the better times when the weather was a bit more sizzling. With this in mind, I present to you seasonally sentimental readers Japanese Motors's self-titled Vice debut; a collection of leisurely surf punk, rock and roll that's sure to trigger the internal flicker of sappy memories from the summer (or any other temperate time, for that matter) that was.

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Keeping with the Canadian theme we've got going for us today... Toronto's tremendously energetic outfit Tokyo Police Club, fresh off a dash across their homeland in support of Weezer, have announced plans to bring their dare-deviling fits of emo-ish guitar pop to American audiences this winter. Headlining all shows, TPC will bring an assortment of bands in support, including Born Ruffians, Harlem Shakes, and Ra Ra Riot. They'll also make a stop at the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.

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Stars never seem to think twice about finding and flattening their listener's emotional core. I suppose that could explain why "Your Ex-Lover is Dead", the lead track from'05's Set Yourself On Fire, continues to haunt me to this very day. Creeping into randomly generated play lists (far too often!), blasting from crowded bar room speakers; Amy Millan and Torquil Campbell's tragically painted vocal interplay takes the most cosmically opportune times to slay me right then and there time and time again. Sadly, last year's follow-up, In Our Bedroom After the War, lacked the same kind of emotional punch. There's no time like the present, however, and the recently released Sad Robots EP (Arts and Crafts) offers plenty of reasons to stick with the band on in to After the War's full-length follow-up.

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When last we heard from Zach Condon, Brooklyn's Balkan boy wunderkind was allegedly planning to hang it up for awhile. A refreshing sort of retirement was in the works...what was his always enthusiastic public to do? Find the next striving young Phoenix to lash themselves on to I suppose. BUT! Today, the inbox brings news that the next young musician worth getting one's self all hot and bothered over may not rise from the ashes of Condon. No, the future is Condon himself...a lot of Condon actually.

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We're excited for Andrew Bird's new record. Here's guessing you are as well. The trick of course is finding a way to curb that intoxicating anticipation until January 27th, the date Noble Beasts was scheduled to come out. Catch that? Was... I use the term because Andrew's new studio album will now be released January 20th.

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