(1) Thatch - 05/30/2025 vs. (4) Dustin Hoffman - 05/28/2025

Wow!

the beauty of JOTY, this dusty is great but this THATCH!

dusty!!!

And this is why we JOTY, what a match.. might have just posted my finest crap instagram story ever

This Thatch was my number two jam, and this Dustin Hoffman was my number three…I hate to lose either one of them, but I had to go with Thatch here.

I’m beyond shocked by this voting result. To my ear the Bend Thatch is miles ahead of DH.

this is wild

ATBoz you are a gentleman and a scholar and I appreciate your note. It can be difficult sometimes to interpret nuances in tone in these sorts of things!

For my ears, more exploratory does not automatically equal better. I am part of the camp that believes that this Thatch is just a bit overrated. There’s just not a whole lot of edginess after that funk section ends. Yes, it’s Type 2, and I love to hear it, but it just sounds like start/stop dad rock or something. I value the ambition but the content itself just doesn’t fill my cup. But, The Hoffman, on the other hand, that 2nd half does very much fill my cup. With that whole ascending/triumphant thing goin on. Beautiful. Hoffman gets my vote

This was a painful choice, as I was at the Bend show. Saw DH at the Park City Song Summit in August and loved it so much live....this one from May-a jam that takes you on a ride is joy.

This DH is the joty imo.

my comfort food jam & weirdly enough, the Dusty’s my JoTY… I never expected it to get this far…
Always puts me in a good mood.
I do love this Thatch, but the Dusty just moves me in a different way

I wish you guys would relisten before voting. Thatch dominates. It's not even close.

We’re gonna need some serious burner account detection for this one. What a battle! Go Dustin!! Good luck Neal, Ryan, and aatgoosepod crew!!

Very tough choice for me here, these jams both move me in very different ways. For me this Thatch is slightly overrated, but still very good and is more adventurous than the DH. But this Dustin is such a delight.

@teddeadjed I just wanted to quickly apologize about the thread from yesterday's matchup, I was truly just joking around and didn't mean any offense at all. I like to rib a bit sometimes but overall I think I keep things light and respectful in these threads, so I'm genuinely sorry if my comment came off worse than I intended!

Thatch! Multi section greatness!

DH for me. Love the groove it hit for a major part of the jam. The last 5 min I could do without. 3 DHs this summer all rocked, turning into a major jam vehicle.

Thatch not a 1 seed imo. It seems like a lost jam til the last 5 min. That did not save it for me.

So l close it’s crazy. Could we see a major upset? Hope so!!

Bendy Thatch goes so many places and they are all spectacular. But so does dusty. Tough matchup but this Thatch is one of them ones. Hope to see it go through

Really want to vote Hoffman here, but man this Bend Thatch

cmonnnnnnnn Dustin

if you vote for thatch you clearly yell butter rum in the first verse

Super close matchup here. I'll take Dustin just barely because I like that we get both strong Type 1 and Type 2 jams in it. I'm a sucker for a good Type 1

I guess this ones really the litmus test of 2025

Long wandering meh with faux metal bullshit
vs.
Beautiful purposeful theme jam

Happiness wins, going against my bracket and going for Dustin here

BEND THATCH SUPREMACY

The GOAT thatch, it does so much so well

I was at both shows and personally prefer Thatch, though Dustin Hoffman was the highlight of the San Fran run for me. Maybe I've sold this Dustin Hoffman short? Going to listen to the entire San Fran show again later today.

Well said below Mugkey!

Initially neither of these were probably in my top 20 but both have grown on me, especially after a Friday night in with some college basketball, some devil's lettuce, and some careful listening. Both these jams are good. Both these jams are great!!

I feel like i understand how this Thatch is a serious contender. The jam from the last chorus until about 15:30 is the best. Truly, amazingly good. This jam alone makes it a contender. Unfortunately I just don't really think there is anything special about the rest of the jam, it does absolutely nothing for me.

The Hoffman starts with this incredible groove that I really dig. It gets a little lost in the middle, but certainly finds nice form at the end

So my vote? If it were just up until 15:30 i'd easily take Thatch, but i'm voting for Hoffman for the quality throughout the entire jam.

I've got this Thatch in the Finals against the Grand Rapids Madhuvan, so I know how I'm voting today. I love how fluid the first 20 minutes are, and how the jam flows, but also stays in a wonderfully tranquil space... (total Glenn Frey - You Belong to the City vibes) before Cotter kicks up the tempo and they let Trevor take them into that frantic, eerie darkness for the last few minutes.

That said, I watched the YouTube video of this Dustin Hoffman last night while I was making dinner and cleaning up (highly recommended you do so as well)… and wouldn't be angry or surprised if The Hoff were to pull off an upset. There's a wonderful, late 90's Phish / Cow Funk / Moma Dance groove that they find about 8 minutes in that's just fantastic. I could do without the little Arkansas Traveler teases at the end, but that's the only bad thing I can say about this Hoffman.

I'm pulling for you, Bend Thatch... but I'm also prepared to go all Bobby Knight and throw a few chairs around... before pitching my bracket in the fireplace tomorrow morning.

