1) Ariel Abshire, Exclamation Love (Darla) 2) Eve & the Exiles, Blow Your Mind It's ridiculous to try and number the rest of these in order. I really loved all these releases and in a heartbreak year when I needed a hard dose of feminine moral support, I got it in various degrees from these local (or locally related) CDs. Ariel Abshire’s debut Exclamation Love and Eve & the Exiles’ sophomore effort Blow Your Mind were my hands-down favorites but the releases below also kept me going. After the jump, they're in absolutely no particular order.

If you're venturing downtown for First Night tomorrow, members of the Girls Rock Camp Austin will be afloat. On a float, actually. And there will be a marching band, which will perform "I Love Rock & Roll," plus a couple other songs from the camp's summer revue. Make sure to cheer them on! Then walk east across I-35 for the toe-funk spectacular known as Foot Patrol covering Prince. It's gonna be a damn good time, plus it benefits the SIMS Foundation. Happy New Year, and good luck out there.

It was a good year for bluegrass – so good in fact that I’ve tipped over the Top 10 list and offered up a Top 12. Certainly some traditionalists will look at the bands on here and take exception, but what’s amazing is that so many young groups have put out truly impressive work the past few years. Groups like Old Crow Medicine Show, the Steeldrivers, and especially Punch Brothers have contorted the genre without sacrificing the integrity of the tradition, ushering in a new generation of artists that have revitalized bluegrass in the 21st century.

1) Old Crow Medicine Show, Tennessee Pusher (Nettwerk) Now on their third album, the Nashville quintet seems to have honed in on what they do best, which is alternate between ripping, amphetamine-fueled tunes about small town losers and leering sexual innuendos, and poignant ballads wrought with superb musicianship that still doesn’t take itself too seriously. 2) Punch Brothers, Punch (Nonesuch) Mandolinist Chris Thile is the most exciting musician with strings right now, and the former Nickel Creeker has had an exceptional year (see also No. 5 below). Punch, the debut of his new quintet, brings Thile’s immense vision of the four-part suite “The Blind Leading the Blind” to life with a force that infuses a simultaneously classical and contemporary aesthetic into bluegrass style.

Make that the best two weeks, give or take a few days. The holidays are Austin's gift to itself. The bands are home from the road and taking a break from recording (or using being home as an excuse to get together) and we clubgoers reap the rewards. Maybe this is just my deep and abiding love for the old ways, what the ex-boyfriend called my "rocking chair club," because I like to go see the same bands and musicians I've known since my 20s. That's especially true at the end of the year when so many bands of a certain age reunite or play low-profile gigs. Sometimes, the great hometown gigs show up in unexpected places, like at the Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, where the Gourds delivered a lengthy set to a crowd that doted on every song. When Teddy & the Talltops recently reunited, you couldn't get a seat inside Ginny's, but the pool table substituted nicely and the pockets held my can of Schlitz safe. Teddy and company laid out a fine slice of late-1980s roots-rock with a shiny country twang and none of the Elvis schtick many people today know him for.

The holidays are jammed with as many Top Ten lists as there are stars in the heavens, or musicians in Austin, or epithets in Scarface -- pick an analogy, any analogy will do. But when it comes to the holidays, for some reason we always turn back to the late, great BBC 1 DJ John Peel, whose heart skipped a beat (and then another, and then all of them) just over four years back. It was a black day, and a terribly sad and unexpected passing, but thankfully the BBC has always been Johnny-on-the-groove when it comes to archiving past airtime. Jolly good for those of us who miss Peel's avuncular chattiness and preposterously eclectic taste in music. He was the first, after all, to champion the likes of the Sex Pistols, the Fall, the Undertones (their "Teenage Kicks" became his signature track), the White Stripes, Joy Division, the Smiths...and on and on. Peel, who we'd like to think was instrumental in the forming of just as many bands as the Velvet Underground, was always keen to chat up his favorites for the record, and to this end the BBC has streamed a bloody brilliant, two-part Peel Top Ten, here and here. Listen and remember and mourn. And then go start your own band.

It’s Christmas night. Relatives are gone and so is the green bean casserole. Despite the rotten economy, you spent too much. And you’ve seen A Christmas Story enough times to make you wanna shoot Ralphie’s eye out. But when night falls, it’s time for Miss Lavelle White’s Christmas Party at Momo’s. Many of Austin's favorite musicians will be on hand to salute Austin’s multi-award winning queen of soul, funk, and blues, including W.C. Clark and Malford Milligan. The ageless Miss Lavelle started performing in the 1950s Houston blues scene but it was nearly 30 years later before she recorded her first album. CDs such as Miss Lavelle, It Hasn’t Been Easy, and Into the Mystic frame her rich, soulful alto with originals and classics she makes her own. Miss Lavelle’s recent appearance on the Nortons’ fine release Hip Replacement finds her in excellent form and since there’s nothing she loves more than an audience, expect her to deliver royally. Party starts at 7pm, show your love.

A few more shots from this week's photo feature to the right.

Keith Richards reached retirement age last Thursday, 65, which in musician years equals 325. Tack on another 1,000 in vampire digits. Fortunately, it’s a mere three decades this month that His Holy Riffness put the lash to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Though generally credited to Chuck Berry, “Run Rudolph Run” wasn’t penned by Richards' maker. Chuck amok made it zing, though, so much so that the seasonal standard assumes his lyrical empiricism. All the more reason, then, that Berry’s Frankenstein – Richards! – should follow in those footsteps by releasing his solo debut a decade prior to his initial X-pensive Winos LP. Marking Richards' milestone, I pulled out that disc last Friday, 1988’s Talk is Cheap, and was immediately KO’d by the opening “Big Enough,” Keith and collaborator Steve Jordon dropping Maceo Parker into their James Brown glower. “It’s Christmas Time,” off Hip-O Select’s new James Brown, The Singles Volume 6: 1969-1970, needs follow it on some mix. Richards’ honking riff and scabrous vocal exhaust on “Run Rudolph Run, meanwhile, matches both Berry and Brown in gritty chutzpah.