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Music, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: Concertgoing over the years

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SportsAlcohol.com founders Jesse, Sabrina, and Rob were joined by Sara from Boston to see Sleater-Kinney on their reunion tour. The next day, they reminisced about how great the show was and their history of concertgoing.

How To Listen

      We are up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

    • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
    • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
    • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
    • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
    • If you are lazy, like 35 year old who would rather just stay at home, you can listen in the player below.

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol.com Podcast: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies

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Over the holidays, some of the SportsAlcohol.com crew got together and took in the (probably? hopefully?) final Peter Jackson film based on the works of J. R. R. Tolkien. We discussed frame rate, plot, pacing, and the many wonderful animals used for transportation.

SPOILER ALERT: In this podcast we discuss a movie based on a popular book that’s over seventy years old with millions of copies in print. If you don’t know what happens, it’s your own fault.

NOISE ALERT: The were some weird clicks in the recording I couldn’t get rid of. Also, our cats were hungry, so you might here their bells or their whining in the background.

How To Listen

    We are up to five different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • I don’t really know what Stitcher is, but we are also on Stitcher.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • If you are lazy, like an automatic technical award nomination for a sci-fi/fantasy movie , you can listen in the player below.

Lists

BEST OF 2014: SportsAlcohol.com

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2014 was SportsAlcohol.com‘s first year of true existence. After years of us joking about the most perfect domain name, I bought it last December and made our first post this past January. Even though we didn’t have much of a plan, things kind of snowballed from there. Branching out from our core group of founders, we got a lot of our friends to contribute articles, blurbs, lists, comments, and their voices (to our podcast). Without checking with anyone else, I decree the following to be the best SportsAlcohol.com content of 2014!

Continue reading BEST OF 2014: SportsAlcohol.com →

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Nothing But Trouble” by Phantogram

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our collective top five, but did appear on our individual best-album ballots.

Full disclosure: I am in the tank for Phantogram. Even though they hail from Greenwich, NY my hometown of Saratoga Springs has claimed them as their own (same county). We don’t have much of a music scene to speak of, so we get excited every time a local act breaks out onto the national stage. It’s only happened a few times in my life.

I am also in the tank for high energy track ones. “Nothing But Trouble,” the leadoff song to Voices, Phantogram’s sophomore full-length, is maybe my favorite one of the year.

The beat shows the influence of their touring with a live band to great effect. The bass line uses their standard fuzzed-out synth sound, but it moves a little more than usual. The drums go beyond standard loops to include fills you don’t often hear in songs like these. While there’s a lot of growth in their songwriting, the lyrics feature psychedelic abstractions that would feel as comfortable in early Phantogram cuts like “Mouthful of Diamonds” as it would in a classic Guided By Voices tune.

As always, Sara Barthel’s vocals are an ethereal eye in the storm, but her partner in crime Josh Carter is in the spotlight a little more than usual (especially when they play this song live). His underutilized voice provides backing in the second half of the song and his guitar closes everything out with a rare solo. The way it breaks out of nowhere in a pretty dance heavy track, it’s almost Prince-like.

This all comes together in one song. If reductive, lazy critics are still calling Phantogram trip-hop, they should probably listen to “Nothing But Trouble” a few more times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVuo6h5cwk4

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Backseat Shake Off (Kendrick Lamar vs Taylor Swift)” by The Hood Internet

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

I know what you’re thinking, reader: “Rob, a mashup was one of your favorite songs of 2014?! There are less embarrassing ways to relive your college years.”

Fret not, reader. I have so many great reasons to include The Hood Internet’s latest.

I wanted an excuse to post this video.


“Backseat Shakeoff” was released at the tail end of the media’s coverage of the  mutual admiration society between Kendrick Lamar and Taylor Swift. This appeals to a very particular demographic AND I AM PART OF IT. I wish I had something more insightful to add beyond “I think it’s cool that Taylor Swift is into Kendrick Lamar and vice versa” on this point, but  I’m not sure what to add on this point.

Just Enough T-Swift

 


Maybe Jesse and I are just clueless old men who just don’t get the success of Taylor Swift’s march towards world domination, but we’re totally the type of dudes who love great pop music to the degree people question our sexual orientation. I’m serious. Jesse and I did a radio show during summers in college and we’d throw in some Mandy Moore and Atomic Kitty in between the de rigueur Guided By Voices and Built To Spill. We would sometimes get phone calls full of homosexual slurs.

