Sunday Bloody Sunday: News & Assorted Gibberish

Okay, I have no idea what was going on last week which resulted in my column being posted a day late. I heard vague rumours that one of the Bossmen was out in Vegas partying it up, so I guess, given the fact that the 411 higher ups were trapped in the neon confines of Sin City, all is forgiven. Got some stuff I’d like to digest before getting into the meat & bones of this week’s column, so scroll down if you want Da News.

Hockey Night In 411

This week’s column comes at the end of a very eventful week for me. Aside from the double job duty Your Humble And Loyal Servant has got going on this summer, I had a bunch of stuff to attend to. Top of the list included the Calgary Flames finishing off the San Jose Sharks and becoming the first Canadian team since the Canucks magical run in ’94 to make it to the Stanley Cup Finals. While I’m still down that my Nucks aren’t in the position the Flames are now, it feels a little bit better to know that my club lost out to the best team in the West. It also brings a warm feeling to my heart to know that between Vancouver and Calgary, there’s no need for the idiots on CBC to epouse Toronto as being ‘Canada’s’ team. Calgary’s got the hot team, along with a rabid fanbase. One that’s so hot, as a matter of fact, that they’ve become the number one merchandise seller for the NHL, snatching the title for ‘most jerseys sold’ from the geriatric New York Rangers. Nothing wrong with that, I tells ya.

While we’re on the topic of hockey, Team USA released their team roster for the upcoming World Cup of Hockey, a NHL/NHLPA sponsored tournament that takes place at the very end of August. Notable on the list was the inclusion of the Red Wing’s Derian Hatcher, who earned himself a three game suspension after a nasty elbowing hit on Calgary’s Matthew Lombardi in the final game between the two teams. Apparently NHL Commish Gary ‘I Eat Sperm’ Bettman is non-plussed about Hatcher’s inclusion on the team…despite the fact that Vancouver’s own Todd Bertuzzi has been nixed from Team Canada due to his own suspension, and despite the fact that Bettman had said that suspensions regarding the World Cup would be treated the same, no matter who the players involved were.

Everything that could be said about the Bertuzzi incident has been said by now, I think, and I won’t go rehashing my own thoughts on the incident. However, I find it amusing that having Hatcher be on one of ESPN’s ‘big market’ teams happens to work in his favor, regarding the World Cup. I guess if Bertuzzi played for Detroit, he’d be getting the same consideration as well.

Also, kudos on Bettman for getting the NHL a new TV deal with NBC and ESPN that would make the Jarretts laugh. With the expiration of the deal between ABC and ESPN being finished after the Cup Finals this year, Bettman negiotated a wonderful deal that places the NHL on roughly the same level as arena football. I do seem to recall a time when the NHL was actually beating NASCAR, poker, bowling, etc in the ratings. Now, NHL games (outside of markets like Colorado, Detroit, Philly, New York, Minny and Boston) would be lucky to beat the West Minister Dog Show or the WNBA…which are essentially the same thing when you stop to think about it.

Pathetic. And this is the guy we’re looking at to prevent a lockout this upcoming season?

The Red Mile

Following San Jose’s departure from the playoffs, I made my way down to 17th Avenue here in Calgary, which is sort of the ‘party district’ for my town. It also happens to be about 5 blocks away from the Saddledome and became the place for the city’s largest street party…ever. Having a winning team doing major things has made this town I live in go crazy, and I love it. I went to Aerosmith following the Flames’ clinching a Stanley Cup Finals marker, and I have to say that in about 8 years of attending shows at the Saddledome, I have never heard a more rowdier, crazier, LOUDER crowd than the ones at the ‘Dome Thursday night when I went to see Cheap Trick and Aerosmith perform. The affect the team is having on everyone is phenomenal, and I for one can’t complain.

Which begs me to ask all of you other sports fanatics out there who live in big cities, what’s it like when the team YOU cheer for (or maybe just the city team) goes on a tear in the championships of your choice? Do things start getting a little crazier than normal? Or is this sort of behavior (a 30,000 large ‘block party’) not typical for professional sports? I was too young to remember when the Flames won the Cup back in ’89, so tell me your sports stories and share in the gloating that I’ve got going on here!

Da News

– Top story goes this week to an interesting little piece of legislation that’s being introduced by American lawmakers. The Parents Empowerment Act, which was introduced by Californian Congressman Duncan Hunter (Republican, as if that wasn’t obvious to begin with), would give parents or guardians of minors the ability to sue anyone who knowingly exposes ‘harmful’ media to minors in a way that ‘a reasonable person can expect a substantial number of minors to be exposed to the material…and is likely to suffer personal or emotional injury or injury to mental or moral welfare.’

