Indiana 46; Illinois 75

There's really not a lot to write about.  This was the true definition of a slaughter.  The Illini led by 19 points less than seven minutes into the game.  They made shot after shot after shot, and....well, let's face it folks.  Indiana is about as godawful as any team in America.  And you know what?  They deserve it.  They sold their soul to the Devil for one year of Eric Gordon.  They hired the scummiest coach since the demise of Clem Haskins, and in exchange, they got a disappointing tournament run, and probation.  

HA! HA! HA! HA! HA!

Honestly, I feel kinda bad for some of the kids on the team.  It's not their fault.  But the only way that this game could have been better is if it had been played in the other Assembly Hall.  It's very nice watching Indiana totally suck this year.  

Anyway, this was never really a contest.  The Illini scored early and often.  Trent Meacham, who struggled against Michigan, lit up the Hoosiers from outside, converting seven of his nine three point attempts and finished with 21 points.  Dominique Keller, not noted as a long range gunner, made three of four three pointers and finished with 15 points of his own (which I assume is career best).  The Illini shot 51% from the field, 52% from long range, while holding Indiana below 40% shooting.

Four Illini finished the game in double figures, with Demetri McCamey and Mike Davis adding 12 point performances to the 21 and 15 poured in by Keller and Meacham.  The Illini knocked down 26 shots, and recorded assists on 17 of them.  For the season, Illinois is assisting on almost 75% of its field goals (301/415).  For reference, UCLA, with one of the country's best backcourst, is averaging an assist on just more than 50% of its field goals (220/403).  North Carolina is around 60% (308/513).  That's an impressive statistic for the Illini, and it tells me that after the last couple years of a stagnant offense, often due to the black whole that was Shawn Pruitt, the Illini are back to executing Bruce Weber's offense the way it's supposed to be executed.  Excellent ball movement.  Dribble penetration when available.  Kick it back out if you don't have a good look.  If there's a reason to be excited about Illinois basketball season this year, that's it.

The road gets tougher from here.  Michigan is in Champaign on Wednesday night.  Michigan State is up after that, followed by Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  That's a tough stretch.  If they can win three of those games, it will be a VERY successful stretch, and will give the Illini some good early buzz, which goes a long way toward making the tournament.  

The Kings Get Interesting

It's taken a couple of years, but the Los Angeles Kings are finally putting a team on the ice that can compete every night.  What's even better is that you can see the flashes of excellence that should make them a playoff contender next year, and with luck, a cup contender in two or three years.  

The Kings largest problem since their inception as a franchise has been the inability to develop a first class goaltender.  They've had good goalies in the past, but not too many game stealers, and none of them came from the Kings' scouting and development.  Kelly Hrudey led them to a Cup final.  Rogie Vachon has his jersey retired.  Felix Potvin played arguably better than any other Kings goalie had ever played, but it was for a short period of time, and his star faded rather quickly.  They thought they had a franchise goalie in Jamie Storr, but he never fulfilled his potential.  They let future hall of famer Billy Smith get away in the expansion draft in 1972.  All he did was win four Stanley Cups on Long Island.  

And it wasn't for lack of trying.  The regime that let Smith get away was long gone, but determined to keep it from happening again, the Kings traded away future all-star defenseman Kimmo Timonen to Nashville.  In exchange, Nashville agreed to refrain from selecting Gary Galley, which allowed the Kings to protect such luminaries as Stephane Fiset, the aforementioned Jamie Storr, and Freddi Chabot.  Guess who won that deal?

But finally, it appears that the Kings have some direction in net.  A sign of competent management, they actually traded their worst goaltender to Vancouver when they dealt Jason Labarbera, who suffered through some bad luck, but never really put it together in L.A.  By the end of his run at Staples, he was average on a good night, and before he was dealt, he looked like he'd never stop another shoot-out attempt.  That has left the Kings with Erik Ersberg and rookie Jonathan Quick, who has been a revelation.  Quick's only played seven games this season, but his 1.59 goals against and .943 save percentage would easily lead the league if he qualified.  It's something to be excited about, even if that enthusiam has to be tempered by the small sample size.  He's given up ten goals in those seven games (six starts), and five came in one game against arguably the league's best team, the Detroit Red Wings.  Ersberg has been solid as well.  Through 18 games he sports a 2.38 GAA and .903 save percentage.  He plays a quiet style that instills confidence in his teammates, and he's excellent at controlling rebounds.  

