If the year taught us anything, it’s that we here at Philebrity have grown increasingly bored with, and yes, bad at, babysitting dudes in bands. It turned out, though, that while this proved disastrous on a PR level for all concerned — notably Man Man and the Danger Danger House, which, under the terms of our legal settlement we are obliged to point out, is NOT A BAND — it proved fantastic for you, the reader. Especially if you already happen to have a burning desire for schadenfreude for your local barista/band dude. But what was it really all about? In fact, we figured it out months ago: The scene is just in flux, baby, and there’s a mad land grab going on as the next generation of bands grasps for audiences in a time of oversaturation and the increasingly over-it vibrations from rockist fans from here to Conshohocken. While bands like Dr. Dog and the aforementioned Man Man went national and accordingly moved on to bigger rooms here in their hometown, the scene has yet to definitively produce headliners to take their places. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t a handful of new discoveries that made us breathe a little bit easier: The Tough Shits, Dark Horse & The Carousels, Designer Drugs, Brown Recluse Sings, Sgt. Sass and Jotto all popped on the scene with loads of promise. Let us raise a glass to all of them, because honestly? We’re tired of linking to Pitchfork.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 6:39 pm.