Paint’s Peeling: At a Rilo Kiley Show in 2003

Some of your beloved SportsAlcohol.com writers are going to see Jenny Lewis tonight. She will probably play Rilo Kiley songs. I first saw Rilo Kiley in 2003. This is a made-up story about other people seeing Rilo Kiley for the first time in 2003.

I’ve heard they cry at Bright Eyes shows. Not just from Emily. I did some research on the internet. It’s kind of embarrassing but I didn’t realize people my age didn’t really use newsgroups for this stuff anymore. The Bright Eyes newsgroup is mostly a bunch of assholes making pretty good points about how Bright Eyes sucks, and I don’t really have a problem with that except it seems like kind of a weird theme for the Bright Eyes newsgroup, and also makes me think, fuck me, is this how I sound on the Star Wars groups? So it makes sense that you have to hunting around LiveJournal and the Saddle Creek message boards and, for as long as your eyes can take it, MySpace to find a bunch of people – let’s be honest, mostly girls – crying their virtual tears over Conor Oberst and his stupid one-man band and haircut.

I don’t know if Rilo Kiley people are going to be the same as Bright Eyes people. I would think they’d be as different as Rilo Kiley sounds from Bright Eyes, which to me is pretty different, but apparently they have a lot of fans in common so maybe I’m the weird one. Anyway, research can’t hurt. I want to know what those internet-type people are like even if I’m not going to be one of them. Some of them sound okay.

I chatted with this one guy on AIM. He gave me the idea of what this Rilo Kiley show would be like. I mean, I’ve been to shows; I know what that’s like. I know the difference between hardcore bands playing the back room at the pool hall and the assholes from the seventies and eighties and today who play at Kalamazoo or Ann Arbor. But I don’t know: somehow the Saddle Creek bands seem different, like they’ll change the shapes of the rooms by entering them and bringing in whatever. The AIM guy backed that up, actually. He said it’s like nothing else although at that point I wasn’t one hundred percent sure what “it” was and I didn’t really want to ask.
Continue reading Paint’s Peeling: At a Rilo Kiley Show in 2003

Should I Throw Out My Moxy Früvous CDs?

When Jesse and I moved in together, we combined our dvds right away, but it took us a few years to combine our cd collection. (Yes, we still have a cd collection—but this post isn’t about getting rid of all our cds, just a few of them.) Jesse said it was because we had so many more duplicate albums than movies; I would say that he was just embarrassed by my Moxy Früvous cds and didn’t want to be associated with them.

At the time, I wasn’t embarrassed by them. Sure, they were nerdy and cheesy. But, even if I don’t listen as much any more, I liked them anyway, and they remind me of a good time in my life. I still love a lot of those songs.

This past week was the first time I’ve been embarrassed to own Moxy Früvous music, and it has nothing to do with sonic nerdery. It’s because former member Jian Ghomeshi, who went on to work at the CBC (I’ve heard him described as “the Ryan Seacrest of Canada”), has been accused of repeated violence towards women.

When I find out deplorable personal information about artists I like or have liked, I never quite know how to process it. Should the life of the artist matter in how you experience their art?

Continue reading Should I Throw Out My Moxy Früvous CDs?

The Sport of Kings (Not Poker) (Or Darts): Handicapping the Breeder’s Cup

Many years ago, three of the more popular sports in the United States were baseball, boxing, and horseracing. You could ask a cross-section of the American public who won the most recent World Series, who was the Heavyweight Champion of the World, and what horse won the Kentucky Derby and they would be able to tell you. While baseball remains reasonably popular, coming in at third place behind football and basketball, boxing and horse racing have fallen by the wayside.

Many people could tell you that the Boston Red Sox won the 2013 World Series and that the Giants just won this year. Fewer people could name this year’s Kentucky Derby champion, California Chrome, and fewer still 2013’s winner, Orb. I’m not even sure who would be considered the current Heavyweight Champion of the world and I doubt you know either. Maybe one of those huge Russian (Klitchko? Klitcsho? Klisctko?) brothers? According to the Google Machine it’s actually spelled Klitschko and all of the Heaveyweight belts (more than one?) were held by one them until December 15, 2013 when Vitali stepped down. In case you were interested, World Boxing Council (WBC) lists Canadian BermaneStiverne as the champion while the World Boxing Association (WBA) has Uzbekistani RusianChagaev with the belt. Ever heard of either of them? Didn’t think so. Back to the horses.

Even though the Kentucky Derby is probably the best-known race, at least in the United States, it may not be the most important. There are many races through the world with larger purses. The purse for the Kentucky Derby is currently a paltry two and a half million dollars while the Dubai World Cup is ten million. Other races with purses larger than the Race for the Roses include the Melbourne Cup, Japan Cup, and Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Some people in the horse-racing world count the Breeder’s Cup Classic as the most important race in the United States; it’s certainly the richest, with a five million dollar purse.