The best news is that is that neither may be the Kings' real goaltender of the future.  First round draft pick Jonathan Bernier has been on fire in Manchester, where he's being backed up one of last year's top college keepers, Jeff Zatkoff, who also happens to be an ECHL all-star selection.  He put up 2.31 GAA and .931 save percentage in Ontario (the one in California).  

After this year's draft, I talked about how Dean Lombardi wants to build from the net out.  Well, there are eight defensemen in the mix for the foreseeable future (Jack Johnson, Drew Doughty, Matt Green, Kyle Quincey, Alec Martinez, Colton Tuebert, Thomas Hickey, and Slava Voinov), and four goalies (Quick, Ersberg, Bernier, and Zatkoff).  That kind of depth gives them the opportunity to trade for scoring, and to draft offense going forward.  They may only be hovering around .500 this year, but this team is building a true foundation, and it's nice to be able to watch it happen.

A New Power is Rising in the West

Well, maybe that's a little presumptuous. Don't look now, but the UC Riverside Highlanders are 2-0 and atop the Big West conference (along with Long Beach State). Not only that, but they actually have the best record in the conference when you combine conference and non-conference play, so this may not be a total fluke.

Last night they beat UC Santa Barbara 71-69, overcoming a twelve point deficit in the second half. UCSB was picked second in the conference by the media before the season started. Better yet, they've won their two conference games with diverging styles. In the conference opener, they scored 91 points against Cal Poly SLO, while last night they held UCSB to only four second half baskets. A few two many fouls led to lots of Gauchos on the free throw line, and the Highlanders survived a last second would-be game winning three pointer that came a hair too late. But 2-0 is 2-0, and hopefully a good start (they're 9-4 overall) will create a buzz on campus that brings people out to the Student Rec Center.

When I was at UCR, we were Division II, and there was virtually no interest in athletics from the general student body. I knew a few guys on the baseball team, one of whom was all over the record books by the time we graduated, but otherwise, I would have barely known that we had a baseball team. In 1995, there was finally some excitement when the basketball team rolled through the D2 tournament to reach the nationally televised championship game. I actually remember bars around campus playing that game on the radio, and people actually going to bars to listen to it. The excitement died when the Highlanders couldn't hang onto a 20+ point lead, and lost to Satan (bruce pearl) and Southern Indiana. But the University is twice the size it was when I was a student, and a positive start could help fill the place up a bit.

It's nice to have my three favorite teams playing interesting basketball this season, as opposed to one for the last couple seasons.

UCLA Wins, Illinois Loses

Illinois 64; Michigan 74

The Illini gave it a good effort, but they appeared to wear down a little bit in the end, failing to execute their offense, failing to keep Michigan from executing theirs. The overtime victory at Purdue may have taken a little too much out of them. But they got a split in their first two conference teams, both on the road against teams that will end up the Big Ten's top half. That's a tough row to hoe, but the road victory at Mackey gives them a nice leg up early.

Michigan is clearly much improved, but I thought the Illini attacked their 1-3-1 pretty well. Much better than UCLA did when they played Michigan earlier in the season. The problem came on the defensive end. Give Michigan credit for creating a lot of confusion on the Illini defensive end. That led to a lot of open looks, and Michigan knocked them down, connecting on over 40% of their three pointers. That's Beilein's offense. Michigan will win when they shoot 40% or better from three. They'll lose when they shoot 30% or worse. And they will have nights like that.