Though I love Dustin Hoffman it’s to formulaic for me to choose over the Bend Thatch which I consider to be one of the most unique jams of 2025

Both of these jams are great - went with Dusty, but could honestly go either way. Don’t think either is a top 8 of the year, but quality stuff all around!

So, as someone who got to the voting later and didn't put in an initial seed bracket, I like the concept of not revealing seeds until maybe the Elite 8 round. I love the power of the community to shape the brackets, and the higher seeds will benefit from "more favorable matchups" in the earlier rounds with traditional seeding, but perspective can change with each listen of a jam and not having built in seed bias as the head to heads play out will help voters come to each match up as open minded as possible, which might facilitate some "Cinderella" scenarios in later rounds..

That said, I love the JOTY concept, community, and technical Implementation.

Dustin for JOTY!

This thatch is awesome and has some great segments, specifically the ending. But in my opinion, Dustin again deserves an easy W. The Beginning section is very patient with everyone chilling and some awesome stuff from Pete. It seems like Rick takes a back seat during the beginning and middle sections, but is still contributing in awesome ways. Rick slowly starts to take over in the second half, and at 20:36-20:52 Rick turns into turbo mode, and the rest is the result 🔥🔥. I love that this jam has a slower tempo and stays that way the entire time. Even when Rick is shredding at the end and doing so much, they maintain the slower tempo. Fast jams are fun but slow jams like this allow for them to add so much to it, my favorite 👌. This jam gets better on every relisten and is one I will continue to relisten to forever

Dustin is all set and fully packed, ready to take off!

My first show was on Valentine’s Day 2020 in San Francisco, so I love that the SF Dustin Hoffman is up for voting today. Perfect timing!

I also was at both shows.
The Dustin is awesome. It is my number 5 overall Jam. I felt like this version got a lot of HoHum after it was played by the community. The SF shows were the first of a great tour.
Peter definitely put a small finger on the scale here. He did it also with the Kettlehouse Thatch in 2023.

The Bend show was special with this Thatch and then the last linked Travelers and Elmeg.

Thatch is my number 2 jam of 2025, it goes so many places. It’s my vote here

I concur with Dave the Wise!! The wisdom of the crowds has become almost too omnipotent, creating an overly chalky bracket. I like his idea for the crowd picking the 64 jams & then having the pod seed them from there. Could break into the top 32 & bottom 32 & then seed within each grouping. But something needs to be done to bring back some spicy drama…
Also he’s on the EMGs, so clearly the ‘wise’ moniker is well deserved 😏

Or ignore everything I wrote and just invite Peter into the reveal. Hoffman may end up being 2025’s Louisville Arrow

Really liked both of these and had them high in my bracket. Not sweating the result at all. Both great. Going Thatch cuz it was higher on my board

I had these both as 7 seeds in my bracket, so I clearly see neither as being Sweet 16 worthy...but I'm going Hoff here. That patient groove just works for me, more so than what I have to sit through to get to the kickass ending of this Thatch. If all goes as I'd prefer (which is rare), the winner here is going to get smoked by the Gilford Fish next round anyway.

Ryan, Neal, Kev and Jive, thank you, thank you, thank you. This is a great way to spend Jan and Feb

Love the JOTY, the 2 months of great music, the voting and the new site this year Neal—well done, man

One thought, because the ‘25 voting has become a bit too obvious (truly almost all chalk), and more drama is more fun

What’s playing out in the bracket now is the law of large numbers. The seeding is now done by SUCH a large part of the community, the voting is highly likely to follow the seeds without high effort—my friends’ and my last 45-min voting surge (all registered real voters) to shove Iowa Creatures over Drip took a lot of texting. You’re welcome for supplying a fun mini-upset :-)

For ‘26, maybe have the community pick 64 songs to go into the bracket but seed it differently

Peter was onto something, but I don’t think random seeding is quite the answer.

My POV is that It’s almost BETTER if you knuckleheads seed it from there, because your (somewhat imperfect) points of view end up creating more drama when the group outvotes you. See also: Mission Arcadia over Northlands, Philly Echo, Portland Tea over Seattle Echo. Those meaningful upsets were what made other years more compelling.

Hope it’s helpful input. Feel free to completely ignore it. Just keep putting in the love for the music. We appreciate what you do—and know that everyone has an opinion.

Now, as someone craving upsets in the Elite 8 that f’s this up & creates drama…

LFG Milwaukee & GR EMGs!!!

I didn't feel this way on bracket reveal day but this Thatch ended up feeling like the weakest 1 seed (still great). Even if it escapes today, winner of GilFish/GR Drip seems like the favorite out of this region.

Went to both, love them both! Wish one was on the other side of the bracket.

I had Bend Thatch as a 3-seed and SF Dustin as a 9-seed.

But the more I've continued to listen, the more I've been reinforced that Bend Thatch *should* be a 3-seed and also I maybe undervalued SF Dustin. Not sure either of these belong in the E8. But listening side-by-side... they're actually very incredibly close, at least to my ears.

I've loved watching the Cinderella story unfold and the crowd enthusiasm is contagious. So even though it would completely blow my bracket if The Hoff was victorious, I'm casting my vote today for Judge Wapner.

These songs played two days apart and offer something completely different. Hate that one of them has got to go down!