This is a roundabout way of saying that I really like the idea of Taylor Swift transitioning from country to pop superstardom, but the tunes don’t always grab me. “Shake It Off”, the lead single from her latest album, is a mixed a bag. The Hood Internet take the good parts for their mashup by just using the beat, the first verse, and one chorus. The pseudo-rap, spoken word breakdown and troubling music video get left on the cutting room floor.

Kendrick Freaking Lamar

I was late to the party on Kendrick Lamar, but I am here now. While it works well in the context of the full album, “Backseat Freestyle” is (to me) one of the less interesting songs on his breakout good kid, m.A.A.d city. I know it’s one of the clear singles from that record, but it lacks the nuance and insight of Kendrick at his finest. That being said, “Backseat Freestyle” is the obvious choice to mash up with “Shake It Off”. While most of Kenrick’s songs could be described as downbeat, this isn’t one of them.

Music

TRACK MARKS BEST OF 2014: “Bury Our Friends” by Sleater-Kinney

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This week, SportsAlcohol.com writers are recounting the best music of 2014. Today’s Track Marks focus on individual songs from albums that didn’t make our individual best-album lists.

you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys you guys

The above is an excerpt of my internal monologue when I found out Sleater-Kinney was finally reuniting. A lot of my recent writing and podcasting on the site have confirmed my worst fears that my tastes a little too grounded in my college years.  I might overrate what I listened to at the turn of the century, but you can never take the greatness of Sleater-Kinney away from me.

The best thing about Sleater-Kinney releasing “Bury Our Friends” as their first comeback single is I don’t have to say you had to be there, man. Everything that was and is superlative about the band can be found in this song:

  • Corin Tucker’s voice. FYI, hating Corin Tucker’s voice is the new hating Bob Dylan’s voice: you can do it, but you are making a cliched observation and contributing nothing. Why don’t you just do a Borat impression instead? Also, I happen to think you are wrong. Corin Tucker’s voice is huge and soaring and one of a kind.
  • Carrie Brownstein’s guitar work. I don’t know what kind of world we’re coming too when she is known more for her sketch comedy work than her tasty licks.
  • Janet Weiss. How do you describe sexism to people who don’t think it exists? Have them consider Janet Weiss’ resume and the fact that she’s rarely mentioned the conversation of the greatest/most influential/most dependable drummers of all time. She is just a monster. She doesn’t play a lot of fills or solos; she just lays down a tight beat with authority. Janet Weiss is so great sometimes you fail to notice her.
  • The interplay between all the above. If crusty old rock critics actually listened to how this band gave one another space to do their thing, a kind word would never again be written about the ‘sophistication’ of The Police.
  • All of this happens in a tight 3:20, reminicent of their classic mid period, circa Dig Me Out.
  • The sound, though, has the hugeness of their last album, the epic, Zeppelin-inspiried  The Woods. All the noise of overmodulation in service of the song, it’s hard to recognize this a three piece without a keyboard player or even a bassist.
  • The verses are everything great about their lyrics: personal yet universal, relatable yet inscrutable.
  • The chorus has the proud defiance of the  protest songs of their post-9/11 album One Beat.
  • Miranda July on the video!

Seriously, what more do you people want in a rock song?

Music, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol Podcast: Turn Of The Century Music

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At the risk of dating ourselves, the majority of the SportsAlcohol crew loves the music that was tearing up the CMJ charts during the transition of the Clinton to Bush 43 administrations because that’s when we were in college.  Sabrina, Marisa, Jesse, and Me (Rob) went to see one of our favorites from that time period, The Dismemberment Plan, on their current tour when it came through New York.

We were joined by Sara. Not the Sara that has been writing great pieces for us about unlikeability (among other things), but another equally excellent Sara that we’ve been going to shows with for about fifteen years. It is just dawning on me now how many Saras with no ‘h’ Jesse knows.  It’s at least three, which feels like a lot to me.

Afterwards, we sat down to talk about The Plan as well as other music from the turn of the century. What bands did we like back in the day? Which ones are still going strong and which ones fell by the wayside? What group’s lack of a promised second record is driving Sabrina insane? Was the world ever our oyster? How come Interpol is still together? All these questions and more follow.