Calvin Brock was the Illini's best player, in my opinion. He's very active. He's their most athletic player. And if he shoots the ball like he did today, he can be real impact player. Tisdale and Davis were solid offensively, but Tisdale really needs to learn to defend. Despite being a perimeter oriented team, Michigan got too many easy baskets when they took the ball to the rim.

Four of their next six games are against ranked opponents, including a rematch with Michigan at the Assembly Hall in 10 days. The good news is that four of those six games are at home.

UCLA 83; Oregon 74

This one was closer than it should have been, but Oregon was fired up after a terrible performance against U$C on Friday. The crowd really gave Oregon a lift, and decent shooting kept the Bruins from pulling away and making it easy. The Bruins led the game wire to wire, but it was never comfortable.

The Bruins built their lead on impressive shooting, going 8-10 from long range in the first half. They finished a blazing 13-22, thanks mostly to Josh Shipp's unconcious 5-6. In fact, the only Bruin who shot less than 50% from the arc was Michael Roll, one of the nation's best long range gunners (he was 1-3). Nikola Dragovic took advantage of open looks to make four deep balls, and scored a career high 12 points. Darren Collison led the Bruins with 22, but did most of his damage from inside the arc and from the free throw line, where he was 9-9. He's shooting better than 97% from the line, and has made something like 40 in a row. But it was really Shipp who made the difference. He made four threes in the second half, all with under 15 to play. Two followed Oregon baskets, squelching their momentum. They all came with the game within six or fewer points. He was clutch tonight. He raised his three point percentage from 21.6% to just over 30%. If he's regained his touch, then this becomes an outstanding long range team, and that means fewer zone defenses, or more open shots.

The Bruins defense was not up to its usual standards. Part of that was due to the way the game was officiated. In the first half, the game was called very tight on the Bruins defensive end, and that may have contributed to some tentative play in the second half. The Ducks got too many good looks, and had too many easy baskets in the lane.

Still, the only player who really disappointed tonight for the Bruins was Jrue Holliday. Turnover numbers aren't on ESPN's box score yet, but he seemed to struggle for much of the game, and showed occasionaly happy feet that led to traveling calls.

We'll see what the future holds for Oregon, but something tells me they're closer to the team that played Friday than the team that played tonight. But UCLA has won the conference three straight years, and they can expect this kind of shot when they go on the road. The bottom line is that there are 16 Pac 10 games left, and more than half will be at Pauley Pavilion. For the 2-0 Bruins, that's a nice position to be in.

Happy New Year

Have a great one, folks.  Sorry about the light posting, even by my standards, but one of my resolutions is to pick this back up again.  With two college basketball teams worth watching (and how is Illinois not in the top 25?), and a hockey team that's finally interesting again, I should have a lot to write about.  

See you in 2009.

Stuff like this makes me almost want to like the Blackhawks

Blackhawks 2009 All-Star Game campaign commercials.

Angels Make Big Offer to Big Teix

8/160.  Not quite the 7/160 that was rumored yesterday, but still pretty damn big.  Honestly, I hope this gets it done.  He's 28, and he's very good.  I think this is a fair deal, and most importantly, it's not my money.  

I just hope that if he signs, they commit to Kendry Morales in the outfield.  I think he'll be a nice replacement in left, and that lets them shore up the defense with Matthews in right, assuming they can't cut him loose.  And I agree with Rob's commenters.  He's nuts if he thinks this is a bad deal.

Bruin Hoops - Starting to come together

It's becoming increasingly clear that Ben Howland is going to rotate about eight or nine guys once conference season rolls around.  He's got his starting five, then Roll, Dragovic, a freshman guard, and a freshman front court player.  The minutes are there for someone to step up, but Lee, Anderson, Gordon, and Morgan will have to earn them, and the team will be better because of it.

Today's game was a nice tune up for next month.  DePaul is not very good.  Their coach sucks.  Their best scorer has a serious attitude problem.  They are simply not major players for the best recruits in Chicago (who are now heading south to Champaign, as nature intended).  And it's kind of too bad, because I live about 200 feet from their campus (though 25 minutes or so from All-State Arena).  But there is no buzz whatsoever in this town about DePaul basketball.