The Breeder’s Cup Classic is the culminating race of The Breeder’s Cup, a two day spectacle with a total combined purse of $25.5 million. The series of races is usually held at different track each year; this year it will be held at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia California for the second year in a row. The Classic is a race for horses that are at least three years old and run on a left-handed dirt track at a distance of one and a quarter miles, the same distance as the Kentucky Derby. Since the Classic is one of the last major Grade 1 Stakes races of the year and has the largest purse for an American race it makes sense that it attracts some of the best horses. The winner of each leg of this year’s Triple Crown — the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness, the Belmont, and unofficial fourth leg, the Travers — will be racing this Saturday along with the winners of other major (if less well-known) races. Since so many of the horses that run in Classic are of such high quality, it is incredibly hard to predict who will win. Which is why I’m going to do just that.

What makes me, Sports Alcohol’s (self-appointed) gambling correspondent an expert handicapper able to predict this year’s Breeder’s Cup Classic? Quite simply, the following two qualifications:

1. I was born and raised in Saratoga Springs, New York. I’ve been around, talked to, and learned from owners, trainers, and jockeys for years. I’ve been reading the racing form since I was about six years old. Basically, horse racing is in my blood.

2. I’m pretty much a degenerate gambler.

In addition to providing a short explanation of how I think each horse will perform, I’ve arranged to provide the picks of other handicappers that I will be going head to head with to predict the results of this race. I will be using my vast knowledge of horse racing along with hours (maybe one hour) of research. These other handicappers will be using the tried and true method of picking horses by name alone. Since this race is being contested by three and four year old horses, I have enlisted the help of three and four year old human beings, children of my friends, to compete with. I will win.
Continue reading The Sport of Kings (Not Poker) (Or Darts): Handicapping the Breeder’s Cup

Throwback Thursday: Halloween Edition

It’s the Thursday before Halloween, so it seems like a perfect time for the good people of SportsAlcohol.com to indulge in some Throwback Thursday nonsense. This may sound strange, but sometimes you don’t get the full picture of our writers just from their bio pictures. Herewith, pictures and stories of Halloween costumes past.
Continue reading Throwback Thursday: Halloween Edition

TRACK MARKS: “Psycho Killer” by Talking Heads

A smattering of applause that builds then subsides for a lone voice to say, “Hi. I’ve got a tape I want to play.” This is the beginning of the Talking Heads’ legendary live album Stop Making Sense which was released in the US thirty years ago this week. The theatrical version, culled from three shows in support of their album Speaking in Tongues and filmed by Jonathan Demme, is one of the greatest concert films ever made, capturing a band at the height of their creative powers, playing with an inviting energy that few films like it have been able to match. Repertory screenings still end with people dancing in the aisles and you don’t hear about that happening with The Last Waltz (all apologies to Rick Danko enthusiasts). One of the most delightfully subversive bands of the new wave movement, Talking Heads’ greatest trick might have been opening with a version of one of their biggest hits that withholds many of the elements that made it a radio staple, and a classic scary song.

On the single of “Psycho Killer” the menace is overt — opening with an ominous bass line that sounds like hurried footsteps down a dark alley, joined by a matching drumbeat stalking after it, building to a brain-rattling guitar line threatening to overtake it. By the time David Byrne begins singing about being tense and nervous it’s almost superfluous. Talking Heads has always had an interest in the disconnect between mind and body, a divide embodied in their music which juxtaposes anxious lyrics with deceptively funky compositions. But this is the band’s most clear missive from a deranged psyche. The opening lyrics present a warning to “run away” but the French bridge, which translates roughly to “What I did that evening/What she said that evening,” suggest a man who’s already indulged his monstrous tendencies. And this isn’t even the band’s most disturbing song. (I’d give that distinction to “Memories Can’t Wait” which sounds like the agonizing approach of a leveling storm cloud, or “Born Under Punches” with its squawking instruments and eerie, desperate lyrics [Take a look at these hands!]).