Now, honestly, I have to ask, what the f*ck? Have things gone so far back to the 1950s that we’re worried about what media, in the form of books, music, movies, video games and television (along with God knows what else…) can do to us? Have we, as a society, completely absolved ourselves from self-blame and taking responsibility for our actions that we are powerless to do anything against the images, words and sounds that we are bombarded with constantly? Have we gone so far over to mental instability and idiocy that we cannot think for ourselves anymore? Funnily enough, I find this proposed bill to be used as a convienent little piece of legislation that parents can use to sic on the usual suspects; ‘evil’ musicians such as Eminem and Marilyn Manson, video games (in their entirety, because we all know how subversive the Mario Brothers are to the youth of the nation), and ‘filthy’ movies such as the Harry Potter movies which of course promote Satanism and the occult. Television programming such as WWE wrestling and pretty much anything off of the FOX Network and…well, you get the picture by now. I’d be very surprised if the parents would go and sue churches for providing the Bible, complete with it’s Song of Solomon, a most vile form of pornography if ever I’ve seen some to interested youth.

And seriously, how the hell do you measure ’emotional injury’ or determine if someone has suffered an ‘injury’ to their mental or moral welfare? Poll a roomful of emo kids to see if the person in question suffered enough torment from the media in question? Parade a group of psychotherapists into a room and have them offer their opinions (which, with the science of psychology is so varying from doctor to doctor that you won’t ever achieve a definitive answer…)? How exactly do you determine what is ‘harmful media’? The government? Oh great, you know, I love the notion of having the government act as censor for me. Nothing tells me that I don’t know how to raise my own kids by having a group of animated corpses tell me what’s wrong and what’s right.

I mean, sure, I’d probably utilize this law to sue Courtney Love for basically existing on the same plane of existance as me (and THAT, Ladies & Gentlemen, was YOUR Courtney Love Jab Of The Week! ™), but beyond that, I find this whole law to be quite repulsive. That’d be the Republicans for you, though. Unsurprisingly, this bill has the support of groups such as the Christian Coalition, the American Center for Law and Justice, and the World Family Policy Center at Brigham Young University.

– In what looks to be in correllation with the recent Warner CD price drop that was reported upon earlier in this column, Warner has decided to start swinging the axe and chopped 85 bands off of it’s roster. The biggest amongst the groups named were one hit wonders Third Eye Blind. Bwahahaha. Feel free to laugh along and make a ‘Semi-Charmed Life’ related joke of your choice.

– Here’s some news that should thrill A-Cam, my Minority Report comrade. Looks as though nu-metal rockers Korn will be releasing a ‘greatest hits’ disc in the fall, which will conclude the record contract that group had made with their label. No word if there’ll be any Lil Jon remixes or any tracks featuring the Minority Report‘s favorite shithead, but we’ll keep you posted!

– It’s the battle of the Skinny, Moody British Guys! Earlier this week, ex-Smiths frontman Morrissey tore into David Bowie in his first television interview in 17 years. Aside from calling him a ‘showie’, Morrissey said that the near-mythical Ziggy Stardust persona that was utilized by the Musical Chameleon was dreamt up by someone else, and that Bowie was only relevent by accident. No word from anyone in the Bowie camp as of yet, and I doubt we’ll hear anything from Mr. Bowie, either. For those of you who aren’t huge fans of Bowie’s newer material, you’ll find Morrissey’s words to be rather on the mark for you, and for that I say fine. Yes, Bowie has marketed himself more as a businessman than a musician in the last couple of years…it could be argued that his focus has been more on ‘managing’ himself and his career than it has been on the actual music, but then again, I happened to find last year’s Reality and 2002’s Heathen to be two of the better albums to have come from him in quite some time. It should be interesting to see how much Morrissey will be squawking about Bowie or other artists if his much-hyped album tanks and people realize that ‘Hey! No one cares about you anymore!’. I haven’t heard the disc myself so I don’t know IF that will happen, but still…it’d be interesting to see.

– For those of you in 411’s 14 year old girl demographic, you’ll be thrilled to know that the Bitch Queen Of MTV’s new release, Under My Skin, will be getting released this Tuesday, and that the following tidbit ties into the forthcoming Apparently Ms. Lavigne blames the ‘angry’ theme on eating way too many carbs, and that she was eating way too much ‘sugar…and junk food.’ The apparently ‘vegan’ Bitch Queen has apparently gone Atkins friendly…showing that not only is her music trend-whore-friendly, so are her eating habits!

