No better way to start up the year than a show with a band who blazed through the year past, The Dry Spells. The female-fronted Americana band will be playing a free evening at Oakland’s Uptown Cafe with Little Bridges and Whiter Light. On The Dry Spells’ Too Soon For Flowers as his pick for best album of 2009, the host of NPR’s All Songs Considered:

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[Too Soon for Flowers] was my comfort record all year long, over and over again I played this record….The Dry Spells mix the best of bands like Fairport Convention (my heart and soul is in love with late-’60s and early-’70s British folk music) and elements of a band like Television in the way they play their instruments and solos. And they have stories in their songs.” — Bob Boilen, NPR