The live version of “Psycho Killer” eschews recreating the bristling intensity of the single, opting instead for a stripped down intimacy that has its own electric charge. Byrne is the only performer onstage, his guitar backed by a pre-recorded Roland TR-808 drum machine played on a boom box. Tina Weymouth, Chris Frantz, and Jerry Harrison will all join later, each one appearing with each successive song. But for the moment it’s just Byrne and the audience, and his solo rendition takes on a confessional tone, an admission of his dominance of the band that would later bring the other members to blows. Many years later, following the band’s acrimonious breakup, Weymouth characterized Byrne as “a man incapable of returning friendship,” and you can hear in his post-chorus yelps a straining to connect. He does, of course; the band would not be one of the most influential of their era if he didn’t. There is something magnetic in a performer willing to delve into the darkest parts of humanity and come out the other side to tell of the nightmare. When it’s a nightmare you can dance to, you have a masterpiece.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4prFmbjZ7M

The Beast Will Out: The Wolfman (2010)

While the full tale of Dracula Untold‘s fortunes will continue to play out, the movie appears to have done well enough in this first weekend of release to remain a part of Universal’s plans for their famous monsters. With news of recent reshoots meant to keep Universal’s options open in terms of folding Dracula Untold into their proposed Universal Monsterverse (set to begin in earnest with 2016’s The Mummy), the film provides our first glimpse of just what they have in mind for these iconic characters. Continue reading The Beast Will Out: The Wolfman (2010)

Songs About Werewolves That Are Not By Warren Zevon or Duran Duran, Because Screw That

My favorite kind of holiday songs—and this goes for Christmas, too—are songs that I would listen to anyway, but just so happen to be about the holiday in question. I don’t really want to go “ugh” when a song pops up on a playlist out of season.

With that requirement in mind, here are my favorite songs about werewolves that are suitable for year-round listening.

giphywerewolf2

Continue reading Songs About Werewolves That Are Not By Warren Zevon or Duran Duran, Because Screw That

Dracula (Untold) vs. Vlad the Impaler

(SPOILERS AHOY FOR DRACULA UNTOLD!)

As I’m sure we’re all well aware, Friday, October 10th saw the release of Dracula Untold, Universal’s latest attempt to jump start their Universal Monsters franchise. Finally, audiences everywhere can learn the true previously untold sorta historical origin story for the famous Count Dracula. Now, if you’re curious to hear just what incredible story the filmmakers have dug up (and haven’t rushed out to see for yourself), let’s start with Vlad the Impaler. Continue reading Dracula (Untold) vs. Vlad the Impaler

The Ten Best Weezer Songs of the Past Decade

Weezer is the Star Wars prequels of rock and roll: objects of loathing born from young love, recipients of vitriol presumed to be deserved and, beyond the affection of a few die hard nutcases, universal. This is hyperbolic, of course: a rock band “no one” likes can no more survive for decades than a movie series “everyone” hates can gross $300 million domestic every time out. But it’s inarguable that Weezer has, like the Star Wars prequels I so enjoy, disappointed a lot of people, and unlike Attack of the Clones, I would not give any of Weezer’s albums of the past decade three and a half stars out of four for the sheer enjoyability of the good stuff.

Also unlike Star Wars, which had three-year gaps (at least in terms of movies) for opinions to percolate (and, I think, sometimes nervously reverse themselves into scorn), Weezer has absorbed these negative reactions via not scarcity, but abundance. The band came back in 2001 after nearly five years of inactivity, and they haven’t been away for so long since. Though their 2005 nadir Make Believe was bookended by three-year breaks, they’ve also had major productivity spurts, most notably in the 2008-2010 period where they released three studio albums and one cast-off collection in less than four years.

Conventional wisdom says these records mostly just upped the ante on how bad Weezer could let down its dwindling fanbase, and true that none of these records or what I’d call “good,” though a few flirt with “pretty good” or “OK.” But as the band prepares to release its umpteenth for-real-this-time return to form, Everything Will Be Alright in the End (out tomorrow), it’s worth noting that the past decade of Weezer has not yielded nonstop dross. In fact, there are some pretty great Weezer songs adrift in the seas of mediocrity, waiting for attentive, non-angry listeners to rescue them. This is what I intend to do here. I’m limiting this to a list of the Ten Best Weezer Songs of the Past Decade and, as such, not including their post-comeback records, 2001’s Green Album or 2002’s Maladroit — because those albums are, as a whole, good. Not great like the first two, but good enough to listen to without much skipping – really, the best halves of Green and Maladroit could combine to form a record nearly as good as Blue or Pinkerton. And the songs that follow, well, they could probably form a record nearly as good as that one. Maybe some of the poptimism afforded derivative Top 40 songs might (in a Weezer-friendly rockist fashion) be applied to your old pals from ’94.
Continue reading The Ten Best Weezer Songs of the Past Decade

Cool Girls, Smug Guys, and the Full Affleck: Let’s Talk About ‘Gone Girl’

Ah, yes. Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. The book that has been read, dissected, and discussed by every book group in America. It stole sleep from people who just wanted to race through to the end. It ruined vacations. It was the topic of water-cooler chatter in offices.

Now that David Fincher’s movie adaptation is out (with a screenplay by Flynn), there’s even more to discuss. Shall we?

Obviously, there are many severe Gone Girl spoilers beyond this point.

Continue reading Cool Girls, Smug Guys, and the Full Affleck: Let’s Talk About ‘Gone Girl’