– Good Charlotte have titled their new album The Chronicles Of Life And Death for their upcoming release. Expect it to suck as much dick as the last one.

– Ian Curtis, lead singer of the group Joy Division, will have his life story put to film, with Moby serving as musical adviser for the film. Shooting is expected to start sometime next year and the cast has yet to be finalized.

– Italy hasn’t apparently let go of the facism that once fueled it’s populace back in the 1940s. Parliament in the European country passed a law that would provide jail terms to those found guilty of file sharing. Those found guilty now face fines that range from $185-1240 US as well as the aforementioned jail terms. As we all know, cracking down even harder on file sharers is really going to fix things, knowing what’s gone on in South Asia for YEARS now, as well as the well-known RIAA lawsuits.

– Emo ubermensch Conor Oberst looks to be releasing one or two new releases for his band, Bright Eyes by January of next year. Entitled I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning, the album has met it’s first setback, as ‘Mike’, the guy who heads up the studio in Nebraska, is going to be out of commission for awhile, as his girlfriend is having a baby. Coachella Festival attendees were able to scope out some of the new material, as Oberst performed some of it during his set at this year’s fest.

Anti-Pop: There Ain’t No Place For A Street Fightin’ Man

Rapid-fire, no-nonsense this week…

A-Cam, as always, delivers the goods, along with Mathan who has some rather scholarly advice for y’all.

Mr. YOU is fighting the temporal world as we know it. See what you can do to help.

Tom Cocozza and Elliot round things out.

Sound Advice

No SA this week. Since that list down there is getting pretty cluttered, take some time this week to go back and check out the other featured artists:

Sloan – A group from the East Coast who brought a whole lot of 70s sounding rock into the 90s. Their latest release, Action Pact came out last Tuesday in America, so check it out if you’re living Stateside.

Metric: Synthy girl driven music. A fairly recent discovery of mine and a group that still hasn’t made it’s way out of my CD player in the last little while. For fans of the Faint and New Wave music.

DSK: aka Dead Surf Kiss. Rock group that managed to not only piss off the Sex Pistols, but earned an opening spot for tool. Members of this outfit were also members of Matthew Good’s Band, and DSK has the distinction for being the first deceased-at-time-of-inclusion Sound Advice inductee. The first deceased group that was included here in SA were local rockers Reverie Sound Revue, who broke up not too long after I put them into my column.

Knucklehead: Another local group, this time featuring good old OI OI OI punk rock. First ever group that I checked out whose drummer (originally) had main singing duties, as well.

Matthew Good: One of my favorite Canadian artists, period. Formerly of the Band that had his namesake, Mr. Good has a new CD coming out June 15th, and you should be able to preview the new single, ‘Alert Status Red’ on his website, matthewgood.org.

Joel Kroeker: Singer/guitarist who has a very mellow approach to his music. Recently did a collaboration with Randy Bachman (of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive fame) and opened for Hawksley Workman on his Canadian tour.

The Dears: Indie rock darlings who were up for best ‘new’ artist, despite being around for approximately 10 years or so. Hailing from Montreal, they have a sound that vaguely resembles Blur, although they’re able to carry themselves into their own unique little corner. Bloody brillant live performances, as well.

Other artists featured in Sound Advice: None! They were all featured above! Look for a new artist in next week’s column!

If you’d like to see an artist featured in Sound Advice, you can contact me on MSN Messenger or e-mail me at trevor411music@hotmail.com or catch me on AIM as flinch311.

The End Is The Beginning Is The End

Well, as mentioned earlier on, the new Avril Lavigne disc is making it’s way out in stores this Tuesday. Everlast’s latest, White Trash Beautiful is also getting the release. Country act Lonestar also is getting into the spirit of releases as well as Slipknot. In other words, avoid the music section of whatever store you frequent this week.

DVDs look to be a little bit better, as indie-soon-to-be-a-classic, Bubba Ho-tep comes out this Tuesday, along with the vanilla edition of Return Of The King. The sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes out this Tuesday, for those of you who are into Ms. Gellar.

Depending on when this is posted, ha ha ha, either Melchor or Elliot will have you covered for tomorrow. I’m Trevor, and have a great Sunday. For my fellow Canadians reading this, have yourself a great Victoria Day tomorrow as well!