Award Tour - A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders - 1993

And so speaking of the frustration of following things that used to be a cool little niche that are now more and more mainstream...it's actually become harder and harder for me to be an American soccer fan (A soccer fan who is American, not a fan of the generally awful MLS).

Again, like Indie Rock, it's counter-intuitive. I would have thought, 10 years ago, that living in a world in which everyone knew who Pavement and The Pixies were would be AWESOME! But instead, I find it sort of troubling and frustrating. Well, Soccer has sort of become the same way. With EPL games becoming increasingly broadcast on Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta Sports and starting this season ESPN2 I have more opportunities than I ever did to watch the sport I love...but the problem with this came up yesterday.

Arsenal played the first round of the Champions League group stages yesterday against Belgian Champions Standard Liege. The game was live at 245 and was being shown on FSC at 5 PM. I set my TiVo, stayed away from the Internet in the afternoon and prepared to go home and watch my game. As it turned out, do to some collasally stupid defending Arsenal went down two goals in the first five minutes of the game (This is exceptionally fast, for those that don't know)...and within ten minutes after that I received all sorts of messages from various friends and acquaintances that know of my strange obsessions "Dude, sorry about your team", "Are you watching this, yikes!" and "Yeah, you may not want to watch this game..."

Now fortunately, we did come back to win 2-3, but...even as little as 3 years ago, no one I knew, besides my fellow soccer fans would have had any clue that there was a game on. And certainly none of them would have been watching...but there it was.

It's hard being me.

Anyway, this Tribe song is a further result of my girlfriend's attempt to broaden my horizons. It's fun, I don't hate it...that's about all you can ask, right?

Autonomy - Buzzcocks - Another Music in a Different Kitchen - 1978

As much as the drive to the stadium was a better experience than expected, the stadium itself was a lesson in disappointment. We paid $30 to park in a lot almost a mile from the stadium itself, in an effort to prevent being stuck in the bottle neck that escaping the stadium would be post game.

As the game we were actually there to see was a match between two Italian teams, the people we walked along with were a healthy mixture of Italians, American soccer fans, and various ex-pats just glad to be able t see some quality "footie". Even the dudes at the liquor store where we bought our tailgating supplies chatted a bit about soccer...it was encouraging to see how the game has opened up in America.

Once we actually got to the stadium itself getting to our seats involved walking up a seemingly endless series of ramps snaked along the outside of the bleachers. On the walk we watched some Italian try to race his girlfriend only to elbow her out of the way and watch as she wiped out face down on the concrete. We all stopped to make sure she was ok, giving the jerk the appropriate level of dirty looks. He seemed indifferent. After we finally got to our level, we discovered that there was only 1 ATM on the level and that it was out of order...oh and absolutely nothing accepted plastic.

We tried to get beer at a beer stand that served microbrews from New England (one of the few nice touches) only to discover that nearly everything was sold out and the few beers that they did have were foaming uncontrollably...it took the woman behind the counter nearly 10 minutes to pour out three beers causing us to miss the beginning of the game and the first goal (of only 2). We spent the rest of the game drinking margaritas (Margarita stands were a nice touch...we need those at more sporting events, particularly for summer games). Due to the lack of cash, I never ate, but the hot dog Anand had he proclaimed to be the worst hot dog he ever had. At least the view was good.



When the game (which was itself a bit lackluster, but then we weren't expecting much from a preseason exhibition match...even between two giants with a fierce rivalry) was drawing to a close, we tried to leave a few minutes early to beat the crowd. We slipped in with a couple of reporters to try and sneak down on the elevator and were understandably turned away. We then tried to go over on the (COMPLETELY EMPTY) stairs only to be told that the stairs were reserved for media only...I had to be dragged away before I attempted to shout the security guard to death. I still, an entire month later, fail to see the harm in allowing us to go down those stairs. There is little that infuriates me more than a rule followed for the sake of foolish consistency.

Ultimately we got back to our car and navigated the back roads successfully. Another pleasant drive home awaited us now with a pleasant buzz and a good tan for the non-drivers.

