Up The Villa
Continuing with the football theme this evening, I’ve just got to say that though I miss John Gregory’s Springsteen fan nutter antics a little bit, David O’Leary is the shite as a manager. And if Aston Villa can snag that Champions League spot by knocking off Man U on the last day of the season, it is very likely that I will come on myself. Hopefully I won’t stain whichever vintage Villa shirt I’ll be wearing.
- posted by Liebs @ 8:32 PM 0 comments

 
Letting Product Spoil
So the U.S. National soccer team just stole a victory at the last second and defeated Mexico 1-0 at the Cotton Bowl. They dominated Los Tricolores all night but only managed their goal off a free kick deep into stoppage time. It was a great match, exciting throughout between two squads that have really become bitter rivals in the last 5 years. The hate and bitterness on the pitch was palpable. You gotta love it.

But of course, if ESPN shows it on SportsCenter, it’ll just be a quick 5 second highlight squeezed in towards the end of the hour. And that’s still a pretty big if that they’ll show it at all.

This makes no sense. Why would a network which has millions of dollars invested in the MLS, the National Teams (both men’s and women’s), and the UEFA Champions League continue to ignore their property? Tend to your garden, fuckwits!

How are the ESPN execs expecting the ratings and interest in their soccer telecasts to increase? Having the SportsCenter anchors disparage the sport 90 percent of the (rare) time a soccer highlight is shown won’t do it. They’re sitting on a gold mine, and shitting on it.

I know more people who regularly watch soccer than watch the NBA and the NHL. I haven’t watched a single NBA game this year, and maybe 3 NHL games. But MLS, English Premier League, Argentine Liga Primera, German Bundesliga, I’m addicted. And most of those matches are on Fox Sports World. Rupert Murdoch may be a completely evil douchebag, but if I met him in a sports bar I’d buy him a beer. Soccer, rugby, Aussie Rules Football, these things redeem him from being a total fascist bastard in my skewed mind.

Would it kill ESPN to give MLS a few more minutes’ attention each night, especially after the NBA and NHL playoffs are over? I certainly would rather see Freddy Adu, Landon Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley, and Fabian Taylor goalscoring highlights instead of more Kobe Bryant rape trial bullshit. Wouldn’t you?

I know ESPN already makes a killing on soccer telecasts on their International networks overseas, but why let the sport rot here at home? I guarantee if they showed 5-10 minutes of MLS highlights on game nights, within a month they would double their ratings for MLS matches. And I might watch SportsCenter more often (i.e., nine times a day) outside of the NFL season.
- posted by Liebs @ 8:00 PM 0 comments

 
A Ghost Is Born
So Wilco’s releasing a new album in June, A Ghost Is Born, and since they’re one of the few bands that realizes the Internet is a tool that allows them to increase interest in their music, they’ve again decided to stream the entire CD on their web site, Wilcoworld, in the weeks leading up to the CD’s release.

Wilco had a tough act to follow with their last album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which in my (and many other’s) opinion is certainly their best effort to date, and for me is one of the best albums that I own, both on CD and vinyl. I consider it to be by far the best CD of the last 5-10 years. Completely original, beautiful, and transcendent. It approaches the level of Astral Weeks, which is pretty much the highest praise I can give.

So, although it’s a little disappointing, I certainly don’t think any less of the band for the fact that A Ghost Is Born doesn’t quite meet the standards of YHF. It is still, however, a sublime album, despite the sound of Wilco regressing.

Each listen gets more interesting, no doubt due to the news that Jeff Tweedy, who let’s be honest here, really is Wilco – despite the incredible talent of the rest of the band – has entered rehab for an addiction to prescription painkillers. After hearing about that, the tone of the album made a lot more sense. A Ghost Is Born is the voice of a man struggling, aware that he’s crumbling under the weight of his own terrible and pathetic creation.

A Ghost Is Born sounds like an Edward Hopper painting. There, I said it. Most people find Hopper’s art desolate, depressing. Schizos like myself, however, find comfort in his paintings, and the idea that they seem depressing and lonely never crossed their mind until a girlfriend mentioned it, subconsciously revealing she was having doubts about the relationship and would soon end it. This album evokes the same moods, musically.

Tweedy tries to be happy and uplifting, and most tracks start off positively. But the moment never lasts, and the darker, raw side seeps in after a minute or two. Several songs end hauntingly in a din of feedback and distortion and noise.

But he’s still one of the best lyricists out there. He may not be Jay Z, comparing himself to Michael Schumacher, but lines like “I attack with love, pure bug beauty/ I curl my lips and crawl up to you” certainly humble me.

But what’s really the point here? I’m still trying to figure that out, and maybe it’s something that will never allow itself to be figured out, though it’ll tempt me to try each time I listen. Was he crying out for help, or letting those around him know he was falling apart so they wouldn’t be hurt by the debris, or reveling in his sorrow and addiction?

Maybe I was expecting too much in looking for yet another progression in Wilco’s sound, as they had previously from A.M. to Being There to Summerteeth to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. So much of this album sounds like previous material. “At Least That’s What You Said”, “Spiders (Kidsmoke)”, and “The Late Greats” wouldn’t feel out of place on Summerteeth or Being There. “Theologians”, which contains the album title lyric, seems to be on this album only because there hasn’t been a Golden Smog CD in a while. “Hell Is Chrome” channels Gram Parsons. “Muzzle of Bees” reminds me of Led Zeppelin III. “Hummingbird” could have been written by Ben Folds, before it devolves into an homage to the Faces, with the violin riff from “Come On Eileen” (almost). “I’m A Wheel” sounds like Wilco doing late era Pearl Jam doing The Fastbacks, a nugget of low-fi new wave country punk.

“Spiders (Kidsmoke)” clocks in at over ten minutes. It’s the musical equivalent of Grady Tripp’s book in Wonder Boys. They made no choices and the song just goes on and on far past when it should end, though it’s an admirable audition for the next Pete Townshend rock opera. “Less Than You Think” sprawls even further, more than fifteen minutes long, most of which is excruciating feedback. It made me think, “what the fuck?” on the first few listens, but in the context of Tweedy’s addictions, and his struggle with debilitating migraine headaches that necessitated the meds in the first place (and provided one of the more memorable scenes in the Wilco documentary I Am Trying To Break Your Heart when he pukes his guts out in a recording studio bathroom stall), I’ve got to believe this is his way of showing us what his migraines sound like. It’s a challenge to the listener – you really want to know where my music comes from, then suffer a little bit like I do every day.

But it all pays off with “Company In My Back”. This track alone is worth the price of admission. If I ever find a woman as beautiful as the guitar riff in the bridge of this song, I will die a very happy man.

A Ghost Is Born is certainly not a breakthrough record. But I believe that the band knows this, and that’s why they’re streaming the entire CD on their web site, to prepare recent converts, to prevent people from feeling cheated and let down when they drop 16 bucks on something they weren’t expecting. If someone wants to get to know Wilco, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot or Summerteeth are much better places to start.

This album is the record Wilco had no choice but to make right now. This album is the band’s most challenging, infuriating, and difficult. But put in the real world context of a struggle with drug addiction, this album may well be Wilco’s most interesting.

- posted by Liebs @ 10:00 AM 0 comments

 
Fair Game?
So if John Kerry’s anti-war comments from 1971 are free to be criticized, does that mean Dubya’s cocaine habit is also now in play?
- posted by Liebs @ 8:37 PM 0 comments

 
Laying the groundwork
Blogs to begin soon. I just don't feel like writing anything at the moment.
- posted by Liebs @ 11:01 AM 0 comments