Sorry for the delay in getting the review out for Follow The Leader but work has been a pain in the ass, and well you know. But have faith that my review for that seminal 1988 banger with the super dookie rope chains will be up shortly. Hopefully everyone has had a chance to buy the record and absorb it, so after my review the rest will follow.
On a different subject I'm going to see Kraftwerk tonight here in South Beach. Not sure what to expect from this band who were a major influence on hip-hop, techno, house, and all modern electronic music in general. I'm hoping that it will be very loud, have tons of bass, and very freaky in a 1970s German way. I'm not sure if they actual band will be on stage, of if automatons will be plunking on synths and drum machines. Either way I'm sure there will be cool lasers. Expect a concert review as well as my Eric B. & Rakim diatribe.
Friday, November 19, 2004
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
On the Sox
Derek asked that Tom and I give an account of what it has been like to be a Red Sox fan in Boston during the past few crucial weeks of the play-offs. I won't be able to capture it all here, but maybe with some discussion threads and other points of view, we can do something substantial on the topic.
I will start and end with the greatest moment of joy in my history of being a sports fan, that being the hour or so after the Sox knocked off the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS. I do mean greatest moment of joy, which means that taking that series was better than both Super Bowl wins by the Patriots and even the Celtics winning their 16th NBA title in 1986, the first great moment in my sports-watching life. The reason that this moment tops them all is because of how close I feel to this team.
I often refer to the teams I rout for as "we," which feels contrived and false at times, but never with this Red Sox team, and the same can be said for last year's squad. This season, leading up to tonight's Game 3 against the Cardinals, the Sox have played 174 games. I would estimate that I have watched at least one inning of about 130-140 of those games. Pedro and Schilling starts have been events that you don't miss, things that tell you what day of the week it is if you don't have any other frame of reference. When you know who is pitching on any given night because you know who pitched last night or the night before, you're in pretty deep with a team. You know each player's quirks, you know who is at bat from the other room just by hearing the piece of music they choose to be introduced with before they step to the plate, you know how they will react to cold weather or being pitched inside. At a certain point you start to loose the sense of detachment between the players and yourself as a fan, especially when so many people around you follow just as intently and feel the same way.
So in a way, the Sox are family in this town. And nothing hurts as bad as seeing your family get hurt the way we all were hurt last year thanks be to the Yankees during the ALCS. I will probably never have the words to describe how painful the emotional roller coaster of that series was, especially Game 7. Tom and myself, among others, went to a bar to watch that game, nervous but confident to have Pedro on the mound against Clemens. When Clemens was chased early with the Sox owning a healthy lead, I was hugging the bouncer. A little while later, that same bouncer was curled up in a ball in the corner of the bar, completely inconsolable. I'll skip the details, but to paraphrase, we went from extreme jubilation to absolute despair in less than an hour, and by the time Aaron Boone hit his series winning homer, we were all shells of our former selves, staring blankly and chain smoking, merely biding our time before the inevitable hit. For at least a month after that, no one in town was right. I remember that month as being one long grey period, where nothing really makes you happy, and nothing can make you feel any worse than how you felt so recently. Hell, even the Patriots starting their winning streak barely made a scratch.
By the time this year came around, I think everyone was still numb, and a little hesitant to come back into the fold and hold out hope again. The regular season looked long and like a wasted trip just to get back to where we just got burned. It started out well enough, with some strong performances from Schilling and Foulke, but most notably, going 5-1 out of the box in the first two series against the Yanks. We were sucked back in again. The Yanks were floundering, most notably A-Rod and Jeter, the two most hated men in New England, and the Sox were winning and on top of the AL East. But as they always do, the Yankees started winning, and the Sox entered a period of prolonged mediocrity. When Nomar came back from an injury, we thought that he would provide a needed spark, but it never happened. He wasn't the same, and the team remained it it's funk, leading inexorably towards a crucial series against the Yankees before the all-star break. The Yanks swept the Sox, with all of the dramatic plays cashed in by Jeter to make it even worse. After the break everyone knew the Sox were broken, and Theo Epstein knew why. He traded Nomar and the dark cloud that perpetually followed him for Orlando Cabrera to replace him at short and a couple important role player to deepen the bench. And right after that, the Sox woke up and went on a tear. Without Nomar's quiet intensity and social awkwardness, and thanks to Cabrera's sheer defensive talent and loose clubhouse demeanor, all of the personalities on the Sox started to flourish. The Dominicans (Manny, Ortiz, Pedro) on the team are all natural goofballs, and combined with other free spirits like Cabrera, Kevin Millar, and Johnny Damon, everyone shook off the cobwebs and nerves of their fan base and began enjoying coming to the park everyday, playing together, and letting their talent do the work.
At the beginning of the Sox' run to the wild card (and third best record in all of Major League Baseball, I might add), the Sox gave the Yankees a hint of what was to come. Bronson Arroyo, the precocious fifth starter for the Sox plunked A-Rod on the shoulder in a game in early August. Predictably, A-Rod proved that he is a tough guy of the Roberto Alomar variety (as in not tough at all) by talking shit to Arroyo while walking up the first base line without actually inviting physical confrontation. Jason Varitek, the Sox catcher, got in A-Rod face in defense of Arroyo, and as A-Rod told Varitek to "come on," expecting the whole time that no one would come after him, Tek popped him in the face, starting a small brawl in which the Sox doled out the best shots. The Sox and Yanks have brawled a fair bit over the past two years, mostly instigated by Red Sox pitchers. Some people cast a harsh eye towards that behavior, but I think that it is part of a school yard mentality. If someone has something you want and they keep beating up on you, the only way to get what you want is to come right back at them, any way you can. And in that particular game, winning the fight was not a hollow victory. In last year's ALCS, the Sox and Yanks fought, and Pedro threw Don Zimmer to the ground and essentially threatened every Yankee hitter to a shot in the dome in their next at-bat. But the Sox lost, so any satisfaction gained from the fight turned to bitterness. But in that game at the beginning of August featuring the Varitek-A-Rod fight, the Sox changed some of their history. They came back that night to win, and not only did they win, they came back against the incomparable Mariano Rivera on a Bill Mueller home run in the bottom of the ninth. It was that game that brought every Red Sox fan back as a 100% believer, that put the Yankees on notice that the Sox were coming for them, and that gave the Sox the confidence to know that they could beat the Yankees, strength against strength. An amazing August followed when the Sox lost only twice in the span of something like 21 games. The Sox coasted into the post season beating every major opponent along the way.