The Buzzcock's can always be relied upon to deliver a good jolt of punky power pop and this song is no exception. It's always amazing to think that these guys were putting out music like this in 1978.

At Least That's What You Said - Wilco - Kicking Television - 2005

I am currently DVRing the Champions League Semi-final between Arsenal and Man U...the two great rivals of the EPL (circa 1996-2005) meet in the European cup for the first time ever and it should be a great game...assuming that I can avoid any spoilers.

The DVR is really the double edged sword of the soccer fan these days. Since our games are played on a continent 5 to 6 hours ahead of us, the games are usually played during the day...so unless I want to take a day off work (or have a "doctor's appointment") then I have to set the DVR and wait till I get home. THe plus side to this is that, if I can pull it off, I can still have the majority of the excitement of watching a game live (but you know, there's still a little something missing knowing that it's not). I can watch it at my leisure. If I'm home a little late, I don't miss anything.

But, I have certainly had big games spoiled by the internet. When Liverpool made their amazing comeback against AC Milan in 2005...it was a a big enough story to make the AP newswire, even here in the states. Earlier in the year, when Arsenal was playing Roma in a tightly contested game...I stayed late at work so I could head straight to Rance's to watch the game. I avoided anything sports related. And then some kid in Cincinnait, that I was his camp counselor a billion years ago, updates his facebook profile to say "I can't believe Arsenal won on penalties!!!" My evening plan was shot.

So now I sit here, avoiding sports AND facebook and waiting for the day to end. Hopefully, I'll make it through and hopefully Arsenal will pull the victory off.

This is a live version of the previous song. It sticks pretty close to the text, which is fine since it's a great song...but doesn't really require much additional comment.

At Last Is All - I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness - Fear is on Our Side - 2006

Well, I've already told this story to basically everyone I know, so that's pretty much the readership of this blog but...I want to write it down, just so I'll have it for posterity.

On Wednesday April 15th, a few events took place. One of them was that Arsenal Football Club played the second leg of their Champions League Quarter Final against Villarreal, the second was that it was Tax Day, the third was that a bunch of short sited morons decided to have a protest of paying taxes to a liberal administration and dubbed their protest with the unfortunate name of "Teabagging" allegedly in honor of the Boston Tea Party.

So, as the game was live at 245 and I had to be at work, I had set my Tivo and divorced myself from the Internet at approximately 244 (I had been screwed by the Internet too many times in attempting to watch non-live games...including one rather unfortunate event with a friend's facebook status post). But before I signed off I remember seeing the coverage of the Teabagging parties on CNN and thinking "My God, CNN has been hacked"...but no, this shit was for real.

Anand and I had planned to meet at a local watering hole called The Patriot. The Patriot is one of those faux country dive bars that exist in NYC, clearly created by people who have never been to a country dive bar but have seen a lot of movies that had them in it. A lot of Toby Keith is played in this bar, the beer is all flat, the place reeks of vomit and the waitresses are uniformly skanky.

So I walk in to meet Anand, and on a Wednesday night the place is absolutely packed. Like I can't even make it to the bar or the bathroom. It's then that I notice that all of the other attendees are wearing the same T-shirt (Except one guy who, I shit you not, was wearing a revolutionary war town crier outfit). The T-shirt says on the front "Obama-Reid-Pelosi" above the presidential seal and "Wrong for America" below it. On the back it says "Liberals are Freaking Faggots".

I quickly realize that this is not a bar I wish to be in and beat a hasty retreat. Running into Anand on the way, we popped into a second bar only to see that that bar is showing a replay of the Arsneal match that is already 15 minutes into the game. I see us scoring our first goal, though I managed to get Anand out of there before he saw it...so at least one of us would be going into the game fresh.