One thing I've finally realized about Ben Howland basketball is that UCLA is almost always going to look bad against a zone defense for the first 10 minutes of the game.  That used to frustrate me, but I've finally come to the realization that it's really a feeling out period for the Bruin offense, and they're taking the first ten minutes to figure out what they're going to do over the last 30 minutes.  Roughly ten minutes into this game, the Bruins led by five points.  With roughly 11 or 12 minutes to go, they were up by 20.  The Bruins are patient on the offensive end, and as a fan, you need to patient watching them.

One player who had a nice game for the Bruins on the offensive end was Nikola Dragovic.  He was 5-7 for the game, but 5-5 inside the arc.  He seems to be adding another dimension to his offensive game, no longer content to just wait on the perimeter for jump shots.  That's a big addition for a team that needs interior scoring.  He still needs to step it up on the defensive end, though.  I also noticed a concerted effort by Darren Collison to take more jump shots.  On the negative side, Josh Shipp missed all of his three point attempts.

Tonight's game was not a test for the Bruins.  It was a high profile scrimmage, and I think Ben Howland knew as much.  Things are progressing for this young team, though, and they'll be ready for conference season next month.  Special appreciation goes to Coach Howland for getting Tyler Trapani into the game.  It had to be special for both him, and his great grandfather, to play in the Wooden Classic.  The man is a national treasure, and I'm thankful for the opportunitiy to have seen him speak last summer.

A few more cupcakes await before conference season.  Plenty of time to keep moving forward.

Ted Leo @ AV-Aerie - 12/10/08 - Updated with link to photos

This is the third time I've seen Ted Leo live, but the first time I've seen him with no Pharmacists*.  It was kind of an interesting aesthetic, really.  I've seen singer/songwriters before.  I've even seen singer/songwriters who were part of a band play without the band (Grant Lee Phillips doing his Buffalo material, for example).  But I've never seen a singer/songwriter play something pretty close to the same arrangements he plays in the band setting without the band behind him.  

In other words, usually when guys play a solo set like this, they have an acoustic set up.  The acoustic guitar almost allows the artist to add a little of his or her own percussion to a given song.  Ted Leo basically just played lead guitar for the entire night.  Picture him playing a typical TL/Rx show, but without anyone behind him.  It was really cool to see once.  I'm not sure I'd be particularly jazzed about seeing it again (I would go, of course), and it's really made me want to listen to the studio versions of all the stuff he played.  

Speaking of the stuff he played, he sample a little from just about every album, and played a bunch of covers including songs by Lungfish, the Waco Brothers, Blondie, and set ending rendition of Bruce Springsteen's 'Dancing in the Dark'.  From his own songs, he played a bunch of stuff that was unfamiliar, but also played:

• Timorous Me (which had some improvised handclaps)
• Where Have All the Rude Boys Gone.
• The High Party
• Ballad of the Sin Eater
• Me and Mia
• Bleeding Powers
• Colleen
• Bottle of Buckie

He played for about an hour and a half, only stopping occasionally to tune and joke around with the crowd.  He was entertaining even when he wasn't playing.  

As for the venue, it was the third floor of a semi-industrial building converted for music in an industrial part of town just northwest of the United Center.  I imagine, per their website, that this was one of the "fund raising arts and cultural events whose revenue will go to local socially and/or environmentally focused initiatives in partnerships chosen on a bi-annual schedule."  It had a really high ceiling, but you wouldn't know, because the whole performance space was covered by a large parachute draped from above to make it feel much more intimate.  The house lights never went down, which almost gave it the feel of a casual evening with a friend, assuming your friends invite Thax Douglas over to read strange poems.  Even beer was cheap.  $2 bucks for a can of High Life, and that was a "suggested donation".   *UPDATE* - Photos of the night at this link.  Pretty good look at the venue.  

So a really cool show, in a very different type of setting than I'm used to.  I look forward to seeing who else they'll book there.  Enjoy some Ted. Two versions of Rude Boys to choose from, and two great live songs back to back.

