As much as I and others have been a bit blasé about it since '09, Southby is still something I think most of us look forward to every year -- it's that one big opportunity to catch up and exchange ideas with the web/interactive world as a whole. It's more than a simple conference or "geek spring break". The last couple days have had me thinking that this year is going to be a little different, maybe a little special somehow. I'm not yet sure what that means exactly but we'll see.

Based on conversations via Twitter, it definitely feels like more people attending this year will be in Austin even less for the conference sessions than for the bits that happen in the hallways, coffee shops, bars and restaurants. I'd say that's largely true for me even though after finally looking through the panels and talks, there are certainly some potentially good ones. Potentially.

Butter Me Up

Part of the excitement might just be around some of the changes that have been underway for me over the last few months, one of which being my working more with Luke on ButterLabel projects and planning what's next with Ligature, Loop and Stem.

Luke and I have all kinds of schwag to hand out -- some lovely foil stamped business cards, stickers, buttons (ButterLabel and LL&S), and even a few ButterLabel tees. I think we'll be pretty selective about who those go to. All are definitely first-come, first-serve though.

On top of that I've got a few copies of Life in the Dead of Winter, my band's 2009 EP with me (on 180g vinyl no less) for any vinyl enthusiasts out there. For anyone interested in a digital download, let me know and I'll arrange to get you a special download code.

Extracurricular Activities

I would remiss to not finally mentioning that messieurs Hutchinson, Dorny and I will be hosting this year's annual SXSW Found Type Photowalk event on Sunday morning in the absence of the illustrious Mr. Rubin who is currently in the UK.

Information is available on the Flickr group page, the awesome Sitby.us app by Weightshift, and Eventbrite through which you can RSVP to attend -- there's no cost and it's always a good time. I believe Grant even has a little treat for those that do... Just sayin'.

For those in attendance -- see you around Austin over the next five or so days. Who's buying the first round?

This is the fourth time SOTA has undertaken such an effort (hence the title 'FontAid IV'), this time using ampersands to represent the idea of "people coming together to help one another". Who says celebrities, musicians and actors are the only ones who can make a difference?

My contribution to FontAid IV, dubbed "The Anchor".

Personally, this was an opportunity to be part of something significant, and over the course of an evening, I sketched out and refined an idea that eventually became my submission to the project. More time would have allowed me to submit another if for no other reason than to keep my pal Grant, who donated his time toward the work in assembling the final font, even busier.

Where to Buy

The resulting font, dubbed "Coming Together", which includes more than 400 glyphs from designers, typographers and artists around the world is now available in cross-platform OpenType format for a mere $20 from several popular font distributors with more being added later this week.

• Buy from Veer
• Buy from Ascender Fonts
• FontShop (coming Tuesday, February 16)
• My Fonts (later this week)

I've bought my copy, now it's your turn -- support SOTA and purchase the font for yourself, a co-worker, family member or a friend.

Although the feedback was all extremely positive and validated that we were on to something interesting, I tend to guage expectations with at least one foot in reality. In the end though, the response completely blew my expecations out of the water with that first collection of products selling out in under 3 days.

When we finished shipping everything I gave myself a little project -- to map the orders. The reason was simply to put a little visual context around what we just did. The end result looks something like the preview below.

Click the preview above to view the project.

Due to other committments and even though this has been sitting on the server for a few weeks I just haven't had the time or energy to talk about it, not that there's really that much that's not self-explanatory... For me it was a fun little diversion and a good chance to tinker with version 3 of the Google Maps API. If it's interesting to anyone else, that's a nice bonus.

For those wondering what's next -- I'll have a bit more to say about LL&S and some other things soon.