Against Anaheim, the Sox made it look easy. So easy that people like myself dropped the notion that winning the World Series is all that matters, regardless of whether you beat the Yanks or not to get there. We got greedy, and we got the Yanks. We figured that Schilling and Pedro in the first two games would mean no worse than 1-1 headed into Game 3. Schilling came out hurt and was shelled in Game 1, his performance belying the tendon injury in his ankle. During that first game we all watched Mike Mussina pitch a perfect game through the sixth, and the Sox fall short in a late comeback attempt. Pedro pitched well in Game 2, but of all people John Lieber shut down the Sox to propel the Yanks to a 3-1 win and a 2-0 lead in the series. It was the Yankees' pitching that was supposed to be suspect, and to dash our hopes Mussina and Lieber had looked unhittable. We had thrown our two aces and had nothing to show for it. The day off and an extra day to stew due to rain had Boston feeling like one large, raw, exposed nerve by Game 3 on Saturday. We had switched our superstitions. I changed hats and stopped wearing a bracelet that I had come to believe was lucky during the Anaheim series. The weather was ominous all day in Boston, gathering clouds with real menace on their edges preceded by powerful winds, but no rain ever fell. As with many night games at Fenway, I opened the windows in my apartment so that I could hear the roars from Fenway. I heard some early roars, but some early groans, too. Neither team could stop the other's hitters, but in the end it was the Yankees who put on the bigger fireworks display, hanging 19 runs on the hapless Sox, and ending all hope.
We were ashamed. We had so much to be confident of going into the series, and here we were on the brink of the most embarrassing loss in sports. A sweep. A blowout. The thought that you never even belonged on the field in the first place. How could a team play so well over the course of 165 games only to crap the bed at the end? How could Johnny Damon all of a sudden become that bad of a hitter? Can any bum put on the pinstripes and look like hall-of-famer? How could we give up 19 runs at home in a must-win game? It was horrible. More than a few of us felt that if we were to lose, it would be best to do it in Game 4, to end the pain, and because we didn't know if we could muster the hope anymore. And if we could, did we want to, if it would only be crushed in a few days?
Game 4 was strange. It lacked the offensive display of Game 3, and felt like a slow grind that led to the Sox being down 4-3 with Rivera on the hill for the Yankees, poised to close down the game, the season, and a lot of Red Sox fans for the winter and probably a lot longer. But like that game in early August, the Sox remained confident against the greatest postseason closer of all time. They gutted out a manufactured run to prolong the game and the season. The bullpen stepped up and silenced the Yankees' sluggers, and with the Sox having the benefit of batting last, you felt that maybe they could pull it out. By 1:15 in the morning, everyone was on the edge of their seats, ignoring the coming work day and just wanting to have a reason to believe again, even if it was only for one night. David Ortiz gave us all a reason with a two run blast around 1:30 in the morning.
The next night, in the final game at Fenway, Game 5 played out much like Game 4. Both teams battled in a tight ball game, and the Sox scored on Rivera again to send the game into extras. The chinks in the Yankees armor was starting to show. Their middle relief, personified by Tom Gordon, couldn't handle the pressure of the situation. By the time Rivera entered the game, there were already runners on the corners and no one out. The tying run was inevitable. Nonetheless, the Sox had figured Rivera out enough to piece together the mini-rallies they needed to stay in the series. Building on the confidence of figuring out their opponent, the Sox again battled the Yankee relievers, and us fans felt that batting in the bottom of each inning would be all of the advantage we would need as the Sox relievers continued to mow down the previously powerful Yankees line-up. All of a sudden, A-Rod, Sheffield, and Matsui didn't seem so threatening, and every at-bat for Manny, Ortiz, and Varitek looked like it could end the game with one shot. In the end it was Ortiz who again delivered, at that point the outcome and the instigator seeming inevitable. Even a hot batter like Ortiz is usually successful only 50% of the time, but after a long battle of foul balls, his bloop single of a game winner seemed as much of a sure thing as the sun rising the next morning. When a player begins to inspire that kind of confidence, when you say to yourself "he can't do it again" while secretly believing that he will, and then he does, well, you have never felt so justified in holding out hope for the impossible. And that's where we were before Game 6.
There is a swirling debate at this point as to how much importance should be placed on Curt Schilling pitching with a torn sheath that protects a ligament in his leg. Some people wonder how hurt he really is, given his four-hit, one-run performance in Game 6. All I know is that based on how bad he looked in Game 1, however he did it, whether it was painkillers, toughness, sutures, God, or just plain luck, his performance was amazing. No one knew what to expect. There was talk of having a relief pitcher ready for his first pitch, in case he couldn't push off the ankle, leaving him helpless to Yankee hitters. We sat on the edge of our seats, looking at the velocity of his first pitch (93 mph - good), and how he pitched directly at guys. He was okay, but for how long? Long enough. The Sox figured out Lieber early this time, and a few runs proved to be all that was necessary. The umps initially blew two huge calls, the type of calls that had stifled the Red Sox in seasons past. But a funny thing happened while we all felt our neuroses jumping off the scale, the umps talked it over and made the right calls, both in the Sox favor. A-Rod was exposed as a cheater (subjective) and a liar (confirmed) to boot. Game 7 loomed.
Game 7. Just the words were enough to spook most Sox fans and remind us of that feeling from last October. Weren't we just here? Wasn't that bouncer just crying in the corner? Were we really going to set ourselves up for this again? Yes. It felt different. The Yankees were the ones who looked scared. They were relying on the Curse, on Babe Ruth's ghost, on Yogi Berra quotes to try to calm themselves down. In past years, they relied on their talent, on their players, on their sheer will to win and confidence in themselves. That was gone. They were scared of Ortiz, they were scared of the Sox bullpen, and most of all, they were scared that Kevin Brown was their starter and that the heart of their line-up was in a massive slump. We all hoped for a few runs early, and when Johnny Damon delivered, breaking out of his own slump with two homers, including a grand slam, we knew it was on. The Yankees knew it, too, only providing some token resistance by knocking Pedro around for a couple runs late in the game. It was now finished. The end of the game became one big victory lap for Sox fans as the game was too far out of reach to even worry about another historic collapse. Final out, the Yankees are dead.
