a brief smile

we’re required to have “best of the year” lists. here’s mine for albums. i should say: making this list seems a bit arbitrary because it doesn’t really reflect what i was listening to in 2007 and i might’ve downloaded some of these in 2006. regardless, i’ll limit my list to my favorite albums that were “officially” released in 2007:

1. radiohead - in rainbows (of course…)

2. wilco - sky blue sky (i didnt like it at first but it grew on me)

3. deerhoof - friend opportunity

4. blonde redhead - 23

5. jarvis cocker - jarvis

6. spoon - ga ga ga ga ga

7. bjork - volta

8. a place to bury strangers - a place to bury strangers

9. cass mccombs - dropping the writ

10. joan as police woman - real life

albums i have but didnt come out yet:

magnetic fields - distortion (i’m still not sure how i feel about it…i like the song “i’ll dream alone” a lot.)

raveonettes - lust lust lust (eh.)

dont have and i hope will be good: autolux, beach house, elbow, m83

check back for the rest of the lists soon………

now we all have horns has been featured on a couple best of 2007 lists:
the underrated blog’s top 20 albums of 2007… #10

the music sluts best of 2007…#21

pop tarts suck toasted’s top 100 albums of 2007… #77

We’re currently being played on BreakThru Radio’s Rock Block. They’re playing Hold Tight, Electric Willows. Check it out. We did a live set on BreakThru Radio about a year ago. See if you can find it on there, it should be in their archives.

I (John) went to the Anime Festival this past Saturday and had an awesome time. Here’s what you need to know: Naruto is huge. That was news to me and it made me feel really old. Also, Star Wars and video games are acceptable entries into an Anime Festival. I guess it was something of a nerd culture experience that they were going for. Devil May Cry 4 is amazing. That’s right. I got to play it. And Casshen is a cool movie. Highlighted pics can be seen on my facebook account, so if you’re reading this and you know me, check those out. Here’s a couple of them though.

we opened a new apparel store on our site today. if you follow that link and check it out you can see a few different t-shirts we’ve made. we have to basic designs, one that was made by miles gilbert and features something vaguely reminiscent of an old twiggy photograph:

a second design is a monochromatic interpretation of the album artwork for now we all have horns:

in addition to the basic t-shirts we keep in stock, we’re offering you the option of custom ordering whatever you’d like. like if you want an old blank hoodie to have some a brief smile artwork on it, then send it to us and for $5 we’ll put either of those designs on it. or, if you want like a some american apparel underwear with a brief smile on it, we can do that as well. just e-mail us at band (@) abriefsmile .com and we’ll work it out.

custom apparel is something we’re very familiar with. our studio actually grew out of the liquidation of an online custom t-shirt company.

here are links to bigger pictures of some of what we’ve made so far:

we only played 4 songs last night because the owner of the club is a bitch and overbooked the night and gave us a 15 minute set. awesome. some of the other bands were really great though, check them out:
cruel black dove
house of fire

tonight we’re playing at the annex. click here for more details.

We won CMJ’s Sonicbids Spotlight Artist of the week.