It all means a great deal, so thank you super nerds: @gordasm, @neilio, @robotjohnny, @jmcnally, @paulkyte, @fyang, @gmacgregor, @saila, ButterLabel, LL&S and former Wishingline co-conspirators: @luxuryluke, @splorp, @carywood, @mrwarren, @annamazon, @theinterned, and internet friends, peers, clients and all around awesome people: @sugarfreejones, @SharaK, @slowtron, @derekbalmer, @simplebits, @adactio, @feather, @nicepaul, @ktamura, @orderedlist, @drinkerthinker, @tiffehr, @mezzoblue, @TheAdnostic, @greghoyboy, @pws, @kenschafer, @jeffsmith, @renaud, @nathanborror, @vpieters, @mrs_hicks, @gleyseele, , @thedoeeyes, @kfinlayson, @danielseaman, @stickel, @louderthan10, @joshualane, @KuraFire, @breppy, @briandelicata, @kellysims, @katanma, @mattbrett, @soopa, @retodd, @adarowski, @dcharrison, @geoperdis, @andrewdotcom, @mintchaos, and @jaygoldman. Yes, even you too @kennymeyers. Jerk.

Needless to say it was one New Year's Eve we won't soon forget.

As it turns out we spent the night at Women's College Hospital, not too far from home under the wonderful care of nurse Rebecca, who along with the other fantastic staff there helped deliver our new baby boy.

Our special little guy was born at 10:21PM and came in at a healthy 8lbs and with a pretty full head of hair, just like his big sister Gillian. We didn't know in advance whether it would be a boy or a girl, so now comes the fun part -- picking out a name.

Thanks again to all our friends and well-wishers -- we can't wait to give you a proper introduction!

I think there's perhaps a bit more range in this one than the first, but I'm pretty close to these songs so it's hard for me to say without feeling somewhat biased about it.

Creative Commons Photo used in the cover art by balakov / CC BY-NC 2.0

Download 'Not the Same' Part 2 (93.03MB m4a bookmarked format)

1. Rocking Chair - Death Cab for Cutie (original by The Band) - There was a reason they were called The Band and Death Cab does them proud here. The addition of horns to the mix adds a little something new to the band's already well-honed sound.
2. Supernatural - Live (original by Vic Chesnutt) - Live never proved to be a great live band (IMO) but this was a solid, stirring highlight from their 1995 MTV Unplugged performance. It was also my introduction to the songs of Vic Chesnutt which I immediately began to search out.
3. Reason to Believe - Aimee Mann & Michael Penn (original by Bruce Springsteen) - A great cover from one of indie-rock's favourite husband and wife duos. From the tribute to Springsteen's 1982 "Nebraska" record.
4. Between the Bars - Metric (original by Elliott Smith) - Acoustic Metric + Elliott Smith = awesome. What else is there to say?
5. She Said, She Said - Matthew Sweet (original by The Beatles) - One of the rockier tunes from The Beatles' 1966 "Revolver" record, this version gives a good taste of what seeing Matthew Sweet live is like.
6. Will He Be Waiting for Me - Sarah Harmer (original by Dolly Parton) - I don't care for Dolly Parton herself but there's some good songs in her back catalogue as the White Stripes and Sarah Harmer have proven.
7. If You Tolerate This - David Usher with My Brilliant Beast (original by the Manic Street Preachers) - I'm of two minds about David Usher in general - he can be either hit or miss, but this cover with My Brilliant Beast falls in the 'hit' category for me.
8. Fasinating - Fischerspooner (original by R.E.M.) - A highlight from R.E.M.'s "Up" album that didn't make the cut and that most people have never even heard. This is obviously very different.
9. The Spirit of Radio - Catherine Wheel (original by Rush) - For Greg Hoy. This might be as close to a simple rock version of a Rush tune you might ever hear, especially missing Geddy Lee's vocal stamp.
10. Hyperballad - Glen Phillips (original by Bjork) - I've always thought Bjork's music presented an interesting opportunity to do something a bit different since her songs tend to be unlike just about anything in popular music. Glen unearths a simple ballad in this particular case.
11. Guilty by Association - Joe Henry with Madonna (original by Vic Chesnutt) - From the second (and last) Sweet Relief album and yes, featuring that Madonna, who apparently happens to be Joe's sister-in-law. The original features Vic and Michael Stipe of R.E.M. who produced Vic's first two records.
12. Paranoid Android - Steven Page (original by Radiohead) - Sufficiently weird and unlike anything the Barenaked Ladies ever produced.
13. She Don't Use Jelly - Ben Folds Five (original by The Flaming Lips) - The crazy, fun version. Features the vocal talents of all three members of the band along with help from multi-instrumentalist John Mark Painter and his wife, singer Fleming McWilliams.
14. Wall of Death - R.E.M. (original by Richard Thompson) - Probably one of Richard Thompson's most upbeat songs. Originally from the tribute album "Beat the Retreat", this particular song reappeared a few years later as a B-side from the single for "E-Bow the Letter".
15. All the Young Dudes - Travis (original by David Bowie/Mott the Hoople) - A pretty straight-up cover but Fran and the boys never disappoint. This particular B-side comes from the single for "Side" off their album "The Invisible Band".
16. That's All - Clare and The Reasons (original by Genesis) - This is one of those cases where the cover is massively better than the original. Still... needs more tuba.