I guess this whole thing is meant for me to explain how that moment feels. I still don't really know. I wanted to cry, but I was too emotionally spent. It was more of a warm numbness, with increasing waves of ecstasy building over the next hour or so. We bolted out the door to head to Fenway to be with our people. The streets were packed edge to edge with people, chanting for the Sox. When I first saw all of the people on Landsdowne Street, that is when it really hit me. I have loved and supported this team so much, and have invested so much of my hope in them, and they had met me at the top of those emotions and aspirations. That realization brought on the sheer amazement of the feeling, and I wondered if that was how every other fan had felt about their team at a moment like this. At that moment, all of the angst and doubts that plague every Red Sox fan seeped out of me. It was at that point that I decided not to gloat to my friends who root for the Yankees. Things like Bill Buckner, Chuck Knoblauch's phantom tag in '99, and Grady Little's decision to leave Pedro in the game in the 7th inning of Game 7 in 2003, they all lost most of their horrible meaning. And yes, without a World Series title, that feeling may lessen, but at that moment it was very clear. I haven't been nervous at all during the World Series so far, as opposed to having constant stomach problems and difficulty concentrating at work on game days during the playoffs the past two years. Some hack sports writers like to trot out the theory that Red Sox fans won't know what to do without the suffering, that we actually like it. These people are clearly not Red Sox fans, although some of them claim to be. Real fans will be glad to celebrate a title, to let it all go, to lose the bitter edge in the "Yankees Suck" chant and move on. It feels better that way. These are the salad days for us, and we have been waiting for them for a long time.
I will start and end with the greatest moment of joy in my history of being a sports fan, that being the hour or so after the Sox knocked off the Yankees in Game 7 of the ALCS. I do mean greatest moment of joy, which means that taking that series was better than both Super Bowl wins by the Patriots and even the Celtics winning their 16th NBA title in 1986, the first great moment in my sports-watching life. The reason that this moment tops them all is because of how close I feel to this team.
I often refer to the teams I rout for as "we," which feels contrived and false at times, but never with this Red Sox team, and the same can be said for last year's squad. This season, leading up to tonight's Game 3 against the Cardinals, the Sox have played 174 games. I would estimate that I have watched at least one inning of about 130-140 of those games. Pedro and Schilling starts have been events that you don't miss, things that tell you what day of the week it is if you don't have any other frame of reference. When you know who is pitching on any given night because you know who pitched last night or the night before, you're in pretty deep with a team. You know each player's quirks, you know who is at bat from the other room just by hearing the piece of music they choose to be introduced with before they step to the plate, you know how they will react to cold weather or being pitched inside. At a certain point you start to loose the sense of detachment between the players and yourself as a fan, especially when so many people around you follow just as intently and feel the same way.
So in a way, the Sox are family in this town. And nothing hurts as bad as seeing your family get hurt the way we all were hurt last year thanks be to the Yankees during the ALCS. I will probably never have the words to describe how painful the emotional roller coaster of that series was, especially Game 7. Tom and myself, among others, went to a bar to watch that game, nervous but confident to have Pedro on the mound against Clemens. When Clemens was chased early with the Sox owning a healthy lead, I was hugging the bouncer. A little while later, that same bouncer was curled up in a ball in the corner of the bar, completely inconsolable. I'll skip the details, but to paraphrase, we went from extreme jubilation to absolute despair in less than an hour, and by the time Aaron Boone hit his series winning homer, we were all shells of our former selves, staring blankly and chain smoking, merely biding our time before the inevitable hit. For at least a month after that, no one in town was right. I remember that month as being one long grey period, where nothing really makes you happy, and nothing can make you feel any worse than how you felt so recently. Hell, even the Patriots starting their winning streak barely made a scratch.
By the time this year came around, I think everyone was still numb, and a little hesitant to come back into the fold and hold out hope again. The regular season looked long and like a wasted trip just to get back to where we just got burned. It started out well enough, with some strong performances from Schilling and Foulke, but most notably, going 5-1 out of the box in the first two series against the Yanks. We were sucked back in again. The Yanks were floundering, most notably A-Rod and Jeter, the two most hated men in New England, and the Sox were winning and on top of the AL East. But as they always do, the Yankees started winning, and the Sox entered a period of prolonged mediocrity. When Nomar came back from an injury, we thought that he would provide a needed spark, but it never happened. He wasn't the same, and the team remained it it's funk, leading inexorably towards a crucial series against the Yankees before the all-star break. The Yanks swept the Sox, with all of the dramatic plays cashed in by Jeter to make it even worse. After the break everyone knew the Sox were broken, and Theo Epstein knew why. He traded Nomar and the dark cloud that perpetually followed him for Orlando Cabrera to replace him at short and a couple important role player to deepen the bench. And right after that, the Sox woke up and went on a tear. Without Nomar's quiet intensity and social awkwardness, and thanks to Cabrera's sheer defensive talent and loose clubhouse demeanor, all of the personalities on the Sox started to flourish. The Dominicans (Manny, Ortiz, Pedro) on the team are all natural goofballs, and combined with other free spirits like Cabrera, Kevin Millar, and Johnny Damon, everyone shook off the cobwebs and nerves of their fan base and began enjoying coming to the park everyday, playing together, and letting their talent do the work.
