Week in Review: Let Us Soak in Positive Forces

New Year's Eve...no idea, basically. Photo by Rebecca Smeyne.

In the week we learned that Animal Collective's manager is apparently endowed with a baby leg, in the one dark place where that would be a meaningful statement, we did our best to otherwise cleanse the ol' SOTC soul, apologizing to Surfer Blood for predicting they'd break up back at CMJ, debunking bizarrely written Jay-Z exposes, and gathering New York City's remaining record stores for one last summit on the wretched industry decade that was the aughts.

Perhaps it's time for a new career on the The Scene...L.E.S., the reality show on which we hear our blogging and journalistic expertise is needed? Or maybe we can just get paid millions of dollars to perform for a woman-beating terror-sponsor scion. Either one, really!

"This ride provides the effect of a terrible hangover without the drinking beforehand part," local lo-fi sunshine stealers the Beachniks told us, about Coney Island's Break Dance ride. (They also offered up the song they wrote about the whole wretched experience, called, you guessed it, "Coney Island.") The Dutchess and the Duke's Jesse Lortz told us that "all of the songs are autobiographical" on his band's newish album, Sunset/Sunrise. And Red Baraat's Sunny Jain recounted for us his wedding day, the band that eventually emerged out of it, and then lent us the song, too: "Punjabi Wedding Song (Balle Balle)."

We went bowling with Real Estate and Babies, got somewhat confused by Gemma Ray and Jerseyband at the Mercury Lounge, went to New Year's Eve parties at Webster Hall, Cake Shop, Home Sweet Home, and Shea Stadium, though all that NYE stuff is already starting to feel depressingly far away. Missed the Salem show at Glasslands but at least Michael Stipe and Terence Koh didn't.

Finally, the answer to the pressing questions, "Why are beards so popular in the indie music scene?", "Does America (hopefully) prefer Taylor Swift to Susan Boyle?", "What would Shane MacGowan look like with teeth?", and "What exactly would Courtney Love sound like covering the Replacements while putting on make-up at the Standard Hotel?" Glad all that's settled.

Plus the return of Vampire Weekend, 1000TimesYes, Kanye West, and the Yummy Fur (imagine that poker game), more or less what the xx would look like in cartoon form, M.I.A.'s genius customer-service gambit, the beatboxed Vivian Girls cover you never knew you were waiting for, a photo of Grizzly Bear's Chris Bear hugging a koala, Kathleen Hanna's riot grrrl archive at NYU, the Clipse and Japandroids on Fallon, the greatest painting by the RZA in 2010 so far, the Michael Cera/Islands collabo and more, below. We're back on Monday.