Pedro Alvarez doesn't want to play for the Pirates

Would you?

Steelers fans rated #1

As rated by ESPN.

Does this mean we are the most "now" in terms of fans?

A proud moment, indeed. Maybe next year, we can be included in the " who's now?" tournament. How cool would that be?

I just got off the phone with Brett Favre...

...he's informed me that he has pooped again, and will be ready by Week 1 to play "the quarterback position" (as opposed to QB). He plans on throwing to the wide receiver position, handing off to the running back position, occasionally dumping off to the tight end position, while avoiding blitzes from the opposing team's linebacker position. If they stall in the red zone, the Jets are well equipped at the kicker position to put points on the board.

Inside

Or À l'intérieur for the French speaking folk. Pretty intense stuff, yet so brutally gruesome, it may be tough to recommend to people. But I guess that's what I'm doing...



One of those horror films that makes it difficult to not cover your eyes...at least once. Good times.

Prem Predictions

OK, 1 week late. Big deal. For funsies, here are my completely objective predictions for the Prem this year, 1 thru 20. Like you care...

1. Liverpool. Addition of Keane gets the Reds over the hump.


2. Man Utd


3. Arsenal


4. Chelsea. Damn they looked good in Week 1.


5. Aston Villa


6. Blackburn


7. Tottenham


8. Newcastle


9. Man City


10. Sunderland


11. Portsmouth


12. Everton


13. West Ham


14. Middlesbrough


15. Wigan


16. Bolton


17. West Brom


18. Fulham. Sorry, see ya.


19. Stoke City


20. Hull City

Happy futbol.

Dressy Bessy to play Club Cafe

Wednesday, September 24th. Doors at 10:00

Sweet! We love us some Dressy Bessy. Last saw Tammy Ealom and friends here a couple years ago, and LOVE the fact that they're coming back. Only $7 tix! That's crazy. Ok...$10 after Ticket Web charges. Still crazy. Power pop at its finest at the best little venue in the Burgh...for a saw buck. Can't beat it.

Super friendly as well. Their last show at Club Cafe was a 21+ (as all of CC's are, I believe). There were two under-ager girls who couldn't get in, but listened outside the small little club. After the show, Miss Ealom went outside to greet and chat with 'em. Pretty cool.

Plus...the infectious smile of guitarist John Hill is worth the price of admission alone.

Get TIX HERE

a live in-store performance at Criminal Records in Atlanta (props to KimCriminal), doing "Stop Foolin"...



"Electrified" vid...




Dressy Bessy MySpace HERE

a pretty funny little comparison between Coldplay (cough, cough) and Dressy Bessy on NPR...listen HERE.

note to self: pace. French Kicks 9/23, Dressy Bessy 9/24, Bob 9/26

Up Close at Steelers Training Camp

Had never been to glorious Latrobe before to see the Beloved at training camp. Pays to know people, or at least Tirpak :) An incredibly beautiful day at St. Vincent, even if I almost got steamrolled by a blocking sled...

Nothing to do with camp, but heard a funny quote from Ike Taylor the other day, commenting on the intense Madden competition that goes on in the dorms after the day's practices are over. I guess in Madden '07 (I may be wrong on the year, sorry), OT Willie Colon is portrayed as a white guy in the game (Mr. Colon is indeed a black man, for those not following along at home). Shoeless Ike was asked about this, and commented: "Ah, man...they messed up his paint job." Frickin Hilarious.




James Harrison, OMB (outside man beast)



clutch



2:00 drill, #1 O vs. #1 D. Tomlin ruled this an incompletion, I think.



Fresh off the PUP



said sled



This ain't his first rodeo.



Fast Willie

Lots more HERE

Soundbyte of the day: from FS Ryan Clark, during a 2:00 drill in which the offense stalled on 3rd down inside the 5 yard line:

"I've got a cousin. His name is NOTHING!"

Special thanks again to Tirpak for an incredible experience.

Olympic Update

The "Redeem Team" may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

Brown Submarine ready for Pre-Order

Release date is September 16th. Pre-order the vinyl through Rockathon and get a free burned copy of the CD. Cool.

Hear: "Go For the Exit"

speaking of the Premier League...

After Gameweek 1:

Liverpool 3 points
Man Utd. 1 point

YEAH BER BER

Tapes 'n Tapes at Club Cafe

Still playing ketchup here. Another busy weekend...bought all of our Boston Spaceships tix for the fall, Prem action got underway (1-nil Liverpool!!!), got engaged, fantasy football preparations, etc, etc....