At the beginning of the Sox' run to the wild card (and third best record in all of Major League Baseball, I might add), the Sox gave the Yankees a hint of what was to come. Bronson Arroyo, the precocious fifth starter for the Sox plunked A-Rod on the shoulder in a game in early August. Predictably, A-Rod proved that he is a tough guy of the Roberto Alomar variety (as in not tough at all) by talking shit to Arroyo while walking up the first base line without actually inviting physical confrontation. Jason Varitek, the Sox catcher, got in A-Rod face in defense of Arroyo, and as A-Rod told Varitek to "come on," expecting the whole time that no one would come after him, Tek popped him in the face, starting a small brawl in which the Sox doled out the best shots. The Sox and Yanks have brawled a fair bit over the past two years, mostly instigated by Red Sox pitchers. Some people cast a harsh eye towards that behavior, but I think that it is part of a school yard mentality. If someone has something you want and they keep beating up on you, the only way to get what you want is to come right back at them, any way you can. And in that particular game, winning the fight was not a hollow victory. In last year's ALCS, the Sox and Yanks fought, and Pedro threw Don Zimmer to the ground and essentially threatened every Yankee hitter to a shot in the dome in their next at-bat. But the Sox lost, so any satisfaction gained from the fight turned to bitterness. But in that game at the beginning of August featuring the Varitek-A-Rod fight, the Sox changed some of their history. They came back that night to win, and not only did they win, they came back against the incomparable Mariano Rivera on a Bill Mueller home run in the bottom of the ninth. It was that game that brought every Red Sox fan back as a 100% believer, that put the Yankees on notice that the Sox were coming for them, and that gave the Sox the confidence to know that they could beat the Yankees, strength against strength. An amazing August followed when the Sox lost only twice in the span of something like 21 games. The Sox coasted into the post season beating every major opponent along the way.
Against Anaheim, the Sox made it look easy. So easy that people like myself dropped the notion that winning the World Series is all that matters, regardless of whether you beat the Yanks or not to get there. We got greedy, and we got the Yanks. We figured that Schilling and Pedro in the first two games would mean no worse than 1-1 headed into Game 3. Schilling came out hurt and was shelled in Game 1, his performance belying the tendon injury in his ankle. During that first game we all watched Mike Mussina pitch a perfect game through the sixth, and the Sox fall short in a late comeback attempt. Pedro pitched well in Game 2, but of all people John Lieber shut down the Sox to propel the Yanks to a 3-1 win and a 2-0 lead in the series. It was the Yankees' pitching that was supposed to be suspect, and to dash our hopes Mussina and Lieber had looked unhittable. We had thrown our two aces and had nothing to show for it. The day off and an extra day to stew due to rain had Boston feeling like one large, raw, exposed nerve by Game 3 on Saturday. We had switched our superstitions. I changed hats and stopped wearing a bracelet that I had come to believe was lucky during the Anaheim series. The weather was ominous all day in Boston, gathering clouds with real menace on their edges preceded by powerful winds, but no rain ever fell. As with many night games at Fenway, I opened the windows in my apartment so that I could hear the roars from Fenway. I heard some early roars, but some early groans, too. Neither team could stop the other's hitters, but in the end it was the Yankees who put on the bigger fireworks display, hanging 19 runs on the hapless Sox, and ending all hope.
We were ashamed. We had so much to be confident of going into the series, and here we were on the brink of the most embarrassing loss in sports. A sweep. A blowout. The thought that you never even belonged on the field in the first place. How could a team play so well over the course of 165 games only to crap the bed at the end? How could Johnny Damon all of a sudden become that bad of a hitter? Can any bum put on the pinstripes and look like hall-of-famer? How could we give up 19 runs at home in a must-win game? It was horrible. More than a few of us felt that if we were to lose, it would be best to do it in Game 4, to end the pain, and because we didn't know if we could muster the hope anymore. And if we could, did we want to, if it would only be crushed in a few days?
Game 4 was strange. It lacked the offensive display of Game 3, and felt like a slow grind that led to the Sox being down 4-3 with Rivera on the hill for the Yankees, poised to close down the game, the season, and a lot of Red Sox fans for the winter and probably a lot longer. But like that game in early August, the Sox remained confident against the greatest postseason closer of all time. They gutted out a manufactured run to prolong the game and the season. The bullpen stepped up and silenced the Yankees' sluggers, and with the Sox having the benefit of batting last, you felt that maybe they could pull it out. By 1:15 in the morning, everyone was on the edge of their seats, ignoring the coming work day and just wanting to have a reason to believe again, even if it was only for one night. David Ortiz gave us all a reason with a two run blast around 1:30 in the morning.
The next night, in the final game at Fenway, Game 5 played out much like Game 4. Both teams battled in a tight ball game, and the Sox scored on Rivera again to send the game into extras. The chinks in the Yankees armor was starting to show. Their middle relief, personified by Tom Gordon, couldn't handle the pressure of the situation. By the time Rivera entered the game, there were already runners on the corners and no one out. The tying run was inevitable. Nonetheless, the Sox had figured Rivera out enough to piece together the mini-rallies they needed to stay in the series. Building on the confidence of figuring out their opponent, the Sox again battled the Yankee relievers, and us fans felt that batting in the bottom of each inning would be all of the advantage we would need as the Sox relievers continued to mow down the previously powerful Yankees line-up. All of a sudden, A-Rod, Sheffield, and Matsui didn't seem so threatening, and every at-bat for Manny, Ortiz, and Varitek looked like it could end the game with one shot. In the end it was Ortiz who again delivered, at that point the outcome and the instigator seeming inevitable. Even a hot batter like Ortiz is usually successful only 50% of the time, but after a long battle of foul balls, his bloop single of a game winner seemed as much of a sure thing as the sun rising the next morning. When a player begins to inspire that kind of confidence, when you say to yourself "he can't do it again" while secretly believing that he will, and then he does, well, you have never felt so justified in holding out hope for the impossible. And that's where we were before Game 6.
There is a swirling debate at this point as to how much importance should be placed on Curt Schilling pitching with a torn sheath that protects a ligament in his leg. Some people wonder how hurt he really is, given his four-hit, one-run performance in Game 6. All I know is that based on how bad he looked in Game 1, however he did it, whether it was painkillers, toughness, sutures, God, or just plain luck, his performance was amazing. No one knew what to expect. There was talk of having a relief pitcher ready for his first pitch, in case he couldn't push off the ankle, leaving him helpless to Yankee hitters. We sat on the edge of our seats, looking at the velocity of his first pitch (93 mph - good), and how he pitched directly at guys. He was okay, but for how long? Long enough. The Sox figured out Lieber early this time, and a few runs proved to be all that was necessary. The umps initially blew two huge calls, the type of calls that had stifled the Red Sox in seasons past. But a funny thing happened while we all felt our neuroses jumping off the scale, the umps talked it over and made the right calls, both in the Sox favor. A-Rod was exposed as a cheater (subjective) and a liar (confirmed) to boot. Game 7 loomed.
