Of Recordings

Major League Soccer are auctioning off the opportunity to provide pre-game entertainment or to sing the national anthem.  Curiously, no one has bid.

Isn’t it traditional for the host to pay the band?  Exactly what kind of act are they seeking that a) has $1000 to spare and b) is wowed by the prestige of performing before the Kansas City Wizards?  (In case you are not familiar with American soccer, KC was 13th out of 13 teams in attendance last year.)

(HT: Freakonomics)

I just got back from a trip for Day Job.  Some notes:

• The guy next to me on the flight out was definitely cranking House of Pain on his iPod.
• The iPod game Phase is a great way to pass time on a plane.  On this more later.
• You find Kaosillators where you least expect them.
• If you download a bunch of podcasts before a flight, you should make sure you have the “sync podcasts to my iPod” button turned on.
• I greatly enjoyed guitar goddess Kaki King’s new-to-me record Dreaming Of Revenge.  30-second review: “Pull Me Out Alive” has the best hook; “Montreal” has the best guitar work; “Saving Days In A Frozen Head” has the best line; and “Can Anyone Who Has Heard This Music Really Be A Bad Person?” has the best title.
• If you have time to kill in a major American airport, and you want to meet some interesting people, find a bar showing a soccer game.

Here is a theme song I made for The Offside podcast about a year ago.  They decided not to use it, which doesn’t bother me; but they used some kind of lame audio clip art non-song instead, which does.  Weak.  I was all set to rip some Jose Mourinho quotes off of YouTube and layer them in.

As for the actual match, at first I found it hard to get excited for yet another Man U-Chelsea clash.  But no matter how you feel about the teams, you can’t deny that they are both stacked with talent.  And for that matter, Chelsea’s reputation for cynical football is a bit overblown.  So I decided to stop worrying about hatin’ on the big-money clubs and just enjoy one more big-time game.

5. Russian Linesman

4. Low Technicians

3. Dan Deacon

2. The Hacker

1. The Architect

Trivia: The original “Russian linesman” was actually Azerbaijani.