The death of singer/songwriter Vic Chesnutt on Christmas day prompted my revisiting this so it's fitting that he's well represented with two songs. Although there's still more on the cutting room floor, I'll likely move on to something new the next time the urge strikes to do another of these.

Enjoy!

Luke and I, along with the incomparable assistance of Carolyn Wood originally planned to launch our new little experimental venture, Ligature, Loop & Stem the previous week but enough pieces weren't quite ready for prime-time that we pushed it back a week.

Based on the immensely positive responses we received throughout the week -- it seems we did something right and are sincerely humbled, excited and frankly a bit overwhelmed. Selling out the initial collection less than 72 hours after launching the site was... at least a little unexpected (by me anyway).

Of course there's still some lovely (and free) ampersand wallpapers available for your iPhone or iPod touch to tide you over until the next limited edition pieces are ready to go -- which we expect will be sooner than later.

Setting LL&S

In a lot of ways, the idea for LL&S came out of nowhere. At the same time, it's at the core of what I've felt has been missing from my work over the last couple years; the genesis of it has been biding it's time on pages in one of my Moleskines in some form for nearly as long.

When I mentioned my initial ideas behind LL&S to Luke I knew he'd be on board, the same with Carolyn, who I've searched for a good opportunity to work with for as long as I can remember and who put in 150% the whole way through. Luke and I had been talking for a little while about teaming up in some fashion and this became the perfect vehicle to get the ball rolling.

LL&S mixes Luke's and my design sensibilities, love of the web, typography and design history while allowing us to explore ideas that don't fit the constraints of typical client projects such as non-traditional navigation, interactions that mirror the real world, and hiding little inside jokes in and around the site -- you did find all of them right?

Unfortunately the web isn't widely recognized for stellar typographic design. Advances in CSS, services like Typekit, and some inventive web designers experimenting with type to more closely connect it to the message of a site as print designers are more apt to do will slowly change that perception.

We wanted something that could bridge the gap between the possibilities of print and the web, with a little industrial design thrown in for good measure. To do our bit in changing perceptions and that essentially gave us complete creative freedom.

Perhaps the larger vision behind LL&S is that we wanted to experiment with making stuff we'd want for ourselves just as much as we hoped other would too -- ampersands seemed like a good place to start as any. That said, we're not restricting ourselves to just producing print pieces. The sky's the limit. Exactly how some of the ideas we're already exploring materialize is anyone's guess.

We think we've got some interesting stuff in the works. If we can continue to surprise and delight then in my books, we've accomplished what we set out to do.

