Aug 132012
 

Which one's Spice?

It was with great trepidation that I tuned into the Olympics closing ceremonies concert late last evening. It was bound to not rock, but I can’t resist any chance to see what’s left of The Who, and somewhere I saw a rumor that Kate Bush would perform, which would have been quite a rare thing.

What did you think of it? Was anything worth your while? Who was lip syncing? Here’s my jar full of 2 cents:

I watched some of the Olympics off and on. The track and field is my favorite. I am amazed at the power of the sprinters and the sustained pace of the distance runners.

Overall: A strange trip. It was as bad as you might expect but worth a few moments. Fortunately the fast-forward button worked. God Save the Queen.

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Jan 082012
 

Mod’s excellent SNSI this week caused me to once again investigate the work of a band I just know I need to have more music from: Slade. In so doing, I ran across this — surely the best sports/rock video Venn diagram intersection ever. Can you top it? (First Townsman to ironically post the “Superbowl Shuffle” video gets an RTH Demerit Badge.)

I mean, seriously: the only thing this song lacks is a juicy moment of profanity. Otherwise, it’s got it all: sports footage, sports clapping, scarves, frigid outdoor “live” shoot, a fans-come-first perspective, and bellbottom highwaters. It’s a winner!

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Sep 192011
 

In what may surely be a damming display of my ignorance over country music, what’s so funny ’bout Terry Bradshaw singing country music?

Bradshaw, the former Pittsburgh Steelers’ quarterback, is the first to laugh at himself—and typically an attempt at launching a singing career by a professional athlete is met with laughter. I can’t recall the last time I heard Bradshaw sing, but I would have thought it would have been laughable. This performance of a Hank Williams classic, however, strikes me a just fine. The arrangement is nowhere near as cool as Hank’s original, but how does it stack up against the following “mash-up” of a bearded Glen Campbell and Elvis Presley?

Continue reading »

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Sep 082009
 


Flipping channels one night last week I came to a screeching halt on the skateboarding documentary Dogtown and the Z-Boys. When this movie came out in the theaters I initially turned my nose up at it. I was never a skateboarder or had any interest in related “extreme sports.” That stuff always ran counter to my interest in team sports. My younger brother, however, has always run with that X crowd, and I do have a lot of interest in him and try to get my head around what he cares about. He loved the movie, so a few years ago I finally broke down and rented it. It was great! From now on, I’ll stop flipping channels whenever I come across that documentary, and I’ve since watched a few other documentaries on skateboarding and surfing.

My oldest son thinks I’m trying to relive my youth, but I tell him I’m not. I’m really trying to better understand my younger brother and prepare for the road I can see my younger son taking. Watching Dogtown and the Z-Boys again the other night I was struck by the marriage of music and extreme sports. What other sports have ever been so closely related to a form of music? I guess some extreme sports lean more toward metal than punk, but I’m not yet sure when one X Games competition requires the cueing of speed metal rather than hardcore punk. I know nothing about NASCAR. Are NASCAR docs fueled by some special country or Southern Rock mix of music? Is there any other equivalent to skate punk? Wait, what am I saying – skate punk is the direct descendant of surf rock, both in terms of the sport and, to some extent, the music.

OK, are there any equivalents to skate punk and surf rock? And whatever particular X Games sport is closely identified with speed metal…

Getting my head around the SoCal skater/surfer scenes has recently had the added effect of helping me tune into the music related to those scenes. I can hear how the music relates to the motion of the sport. I wonder if there’s a rhythm to the sport I love most, baseball.

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