The City Veins

God, I wish I were a sports-blogger. If that were the case, I’d have something to say on each and every day, because the global sports world is a 24-hour service. And, because of my infatuation with the English Premier League, it is certainly 24 hours a day for me (with a 5 hour time difference.

Each Saturday I get up around 8 am, irregardless of what I’ve done the night before. I flip on channels 613, 614, or 615 on my Direct TV dial, all of which carry soccer from Europe’s best leagues. I lived in Liverpool for a year and a half while getting my masters degree, and I religiously watch every match. Saturday morning is my time to decompress and watch European Football.

I’ve come to find the disdain with which most Americans view Soccer to be comical. My take is that Americans (white, that is) don’t like it because we’re not good at it, which is ridiculous. We are actually good at it, just that the good players are not playing in the US. There are 3 Americans in the game I’m watching now (Jonathan Spector for West Ham, Eddie Lewis and Benny Feilhaber for Derby) and there will be 4 in the next game I’m watching (Fulham’s Carlos Bocanegra, Brian McBride, Clint Dempsey, and Kasey Keller). Of these 7 players, only 4 play regularly for our national team. In the greatest soccer league in the world, second-tier American players play a significant role.

So my beloved Liverpool won on Tuesday by a score of 8-0 against Besiktas, a team from Turkey, in the Champions League. This league is comprised of the best teams from around the different European Leagues, and Liverpool has won the competition five times (’77, ’78, ’81, ’84, and 2005). I’m worried about today’s match because I figure a team that scored 8 goals mid-week can’t have many more goals in them.

Just to tie this post in to music somehow….

Singing is a vital part of the European Football experience. Liverpool’s theme song, “You’ll Never Walk Alone” is a cover of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic from the play Carousel, performed by Jerry and the Pacemakers (the other huge Liverpool band of the ‘60’s). All of the other songs can be tied in some way to tunes of the American Civil War. My Greek roommate in Liverpool taught me the song of his favorite team, Athens’ Olympiakos, and it was set to the tune of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home”. The Liverpool anthem “The Fields of Anfield Road” is set to the war-tune “The Fields of Athenry”. “Oh When Saints Go Marching In” is easily changed to “Oh When the Reds Come Marching In”. (Consequently, in Southampton they keep the original lyrics because Southampton are referred to as “The Saints”.

Liverpool references are present in countless songs, everything from The Smith’s “Frankly Mr. Sankly” (their most famous manager), Pink Floyd’s “Fearless”, and others. Elvis Costello, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Smiths, and The Cure are all Liverpool Fans. (I suspect The Beatles were split between Everton and Liverpool).

That’s enough of that.

To dispel the myth that soccer is boring, in the time it took me to write this post (15 minutes), West Ham scored 4 goals in the second-half against relegation-threatened Derby.

Our past gig blogs typically are comprised of three parts:

1) Thank the people who came
2) Talk about how we played
3) Bitch about how we need to get more people out to shows

So, for those of you who showed up last night, thank you. We played pretty well, maybe the best so far of our 3 shows as a power trio. But why weren’t there 250 people in the room? It’s probably my fault; I don’t blog often enough. Apparently “Tarr Watch” has not stirred the masses….

Because we have played with Lights Resolve several times within the last month, they serve as a fascinating gauge of where we are at as a band. Unfortunately for us, they are at the end of a 6 week tour and are playing at a very high level. This made me realize that, although we’ve played for 7 months, to a certain degree we took steps back when Bayes left the band. None of us are disheartened by this; we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel. Or maybe the middle of the tunnel. I don’t know, it’s a shitty metaphor. But our strides between shows have been greater as a 3 piece, so it seems we’ll be good soon. We will face each new day in a crazy way.

Alright, no more pointless self-reference.

I do, however, have one request of all of the venues we play in the future:

1) Allow us to play the allotted time agreed upon prior to the gig, ESPECIALLY in the event that we start the show early in order to accommodate your club and other bands. (This will never happen)

Do you know what it feels like to have the sound guy step up on-stage near the end of a 35 minute set to tell you they’re only giving you 27 minutes? It feels like we’re at the Apollo, and the clown is running after you with the sirens blazing. I understand that it really wasn’t an indictment of our performance because clubs don’t really care about that…but it’s difficult to separate yourself emotionally from that thought.

As a final note, I’m feeling that competitive spirit creep back into me, and that’s a very good thing for this band. I want us to be the best band on the stage, bring the most energy, draw the crowd in the best of anyone. I’ve become familiar enough with Lights Resolve that I notice small nuances of their performance, and watching them made me want to step up. Spencer and Charles are both jerks in this same way (as well as in other ways), so I’m feeling a surge on the horizon.

That’s all I’ve got. Hold tight for another 24 days and maybe I’ll hit you with something else.

Photo by Flickr user Hyperfinch.

TONIGHT! DC9! The City Veins at 9:30!

Plus, the astounding Japanese comic musical stylings of Peelander-Z!

And our boys Lights Resolve, who are currently asleep on our couches!

I will admit that Spencer and I have been neglecting our Tarr Watch duties. Today’s fact ties in with my earlier discussion of how bad we are at writing lyrics.

A song in Aaron’s, and I guess my, high school band feature the couplet:

“She’ll face the day
A crazy way”

So, I guess our lyrics could be worse. Also, come to our concert on Thursday at DC9 and tell Aaron how much you dislike him in person!

I have had a few ideas floating through my head. None that demand a full blog post, so I figured I would combine the into one crappy blog post.

First, I think that “Killing in the Name” might be the greatest song to run to. I don’t care how tired you think you are, when Zach gets to “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me,” you cannot run fast enough. Seriously, it was like “The Man” was at the end of the treadmill, and if I just pushed a little harder I could end all of the problems in the world. It was great. For my next run, I am just going to listen to that song on repeat for 30 minutes.

As a Bruce Springsteen devotee, one would think that I had an opinion on the new album, Magic. Well, I really don’t. It isn’t bad, but it isn’t great. It’s heights just make me want to listen to old Springsteen. That said, I have become obsessed with “Tunnel of Love.” When Magic came out, the AV club wrote this primer on Bruce’s career, and in it they write that “Tunnel of Love” is Bruce’s last great album. It was an album that I really didn’t know that well, so I went back and re-examined it, and it is spectacular. The only thing that is keeping me from declaring it one of his best is that the production is terrible. Some of the sounds just make me cringe, but the songs are completely devastating. By the time one finishes the last 5 songs, it is difficult to believe that love ever existed in this world. Also “Brilliant Disguise” stands up with his best work, and the video is great. It sums up the whole album perfectly.

I am being 100% honest when I say that the one song that I wish that I had written from the past 2-3 years is “Whamp Whamp (What It Do)” by Clipse.

Also, come to our concert on Thursday at DC9. Whatever else you have planned is going to suck. Trust me.