As mentioned previously, we skipped out on the Roots from that first night at the NAMU. The best time of the entire weekend was had down the street at Club Cafe. Tapes n' Tapes put on a great show in front of a small, intimate crowd.

Love "Insistor," from their first full length, The Loon (highly recommended)...



Got some live video of them doing "Hang Them All", from the new one Walk It Off. Unfortunately, the mic on my camera sorta sucks, so the sound is kinda brutal...through no fault of the band's mind you...


Tapes 'n Tapes MySpace page HERE.

Very friendly chaps from Minneapolis...so go purchase their new record, Walk It Off, HERE.



The surprise of the weekend was the opener Br'er Fox, a local Pittsburgh band who I'd never had the good fortune of seeing before. They're a brother duo (Aaron and David) who alternate back 'n forth between geetar 'n drums...and they both kick ass. Both the covers (Folk Implosion was one) and their original tunes...they tore it up. Missed their show at the Brillo Box this past Saturday, but I'll be sure to be checking them out at Lava Lounge next Thursday ($1.50 Pabst Pints!!!), August 28th with Persona Grata. Apparently, they've got their first record coming out in a few months, so we'll be looking fwd to that as well.

Hear some Br'er Fox on their MySpace page HERE.

New American Music Fest

lots of catching up to do here in the next day or so...weekend fest rawk, Tapes 'n Tapes at Club Cafe, a day in Latrobe, Prem predicts, other stuff...

Friday, at the South Side Works, the New American Music Fest got under way. We missed out on Tiny Masters of Today, but caught the beginning of NASA's dj set...which started out with some Black Sabbath. Good times...bonus points for the green body-painted dancers and break dancing dudes...





The Black Keys were next. Probably the best band of the weekend (or at least my personal fav). We had video of "Set You Free," but some dumb ass deleted it. Captain Beefheart was covered...







We missed out on The Roots because of the Tapes 'n Tapes show (see post later) which was being played at the opposite end of the South Side at Club Cafe. Saturday started out with The Duke Spirit. Nice start to the day. Felt sort of a Blondie vibe...maybe it was that whole hot blonde lead singer with 5 piece backing band thingy (actually, they only list 4 members, but I swears there were 5 dudes on stage) . I enjoyed them. Oh...did I mention Liela Moss is kinda hot...





Black Mountain. I really liked their self titled debut Black Mountain. I thought the follow-up In the Future was eh. Because I was so psyched to see them live, I was that much more disappointed afterwards. Sorry, maybe it was just the fest atmosphere, but they just didn't do it for me at this particular moment...





I'm not a Gnarls Barkley fan, but they were definitely one of the highlights of the day. Lots of energy, which was needed at this point. One thing, though...when playing "Gone Daddy Gone," I wish they would mention to the crowd that it's a Violent Femmes cover. Maybe it'd be different if you're covering The Beatles, Stones, The Who, or what not. But I'd wager that at least 50% of the young audience on hand doesn't even know who The Femmes were. Perhaps an interest would spark, and a kid who didn't know any better would be more inclined to pick up the Violent Femmes most glorious self-titled record from 1982...which may proceed to change said kid's life :)





I love Spoon. More so than any other band that was in attendance. But it seemed like it took them too long to get into it. Back in April at the Carnegie Library Music Hall...Britt Daniel and crew were most awesome. But again, I just wasn't feeling it. Maybe it was just me...maybe it's the whole fest thing (sidenote: I do think some bands are better for this type of atmosphere than others). Maybe it's the short set. It just seemed like as soon as they started rawkin...it was over. Oh well, I still stand by them...





The Raconteurs flat out rawked. I'm not the biggest fan, but they were really good. Easily the best performance of the day. I've got one minor issue regarding Jack White. I'm not a big fan of this whole walking on stage at the start of your set with your back to the audience, continuing to play geetar while not facing the crowd, and when it's your turn to sing...we finally turn, acknowledge the crowd, and sing your part into the mic. Almost to say..."Hi! It's me! I'm the big rock star you've been waiting to see!!" I dunno...just seems a tad pretentious. I actually like Brendan Benson better. Maybe that's blasphemous to say within The Raconteurs camp, who knows. They were kick-ass though...so much so that I may actually buy a record...







Bob Dylan was the big attraction of the weekend. I've always liked Dylan, so there's no need to diss a legend on these pages. We'll just leave it at that. I can at least say "I've seen Bob Dylan."



Overall good times. Anthony Kiedis made his way on stage to introduce The Raconteurs, and concluded with a "see you next year." Hopefully, that's the case. Not to sound greedy, but let's upgrade to two stages, though (ala Pitchfork...too much down time in between sets).