Credit

Luke and I would be remiss to not explicitly thank our good friend and walking encyclopaedia of all things typographic, Grant Hutchinson who I asked to help curate the Ampersand print with me. Also, writer, editor, idea generator and all-around whip cracker Carolyn Wood, without whom we might still be waiting at the gate because the copy on the web site would have been, well... nowhere near as good as we think it is now, which is pretty damn awesome.

For everyone else, close to home and around the world (the internet sure makes the world a small place) -- thank you as well. Thank you for the kind words, retweets, links and for simply making the launch a resounding success by buying up everything so quickly!

Next Up

Part of the point of LL&S is just us following our instincts. We know there's room to improve the site, particularly around navigation and little bits of the overall user experience. Thankfully we've got some ideas that don't compromise our original vision and should improve the situation.

Even before we get to that though, we need to get the first collection of products in the wind and on their way while pushing ahead with the next collection (which we promise will not feature ampersands).

For updates on product shipping, new products, specials and more -- follow ligloopstem on Twitter.

Hmmm--that should probably be crossing my i's and dotting my... oh, nevermind.

Although thanks to Dribbble, a few fine folks of the internet have had a look behind the curtain at the design and as ideas were refined, we're now just about ready to take the wraps off this little experiment. And so a little tease to, err, stroke your serif.

Look for more info and an official announcement shortly.

Most of the time covers follow the originals pretty closely, but on occasion they end up barely recognizable. It was with that in mind that I tossed together another digital mixed tape.

Download 'Not the Same' (83.9MB m4a bookmarked format)

1. Power To The People - The Minus 5 (original by John Lennon) - A beefy, bouncy feedback-laden cover featuring R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck.
2. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head - Ben Folds Five (original by Burt Bacharach) - Still as catchy as you remember -- just wait for the fuzz bass and the crazy ending!
3. Cortez The Killer - Matthew Sweet (original by Neil Young and Crazy Horse) - A resonably obscure live cover which I've had kicking around for years and that I still prefer over the original.
4. I Want a New Drug - Apostle of Hustle (original by Huey Lewis and the News) - Probably the most oddball pick of the lot. A weird, groovy ride. The bridge solo guitar lick is worth the price of admission alone.
5. Sister I'm a Poet - Colin Meloy (original by Morrissey) - Acoustic studio version from a rare 5 song EP released as part of a solo tour by the Decemberists frontman.
6. Gouge Away - Hayden (original by The Pixies) - A very raw, growly 1996 B-side.
7. Christmas Card from a Hooker in Minneapolis - Neko Case (original by Tom Waits) - I think the first time I heard this was in an extra curricular philosophy class I took in high school. The teacher had a thing for existentialism and Tom Waits.
8. Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want - She & Him (original by The Smiths) - A Smiths tunes plus indie darlings Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward is a combination that can't go wrong.
9. A Forest - Josh Rouse (original by The Cure) - A very odd song but a good one nonetheless. There's at least one recording of my old band covering this floating around the internet too.
10. Bad Time To Be Poor - The Weakerthans (original by The Rheostatics) - Let's just call this my attempt at squeezing in a double shot of Canadian rock.
11. One More Dollar - Glen Phillips (original by Gillian Welch) - A stripped down solo acoustic cover of a little folk tune by Gillian Welch and her partner David Rawlings.
12. For What Reason - Emm Gryner (original by Death Cab for Cutie) - I forget when I clued in to what song this was but there's something gripping about the sparseness of hearing it with a female voice and played entirely on piano.
13. History Never Repeats - Eddie Vedder (original by Split Enz) - Lucky number 13. I suppose this is really only half a cover since both Neil and Tim Finn who wrote the song sing on it along with Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam. It's from a Pearl Jam fan club single in case you were wondering.

Bonus points if you can identify all the songs in medley of track 14 (unlisted -- it's a surprise).

Left on the cutting room floor were covers of David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Vic Chesnutt, The Beach Boys, The Flaming Lips, Rush, The Beatles, The Band, Richard Thompson and more -- which perhaps suggests a Part Deux?

