CHARLES HODGKINS

Charles Hodgkins writes about music, food, and travel. Founder of BurritoEater.com, he has served as a San Francisco taqueria expert for the New York Times, Cooking Channel, and other press outlets.

What was the food highlight of your year?

I've eaten a boatload of doughnuts/beignets in 2014, and somehow I still fit into these 46-waist slacks I got for Xmas last year. I'm a Bob's on Polk man. Mark Trombino's clever joint in Highland Park is also fun (if kinda pricey).

What was the music highlight of your year?

Oh, I could say it's been my five-month Neil Young binge, in which I chronologically listened my way through *everything* (including rafts of live shows) the man's done over the decades; an epic journey I had to beg out of at...1991. I'll pick it up again eventually.

I could also say it's been Nothing's 'Guilty Of Everything,' Cheatahs' self-titled debut (which sounds just like Swervedriver, and it's OK with me), Cloud Nothings' 'Here And Nowhere Else,' Solids' 'Blame Confusion' (which sounds just like Japandroids-lite, but it's OK with me), and Spoon's 'They Want My Soul' (which I think sounds just like Spoon) -- nutbusting 2014 records, all of 'em. I could even say it's all the Explosions In The Sky I've been subjecting my ears and neighbors to for the last couple weeks straight, daily and loudly.

And how could I almost forget my excitement over the idea of seeing Ride reform and perform in 2015? Really, I can't forget that. But I have a strong feeling my music highlight of the year will turn out to be Centro-matic's 'Take Pride In Your Long Odds,' which is not only my top album title to come along in many moons, but also one hell of a swan song for My Main Band Of The Last 15 Years. I'm off to Chicago and St. Louis to witness their farewell tour this month, which not only will probably be the finest rock shows I catch all year, but only furthers my long-held belief that compiling a best-of-year list in December sells our twelfth month of the year ruefully short. Why must we annually front on December? Why?? It's high time I stand up for my birthday month. I'm a December Boy and I like September Gurls just like everyone else, but dammit, I'm demanding the year's darkest month gets some respect handed down from Swimmingly's editorial crew. We're dealing with a legitimate month here -- like April, like September, like all those other months. It's more than just one holiday hoohaw after another; it's more than Bing-and-Bowie duets; it's more than drunken uncles doing the lampshade shuffle into the indoor pine tree after a couple too many eggnog-and-Fireball-chasers. Cool shit goes down in December, man. OK, happy new year.

Was there a moment when food and music came together in a memorable way?

This year, no...but there was that time in 1993 when I bought a Pepsi at 7-11 and 'Right Here, Right Now' came on the radio -- right there, right then. Totally wild. Just unbelievable.

CHARLES HODGKINS

Charles Hodgkins has written about music for over fifteen years and began Burritoeater in 2003. He recently reviewed is 1000th and final burrito, pictured above. Photo by Jonathan Lifeson Smith.

What was the food highlight of your year?

Without question, my bow-out burrito at La Espiga de Oro on December 7 (conveniently, also my birthday). I was at about 980 burrito reviews when I announced my Autumn 2013 farewell tour spanning a handful of San Francisco taquerias, with the clear intention of calling it a day with Burritoeater once I reached 1000 reviews. #1000 was a true epic: 9.25 mustaches of carne asada-laden, spice-fueled, avocado-driven radness, made all the more memorable by the surrounding presence of several amigos — one of whom turned the whole silly spectacle into a featured piece on KALW radio. Perhaps I’m a kook for making such a hullaballoo out of putting my burrito review site out to pasture, but to review a thousand burritos and not actively seek out validation from my adoring public seems like a foolishly missed opportunity to cement my status as a local folk hero (or a lunkheaded stooge, whichever).

What was the music highlight of your year?

Among my top discoveries this year, I’ve been wearing out William Tyler’s instrumental folk masterpiece Impossible Truth since first hearing it several months back, and I’ve been listening to a hell of a lot of No Joy, whose two LPs shoot the new My Bloody Valentine record right out of the sky as far as I’m concerned. And the random act of dialing up Bringing It All Back Home while walking through Parque del Retiro in Madrid one day in May sent me on a summer-long Dylan binge that even helped eventually make sense of Self Portrait for me. But topping the heap was the opportunity to catch five performances by singer/songwriter/guitarist/rad dude Will Johnson: two solo living room shows in the Bay Area, one Overseas show at Bottom of the Hill, and most special of all, two hellacious Centro-matic shows in the band’s home country of Texas.

Was there a moment when food and music came together in a memorable way?

The time toward the end of the year when my friend Colby asked me to write about food and music at the same time. I yammered on way too long about both, albeit individually.

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