Game 7. Just the words were enough to spook most Sox fans and remind us of that feeling from last October. Weren't we just here? Wasn't that bouncer just crying in the corner? Were we really going to set ourselves up for this again? Yes. It felt different. The Yankees were the ones who looked scared. They were relying on the Curse, on Babe Ruth's ghost, on Yogi Berra quotes to try to calm themselves down. In past years, they relied on their talent, on their players, on their sheer will to win and confidence in themselves. That was gone. They were scared of Ortiz, they were scared of the Sox bullpen, and most of all, they were scared that Kevin Brown was their starter and that the heart of their line-up was in a massive slump. We all hoped for a few runs early, and when Johnny Damon delivered, breaking out of his own slump with two homers, including a grand slam, we knew it was on. The Yankees knew it, too, only providing some token resistance by knocking Pedro around for a couple runs late in the game. It was now finished. The end of the game became one big victory lap for Sox fans as the game was too far out of reach to even worry about another historic collapse. Final out, the Yankees are dead.
I guess this whole thing is meant for me to explain how that moment feels. I still don't really know. I wanted to cry, but I was too emotionally spent. It was more of a warm numbness, with increasing waves of ecstasy building over the next hour or so. We bolted out the door to head to Fenway to be with our people. The streets were packed edge to edge with people, chanting for the Sox. When I first saw all of the people on Landsdowne Street, that is when it really hit me. I have loved and supported this team so much, and have invested so much of my hope in them, and they had met me at the top of those emotions and aspirations. That realization brought on the sheer amazement of the feeling, and I wondered if that was how every other fan had felt about their team at a moment like this. At that moment, all of the angst and doubts that plague every Red Sox fan seeped out of me. It was at that point that I decided not to gloat to my friends who root for the Yankees. Things like Bill Buckner, Chuck Knoblauch's phantom tag in '99, and Grady Little's decision to leave Pedro in the game in the 7th inning of Game 7 in 2003, they all lost most of their horrible meaning. And yes, without a World Series title, that feeling may lessen, but at that moment it was very clear. I haven't been nervous at all during the World Series so far, as opposed to having constant stomach problems and difficulty concentrating at work on game days during the playoffs the past two years. Some hack sports writers like to trot out the theory that Red Sox fans won't know what to do without the suffering, that we actually like it. These people are clearly not Red Sox fans, although some of them claim to be. Real fans will be glad to celebrate a title, to let it all go, to lose the bitter edge in the "Yankees Suck" chant and move on. It feels better that way. These are the salad days for us, and we have been waiting for them for a long time.
Friday, September 17, 2004
It's not really bad news, but not really really great news either. - Derek
I think it is somewhat more difficult to write up a review for a record after two well executed reviews by fans of this band. Also, this is my first exposure to Modest Mouse, so I don't expect to totally deconstruct the band or its meanings, all I have to work with is the record. Ok, maybe then from this approach this review should be a piece of cake. I don't know anything about this band, the band members or their past music. All I have to go with is the tidbits I've picked up from various music zines and the ranting of The Jake and Remy on goofballs. So I will be succinct: There is something captivating and interesting in the music, but the cracker-country twang of Brock's voice drives me up a wall, and he is most annoying on tracks that shouldn't be on the record in the first place. Oh, and my favorite part of the record is the segue way from the intro into "Float On". Seriously, it's the best part of the record. I love great segue ways into good track 2s. The intro is a "good" intro; sets the tone but isn't totally a song, but it gets you interested. Sliding with a synth, right to a 4/4 beat with a colorful guitar lick, then BAM! into the hit single, and I will also agree with the producers from Monday Night Football that its the best track on the album.
But man the redneck timbre of Brock. Is this the shtick? Ok I get it. You're weird. Modest Mouse is a weird alternative band. But I don't care. It's annoying. Like when Phish would do stupid shit onstage saying "poopity" "poppity" "boop" and "bip" for 25 minutes and all the trust fund hippies dancing around in awe, like they actually like the shit. PLAY FEE YOU FUCKERS!!! I don't want my first review in the forum to be a rant, and that last part was more talking shit about Phish than Modest Mouse. So....
Brock's voice doesn't ruin everything for me. The music makes up for it....mostly. I always focus the sound before the lyrics, and Modest Mouse use that modern effect in studios called "stereo mixing" quite well. I have a great pair of headphones (Grado SR60s on sale for $70 - I highly recommend) so the music is very beautiful as for the first half of the record bounces back and forth in my head with colorful tones, minimal effects, and pretty guitars. They are good musicians, and this is good rock and roll, even the Doors reprise on "Satin In A Coffin" isn't trite, and adds some evidence that this record was recorded in 2004 by musicians that want to sound like 2004. I like and appreciate that.
But pop music usually comes with vocals, which shouldn’t always be the case. So Brock's voice and country scatting take away from those interestingly mic'ed drums. And what is he singing about that is so important he has to make his voice sound like that? To me lyrics are overrated and for every time I hear about how much of a poet Kurt Cobain was, I like him more for the fact that he could write a great pop song. Fundamentals. Like Jordan made incredible shots, but his defensive game was unstoppable. Harold Baines always got that clutch hit when it mattered. Defense in bball and hitting in baseball. Two simple aspects of a game to understand, but absolutely crucial. Same thing in tunes. There are some quality tracks here, but I'm afraid that if MM focused more on keeping the vox to the side it could've been better. Their music doesn't revolutionize sound, but the song structures keep my attention, at least until "Dance Hall". That's when the cracker shit changes the great pace set, and I stop listening and realize that I've spent 12 minutes downloading album covers to associate with my albums on iTunes. Right I'm bored.
But then WTF? "The View" comes and I start nodding my head. So Modest Mouse can play the accordion AND make punk funksters dance? This track sounds better than anything Radio 4 has done in the past two years. Even Brock isn't annoying me here, he actually sings and the chorus is catchy. When is their 12" 9 minute DFA remix coming out?
Unfortunately the power ebbs afterwards though. So I agree with Sam; this album is too long. It should be 10 tracks. 10 track records kick ass, no downtime, no stupid 13 second interludes. Come on both Unknown Pleasures and Illmatic are 10 tracks. The Pleasure Principle, "Heroes" and Orbital's Brown Album as well. These records start (Illmatic, Pleasure Principle, & Brown Album have perfect intros BTW) and they really give you no reason to stop until you've heard the whole statement. Editing. It's a good tool. Some of these sub-par country with the grating singing tracks should've been B-sides, like for that 12" DFA remix.