Designers such as myself have wanted the ability to use real fonts on the web for years without the hair-pulling, potential accessibility and licensing issues of image replacement, sIFR, Cufon or other "hacks" (however clever, they're still hacks -- deal with it). We've also wanted to ensure type designers and distributors get paid appropriately so they can keep creating and making available great typefaces.

Typekit, as with other upcoming services such as Kernest and those from Ascender and Typoteque make this possible now by essentially levelling the playing field across browsers, providing pain-free implementation mechanisms and protecting designers from the messy business of licensing issues and ethical ramifications of distributing raw font files to browsers.

So, what's so good about Typekit? Why should designers care?

The Good

• More fonts Specify fonts in CSS font stacks beyond the most commonly available fonts. Yay!
• Creating Kits is easy Creating a "kit" -- a selection of fonts, is simple and for the most part feels familiar; not unlike using a desktop font manager.
• Easy to implement If you've used sIFR or had to deal with image-replacement techniques, you know how frustrating they can be. With Typekit, just add the Javascript code provided as part of a kit to your pages. The rest is just a matter or specifying fonts in your CSS as you would normally.
• Browser support Through a little bit of magic Typekit works across platforms and browsers -- even IE6. Personally I would be totally Ok if Typekit didn't suppose IE6 (or even IE7) but it does so they get bonus points from me for being comprehensive.
• Is a good Javascript citizen The Javascript used by Typekit, at least in my experience so far behaves well and doesn't inadvertently stomp on other Javascript events.
• Reliable The service itself seems like it was designed to scale from the start. By using a Content Delivery Network (CDN) instead of a centralized server, the service should be able to withstand very high loads, provide low latency and easily maintain 100% uptime which is appropriate for such a service.

The Less Good

Even though Typekit is a great service that will only get better with time, and although my experience using it has been flawless, there's still room for improvements. The following would be on my list.

• Even more fonts This is a no-brainer obviously. There's a huge minefield of licensing and IP issues to sort out and understandably that takes time. The biggest issue with the fonts available now -- which are largely from smaller foundries and independent type designers is probably that most designers don't already have their own personal licences to use in comps or outside a browser.
• Browsing is awkward Finding the right font to add to a kit can be tedious. Right now the only options for locating fonts is browsing the paginated listings or using the classification/tag filters. Adding the ability to browse alphabetical pages, additional categorizations or a more traditional search interface might help.
• Weights and styles It's not obvious what weights and styles are available for a given font unless you view the detail page for the font or add it to a kit and look at the Weights & Styles tab. Indicating the number of weights and styles in the listings would be a good place to start.
• New additions Right now if new fonts are added to Typekit, there's no obvious way for users to find them other than by browsing through the listings or perhaps by a mention in the Typekit newsletter. Without any inside knowledge it's hard to speculate how often new fonts will be added to the service but I think it's safe to assume new fonts will be added with some degree of regularity.
• Requires Javascript This really isn't a big issue in my opinion because for anyone that's disabled Javascript in their browser likely wouldn't know what they're missing anyway.

My gut feeling is that Typekit will ultimately be a stop-gap solution, but one that will keep up with the current momentum of browser vendors, distributors, and type designers who are ready to start licensing fonts to be used on the web so long as everything is licensed properly and intellectual property rights are protected. If they can make it easy, affordable and reliable, I have no doubt it'll do well and be around for a long time.

Additional Reading/Listening

For some background and detailed context on the concerns from both sides of the fence (type users, type designers/distributors), I highly recommend checking out the recording of the Web Fonts Panel from the '09 TypeCon conference.

Get Your 'Kit On

I've got 5 beta invitations for Typekit and if you'd like to get your hot little hands on one, send an email to typekit@ this domain and I'll hook you up.

It's been several months now since I shook things up and, to a large extent, I've stayed quiet since. But it's time to drop the cone of silence. If nothing else, a chance to write a bit wouldn't hurt me since I haven't done much of that lately. Even my Twittering has (mostly) been kept to a minimum.

