Fight for your right (to play basketball?)

I seriously hope that someday, somewhere, I will be covering a high school basketball playoff game where something like this happens:



More info on the game/ brawl from the Montgomery Advertiser.

15 albums - how much has changed...

So, there's this facebook thing. "25 Random Things," where a person writes 25 random things about themselves, and then tags 25 people to write 25 things about themselves and tag 25 more people, who do the same ad infinitum.

I hate that thing. It's annoying and I don't have time to sit there for two hours and think of 25 interesting thing about myself. Probably because there aren't 25 interesting things about myself that people don't already know that are even worth reading. Sill. (Popmatters has a nice little essay about the phenomenon that you should read).

So I think that's stupid. On the other hand, one of my former professors tagged me in another sort of note that I found more intriguing: 15 albums in 15 minutes. The premise:

"Think of 15 albums that had such a profound effect on you they changed your life or the way you looked at it. They sucked you in and took you over for days, weeks, months, years. These are the albums that you can use to identify time, places, people, emotions. These are the albums that no matter what they were thought of musically shaped your world. When you finish, tag 15 others, including me. Make sure you copy and paste this part so they know the drill. Get the idea now? Good. Tag, you're it!"

I did this one, because music actually means something, unlike "random facts" about a person.

The interesting this is, I did this kinda thing once before, freshman year. On my old (more embarrassing, and defunct) blog. Thing is, my tastes have changed so much since then that this new list bears little resemblance to that old one. So for fun I decided to post them on here side-by-side. The old list is first, then the new. No particular order on any of them.

2004 list
Bob Dylan - John Wesley Harding
The Brian Jonestown Massacre - Take it from the Man!
The Clash - The Clash [UK]
Fugazi - The Argument
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Minutemen - Double Nickels On The DIme
Modest Mouse - Lonesome Crowded West
Pavement - Slanted & Enchanted
Pavement - Brighten The Corners
Pixies - Doolittle
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Spoon - Gimme Fiction
The Strokes - Room On Fire
Talking Heads - Remain In Light
Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

2009 list
Pavement - "Brighten The Corners" - My first Pavement record. Not my favorite now (it comes in second behind "Wowee Zowee") but still important to me falling down the slipperly slope of music-nerddom (of the indie variety).

Sonic Youth - "Dirty" - Like "Brighten the Corners:" not my favorite album of theirs, but the first I heard. My introduction to noise music (sorta).

Spoon - "Kill the Moonlight" - Finally! My introduction to a favorite band that, to this day, holds up as a favorite. I ordered this online freshman year having never heard them before. Glad I did.

The Strokes - "Room On Fire - I remember looking at my iTunes play count at the end of freshman year and "Reptilia" had like 70 plays, with the rest of the album somewhere around 50. And that's just on the computer.

Joy Division - "Unknown Pleasures" - My introduction to post-punk. Vital in my music development.

Talking Heads - "Remain In Light" - Gleaned from my early days of reading Pitchfork; specifically, their "best of the 70s" list.

Rolling Stones - "Let It Bleed" - Hooked me on the Stones, and got me to realize they've come a long way (to sucking) since their glory days.

Uncle Tupelo - "89/93: An Anthology" - I listened to this for about three years straight before I finally bought an album proper ("No Depression"). Now I own all their albums and consider them a favorite band.

Beastie Boys - "Paul's Boutique" - First found at the West Bloomfield Public Library circa 2002. Seven years and about a thousand spins later, I'll never get tired of this record. Psychedelic rap glory.

A Tribe Called Quest - "The Low End Theory" - Wherein I finally realized that not all non-Beastie Boys rap is gangsta rap.

Wu-Tang Clan - "Enter the 36 Chambers" - Wherein I finally realized that not all gangsta rap was mindless and about killing people.

Daft Punk - "Homework" - Wherein I finally realized that not all dance music was about idiots dancing at raves with glowsticks and Dr. Seuss hats.

Fugazi - "13 Songs" - I realize that most of these are significant as introductions to genres. Well, this one's my introduction to hardcore and post-hardcore.

R.E.M. - "Murmur" - I grew up seeing R.E.M. as 'the band that did What's the Frequency Kenneth' and 'Losing My Religion.' Great songs, obviously, but when I came of age their new material was confined to adult alternative stations. I found this used at FYE or something for 5 dollars. Oh, I'm so glad I bought this on impulse.

My Bloody Valentine - "Loveless" - Shoegaze is a stupid term.

Neil Young - "On The Beach" - Doing 16, cause I couldn't decide. This album got me into...ah, screw it.

Who are these guys?

Glory days, of which wish I was a part:

Note to self

Note to (future) self: despite how good they look on the box, do not ever again buy the "budget" 90-calorie blueberry cereal bars at Price Cutter. They taste like baking soda. Thanks, future self.

My back pages

The inch-thick sheet of ice that caked the entire sidewalk block of my apartment melted today, thanks to the 66-degree weather this afternoon. That's right, 66. It will go from 66 to below zero in a matter of days. I used to think that Michigan had messed-up weather, but now I know Missouri takes the cake.

I guess it doesn't matter how cold it is, though, since it's winter sports season and I'm inside all the damn time. This week, I went to three different sporting events at Waynesville High School. I have pep-band renditions of popular music permanently stuck in my head. Mostly classic rock fare - the band's rendition of "Carry On, Wayward Son" is the main offender here, along with the team's fight song, which I'm pretty sure really is "Eye of the Tiger," seeing as how they play it every timeout. The third-most-played song, though? Green Day. "Holiday." Damn if it isn't really catchy when played by a pep band...now that I think about it, brass makes it a better song.

Anyway, enough horseplay: tomorrow marks my very first sports "section." I got one-and-a-half pages instead of one because there's never anything for the "outdoors" page and no one actually wants to write anything. So I was able to write two long features. Both are about wrestling. Go to the SadBear blog for more info on the Minnesota wrestler, it's a weird story...) No electronic link yet, but you can see the layout. Here you are:

Ballin' it up

There's something I really like about this photo, and I'm not sure what it is (it goes with this story, which isn't that good...I should have written better). Maybe it's that their poses are so creepy-looking and seem unnatural - almost like something you'd find in a wax museum or on a mannequin. Especially Mariah Wilder's (21) face and where she has her hands in relation to the ball. But it's real game action. I like the color, too. I got lucky, I think.

(I also like this photo of the boys team, just for the action of the guy in front.)

Ed. Note: A slight tweaking. Content has not changed. I wanted two sidebars. There you have them. Carry on.