The thing is...I won't go too much into covering the ludicrousness of the Teabaggers agenda (or their name)...it's been covered by funnier people than me. But seriously, it's amazing how quickly they lose their prudery when the shoe is on the other foot. They gladly trash a president they don't like when they accused us of being traitors for questioning the one that my side didn't like. They call us "Faggots" (yet still down grade the F-word to "freaking"???) all to protest what? Not the loss of human life, not the allowing of robber barons to run roughshod over our economy, nor a government that simply sat back and watched our country fall apart...they are pissed that the government is actually trying to DO SOMETHING. They want inaction at a time when our country is falling apart and it is simply staggering to me.

You lost, wing nuts. Suck it.

Anyway, it seems appropriate to end this with a song by I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. Fear has always been on their side, and that hasn't changed much. Wouldn't it be nice if we ran our country on hope rather than fear?

Assisted Living - The Mendoza Line - We're All In This Alone - 2000

Anand and I made our way back to the first bar in the area, swimming our way against the stream of fans with appropriate tickets happily walking their way to the stadium. We came to the first bar, which had a sign that said "Home" supporters only. I flashed my Arsenal Jersey under my hoodie to prove that I came to support the good guys.

We actually told the bouncer at the door about what had happened with us and the cop, which actually won us the respect of the bar. The first round was on the house. And fortunately we got to watch an Arsenal victory, with Robin Van Persie converting a penalty to give us the lead.

We drank a lot...I mean, A. LOT. It was the only way to dull the pain of the experience.

The Mendoza Line continue their run of low-self esteem, mumblecore, alt-country/westerburg-esque rock here. You don't listen to this band expecting surprises, just a tasty kind of dissapointment.

Assessment - The Beta Band - Heroes to Zeros - 2004

So there we stood at our own temple of football, about to go in. Since Rance was a late addition to the trip, he hadn't gotten tickets with Anand and I. He had actually pulled some strings at work to get into one of the press boxes for the game. We shook hands and wished him luck, feeling bad for him that he'd have to spend the evening relatively sober with work people while we'd enjoy the game from our seats...

Now you have to understand the way it works...games at The Emirates are sold out, pretty much in perpetuity. The unused tickets are announced by the club 2 weeks before the game and then sold back to the populace at face value...but that would mean waiting two weeks before the trip to actually confirm your tickets. The other option, is to go through a website to buy someones season ticket for that game only at extremely marked up prices...which is what we did.

We walked around the stadium looking for our entrance, which was near the away section. The particular game was against Roma...an Italian team. Now as much stick as the stereotypical Brit soccer fan gets for being a hooligan, that's pretty much a passe image...particularly in London. Since the Hillsborough disaster in 89, British soccer games have been pretty tightly controlled. Beyond that, the game has simply become too expensive...working class fans can't afford the tickets anymore and in general this is the population that has nothing to lose by cracking a few heads at a match. Italian fans are another matter all together.

Italian games saw 7 fatal stabbings last year...with Roma being one of the worst offenders. A line of police blocked the entrance to make sure the Italian fans were well behaved...the problem was, we had to walk through this line of police with our illegally purchased tickets.

We were through and in the clear when he saw us. The one cop in the whole world who thought a couple of American tourists with scalped tickets were the biggest threat to security. He closed down on us fast, walking a good 15 feet away from his line of bobbies and stopping us cold and asking to see our tickets.

Anand assuming there was nothing out of the ordinary showed him the ticket...he immediately confiscated it and stated that he was under orders to do so with all scalped season passes. He asked me for mine as well, and I turned it over, while trying to reason with him...but he clearly had a giant stick up his ass. Two stadium attendants and a second cop all came over to him and asked him to just let us in...but he shock his head "I am under orders to confiscate these, I am going to report this to the club and the persons who sold these tickets will have their season passes revoked as well"

Every person who tried to help us was shot down and left shaking their head that anyone could be such a cock. Finally the cop relented enough to give us the two ID numbers so we could try to at least purchase these seats legally. He then gave us a patronizing lecture that began with "Now you two seem like intelligent gentlemen"

We went to the ticket stand and were told that the game was sold out. When I pointed out that we knew for a fact that there were two empty seats, the ticket seller simply said "The club has no comment on that". The fight was over...we were not going to see the game...except fucking last minute Rance. Anand slumped to the ground and it took me a good amount of convincing just to get him to go to a bar so we could at least SEE the game. Our prize at the end of the rainbow had been ripped from us by one gigantic asshole cop...we were pissed.

