Liverpool: Best Fans in the World

Yeah, I said it. Check out the sign to Rafa:

"Don't walk through a storm. We'll carry you."



Chilling. The very definition of "supporter."

Skills Like This

Robert Pollard is going into the Hall. The Northridge High Athletic Hall of Fame, that is (along with little brother, Jimmy). Not only is he the greatest song writer to ever grace the planet, but he can bury a trey in your face and no hit your ass.

Rotten Advice, I'll Say it Twice

The guessing is over. Matador released the track list of Pavement's forthcoming "best of" record to be released March 8th.

A few glaring omissions, me thinks. "Father to a Sister of Thought" and "Rattled by the Rush" are a couple. Also thought they'd only take one track from the Watery Domestic EP, but I was pleasantly surprised to see "Shoot the Singer" on there. "Zurich is Stained" is the best tune not represented (imho)...

The tracklisting of 'Quarantine The Past' is:

'Gold Soundz'
'Frontwards'
'Mellow Jazz Docent'
'Stereo'
'In The Mouth A Desert'
'Two States'
'Cut Your Hair'
'Shady Lane'/'J vs. S'
'Here'
'Unfair'
'Grounded'
'Summer Babe (Winter Version)'
'Range Life'
'Date With IKEA'
'Debris Slide'
'Shoot The Singer (1 Sick Verse)'
'Spit On A Stranger'
'Heaven Is A Truck'
'Trigger Cut'/'Wounded-Kite At :17'
'Embassy Row'
'Box Elder'
'Unseen Power Of The Picket Fence'
'Fight This Generation'

We Must Make U.S. Kids Tough

By the time the 2022 Winter Olympics come around, the United States will be an "also-ran" in men's ice hockey. Unless we make changes now. While all of us in the States continue to make our kids less accountable and soff, the Russians are getting their youth to toughen up and protect their teammates at an early age. Like nine year old early.

Russian, youth hockey league, under ten age group, bench clearing brawl. What else needs to be said...

Invasion of the Flesh Hunters

The "Super Trash" exhibit and film fest at the Warhol concludes this Friday with this gem (also showing: Manhunter). If you haven't had a chance to see the exhibit, it really is a nice little spectacle. Located on the 6th floor of the Warhol, "Super Trash" is an ode to past generation exploitation films, featuring original film posters. The display has been up since mid October and it will be coming down this weekend. The double feature starts at 7:00 in the Warhol Theatre, so give yourself at least a good 45 minutes to an hour to check out the exhibit upstairs. There's over 200 posters to indulge (see below for a sneak preview).

Trailer for Invasion of the Flesh Hunters. "Their next meal may be you"...



BTW: Manhunter, which will actually be shown first on this night, is a must see for any of you younger generation Silence of the Lambs fans. Starring Will Peterson, Manhunter (1986) is actually the prequel to Silence of the Lambs, but supposedly the producers did not want to market SOtL as a sequel due to Manhunter's poor box office numbers. Go figure. Anyway...Manhunter blows away the garbage remake with Ralph Feinnes which was named Red Dragon (2002). All three of the aforementioned films are better than the over-produced piece of crap that was Hannibal (2001).

Rock 'N Bowl with Amoeba Knievel

This WED at Arsenal Lanes. 9:00 to 12:00. FCKYA!

Favre's Career (to this point) - Abridged

Gary, 0 for 2 on NFL action yesterday, way to go.

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules

I believe a sports book in Vegas had the over/under of days until Lane Kiffin commits a NCAA violation at USC at 23 days.

If you took this bet, I hope you played the under. Only 10 days into his new job, USC is self-reporting a secondary violation by Kiffin. The violation, picking a potential recruit up at the airport in a limo, is far from punishment worthy. However, you would have to assume this will be the first of many, many, many, many violations. Which, is good for a guy taking over a program that will learn the full extend of their punishment for the lengthy list of violations that occurred under Pete Carrol and similar basketball violations under Tim Floyd.

To compare with his 14 months at Tennessee, Kiffin had six reported violations, and another two under investigation.

Someone want to explain why USC gave this guy the job? Given the economy, Kiffin should start a consultation business where he teaches job seekers how to ace the interview. He'd probably make more at that than this coaching gig is playing. That, and won't have to worry about the NCAA... if he even gives a damn about the NCAA to begin with.

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY and Prince

Did I hear correctly? The "Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!" guy died?!? Yes, unfortunately, he has. A quick Google search of "Sunday Sunday Sunday Monster Truck Voice Guy" will reveal that Jan C. Gabriel has indeed passed.

