1) President Barack Obama: This is a no brainer, but it has to be #1. We in the USA look forward to re-joining the International community.
2) The Ting Tings “Great D.J.”: The perfect punk/pop/dance/electronica hybrid. Love ‘em to death, and they’re great live.
3) My beloved New York Giants: American football champs of the world, marching towards another title; a blue collar, smack you in the mouth team.
4) AC/DC, “Black Ice”: always glad to have new pounding from the great Phil Rudd.
5) The Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC: Quick, smart, funny, wise, kind, and the cutest butch lesbian on television. Our finest pundit.
6) Emilie Cardenaux with JoJo Mayer, live: a terrific singer/songwriter, backed by the current “world’s best drummer”…at a tiny bar, no less.
7) The satellite radio merger: FINALLY. Sirius rules, with Howard Stern, “Buzzsaw”, and “Little Steven’s Underground Garage” ( The Handsome Dick Manitoba Show, weeknights).
8) Peter Erskine at the Buddy Rich Tribute Concert, 2008: a true swing drummer, showing all the interlopers how it’s done.
9) The Dictators in Madrid : The reason YouTube is great. Modesty prevents me from placing this higher, but we still got it.
10) F1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton: should’ve won it last year, but it was only a matter of time. Now we just need to get him a girlfriend who’s not in the Pussycat Dolls.
J.P. “Thunderbolt” Patterson is the long-time drummer for New York Punk legends The Dictators. He currently also backs rock chick Patti Rothberg and space folkie Erin Hill. His solo record “Thunderboss: Thunderbolt Patterson with Ross the Boss” is available on all the legal download services or from Poptown Records. As an actor, J.P. can lately be seen in the Lindsay Lohan flick “Just My Luck”. Russell Crowe has nothing to worry about.