*There may have been actual pharmacists in the audience.  I didn't poll everyone's occupation.

Rude Boys solo live


Rude Boys studio recording (you'll have to turn it up a bit)


Timorous Me/Walking To Do

Bruins Get Slaughtered

No surprises here.  Although, for a moment there, when the Bruins took a roughing the kicker penalty on fourth and 17, I thought I was watching an Illinois game.  Those types of penalties pretty much killed the Illini season this year.

The UCLA season basically comes down to the offensive line.  I don't care how good your skill players are.  If you can't block anyone, you're not going to be successful.  The Bruins could have had John Elway, Jerry Rice, and Eric Dickerson in their prime, and it wouldn't have made a difference.  They simply could not block anyone all season.  That's an issue that will take maybe another season or two before it's really top notch, though I expect the line to be better next season.  Still, it's disappointing.  UCLA is not going to be competitive week to week until they have a decent offensive line.  We all knew that was an issue going into the season, and we can't be surprised with the way thing turned out.

Speaking of the Illini, they kicked the living crap out of Georgia today at the UC (which I watched at a bar, but didn't see in person for reasons I won't go into here). They finished the game on a 22-0 run.  This U of I basketball team actually may be fun to watch this year. It's looking more and more like Sean Pruitt and Brian Randle were more trouble than they were worth.  Demtri McCamey is playing well most of the time.  Mike Tisdale and Mike Davis are really helping with the scoring inside, as is Dominique Keller.  And Alex Legion is available in a couple weeks.  These guys could actually make the tournament.  It's fun to be an Illini fan again!

Hall of Fame

I really don't care all that much about the baseball hall of fame, but if I had a vote, my ballot this year would list:

• Bert Blyleven
  
• Rickey Henderson
• Alan Trammel
• Tim Raines

That's it.  I'd give a lot of though to McGwire, Lee Smith, and Andre Dawson.  But those four would probably be it.  

Did you know I still write about sports?

Me neither. Another bout of laziness. Anyway, I got a not from one of my most loyal readers, Anonymous, about the upcoming slaughter at the Rose Bowl. Specifically, he asks about this item about Pete Carroll deciding to go with U$C's red jerseys this weekend, an NCAA no-no.

I doubt I have to explain it, but the short version is that when both teams played at the Coliseum, UCLA and U$C used to wear their colors (home uniforms), since they were really both at their home stadium. Sometime thereafter, the NCAA passed a rule that says one team must wear white under penalty of one timeout per half.

Over the years, the idea of having both UCLA and U$C wear their home jerseys has been discussed, but nobody ever wanted to go through with it. There was talk of the actual home team burning a timeout per half to even things up, but it never came to pass.

But the era of two teams in home jerseys is back. Carroll will bring the trojans out in their red unis. The NCAA has since caved (a bit), and will now penalize the visiting team only one time out. Rick Neuheisel has announced that he'll use a timeout early in the first half to level the playing field. And

Really, they could probably take away all of U$C's time-outs and give UCLA about 15 per half and it wouldn't make a difference. As long as your offense scores 28 points for the other team, it probably doesn't matter how many time-outs you have, or how many your opponent doesn't have. I know the game from a few years ago should give me hope, but I just can't see the Bruins being competitive on Saturday (and no, the basketball team doesn't play on Saturday). And is this case of Pete Carroll saying "we don't need time-outs to beat UCLA"? Sure it is. But he's kind of a dick, so it's not surprising. That doesn't mean that he isn't right.

Personally, I think it's dumb rule. Who cares if one team is wearing white? Sure, it's a problem if two teams have similar colors, but just make a rule that says a team has to wear an alternate color when they share a primary color with the home team. There's really nothing holding this rule in place aside from the NCAA not wanting to spend time granting schools waivers. A couple years ago, Illinois wore their orange basketball jerseys at the Hall against Wisconsin, and with the small, not so great T.V.s at the Parkway (R.I.P. - man, that was a great bar) it was hard to tell the teams apart. So just don't let them do that when the colors are similar. Problem solved.