The Chicago voice-over legend has his own little web page, and it has confirmed as such with a respectful little audio homage to him. Jan, we hardly knew ya.

In honour of Jan, this should be a fun little Sunday Sunday Sunday:

12:30: The Mighty Pens vs. The Dicksmack Flyers - NBC
2:30: The Milan Derby - FSC

And what should mount to an incredible main course with 22 minutes of scintillating NFL Conference Final action, EC is siding with the Under in the Colt / Jet game, and we're laying it with the Saint. Hopefully, we'll be spared of a two week hype monster headed by Brett Favre (aka: the old gunslinger). Speaking of the Vikings, this has to be an Internet hoax:

Prince's new "fight" song for the Minnesota Vikings:



No. Seriously. WHAT. THE. F*#K?

It's either a joke, or the dumbest thing I have ever heard.

Jump Up and Down In Your Rock 'N Roll Chair

sounds better than Lay Around in Your Hotel Bed...which is basically all I did during my 20 hour stay in Dayton.

Even a visit from Blob Pollard himself (aka: Dave) and Brian from the Textbook Committee couldn't get me outta bed (swell guys, those TC fellas). At least some pals were there to show me the photographic proof. Oh...and I got a setlist thanks to my loving gf. Got a lot of video from this night, but the sound is too poor to post. Sounds like another Almost Human project looms.

Oh well...more of an excuse to make sure I make Heedfest this year :)








More pics HERE.

Paddy Considine rocks the GBV

clip from Mojo Magazine. Thanks to gbvh for the heads up. Read in Full here.



Sounds like a good time to re-post Paddy in Jason Narducy's vid for Motor Away (any excuse to play MA on these pages is a good excuse)...

"They Instinctively Know a Snap Mare..."

It's been years since I've been into wrestling, however ever so often it's fun to go back into the vaults and bust out some good clips, I'm sure Ned would appreciate it.

While this is Tracy Smothers wrestling a bear, which, if you know Tracy Smothers, is hilarious. However, the real gem in this is the commentary of Gordon Solie doing his best Jack Hannah impression and telling us about the natural wrestling abilities of the bear.



Since then, a bear has only been prominently featured in inter-species competition once, when a kodiak bear faced off against then hot dog eating champion, Takeru Kobayashi.



Good to see Fox has always been giving us the quality programming we've craved.

11 Minutes

I remember awhile back (over a year) EC had a discussion about the amount of action or inaction a typical televised sporting event has. Well, the Wall Street Journal is here to revive the debate... at least where the NFL is concerned. As you may have guessed by the title, you can expect 11 minutes of live football action over a typical 3 hour and 5 minute broadcast.

So what do the networks do with the other 174 minutes in a typical broadcast? Not surprisingly, commercials take up about an hour.

The real kick in the pants; you'll spend more time watching replays of the game, than of the game.

Conference championships this weekend! Get Pumped!!!

Pens Need to Pick it Up

And not just their power play...

As much as I was a fan on the Pens' 2008-2009 "A Great Day For Hockey" campaign, I equally dislike this season's "Defy Ordinary" slogan. If not for "We Will" it would be the worst Pittsburgh sports campaign I've been alive to see.

So, if there are any Pittsburgh Penguins video employees reading this, allow me to suggest drawing some inspiration from the Boston Bruins. Apparently they had (have??) a campaign featuring a guy a bear suit aggressively encouraging the locals to become better hockey fans. I have one commercial posted here, but check out the whole collection, as they are quite brilliant in their simplicity.



Reminds me of some commercials I remember a small university's sports show did a couple years back...

How to be more productive, per Bob

It's a slow Monday. But thanks to gbvh again, my #1 source for all things Bob / GBV related for passing this on...

(FFWD to Rule #9, unless of course, you're interested in other ways to be more productive)

How to Stop Procrastionation in the Office The Rest of Your Life: GQ.com

Steven A. Smith replaces Steve Czaban

COLOSSAL FAIL by Fox Sports Radio.

This news of the weird broke a couple weeks ago. Tired of the Mike & Mike shtick on ESPN (which doesn't take long), I changed the dial on my XM car radio to see if this was possibly just a bad joke.

Nope. There was Steven A, talking about the "steroid error" (I believe he meant to say "era", but I guess words come out differently when you fake excitement). So the first caller I listen to starts to compare baseball with "white corporate America"...something about "Barry Bonds is treated different than Mark McGwire because he's black."