The Beta Band got most of it's acclaim after "Dry the Rain" made a stellar cameo in High Fidelity. Sadly, the Scots never did much past that...though there subsequent albums weren't bad. This song is actually pretty good...it just sounds like a faster Dry the Rain.

Assassination on X-Mas Eve - Archers of Loaf - All The Nations Airports - 1996

After dropping off the car, we had a fair bit of spare time, thanks to Anand's action star driving. We got back into London and into the hotel. After that, it was back to North London on the above-ground transit train to get ready for the game. At this point it was reality...we were going to see Arsenal play a Champions League match...live! At Emirates Stadium! It was no longer the prize at the end of our trip, it was now the reality of our evening and we were going to enjoy the hell out of it.

After briefly considering a few of the other restaurants we ended up back at The Famous Cock. We figured one more night of British Pub food wouldn't kill us. As Rance pointed out, the food in that country was like someone left a 12 year old in charge of the entire cuisine.

"What do you want for dinner little Allister?"

"I want sausages and mashed potatoes, all covered in gravy!!! I want everything in a pot pie. And I want french fries at every meal!"

After 3 beers and a shot, it was time to make our way to the stadium. We walked down the street with the throngs of people all feeling the same excitement as us. The big game was coming and we were going to be there.

All the Nation's Aiports is the only Archer's album that I owned during the life of the band, I came around to the rest of their catalog after their demise. Sadly, I never got to see them live...though I've seen Crooked Fingers many times and Bachman solo once, I will always feel as if I missed one of the great bands of my generation by not seeing these guys. This song rocks.

As Quick As It Comes/Carrera - Calla - Televise - 2002

We stayed at The White Swan for a couple of hours, eating the shitty British pub food and drinking beers. Our perspective was changed somewhat by the fact that Arsenal drew the match 0-0. On one hand, we didn't miss much by not going to the match or seeing it on TV...on the other hand, our team did not win.

We then headed back to the hotel to meet up with my friend Matt C. Matt, though originally from Yorkshire had spent a year in NYC on a work study program with a financial firm. When his program ended he looked high and low for ways to stay in the USA, but without luck. I felt bad for Matty, but on the flipside, it was nice to have a friend to show us around some of the cooler parts of London.

We started out at fancy cocktail place in Shoreditch called Lover's Lounge. Anand and I made the mistake of ordering martini's forgetting that the Europeans actually consider vermouth to be an ingrediant in a martini and not just a faint flavor. They were pretty nasty. Rance got a mint julep, which as a Kentuckian he approved of, though he was tempted to give the bar tender mixing tips.

From there we went to a standard issue British pub and had a few pints, before Matt took us to a rather cool (For London) underground bar where I had whiskey and discussed the failings of British women. To venture into sexist territory for a bit, with the rare exception (Kate Winslet) White British women are not attractive. It's really depressing going from the cornacopia of women that is NYC to the total dead end of London. The one thing they have going for them is their total willingness to make up for their short comings by totally slutting out in the wardrobe department. Doesn't matter the weather, low cut blouses and high skirts are always in abundance. But at the end of the day, it's still a bad toothed, bad skinned, bland and flat British girl in all the slut-wear.

When we finished up our drinks, Matt pointed us in a few directions for more bars and headed off to party of his own, leaving us with a few more hours to kill in London.

Calla...Calla is one of those bands that I want to like more than I do. There is just something so lethargic about this band that I can't quite get past. Every once in a while they'll play a song that has some real energy to it though...this is not one of those songs.

As Night Is Falling - The Clientele - Suburban Light - 2000

After catching up with Rance and getting settled in our room, we knew we needed to head over to Islington fast, kick off was a little less than an hour away. We determined there was no way we could get to the stadium in time to scalp tickets, so we were just going to try to watch the game at a bar in the area. We figured it would be not unlike going to the bar next to Yankee's stadium: jam packed full of rowdy and drunk fans.

