The self-proclaimed ring leader of Bigelf was kind enough to take some time away from wearing kick ass top hats and channeling the stoned love child of John Lord and Keith Emerson to talk with me at the Philly stop on the Progressive Nation 2009 tour. If you don’t know who Bigelf are, you need to. Right now. Cheat The Gallows made my wacky year end list and will probably make it again, unless Mastodon puts out another album before December. These dudes put on a heavy fucking show for everyone and reminded all the Wold of Warcraft T-shirt wearing Dream Theater fans what progressive meant in 1975. Mike Portnoy probably relayed probably the best description of them in my interview with him: “They’re about 25 years in the past and 5 years in the future.” And they’re really really cool guys.

Below is my 30-something minute chat with Damon, a few pics from the show and by week’s end I’ll have a transcription for those of you who are deaf or who lack the proper equipment/plugins/moral constitution to listen to me act like a fanboy retard for a half hour. Enjoy!

Click here for .mp3

I recently had the opportunity to interview Mike Portnoy at the Progressive Nation 2009 tour stop in Philly. I really don’t think I need to say much else. I wanted to come up with some clever drum-related way of calling him a legend, but I don’t think I need to. If they haven’t already hit your town go see this tour. It features Scale the Summit (who I unfortunately missed), Bigelf (who will be featured on the site tomorrow), Zappa Plays Zappa, and of course Dream Theater. I have to say, it was my first DT show and I was really satisfied with the experience.

Below is the audio interview and a few pics from the experience, below THAT will be a transcription when I have a few free hours.

Click here for .mp3

Frequently I find myself gazing at this site. This magnificent creation which I and a few co-conspirators have grown from literally nothing to an unstoppable force of comedy and music destroying an Internet filled to the brim with bullshit. However, when I lovingly bear witness to my creation, I oftentimes wonder “why is it called SmartassRadio.com?” Is it because we’re a bunch of smartasses parading around the radio industry and internet with a sword of wit and a shield of good-natured joshing? Is it because we feel that Internet radio needs another batch of smartasses and shock jocks? No, neither of these answers suffices. In fact, the real reason is far greater than I or even the Internet at large can comprehend. The real answer is this: James and I drunkenly bought the domain like two years ago and now we’re stuck with it.

So, here we are: we have the word “radio” in our URL and I find myself looking at a site without a single music related post on the entire front page. So here, for everyone’s enjoyment, is the list everyone’s been waiting for. What do I, DJ Scully, creator and overlord of SmartassRadio.com, think the best albums of the past year are?
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