Three notes:

1. I quit caring about baseball a few years ago.
2. Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire are equal parts douche.
3. My 2 minute life span of listening to Steven A. Smith has elapsed.

Someone smarter than the meat heads at FSR will eventually put the talented Czaban back on national airwaves, but until then:

You can still listen to Czabe on his local DC show via ESPN Radio HERE. Bookmark it.

Or follow the Daily Czabe on his blog HERE.

Ovechkin Drops Gloves

What this video unfortunately did not capture, was that after he got up, Backstrom challenged Ovie to a fight. They both dropped the gloves, and then teammate Matt Bradley stepped in to fight Ovie's battle.

Apparently, Bradley has a history of this...



Embarrassing.

Pavement to play Pitchfork Fest?

While that has yet to be confirmed, there has been another Pavement show announcement:

Toronto Island Concert. Saturday, June 19th. Tickets go on sale next Monday, January 18th at gallery AC.com. Also playing will be Broken Social Scene and Band of Horses.


We're in.

LT Slide Electric Glide

FCKYA!!!!!!!



That's it!!! Despite Norv Turner's face and Chris Berman's annoying "San Diego...Superchargers" ditty, I'm officially adopting LT and San Diego as my team for the rest of the 2010 NFL playoffs.

R.I.P. Jay Reatard

An unfortunate 2-post day here. Only 29 years old, this is incredibly sad. Was going to see Jay Reatard at the Brillo Box a couple months ago, but for some reason we failed to go. Some lame excuse like "tired" or "busy", maybe. Pretty regretful now.



In other news, Liverpool loses to Reading and is ousted from the FA Cup (so I wouldn't be surprised to see a 3-post day).

The Textbook Committee at Canal Street Tavern

Chicago's absolute best Guided By Voices cover band performs in the GBV Heartland this Saturday, at the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton. Sounds like the perfect time for friends, suds, and pure rawk bliss.

Who's coming with me?



For the first time ever, I may yell out "FLAT BEAUTY!!", and actually here it live??

RMU Hockey Shocks the World?

Twice? After the first "shocking" on Friday at Mellon Arena, is that possible? Or is the second beating now a ho-hum formality? I'm sure HC Derek Schooley would not consider it a shocker, but we here at EC have always had a fondness for athletes who use that proclamation (insert sarcastic face here).

In a span of 3 days, the Beloved Colonial takes down the #1 team in the nation, Miami of Ohio...twice. We were in attendance for the first beat down at the Igloo, the climactic game of the annual RMU Hockey Showcase. And being the preeminent blog in the entire civilized world, we forgot our camera. Hence...no footage. Word on the streets is that the preeminent RMU Hockey blog, RMU Centre Ice, will be back up and running soon, so perhaps this little sweep of the #1 Redhawk will prompt that particular blogger to get off their ass!! (insert smiley face here).

Anyway...big time win for Bobby Mo on Friday vs. #1 Miami, OH. The Redhawk is stacked with NHL caliber prospects, and starting in net Friday was the NCAA's top G in Cody Reichard (1.3 GPA). Bob was outshot 38-25 (14-5 in the 3rd), but Brooks Ostergard stood on his head, and a 3rd period goal by senior J.C. Velasquez provided the difference. I believe the crowd was announced at @ 3,000, and they apparently enjoyed seeing the stunned Miami faithful sitting on their hands for most of the game (OK...at least I did).

In the return match back in Ohio on Sunday, Ostergard again stopped 38 shots, and Bob got a couple of PPG's in the 2nd period as they swept the soon-to-be former #1 team in the NCAA.

Probably the definition of anti-climatic, but this was the only video we could find on Bobby Mo hockey from this past weekend...so here's the preview of the RMU Hockey Showcase which aired last week during a Pens' intermission on FSN...



The Colonials return home this weekend to Neville Island, where they'll have Fri / Sat games vs. CHA foe Alabama-Huntsville. Plenty of good seats remain. So get off your asses, get to the Island, and show these dudes some props.

You Play to Win the Game

From Steve Porter, the man that gave us Press Hop comes this excellent follow-up effort.



Go Reading!

Electric Newspaper Boy!!!!!!

Thanks to fellow blogger and pal Jables (the Nate Corner) for forwarding this. Apologies in advance to the readers of both our blogs for the overlap (all 3 of you :). Thanks to Ronan THENADEY for the vid.