We grabbed a cab and headed over to the Arsenal bar right outside of the Islington station. The bar has the unfortunate name of The Famous Cock, and is also possess the most disgusting bathroom I encountered in my entire trip, BUT...it's an Arsenal bar. When we arrived the place was mysteriously quiet and subdued.

We were informed by the Polish barmaid that the game was not on TV, but we could try a few of the other bars in the neighborhood and see if they were showing it.

Incidentally, the Polish in London seem to be a lot like the Mexicans in NYC. They work all the jobs nobody else wants. The men drive buses and cabs and do consturction and maintenance jobs, the women tend bar in tight tops.

After poking around in a few bars we soon learned that the game was simply not going to be seen on TV. We ended up in a bar called The White Swan where we grabbed a late lunch and grumbled. It was baffling that a soccer match we could have easily watched 4000 miles away was unviewable when we were less than a mile from where it was actually being played. I had been to London once before and hated it...and my opinion was not improving on this trip.

I have been listening to the Clientele quite a bit recently. They started off as a good band to listen to with a hangover, or when putting the moves on an indie-rock loving lady...but more and more I find their music speaking to my moods. This song from their hit and sorta-miss singles collection is one of the better tunes on the disc. It's mournful and heartfelt tone combine with the crisp, sad music to get the Scottish gloomy vibe that these guys are the masters of.

Army of Me - Bjork - Post - 1995

So, as of 2PM today I will be embarking on a little bit of a journey. My friend Anand and I will be heading off to Berlin for a couple of days. From there, we'll be flying to London and meeting up with our friend Rance. We'll try to catch the Arsenal v Sunderland match on Saturday. On Sunday, we'll be picking up a rental car and driving up the length of England, all the way into Scotland and stopping in Glasgow. On Monday (my birthday) we'll rock it out in Glasgow. Tuesday we'll head back to London and catch Arsenal v Roma...Wednesday I'll be back in the states.

This may be a pipe dream, but I hope to do some blog updating while on the road...if not, I'll come back with plenty of updates.

Anyway, this is in my opinion the best Bjork song...debate while I'm away.

The Apt. - Times New Viking - Rip It Off - 2008

As an avid drinker and a nine year resident of the city of New York, I have complicated relationships with many bars in this city. There are the now defunct bars that I hated at the time, but romaticize in the past (The corny MC Exchange that was the bar of my Dotcom, the truly awful Village Idiot that used to sell cheap pitchers when i lived in Manhattan). There are the bars that I used to haunt but am now too old and cranky to tolerate the young clientele (Blue and Gold, Soda). The bars from my old neighborhood (Enid's, Matchless) that I don't visit so much anymore. The places I went with co-workers, the places I went to meet up before concerts, and the places I just found myself all have complex histories, but none is more convoluted than my relationship to Nevada Smith's.

I'm sure I must have talked about Smith's at some point, but for a quick recap: Smith's is a bar in the nether zone that is niether the East Village nor quite Union Square. It is uniformly dark, not especially cheap, generally smells like an arm pit, and it's owner is a cranky old asshole of the highest order. It remains the only bar I've ever been thrown out of in my entire life...but I've probably at this point clocked more hours in this bar than any other in the world.

You see, Nevada Smith's is the bar to go to, to watch English Premeire League Soccer. If my team's game isn't being shown on cable, it's basically my only option, and I am a devoted enough fan that I am willing to go to a bar at 730 AM if need be (for a 1230 kick off in London). This means that no matter how much I may hate this place, no matter how many times I've sworn that I'll never step foot in that place again...as long as EPL games aren't all on TV, I'll be forced to go (Well, "Forced").

But as I was there on Saturday to watch Arsenal beat Portsmouth, I stopped to realize how much the place had changed in the five years I had been there. When I first started attending, a heart broken young man looking for an excuse to drink in the mornings and finding it in soccer, the place was almost exclusively attended by Brits. We Americans were the intruders, the interlopers who would never really understand the sport. There were many colorful charcaters and even more colorful language. The Arsenal corner was ruled by a Frenchman named Andre who was always there and knew more profanity than the devil himself. Andre once broke his hand pounding on the bar during a frustrating match.

