As we just got through saying, we are firmly in year-end list season. And since it's 2009, we're also in decade-end list season (vote here! You're telling me you don't have an opinion on the Knife vs. LCD Soundsystem? Or In Rainbows vs. Veckatimest?). And all that's fine. It's kind of fun, even, sometimes.

You may already be getting sick of reading the obligatory Top Albums of the Decade list that every music editor, blogger, and social networker has been ordered to shove down your throat. Pitchfork's got 200. Paste's got 50, and so does NPR.

If these lists have anything in common, it's that they leave us wanting to throw in our own two cents.

When Cave In signed off at the tail end of 2006, we feared one of Boston’s greatest post-metal bands had perished before its prime. So when a couple of years later they snuck back into the studio and then unveiled a blistering new EP with a one-off show at Great Scott, we grabbed our cameras — just in case it turned out to be a last hurrah.

Holy. Shit. Thanks to MIKE GILL for lugging the camera to Jesus Lizard's reunion gig last night at the Dise. If you had questions about David Yow's ability to bring the mayhem, this should answer it. The difference between then and now? Now it takes him an extra 0.03 seconds to dive 20 feet into the audience.

Boston is blessed this weekend, or at least it is if you're into checking hip-hop legends backed by dope live bands. At Church, Masta Ace & Edo G (along with four other acts) are rocking with the legendary Dub Station. Out in Allston - at Harpers Ferry - Slick Rick is kicking with Bad Rabbits (formerly Eclectic Collective).

^{Lady Gaga, America's most popular provider of music-like sound-products.}

On sale Thursday, November 12

Psychostick + Say Your Last Words + The Guns Next Door | Tuesday, December 9, at the Middle East downstairs, Cambridge | $10 | On sale Thursday, November 12 at 10 am | http://www.ticketmaster.

We attempted to make this happen back when MILEY CYRUS's backing band was half of Letters to Cleo, but Kay Hanley wouldn't take the bait. Better late than never. And now that Miley's band is 3/4 of American Hi-Fi, we've got STACY JONES -- Cyrus's current musical director, former Letters to Cleo and Veruca Salt drummer, and American Hi-Fi frontdude -- covering Miley's megahit "The Climb," in the green room at WFNX this morning.

I could probably come up with a bunch of reasons why tonight's show at T.T.'s -- featuring the cochlea-clawing Big Bear, Michigan title-holders Child Bite, partytime splatter-psych upstarts Horsehands and Local Band We'd Most Like To Donate Robes To, Ice Dragon -- is the show for you, but they'd all be pure speculation, and it's much easier just to ask Big Bear's Joel Roston.

For security reasons, I can't tell you which local rapper was recently the victim of a shooting. But here's what I can tell you: he's in stable condition - laid up in the hospital - and he needs some help getting back on his feet. Naturally, other active members of the Boston music community are coming to the rescue as best they can.

Allston got lucky Saturday night ... really lucky. Girls played their fourth show of their first US tour to a tightly packed and utterly appreciative Great Scott. From the instant frontman Christopher Owens stepped on stage to plug in his Rickenbacker, the crowd never took their eyes off the San Francisco quartet.