DG!!!!!

Doug Gillard Electric - Pop Zeus from Ronan THENADEY on Vimeo.

"Pop Zeus" appears on Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department, the 1999 Fading Captain Series album by Robert Pollard and Doug Gillard. You should own it.

Lou Reed: Satellite of Love 7" reissue

To those folk more familiar with Ryan Reynolds and Adventureland than Lou Reed, you may know the song as: "Shed a Light of Love" :)

Anyway, Lou's "Satellite of Love" is getting a reprint, and will be back in circulation for the first time in 30 years, available exclusively through Insound. Pre-order HERE. Only 1,000 copies, so hurry.

The B-side is "Vicious", the opening track from Transformer, so here's a quick and neat little doc on the making of that tune...



btw: thumbs up on Adventureland, and not just for the cool sound track. See it. Trailer HERE.

The BCS Championship according to Brent Musberger

The Cliff Notes version:

You are looking LIVE. Colt McCoy, the star Texas QB, is injured folks. Colt McCoy, has been led back to the locker room folks. There's his father, Mr. McCoy, going to check on his son in the locker room. Colt McCoy's backup is freshman Garrett Gilbert, folks. (Kirk Herbstreit interjection: the game is moving "too fast" for the freshman QB). Alabama QB Greg McElroy hasn't lost a game since the 8th grade, folks. There's his dad, Mr. McElroy. Colt McCoy has made it back to the sidelines to cheer on his teammates. There's Colt McCoy with a headset on, ready to cheer on his teammates. Mark Ingram...you all know the story on him, folks. (but in case you don't) Mark Sr. is incarcerated and stays in touch with Mark every day. There's Mark Ingram's mother. Let's take you to Colt McCoy, where he will try to cry for you on camera...



My personal favorite part of the BCS Championship:

Nick Saban (smug) gets pissy after getting doused with red Gatorade, causing his white shirt to fade into an embarrassing pink. Hilarious.

Note to pompous coaches: if you're ever caught saying "it isn't about me", then usually that's exactly what it is...all about you.

Congrats Alabama.

Wilco to play Pittsburgh

That's right kids. Jeff Tweedy is coming to your town. Sunday, April 11th at the Carnegie Music Hall in Oakland. Tix on Sale SATURDAY at 10:00 am, via Ticketbastard. If you're interested in this show, get on it ASAP, as this will surely sell out. I already gots mines, thanks to a good pal and an internet pre-sale (the pre-sale sold out in 4 minutes).

Last time I saw them play here was @ 2002-ish, at the old Metropol, and it was jam packed. I think the view will be a bit better (that place sucked), but hopefully Jeff and crew will be able to get everyone outta their seats rather early.

Last year's Wilco (the album) (yes...lame title) available HERE.

Wilco, at the top of their game (RIP Jay Bennett), circa 1999, from Summerteeth...



from the '96 record Being There, maybe my fav Wilco album..."I Got You"

Go back to those Gold Soundz

Pavement - Quarantine the Past



Didn't see that one coming. A "Greatest Hits" album on the brink of the big reunion tour? Appears the release date is March 9th. Pre-order HERE from Matador. $11.90 cheap for the vinyl (8-fitty for the CD). Matador will also be re-releasing all 5 of the label's albums, as well as the Watery Domestic EP (aka the best EP ever made).

But check this out:

GUESS THE PLAYLIST, all 23 tracks, and you can win lots of fun prizes (including a trip to NYC for their first show there). Go HERE to start guessing. They even give you hints!

Oh...and all FOUR of Pavement's shows in NYC this September are officially sold out. I will be in attendance for all four, pumpt.

Our bitches lather us

One of the many reasons the little clubs of the world, like the Readings, can never compete with the big boys...like Liverpool. Our strikers get rubbed!


That's right. Fernando is telling Yost...bring it.

Reading FC 1 - 1 Liverpool FC

I though Gary's club were supposed to be part of some "Big 4" or something. Replay on the 13th.

By the way, thanks for running that resolution by me, Gary. You're the best.

However, Empties Crushed is working on a new feature that should easily make this website one of the top ten in the history of the Internet. We'll get the details of that out shortly, but it should be a cracker.

Sid and Max vs. The Dryer

Thanks to our first correspondent of the New Year, Mr. Tirpak for sending the above

Piss Poor...

Yost

New Years Resolution

Empties Crushed will have at least one post per day starting this decade.

Or else, Yost gets it.