Lots more PICS HERE.

Brett Favre poops again.

making it 2 days in a row! If #4 were to poop again today, that would make it 3 (THREE!) days in a row. We've yet to confirm this with NFL.com or Stats Inc, but 3 poops in 3 consecutive days could be a modern day record for any QB traded from Green Bay to the NY Jets.

Brett Favre just continues to etch his name into the NFL record books.

Tapes 'n Tapes, New American Music Fest

We'll heading down to the Southside for night 1 of the New American Music Fest, curated by Chili Peppers front man Anthony Kiedis. We love us some Black Keys, but after that, we're skipping out on The Roots and exiting for the late 10:00 show at Club Cafe...featuring Tapes 'n Tapes.

At a venue as small as Club Cafe, it's amazing there were still tix left as of this morning. Maybe that's testament to how good The Roots are...who knows. But $13 to see Tapes 'n Tapes within the intimate confines of Club Cafe seems like a no-brainer.

Back tomorrow w/ pics, hopefully.

Absolutely love this video, The Black Keys doing "10 a.m. Automatic"...



Check out some tunes from Tapes 'n Tapes new album Walk It Off on their MySpace page HERE. If it's as good as 2006's The Loon, I'll hopefully be scarfing up a record tonight.

Feel bad leaving my Stillers out to dry for their first pre-season game, but this is Pittsburgh. Rarely do we get good acts, let alone choices between good acts. And besides, it's pre-season and Brett Favre won't be there...so I don't care.

Brett Favre just took a poop.

You heard it hear first!!!

Empties Crushed, breaking stories faster than ESPN since 19-something and five...

Happy Birthday Sid!

The kid...is now the man. Cheers, mate.

I guess the legal drinking age in Canada is 19, so no big deal as far as that goes. #87's been getting hammered for 2 years now.

I looked all over for a Sid highlight video with some cool tuneage, but the best I could find had Sid scoring goals to Foreigner's "Juke Box Hero." And I just couldn't bring myself to that. Why not a Sid highlight vid skating to something like "Skills Like This" or "Search and Destroy?" Next year...for Sir Sid...I'll do it my damn self.

So here's the best I could do...straight from our very own seats, putting puck in net for organization in a 4-3 shootout winner last October vs. Carolina (followed by some obnoxious fan who is way too excited)...

Respect the Refs

The Football Association has launched its "Respect" Campaign, asking for players to treat the referees with more respect during matches. I agree. While these wanker refs get it wrong most of the time, there's no reason they can't be treated with more dignity.

The following commercial that's airing with this campaign is pretty funny, though...

High Tension

must see for the horror fans. Alexandre Aja (much like Rob Zombie, Neil Marshall, and Eli Roth) gives hope for the modern horror film...



Only one part of this film I didn't care for, which I won't mention due to spoiler-ness, but it still wasn't enough to detract from the overall piece.

One other note: I love the way the horror genre pays homage to its history, where modern directors will often incorporate some of the stylings of past generations. Perhaps it was just me, but High Tension appeared to have more than a couple instances of this (Argento and Carpenter, in particular, come to mind).

Steve Smith Apologizes

Everyone has been involved in a beat down once in their life. Beat downs happen. Whether a good beat down solves anything or not is a conversation for another day. Carolina WR Steve Smith, the perp in this case, offers his apology for the beat down he issued at practice earlier this week...

"I'm not going to get into who's right, who's wrong. I'm completely wrong. It was an asinine decision. And I'll move forward better than I probably have ever had to. It's the first time in my life that I really haven't forgiven myself. I will not put myself into a position where I have to defend myself, to state my side of the story. There's no side. There's only one side, a lack of judgment on my part. That's really all I have to say. I have no excuse."

Pretty refreshing to hear this from an NFL player. Appears Smith is toeing the Mike Tomlin line of thought on excuses (that would be an excuse, and we don't make them). Good for Smith. If only other professional athletes (insert asshat's name here) would realize...sometimes saying sorry, or "my bad," is all we need to hear.

In other NFL news...

Green Bay is moving on without Favre. Chalk one up for fans who are completely sick and tired of professional athletes who retire/un-retire/retire/un-retire. THE GAME IS BIGGER THAN THE PLAYER. Good thing ESPN doesn't follow that philosophy or they'd risk ostracizing some of those "Who's Next" athletes.

Sunday Play: Datarock

Been listening to these guys a lot lately, only to find out they cite Devo as being one for their influences. No wonder...

(left click play; right download)
:: Datarock - Princess ::
:: Datarock - Computer Camp Love ::

Datarock's MySpace page HERE