How To Listen

    We are up to four different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast, hopefully five by the next one:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I’m not sure why they allowed it, but we are on iTunes! If you enjoy what you hear, a positive comment and a rating would be great.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • If you are lazy, like a joke about Dashboard Confessional crying themselves to sleep, you can listen in the player below.

Movies, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol Podcast: Interstellar

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Note: this podcast is made of nothing but spoilers (and magically quantifiable love).

With the possible exception of Jesse and Marisa’s Wedding, a record number of SportsAlcohol contributors gathered in the same place this past weekend for a screening of Interstellar in IMAX. Afterwards, some of us sat down to talk wormholes, black holes, and Dogstar (the band not the star). Tune in to find out who liked it, who had reservations, what Ben would call Interstellar if it were a TV show, and how Rob felt about that name.

How To Listen

    We are up to four different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:

  • You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
  • I have trouble believing it myself, but we are on iTunes!. I’m not saying you have to give us a review, but it sure would help.
  • You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
  • As always, if you are very lazy, like my Matthew McConaughey impression, you can just listen in the player below.

Music, Podcast

The SportsAlcohol Podcast: The Replacements and The Reunion Act

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Bands that got back together to play the hits on tour was a phenomena that, like so many things in American culture, catered to baby boomers until very recently. About a decade ago, the Pixies started playing shows again and hipsters in their twenties and thirties suddenly had something in common with all the grayhairs who enjoy the classic rock circuit.

SportsAlcohol.com founders Jesse and Marisa had the pleasure of seeing The Replacements play with Deer Tick and The Hold Steady at Forest Hills Stadium in Queens this past weekend with a bunch of friends. Afterwards, they discussed their uncomplicated feelings of getting into reunion acts in their thirties. What do they want to see and why? They discuss their specific experiences and idealize what they want to see with reunion acts. They were joined by recently-minted SportsAlcohol contributor Ben and future SportsAlcohol contributor Derrick, who has participated in a couple of our music list surveys.

How to listen

We are up to four different ways to listen to a SportsAlcohol podcast:
You can subscribe to our podcast using the rss feed.
We are also finally on iTunes!
You can download the mp3 of this episode directly here.
As always, if you are very lazy, you can just listen in the player below.


This featured image was taken by Nicole Fara Silver and shamelessly swiped from Rollingstone.com’s review of the show.

Music, Sports

Track Marks: “STOP FUCKING BUNTING” by Puig Destroyer

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Grindcore* is a narrowly defined genre with limited appeal. An extreme permutation of metal, the songs are loud, short, and incomprehensible. On top of that, a lot of grindcore acts title their songs for maximum shock value to make sure you get the point if you can’t understand the shouting. Gruesome lyrics aren’t requisite and one Grindcore band actually widened their appeal by narrowing their subject matter to just baseball.

Enter Puig Destroyer, a portmanteau of Grindcore luminaries Pig Destroyer and Los Angeles Dodgers phenom Yasiel Puig. Cuban defector Puig blasted onto the scene last year, skipping a level of the minor leagues to plug a hole in the Dodgers’ outfield and became if not baseball’s most talented player, certainly its most exciting.

I'm showing real restraint by limiting myself to one Puig gif
I’m showing real restraint by limiting myself to one Puig gif. Seriously, check out those reflexes.

He was celebrated by Puig Destroyer, a metal supergroup of baseball fans that took this joke of a band from conception to viral hit quickly; their first single “ONE MAN, FIVE TOOLS” was featured on Deadspin just ten days after Puig had made his Major League debut.

The idea of the band my be a joke, but Puig Destroyer often has something more perceptive to say about baseball in a sixty-second song than some crusty old managers will say in any post game press conference.  Co-founders Ian Miller and Riley Breckenridge also host The Productive Outs Podcast. THE PRODcast showcases Miller and Breckenridge as my idea of the 21st Century baseball fan: willing to think about the game without being mired in dogma, interested in things besides baseball, and lovers of what’s great about the game without taking it too seriously. I call them Fire Joe Morgan Fans.

This brings us to “STOP FUCKING BUNTING”. Why highlight a song from Puig Destroyer’s first EP when they’re promoting their first full length? In short, because they won’t stop fucking bunting.

Continue reading Track Marks: “STOP FUCKING BUNTING” by Puig Destroyer →