You can argue that I'm being unfair, stating that Brock's voice is what really keeps this record from being great. Maybe that's what MM fans like the most. Maybe I don't get it. But his voice and silly vocal structure, coupled with the boring country tracks keep Good News from being an excellent record to only being a decent record. So I guess that would be good news for people who like it bad.
But man the redneck timbre of Brock. Is this the shtick? Ok I get it. You're weird. Modest Mouse is a weird alternative band. But I don't care. It's annoying. Like when Phish would do stupid shit onstage saying "poopity" "poppity" "boop" and "bip" for 25 minutes and all the trust fund hippies dancing around in awe, like they actually like the shit. PLAY FEE YOU FUCKERS!!! I don't want my first review in the forum to be a rant, and that last part was more talking shit about Phish than Modest Mouse. So....
Brock's voice doesn't ruin everything for me. The music makes up for it....mostly. I always focus the sound before the lyrics, and Modest Mouse use that modern effect in studios called "stereo mixing" quite well. I have a great pair of headphones (Grado SR60s on sale for $70 - I highly recommend) so the music is very beautiful as for the first half of the record bounces back and forth in my head with colorful tones, minimal effects, and pretty guitars. They are good musicians, and this is good rock and roll, even the Doors reprise on "Satin In A Coffin" isn't trite, and adds some evidence that this record was recorded in 2004 by musicians that want to sound like 2004. I like and appreciate that.
But pop music usually comes with vocals, which shouldn’t always be the case. So Brock's voice and country scatting take away from those interestingly mic'ed drums. And what is he singing about that is so important he has to make his voice sound like that? To me lyrics are overrated and for every time I hear about how much of a poet Kurt Cobain was, I like him more for the fact that he could write a great pop song. Fundamentals. Like Jordan made incredible shots, but his defensive game was unstoppable. Harold Baines always got that clutch hit when it mattered. Defense in bball and hitting in baseball. Two simple aspects of a game to understand, but absolutely crucial. Same thing in tunes. There are some quality tracks here, but I'm afraid that if MM focused more on keeping the vox to the side it could've been better. Their music doesn't revolutionize sound, but the song structures keep my attention, at least until "Dance Hall". That's when the cracker shit changes the great pace set, and I stop listening and realize that I've spent 12 minutes downloading album covers to associate with my albums on iTunes. Right I'm bored.
But then WTF? "The View" comes and I start nodding my head. So Modest Mouse can play the accordion AND make punk funksters dance? This track sounds better than anything Radio 4 has done in the past two years. Even Brock isn't annoying me here, he actually sings and the chorus is catchy. When is their 12" 9 minute DFA remix coming out?
Unfortunately the power ebbs afterwards though. So I agree with Sam; this album is too long. It should be 10 tracks. 10 track records kick ass, no downtime, no stupid 13 second interludes. Come on both Unknown Pleasures and Illmatic are 10 tracks. The Pleasure Principle, "Heroes" and Orbital's Brown Album as well. These records start (Illmatic, Pleasure Principle, & Brown Album have perfect intros BTW) and they really give you no reason to stop until you've heard the whole statement. Editing. It's a good tool. Some of these sub-par country with the grating singing tracks should've been B-sides, like for that 12" DFA remix.
You can argue that I'm being unfair, stating that Brock's voice is what really keeps this record from being great. Maybe that's what MM fans like the most. Maybe I don't get it. But his voice and silly vocal structure, coupled with the boring country tracks keep Good News from being an excellent record to only being a decent record. So I guess that would be good news for people who like it bad.
Wednesday, September 01, 2004
Goods News for People Who Love Bad News - Modest Mouse - Jacobs Review
Isaac Brock reminds me a of a dancing rat, in a cave, wearing dark sunglasses and slugging back moonshine. Like a blind mouse from a cartoon. When you emerge from the cave, after a night of psychadelic drug-infusion, you have a wicked hangover, in the middle of some field in the country, the sun peeking over the horizon.
It’s always been like this. Brock himself hails from the more rural parts of Washington state; not the Starbucks crowd but the folks over the Cascade mountains more prone to cow-tipping and moonshine. Perhaps it’s the pitch of his voice that takes me to this place or the memories I have of the Lonesome Crowded West, tripping on acid with Remy, watching Akira in the yellow house hearing the guy shout “this plane is totally crashing.”
The Moon and Antarctica was a revelatory step forward for the band. I was disappointed when I realized that producer Brian Deck wasn’t manning the boards for this one, the follow-up to The Moon, since it was that production that resonated for me. The scraping of stones against the chug of the acoustic guitar on ‘Gravity Kills Everything’ was magic well before the song appeared in that commercial for the min-van.
Goods News for People Who Love Bad News is a different animal altogether and, as Tom has pointed out, probably, on the whole, not much of a step forward if at all. You sort of understand it right from the beginning: the first few guitar lines, drenched in reverb, with Isaac Brock’s double-tracked vocals in ‘World At Large’ sound immediately familiar. Pretty much like almost every Modest Mouse song you might have ever heard. It’s striking for its sameness; the first few notes of The Moon and Antarctica immediately planted a flag in the ground. Not so here.
Still, the song represents much of what the band does well. The haunted, sleepy, dream-like guitar lines against the chanting background vocals with Brock moaning characteristically “Why does it always feel like I’m caught in an undertow?” Maybe he’s taken the idea of space and infinity, so prevalent in his last work, and applied it to the notion of our everyday existence or at least his own. Space, in essence, has become a big, large summer night with Ike heading for the coast.
The song leads into the one truly great moment on the entire album. ‘Float On’ continues the incorporation of Talking Heads influences worn so transparently on their sleeves in the Moon and Antarticas’s ‘Tiny Cities Made of Ashes’. They’ve taken it a step further, this time, and added that bouncy pop element to the grooving bass line and the shiny metallic guitar that Bryne popularized back in the 80s. Brock’s punchy vocal delivery works wonderfully in the verse, creating an uneasy, head-bobbing tension that crashes and is released into the chorus where synthesizers and keyboards create a soothing and smoothing wash of sound. It’s a great moment and one that ultimately undermines the rest of the album; I keep listening, waiting for that same moment of cathartic ephemeral release and can’t seem to find it, almost latching onto something in ‘Blame it on the Tetons’ but still not.