Gradually through the years a new type of patron began attending who was niether us nor them: NYU students looking for a place to keep an all night bender going or to kick start the day with beer. They knew the place was open at 7AM, and if the abuse of a few brits was the price to be paid then so be it...but gradually these obnoxious kids picked up the sport, and in a step me and my friends didn't even take, the culture.

I was struck by this moment on Saturday, when I realized that there was just as much singing as always in Smith's but not a single one of the singers was british. These kids had learned the songs and taken up the mantle, but had also driven their British teachers away. It was an odd moment, on one hand seeing American's embracing soccer and "football culture" was a source of pride, on the other it's sad to see the old replaced by the obnoxious new. I certainly left with my complicated relationship with Smith's even more complicated than ever.

Anyway, I get the deal with Times New Viking, they play catchy garage rock, but recorded at earbusting levels so that it seems that their engineer has no clue what they are doing. This is the same trick that has gone on since The Beatles first learned to use feedback, i.e. cover something sugary in so much noise that the listener has to dig to find the sweetness. Usually I'm a fan of this strategy, but frankly, to further put on my old man hat, I just think the sonic mess is too great...it just sounds badly recorded...and not even a "recorded in a dumpster" way that The Thermals sometimes pull, but in a "I can't hear the actual song" way that I just don't care for.

Kids these days!

Anyone Can Play Guitar - Radiohead - Pablo Honey - 1993

Taking a half day from work today for my buddy Anand's birthday. In less than an hour I will be eating ribs, getting my drink on, and then heading out to watch Arsenal (hopefully) whip Tottenham today.

Pablo Honey continues to hold an odd place in the Radiohead Canon. It's not that it's a bad album, in fact there are probably more good songs than bad or indifferent, it's just that it can't escape what it is. Riding the wave of Nirvana (though the band will deny it) they were really the first band on the Alternative Nation bandwagon. Creep, with it's atonal touches and alienated lyrics, seemed like a perfect follow up to Smell's Like Teen Spirit (Incidentally, I saw Teen Spirit Deodarant in the deli downstairs this AM...didn't even know they still made it and can't believe they stuck with that name). The album shamelessly bleeds their Pixies influence, and it is unapologeticaly catchy (a quality that would seem like a sin to the band for a good while). But still you can't dismiss it.

First of all, it proves that a band can escape the chains of being a one hit wonder. Tons and tons of bands got consigned to the dollar bin after breaking a Nirvana clone hit, but a very select few, with Radiohead at the forefront, went on to do genuinely good work...and that has to give people hope.

Beyond that, too many of the songs, trapped in the amber of the early 90's as they are, are just enjoyable. They may not have the timeless quality of a Street Spirit or Karma Police...they are undeniably part of the Alterna-revolution, but they still have the bits of talent the band would put to better use down the road. This song is no exception. You can certainly hear Thom's smirk in full effect in the way he says "Jim Morrison" or through the general sense of derision that permeates the song. You can hear Johnny already experimenting with sound and frustrated by the limits of the guitar. And you can hear the band as a whole showing off their love of a good soundscape in the opening bits.

Sure, it's not the "Art" they would later produce, but it's still worth a listen.

Andover - Bound Stems - Appreciation Night - 2006

There's honestly little on the planet more painful than watching someone you have immense respect for hang themselves on their principles. So, after watching my team collapse to an embarrassing loss in their second game of the season...to a vastly inferior team...I finally may be losing faith in our coach.

Arsene Wenger has made a habit of making great players out of talented, promising young men. And his current team shows the signs of producing more of these great players. Additionally, Wenger has a distaste for celebrity ego. He has a long history of selling off his prodigies the second they start believing their own press, and an equally long history of not buying established stars. But now as we have watched last seasons promising stars largely depart for bigger pay checks, it is abundantly clear that we need an experienced central midfielder on the pitch, and yet the coach will not budge, insisting that the squad is strong enough. It's going to be a long, long season.

