Tuesday, March 31, 2009

cassettes and sports

Through Netflix, I got 35 free downloads from emusic.com. As a way of generating track ideas, I went through my box of cassette tapes. Remember those? Here’s what I discovered on my trip down musical memory lane:

There are several albums that highlight the late high school to early college years:
--Superstar Carwash by Goo Goo Dolls
--Frosting on the Beater by the Posies
--Never Said by Liz Phair
--Day for Night by Tragically Hip
--Gish by Smashing Pumpkins

I have digital versions of most everything above, except for the Goo Goo Dolls. It wasn’t on emusic, so my next visit is to mp3fiesta.com, although I have found the album on amazon for $2. Anyway, a great album, energetic indie rock without becoming the sugary, polished and overplayed tracks like Name, Iris and Slide.

Another discovery is that apparently I was really into Aerosmith. Permanent Vacation, Pump, Get a Grip, Best of. Permanent Vacation is a classic. Who can forget Dude Looks a Lady? If I can find a tape player that works, I plan to revisit this aspect of my musical past. Plus there are the Alicia Silverstone videos to revisit.



Saturday night I parked myself on a barstool at Claddagh’s to watch basketball and futbol. My brackets were toast thanks to Memphis losing, so I didn’t really care who won. Where did Missouri come from? And where did they get those uniforms? While that game was going on, I was suffering through Portugal v Sweden. A must win game for Portugal, and, to their credit, they did go for it. Sweden was obviously happy with a draw, looking to pick up scraps and didn’t really go push on until Wilhemsson came on with 30 minutes to go. Unfortunately for Portugal and the viewer (me), they cannot score. I have ranted about this on several occasions, so I won’t go into it again. I will summarize thusly: they either need to change their formation or find a natural finisher. The result: 0-0 and there is a real chance of Portugal not qualifying for the World Cup.

Moving on . . .

The TV with the Villanova/Pitt game was turned away from me so it was hard to keep track. I mostly focused on Montenegro v Italy. An early PK set up Italy nicely, and although Montenegro threatened, they struggled to create many clear cut chances. Italy played very narrow in my opinion and only got width from the backs. Montenegro was ok, with their #8 being quite good. Montenegro had a great chance to equalize in the second half, and Italy has several chances to kill off the match before Pazzini made it 2-0 and secure the three points.

That game was followed by El Salvador v US. The US was terrible in the first half. Poor touches which led to poor possession, with Beasley’s turnover leading to the opening goal. Ching did not get involved and Donovon had to drop deep to get the ball. I left at halftime because I was tired and bored. Turns out the US ended up with a 2-2 draw, which is a valuable away point. Qualification is a certainty, and they need to win the group to get the best possible seed next summer.



Finally, I got this newsletter from a vendor. One of these with business news and tips. At the bottom there is a thoughtful or inspirational quote. Here is the quote from last Friday:

“Keep your eyes on the stars and feet on the ground.” Theodore Roosevelt

Doesn’t that sound eerily like a popular American radio host? Very interesting.



Ta Ta.

2 comments:

Sam said...

Gish is still my favorite Smashing Pumpkins album - hands down.
Permanent Vacation and Pump are mostly devoid of those crappy Aerosmith ballads that I hate, which means that I think they are great.

Two cassettes I found a while back were The The and Midnight Oil. I ripped them to CD to continue my enjoyment.

Austin Long said...

i found some "the the" tracks on limewire. what awesome songs. dogs of lust is one of my favorite songs of all time.