Kevin Bronson on August 30th, 2018

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I remember 2008 like it was … er …. 10 years ago.

First, it was the year my employment at the Los Angeles Times — where I was an underling editor and as a side gig wrote the weekly Buzz Bands local music column — ended. Two months later, this thing called Buzz Bands LA was launched. My bank account was never the same.

M83’s “Saturdays + Youth” was my album of the year, with the single “Kim & Jessie” (co-written by L.A.’s Morgan Kibby) on repeat. “Chinese Democracy” was the butt of most of my jokes. I joined Twitter. Spaceland (now the Satellite), the Echo and the Smell were the loci of the local indie-rock scene, although star-crossed Safari Sam’s gave it a good run before bad ownership doomed it. Indie 103.1 (RIP, 2009) was the radio station of choice, with Mr. Shovel’s “Check One Two” local program setting the tone for the scene. The other staple of my radio diet, Nic Harcourt, departed KCRW. MySpace Records was a thing (especially after they signed Meiko). Cold War Kids played the main stage at Coachella. The club residencies — the Henry Clay People, the Parson Red Heads, the Pity Party, Radars to the Sky, the Movies (sheesh, the Movies, the greatest shoulda-been-huge band we’ve ever witnessed), Rademacher, Warpaint, Afternoons, Dios, Rickie Lee Jones, Kenan Bell and, memorably, the Airborne Toxic Event — have now dissolved into a happy miasma of “glad I was there.” If I have one regret, it’s not making more than a few cursory visits to Low End Theory (this was, after all, the year Flying Lotus released “Los Angeles”). If I have another regret, it’s that I wish I weren’t such a terrible photographer.

Time (and 15,000-plus blog posts and a couple thousand live shows) has pixillated the memory, but below are 10 things I remember about 2008, along with a 70-song playlist of artists I wrote about that year. The playlist is typically indie-rock-leaning and rather obscurist, as I am wont to champion underdog indie bands, but no apologies here. I still think there was no more perfect song for the time than the Henry Clay People’s “Working Part Time.” Besides, how many remember that the two guys behind the Frequency are now two-thirds of the Record Company? Or that POP ETC were originally the Morning Benders? Or that Local Natives originally had a sixth member? Or that the Briggs had the official song of the Los Angeles Kings?

■ Thanks to Prince, there is “The Official Fuck Kevin Bronson Thread” on the Coachella forums. The story goes like this: In the course of my duties at the Times, I found out via “unnamed sources” that Prince was being added to the Coachella lineup. I reported as much on the Times’ music blog, even though it wasn’t officially announced. The Purple One was not amused that anyone had jumped the gun in breaking the news. He was due to sign the contract that very afternoon but backed out. The Times did not stand behind me despite my insistence my sources were solid and retracted my story. On the forums, Coachella fans made me a pariah. But behind the scenes, apparently, fences were mended and Prince was added to the lineup as a headliner at the 11th hour. I stood by myself in the field with thousands of fans and soaked it in. It was glorious.

■ On Jan. 31, the Airborne Toxic Event — the L.A. breakout band of that time period — played the finale of a Thursday night residency at Spaceland. The show was opened by the other two “best new L.A. bands” that I had featured in the Times in late 2007, the Deadly Syndrome and Castledoor. It was a delirious night that began with Castledoor decorating the stage with copies of the Times. It ended with paper strewn on the floor and Kiefer Sutherland dancing tipsy to a Buzz Bands DJ set, and since I promised him I would never publish the photo you won’t see it here.

■ The Airborne Toxic Event’s debut album got savaged by Pitchfork — a 1.6, egad. (Louis XIV’s album that year fared almost as badly.) We locals were naturally horrified that a national website had put the ambassadors of the L.A. scene in its crosshairs and made a considerable number of jokes about the likelihood that Pitchfork staffers still lived at home in their mom’s basement and fornicated with Animal Collective records. In a questionable-to-this-day move, the Airborne Toxic Event responded with an “Open Letter to Pitchfork Media.” It was all grand theater. Whatever. “Sometime Around Midnight” does not suck.

■ An Aussie based in L.A., Sam Sparro, released the pop song of the year. Period. See the playlist.

■ Katy Perry kissed a girl and did the Warped Tour. No, really, there are photos to prove it. “I’m eager to prove to people that even though I am a pop artist and on a major label, I’m legit,” she told me in a story for the Times. “I play my guitar, and the band rocks, and I want to earn the respect of everybody out there.” She wasn’t punk, but she was solid.

■ Britpop greats James played a secret/surprise show at Spaceland (now known as the Satellite). The Cure played a secret show at the Troubadour. Beck played a secret show at the Echo. Jenny Lewis did a secret show at the Echoplex. All paled in comparison to Jane’s Addiction’s secret show at downtown’s La Cita.

■ My Bloody Valentine played my favorite show of the year at the Santa Monica Civic. It remains the only concert I’ve ever attended when the sheer force of the music blew me back four or five feet.

■ I went to a festival at Pappy & Harriet’s and witnessed Black Rebel Motorcycle Club playing on an outdoor stage in a biting desert wind on a 44-degree night. Afterward, I slept in my car. When I woke up the next morning and took a stroll down the Old West street behind the venue, I stumbled in to somebody’s wedding.

■ “Sunset Junction,” a movie comedy, was released. Not many laughed. Sunset Junction, the increasingly controversial (and  ultimately doomed) music festival, was headlined by the Black Keys, Kinky, Isaac Hayes and Cold War Kids. Not many in the neighborhood laughed.

■ And Afternoons made a song that was so good Shepard Fairey designed a poster for it. About three versions later (although I still prefer the original, with horns and not synths), “Say Yes” was released.

So, to all the bands I wish would play a reunion show (looking especially at you, Darker My Love), to all the doormen and bartenders who treated me nicely, to all the local bloggers who shared their passion, to everybody who remembers the Detour Festival (especially the Mae Shi), to everybody who remembers the Part Time Punks Festival and to everybody who’s still around (or has moved on to other projects), cheers.

||| Stream: “Ten Years After: 2008 on Buzz Bands LA”