Unlike Tom, I think the first serious stumble comes not with ‘Danchall’ but with ‘The Ocean Breathes Salty’. After the joy of ‘Float On’, it just sounds like too much of the same for me. The vocals and the guitar lead immediately remind me of ‘World At Large’ when I’m just only one song removed from that listening experience.
The Moon and Antartica also had it’s difficult (read: boring) middle section, but that didn’t arrive until the 8th or 9th track. This time, I’m losing interest halfway through the first verse of the 4th song. It’s not a terrible song, mind you, just not very interesting. It ends with Brock telling me ‘You wasted life why wouldn’t you want to waste death’ changing ‘death’ to ‘the afterlife’ with his last chant. I raise an eyebrow but only briefly. I wasn’t listening to enough of the song to know who he’s talking about. Probably himself. It is an interesting idea since he seems obsessed with the idea of God, of the eternal, but only in as much as it implies his own powerlessness, somehow reinforcing the notion of futility. We’re all going to be around forever anyway, so what does anything matter. A metaphysical pun.
Beginning with the plucked banjo lines of ‘Dig Your Grave’, I sink deeper into my own middle section difficulties and don’t emerge, but for briefly, until the close of the album. For me, this is the true beginning of my dark and lonely night with Isaac Brock. I’m in the field, I took in the first few tracks. But now the hole in the ground opens up and I climb inside. There’s a small space in the top of the hole where the smoke from the fire escapes. There’s a single red bulb and a blanket in the corner that looks like it used to belong to Deke. There’s a dried turd in the other corner. Isaac Brock is a rat with a withered cane and he’s just shot a couple quarts of heroin into his hairy rat arm and I think he made me do the same thing because the music is really loud and it’s giving me a headache but I can’t focus on much. Sometimes it almost sounds good, like the chanting in ‘Dancehall’ and I feel like maybe I too want a dancehall, dancehall and it’s really digging and I’m digging. Sometimes it’s not.
I get the shakes, the furor dies down and that blasted banjo comes back into view. Brock the Rat is slumped in the corner, sweat streaming off the corners of his eyes and he’s motioning with his claw about theology. “Who would want to be, who would want to be such a control freak?” He waves the cane in the air and then passes out for awhile.
For ‘The Devil’s Work Day’, Tom Waits climbs into the hole. He’s wearing the same dark glasses the rat is wearing and he’s blowing a horn. There’s a crow on his shoulder. My headache is increasing. Waits tells me somebody died, somebody I know, and they’re floating in the river. I start to get scared.
By ‘The View’ I’m nearing the point of exhaustion. I just can’t do it anymore. Except, just before I’m about to throw in the towel completely, Brock brings me back to life with a surprising chorus that stretches out smooth and sweet like a neon highway with a pulsing keyboard sample and a nice vocal line and I’m awakened. Hey, this is a pretty cool song. I think I’m back. I’m out of the hole, lying in the field, and the sun is rising and I think I can make it to the end. My iPod tells me only 6 more songs to go. Maybe this was his intention the whole time. He says right towards the end ‘If it takes shit to make bliss, well I feel pretty blissfully.’ Ok. Cool. There’s a method to this mediocrity.
Oops. Spoke too soon. The ground falls out below me and ‘Satin in a Coffin’ comes in. I’m beginning to think Modest Mouse throws in these angular, non-melodic wailing songs with banjos to maintain their street cred the same way the Chili Peppers have to keep their albums real with white-funk songs that suck. I like dirt!
Later still, after a pleasing interlude with ‘Blame it on the Tetons’, I make it to ‘The Good Times are Killing Me’. It wraps up the personal journey quite nicely, both for me and for Brock. The optimism we saw in Float On is still here but Brock has had too much sadness to walk away without complications. He’s dying. All these fears, doubts, indecision, drugs, booze, lines of crushed pills. They’re taking their toll. It’s 7AM and he’s been up all night listening to the new Wilco album with Fast Eddie Giles and it could still work but the street sweepers are out and he’s aching with sadness and can’t focus on anything and he climbs into bed with his girlfriend and listens to his heart beating. The same way I feel listening to ‘Long Distance Drunk’ from two albums ago and that’s a good thing friends.
For me, a few good songs can't save the listener from a very long and difficult experience with this album. It’s a journey all right but ultimately I think making it shorter would have made one or two of those filler songs more relevant and more interesting. In all, I count about 4-5 good songs out of 16 total including 3 interludes. And the songs that are good, save for Float On, are not a step forward or towards anything, just treading water, content to be what they were and have been already and before, when they were fresh and new. Hanging out in that dark cave with a cast of unseemly characters and a lot of needles waiting for inspiration to hit.
It’s always been like this. Brock himself hails from the more rural parts of Washington state; not the Starbucks crowd but the folks over the Cascade mountains more prone to cow-tipping and moonshine. Perhaps it’s the pitch of his voice that takes me to this place or the memories I have of the Lonesome Crowded West, tripping on acid with Remy, watching Akira in the yellow house hearing the guy shout “this plane is totally crashing.”
The Moon and Antarctica was a revelatory step forward for the band. I was disappointed when I realized that producer Brian Deck wasn’t manning the boards for this one, the follow-up to The Moon, since it was that production that resonated for me. The scraping of stones against the chug of the acoustic guitar on ‘Gravity Kills Everything’ was magic well before the song appeared in that commercial for the min-van.
Goods News for People Who Love Bad News is a different animal altogether and, as Tom has pointed out, probably, on the whole, not much of a step forward if at all. You sort of understand it right from the beginning: the first few guitar lines, drenched in reverb, with Isaac Brock’s double-tracked vocals in ‘World At Large’ sound immediately familiar. Pretty much like almost every Modest Mouse song you might have ever heard. It’s striking for its sameness; the first few notes of The Moon and Antarctica immediately planted a flag in the ground. Not so here.
Still, the song represents much of what the band does well. The haunted, sleepy, dream-like guitar lines against the chanting background vocals with Brock moaning characteristically “Why does it always feel like I’m caught in an undertow?” Maybe he’s taken the idea of space and infinity, so prevalent in his last work, and applied it to the notion of our everyday existence or at least his own. Space, in essence, has become a big, large summer night with Ike heading for the coast.