Like Brand New

Although the decision I made back in March was difficult (hello, understatement!), my state of mind and attitude since solidifies that it was the right decision for me. My stress levels are manageable and daily routines are starting to feel "routine" again.

A break along with taking some of my own medicine has allowed me to assess and reconnect with the things I love to do, find out what's truly important to me, and identify how to balance my working life with my "real" life based on those findings. In effect -- a second chance; a clean slate.

The summer -- what I've been affectionately referring to as my own Summer of George has found me reading, thinking, exploring, planning, and trying harder to live more in the moment. The things outside of "work" are fun again and the parts that have been largely absent are starting to trickle back in. I've also been cautiously getting back into the rhythm of project work.

The last two months have found me contributing design work to a few projects (none of which have gone live yet) and I'm beginning to schedule and prioritize others -- with a clearer focus on "design", not development. I've said before that I'm not a developer despite appearances to the contrary and now I really mean it.

Looking Sideways

One of the things taking a break has allowed me the flexibility to do is examine how I was doing things in the past from a new angle. What was working? Where was I making mistakes? What could I do better? Hindsight is 20/20 after all.

What I unearthed, aside from the need to spend more time evaluating projects for suitability and more strictly enforcing my own rules of engagement with clients, has been the opportunity to adapt or aport methodologies that have since proven to keep me focused, avoid falling into old traps and prioritize the work so that it contributes to a stable work-life balance instead of running ramshackle. The frustrating part being why I wasn't able to crack that particular nut sooner...

It's (almost) annoying how smoothly the latest projects have gone (compared to how prior projects on occasion went off the rails in their own ways) but I hope it continues -- I'll certainly do my part to ensure it does.

What's Next?

The next obvious question of course is -- what's next?

For starters I'm taking on new design projects in a freelance capacity again. Specifically, I'm interested in projects where there's the opportunity to develop mutually beneficial relationships and take a more strategic approach to design and producing great user experiences; not "cake decorating" projects as I like to call them. Please don't waste my time with those.

The internet is nothing without people (users, visitors, customers -- they're all still "people"). The job of a designer focused on the web is more than just making something "pretty". It's about "doing the right thing" for people; to somehow bring a degree of humanity to something that's inherently inhumane. To make things usable universally; to surprise and delight. To pay attention to the parts that most people will never notice. That's where I fit in.

Of course I'm also still interested in front-end code -- HTML, CSS and Javascript (primarily jQuery) which I consider part of wearing my designer hat and to ensure the best possible experiences are delivered. If past project work has taught me anything it's that far too often when I'm not involved in the markup and styling of something I designed, the end result suffers. That might just be the perfectionist in me talking though.

Aside from being back in the design saddle, I'll be in Chicago in October for An Event Apart and am bringing the family along for the ride. We're taking the opportunity for a mini-vacation and will be arriving the Saturday before the conference starts to explore and enjoy some deep-dish pizza and Cheezborgers.

Lastly, there's the cache of long-ignored pet projects that I finally feel ready to tackle and which I expect will start to trickle out before the end of the year along with maybe a surprise or two along the way.

Summer's over and it's time to get back to business.

As such I've tinkered away at automating the process, because, well, installing all that software is time-consuming, tedious, and really -- who doesn't have better things to do?

So after much tinkering, tweaking and head-scratching I built a little project that I open-sourced and dubiously called ...And the Kitchen Sink because that's what it felt like. Eveything... and the kitchen sink.

Recently, Kenny Meyers goaded me into moving the project to Github and I've been maintaining both the original on Google Code and the Github version. That does sound like fun, doesn't it?

And now that the next big cat, Snow Leopard will be officially out of the bag tomorrow (it's helpful to have access to pre-release builds via the Apple Developer Connection FYI), one would think the logical next step would be to test things to make sure they still work, especially given that Snow Leopard is 64bit through and through. I did. They didn't.