I think under different circumstances, it would be fun. Unfortunately, I don't this game will be very fun.

I Cherish With Fondness the Day That I Met Them

The latest band I can't stop listening to is Los Campesinos! I wasn't really excited when I wrote that. The exclamation point is actually part of the name, and the name of each of their members, who are Aleksandra Campesinos!, Ellen Campesinos!, Gareth Campesinos!, and so on.

This is another band from Wales, which produced probably my favorite currently existing band, the Super Furry Animals. They are very poppy, and very energetic, and infectuous. I will be seeing them live in February when they come to the Logan Square Auditorium. Also, new Song of the Day from your truly, which is a good place to start. If you like the music I like, you'll be hooked about 15 seconds into the first song embedded below. Enjoy:

Broken Heartbeats Sound Like Breakbeats


You, Me, Dancing


My Year in Lists

More Spiritualized

I'm trying to think of the best way to describe J. Spaceman and the various incarnations of Spiritualized since the dissolution of Spacemen 3 about 2o years ago or so, and I think the best description came from either Greg Kot or Jim DeRogatis in the episode of Sound Opinions where they reviewed "Songs in A&E".  Spiritualized basically has three styles:  Straightforward rockers, ethereal/ambient ballads, and, well, spirituals - real gospel type stuff.  

Occasionally they overlap a bit.  You can hear hear tinges of gospel stuff in their rock songs.  Of course, a quicker, pithier explanation is from Pinko Punko, in which he termed Spiritualized 'drug boy singing about drugs'.  I can't honestly dispute that.  The endless allusions to drug use and the effects thereof are unavoidable.  But hey, music's gotta be about something.  So here are the three phases of Spiritualized:

Ambient:

Rock:

Spiritual:

And that, in a nutshell, is Jason Pierce and his professional output. And it's pretty amazing live.

Well, at least it's still early - Updated

He's seen it year after year after year, and Ben Howland still hasn't figured out how to prepare a team for a 1-3-1 zone.  The Bruins dropped an early season game to an inferior opponent primarily because they simply can't beat John Beilein.  On a neutral floor, with even teams, Beilein will win every time.  UCLA only wins when they have far superior players, like last year.

*Update* - When I originally wrote this, I figured Howland teams had played Beilein teams quite often when they were in the Big East, but I was too lazy to look it up.  As it turns out, they've faced off more since Howland left.  While at Pitt, Howland faced Beilein only twice, and won both matchups, albeit with a top 10 team against a coach in his first year at West Virginia.  I don't think it changes the analysis (such as it is) very much.  

Part of it is a testament to Howland's stubbornness, which is a reason he's successful.  It's the second week of the season, and he's got a fairly young team, and there's no reason to spend a week preparing for a defense you won't see the rest of the year.  That's why I'm not overly disappointed.  In fact, it's a sign that he knows what's important is not what you do in November, but what you do in March.  

But what this game did show us is that UCLA is in, well, I won't say a long season.  The Pac 10 sucks this year, so the Bruins should have a very successful regular season.  But the post-season will be short by UCLA standards.  Unless one of their freshmen big men really figure out how to play, or unless James Keefe takes the next step, they will be forced to play on the perimeter all year.  They have absolutely no interior offense.  They have no one they can give the ball to when they absolutely need a basket.  Or more accurately, they have no one on the inside who can keep the defense honest, allowing them to get the ball to Collison for a needed basket.  And with the extension of the three point line, it will be much harder to win on the perimeter this year.  

In a way this might be a good thing.  If they can't beat Michigan, they would have been slaughtered by Duke.  I'm not sure they'll beat SIU quite frankly, and it doesn't help that the guy who sits in the office next to me is an SIU grad.  And we saw why college basketball is occasionally a joke.  A Michigan player throws the ball away about three seconds before running into Aboya, and Al is called for a block.  Josh Shipp barely makes contact with an elbow, which causes his defender to leap backwards about five seconds after it happens, and the official completey across the floor decides to make the call.  College basketball is consistently the worst officiated sport that still maintains a large following.  But that's not why the Bruins lost.  