Bound Stems mostly sound like a somewhat more light hearted Modest Mouse. Listen accordingly.

Ambush - Figurines - Skeleton - 2005

I am fairly convinced that my Playstation 2 hates me. I've talked to others who share my love for EA Sports' soccer game FIFA 2008 about this exact thing and they have all agreed they game sometimes decides that you simply should not win. And it's usually in ridiculous situations. As an Arsenal fan, I play my "season" as them...so let's say I'm playing Barnet in the League Cup (For Americans, this would be like The Colts playing your local MeetUp team)...by all logic, even with a team of second stringers, I should simply clobber them...but because it's a cup competition, the game decides that all laws of logic and physics should go out the window and the underdogs should be plucky or some shit.

As such, here is my list of the ways in which my Playstation 2 Cheats at FIFA...
* The Unstoppable Free Kick - This has been the prefered method of cheating of every version of FIFA I've ever played. You commit a foul (usually stopping The Battering Ram - see below) somewhere near the edge of the box. The opposition player steps up to take it, and all of the sudden he is Cristiano Ronaldo (who is a douchebag)...the kick curls right over your wall and goes straight into the net. Your keeper stands by idly staring as the amatuers score.
* The Header from A Corner - This is the same basic idea, just another method for doing it. Ball goes out for a corner. The opposition sends it in, and a player you can do nothing to stop heads it into your net. I will say, this is used to be the preferred method of cheating for the game in previous versions, but the new version has replaced it with something even more annoying...
* The Battering Ram - This one is particular to the latest version. You score a goal, the opposing team restarts and their Center Forward takes the ball and runs right down the middle...and you just can't stop him. Every slide tackly you put in will somehow miss, every attempt to hold him back will be easily shaken off. All of the suddden, Angus McDrinkstoomuch becomes Didier Drogba (who is also a douchebag) and will go all the way to the goal and slot it in the net.
* Your keeper shows up drunk - This one is fun. Most of the time your keeper is controlled by the computer, this makes the times when he makes a mistake even more infuriating...cause you didn't do anything. Your keeper is holding the ball and then all of the sudden drops it...or throws it straight to the opposing player. Infuriating.
* The Off-The-Ball Foul - You can only control, at most, two of your players at a time...the rest are managed by the computer until you switch to them. This makes incidents where a player you aren't controlling commits a foul especially galling. It's even more fun when the foul conceedes a penalty. Good times.
* Hand ball - You have absolutely no control over your players arms...so when the ball hits them, how exactly were you supposed to get them out of the way. Again, when this move results in a penalty, it is cause of much cursing at the television.
* Your players can't hit the broadside of a barn - Suddenly, your players just can't hit the back of the net. You can take 300 shots on goal and they will all rocket over the bar, strike the bar, go wide, or go right into the keepers arms...anyone's who's ever actually watched an Arsenal game knows that this does happen in reality occassionally.

Anyway, this is probably the best song on this Figurines album (I never acquired their second record...so I guess that make this my favorite song of theirs?). It does well to combine their cold Dannish style with a sort of rockabilly twang and a catchy chorus. There's also a pretty cool organ part during the outro?

Aeroplane Blues - The Black Keys - Rubber Factory - 2004

So, all in all I had a pretty spectacular weekend, but one of my favorite parts (well, that I'm telling you all about anyway) happened on Saturday afternoon. After watching my beloved Arsenal pull of an amazing comeback (down a man, and two goals with less than 1/2 an hour to play...comeback to win 2-3) I went with my buddy to a local pub and sat in the back yard with a couple of beers. As we basked in victory, I couldn't help but enjoy the kick off of my favorite season of the year...outdoor drinking time. Few things are better in this city than sitting on a sidewalk, in the sun, with a cold beverage and watching the world go by. I love this shit. After the long hard slog that is winter, it's finally time to participate in my favorite past time.

The only thing that could have made the experience better would have been some cool tunes. The Black Keys would have worked. Their laid back bluesy stomp is just about perfect for outdoor drinking. Bring it on, boys.