After several long nights and more head-scratching, now ...And the Kitchen Sink is too.

Everything... And The New Hawtness

Aside from ensuring the script built everything as 64bit binaries (just like in Snow Leopard itself) I actually went quite a bit further and radically changed the way the script worked and have started splitting up several core tasks into smaller individual ones that can be run in sequence rather than one big-ass monolithic process.

Par exemple -- now you can: download the various included packages, compile everything, and then finally setup MySQL (unless you screw things up real bad, this only needs to be done once). If you've tried the old version, trust me, this is a hands to the sky kind of improvement.

What You Can Do

There's still other changes and improvements coming -- my plan (in as much as I have one) is to either split things into "bundles" (eg. a Ruby bundle, a Django bundle, etc.) or allow some sort of flexible configuration to decide what actually gets installed. I'm not there with that yet.

In the meantime the thing desperately needs some "in the wild" testing. That's where you come in. So go, download, read the "README" file (for reals), try it out, report bugs and make suggestions. The best ones get a cupie doll. If it changes your life, I happily accept donations.

One last note -- keep in mind that I'm not a developer, ok? I just play one in my spare time.

The reality is that there's nothing inherently more compelling about Bell over Rogers. The reverse is also true (aside from Rogers being the only carrier in Canada to support the iPhone - for now). All this is also true of Telus, the third big competitor in Canada.

The world of design often feels like that too. It's a crowded market - designers ("real" or otherwise) are a dime a dozen. The unfortunate side effect of this is that in many respects, design has become a commodity where too many projects simply go to the lowest bidder or to the person who will sacrifice the most. It shows in the end results.

Perhaps I'm being an idealist but I firmly believe the above quote from the late Aldo Gucci (d. 1990) holds true. I know my life as designer would immediately be improved by being able to worry less about being nickel and dime'd to death and instead on effectively solving problems and producing great, memorable work.

Creative Commons Photo used in the cover art by _marmota.

Narrowing down a list of around 50 songs to a more reasonable 12 proved to be surprisingly difficult but I think this is a fair representation of that larger collection.

Download 'Great Endings' (97.4MB m4a bookmarked format)

1. It's All Gonna Break - Broken Social Scene. Let's just get the hipster quotient out of the way first, shall we? But seriously... Start with the rock, end with the rock.
2. Thunderstorm - Matthew Sweet. Clocking in at over 9 minutes and taking a page from Phil Spector's "wall of sound" methodology, this song covers a lot of musical ground and has been a personal musical staple for a long time.
3. Find The River - R.E.M. A desert island pick and arguably the best rock record released in 1992.
4. It's Not - Aimee Mann. Gets my vote for saddest song ever. I don't think it would have worked nearly as well if it weren't the closing track on her "Lost in Space" album.
5. Words (Between the Lines of Age) - Neil Young. The rawness and immediateness of the lead guitar tone and the underlying shuffle feel still gets me after so many years.
6. Reservations - Wilco. A beautiful ending to their "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" album.
7. Satisfied Mind - Jeff Buckley. As much as I like him, Buckley can be a bit hit or miss but I think this track from his posthumous "Sketches for my Sweetheart the Drunk" sums up the way he lived his life. We all could be so lucky.
8. Impossibilium - The Tragically Hip. This for me is a bit of an odd pick but The Hip have had a special place in my music collection for such a long time that it would be wrong for me to exclude them. Besides, there's few lyricists I can think of as brilliantly weird as Gord Downie.
9. Utilities - The Weakerthans. The lone band so far to make the cut in all three mix tapes I've put together, and as always they remind me that great lyrics and great melodies will always win.
10. Together Alone - Crowded House. Neil Finn is incapable of writing a bad song.
11. It - Genesis. The closing track from the band's 1974 double album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" with then lead singer Peter Gabriel. This is not the Genesis you know - trust me.
12. I Shall Be Released - The Band. A true classic and deservedly on any best of list.