The song leads into the one truly great moment on the entire album. ‘Float On’ continues the incorporation of Talking Heads influences worn so transparently on their sleeves in the Moon and Antarticas’s ‘Tiny Cities Made of Ashes’. They’ve taken it a step further, this time, and added that bouncy pop element to the grooving bass line and the shiny metallic guitar that Bryne popularized back in the 80s. Brock’s punchy vocal delivery works wonderfully in the verse, creating an uneasy, head-bobbing tension that crashes and is released into the chorus where synthesizers and keyboards create a soothing and smoothing wash of sound. It’s a great moment and one that ultimately undermines the rest of the album; I keep listening, waiting for that same moment of cathartic ephemeral release and can’t seem to find it, almost latching onto something in ‘Blame it on the Tetons’ but still not.
Unlike Tom, I think the first serious stumble comes not with ‘Danchall’ but with ‘The Ocean Breathes Salty’. After the joy of ‘Float On’, it just sounds like too much of the same for me. The vocals and the guitar lead immediately remind me of ‘World At Large’ when I’m just only one song removed from that listening experience.
The Moon and Antartica also had it’s difficult (read: boring) middle section, but that didn’t arrive until the 8th or 9th track. This time, I’m losing interest halfway through the first verse of the 4th song. It’s not a terrible song, mind you, just not very interesting. It ends with Brock telling me ‘You wasted life why wouldn’t you want to waste death’ changing ‘death’ to ‘the afterlife’ with his last chant. I raise an eyebrow but only briefly. I wasn’t listening to enough of the song to know who he’s talking about. Probably himself. It is an interesting idea since he seems obsessed with the idea of God, of the eternal, but only in as much as it implies his own powerlessness, somehow reinforcing the notion of futility. We’re all going to be around forever anyway, so what does anything matter. A metaphysical pun.
Beginning with the plucked banjo lines of ‘Dig Your Grave’, I sink deeper into my own middle section difficulties and don’t emerge, but for briefly, until the close of the album. For me, this is the true beginning of my dark and lonely night with Isaac Brock. I’m in the field, I took in the first few tracks. But now the hole in the ground opens up and I climb inside. There’s a small space in the top of the hole where the smoke from the fire escapes. There’s a single red bulb and a blanket in the corner that looks like it used to belong to Deke. There’s a dried turd in the other corner. Isaac Brock is a rat with a withered cane and he’s just shot a couple quarts of heroin into his hairy rat arm and I think he made me do the same thing because the music is really loud and it’s giving me a headache but I can’t focus on much. Sometimes it almost sounds good, like the chanting in ‘Dancehall’ and I feel like maybe I too want a dancehall, dancehall and it’s really digging and I’m digging. Sometimes it’s not.
I get the shakes, the furor dies down and that blasted banjo comes back into view. Brock the Rat is slumped in the corner, sweat streaming off the corners of his eyes and he’s motioning with his claw about theology. “Who would want to be, who would want to be such a control freak?” He waves the cane in the air and then passes out for awhile.
For ‘The Devil’s Work Day’, Tom Waits climbs into the hole. He’s wearing the same dark glasses the rat is wearing and he’s blowing a horn. There’s a crow on his shoulder. My headache is increasing. Waits tells me somebody died, somebody I know, and they’re floating in the river. I start to get scared.
By ‘The View’ I’m nearing the point of exhaustion. I just can’t do it anymore. Except, just before I’m about to throw in the towel completely, Brock brings me back to life with a surprising chorus that stretches out smooth and sweet like a neon highway with a pulsing keyboard sample and a nice vocal line and I’m awakened. Hey, this is a pretty cool song. I think I’m back. I’m out of the hole, lying in the field, and the sun is rising and I think I can make it to the end. My iPod tells me only 6 more songs to go. Maybe this was his intention the whole time. He says right towards the end ‘If it takes shit to make bliss, well I feel pretty blissfully.’ Ok. Cool. There’s a method to this mediocrity.
Oops. Spoke too soon. The ground falls out below me and ‘Satin in a Coffin’ comes in. I’m beginning to think Modest Mouse throws in these angular, non-melodic wailing songs with banjos to maintain their street cred the same way the Chili Peppers have to keep their albums real with white-funk songs that suck. I like dirt!
Later still, after a pleasing interlude with ‘Blame it on the Tetons’, I make it to ‘The Good Times are Killing Me’. It wraps up the personal journey quite nicely, both for me and for Brock. The optimism we saw in Float On is still here but Brock has had too much sadness to walk away without complications. He’s dying. All these fears, doubts, indecision, drugs, booze, lines of crushed pills. They’re taking their toll. It’s 7AM and he’s been up all night listening to the new Wilco album with Fast Eddie Giles and it could still work but the street sweepers are out and he’s aching with sadness and can’t focus on anything and he climbs into bed with his girlfriend and listens to his heart beating. The same way I feel listening to ‘Long Distance Drunk’ from two albums ago and that’s a good thing friends.
For me, a few good songs can't save the listener from a very long and difficult experience with this album. It’s a journey all right but ultimately I think making it shorter would have made one or two of those filler songs more relevant and more interesting. In all, I count about 4-5 good songs out of 16 total including 3 interludes. And the songs that are good, save for Float On, are not a step forward or towards anything, just treading water, content to be what they were and have been already and before, when they were fresh and new. Hanging out in that dark cave with a cast of unseemly characters and a lot of needles waiting for inspiration to hit.
Friday, August 06, 2004
In the beginning...
Ok so this is the blog where we will be writing our ideas and comments on various selections of musical genius or insanity.
Tom, you're on deck. Think of an album that you think is interesting and write a review, critique, or a reason why you think we should give a shit about it. Then the rest of us will listen to said record and then offer our own comments and diatribes.
As Administrator, all posts can be sent to me via email and I can publish, or since I added everyone as team members so you should be able to do it yourself. That's it for now....
Tom, you're on deck. Think of an album that you think is interesting and write a review, critique, or a reason why you think we should give a shit about it. Then the rest of us will listen to said record and then offer our own comments and diatribes.
As Administrator, all posts can be sent to me via email and I can publish, or since I added everyone as team members so you should be able to do it yourself. That's it for now....
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