But it's a long season.  They have a lot of time to grow.  Hopefully this is a learning experience.

Two things that keep me from celebrating

1) A majority of people in my home state decided that simply being bigots wasn't enough.  They decided to write it into the state constitution.  Fuck the initiative process, and fuck the LDS "church".

2) My brother's current home state took the title of 'laughing-stock' away from Florida by electing a convicted felon to the Senate.  

And I'm also pretty disappointed that pieces of shit like Norm Coleman and Gordon Smith won.  

Who's the Happiest Man In America?

My guess?  It's Levi "fuckin' redneck" Johnston, who may now be able to avoid that shotgun wedding.  Good luck, brotha.  

Checking back in

Couple of things I'd figured I'd post.

UCLA

I know I've been light on the UCLA stuff of late, primarily due to my laziness, and also due to the fact that they just haven't been much fun to watch on the football field this year. But Basketball season starts tonight (unofficially), and after reading the updates from Brian Dohn, and this piece on Ben Howland in the Times, I'm pretty pumped for hoops season. For UCLA the last few years, this has been one of the more fun parts of the season. They've been pulling in such excellent talent that it makes the first five games or so, when we all get introduced to the new recruits, very exciting. And with the nation's top class taking the floor, this year is no exception.

Illinois

Not sure what the basketball season will hold this year, but early reports are mixed on the optimistic side. Supposedly the atmosphere around the team is much better, with some seniors who maybe weren't the best teammates having moved on. They add a little talent when Alex Legion returns next month. Both Jamar Smith and Brian Carlwell have left, so hopefully the distractions from that incident are gone from the Assembly Hall for good. The real talent influx starts with next year's recruiting class.

Speaking of the Hall, I spent some time in its parking lot this weekend as I was down in Champaign for the Illinois-Iowa football game. Interestingly enough, before Saturday, I'd been to two Illinois football games since graduating, and both were played at the Rose Bowl. This was the first time I'd been in Memorial Stadium since the upgrade, and it's pretty nice. They need an extra video screen, and they need to be a little larger, but generally the facility looks pretty decent, and it's always nice to be back down on campus. Better yet, I saw the Illini win, something they failed to do in the previous two post-graduation games I'd seen. They made it more exciting than they should have, and Ron Zook showed the country that he's not quite sure how to handle time outs, but a win is a win, and fortunately it pissed off the douchebag Iowa fan that was sitting in front of us.

Spiritualized

Just an update to my Spiritualized post from a few days ago, you can listen to a full set from their last tour at this link. It doesn't quite capture how amazing it was in person, but even if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, the first two songs are worth 10 minutes. They're the best back to back openers I've ever seen at a live show.

Happy Halloween

So Remember When I Used to Blog Here?

Man, it's been a while, huh? Nice long break. Anyway, with basketball season ramping up, I'll probably have UCLA stuff to post about soon. And we should be moving into some good off-season stories for the Angels, so activity should pick up again soon.

In the meantime, here's some Spiritualized. These two songs, in this order, led off the their Pitchfork Festival set, which I wrote about here. This isn't a perfect facsimile, as this version of 'You Lie You Cheat' doesn't descend into the three minute maelstrom at the end like at P4k, which then led into the gorgeous opening of 'Shine a Light'. And this version of 'Shine a Light' cuts out the first verse. But this is arguably the best back to back opening of a concert I've ever seen. It was even better when they they played the Metro a couple months later.

'Shine a Light' was really pretty perfect. It's a song with an album track that must be incredibly difficult to duplicate live, so they don't bother trying. The lyrics are given some relief in the life version, whereas they flatten into background noise on the album (Lazer Guided Melodies). The guitar/sax becomes simply guitar, and is amped up. And it's a really powerful moment at about 3:25 when the backing vocals kick back in. Enjoy.