Doing the AL for some reason

The consistent blogging thing is for squares. That said, I always want to complete what I start (except the season preview, that was a bit too ambitious). The only reason I did it though was to post some cool videos of bands so that's pretty much what I am going to do.

Minnesota Twins: They had no chance. To be honest, the team pretty much sucked. But they beat the Tigers in a 73 inning tie breaker game, so good on them. They'll always have The Replacements.



Boston Red Sox: This team had a chance. Jon Lester was the key. Unfortunately, all the chowds are crying like Tom Brady's baby's mama. Here's a band that looks like a bunch of Casey Blakes (tip of my cap to Drew at Ghostrunner on First)



Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim: It doesn't matter how often I see it, that name is ridiculous. However, people adding a bunch of locales for humorous effect are more annoying. Stop it. It's not clever. Speaking of ridiculous: 50 year old man singing about being Mommy's Little Monster. I'm still a sucker for it.



New York Yankees: Probably the favorite to win it all (at this point). They haven't won in a decade or so. Certainly, their fans will be humble and reserved when they win number 27, amirite? Does Long Island count as New York? Do you think they have Yankee fans there? This band was from that area. (Not representative of album audio quality, obviously)



Got that done. Hey, look here. Bonus video:



This was brought to my attention by Rob at WalkoffWalk.com. Some bar in Wrigleyville moonlighted as a punk club back in 1984, before it became to popped collar brofest that it is today. From Chicago? What do you know about this bar? Leave a comment. It's been a while.

Stuck Between Station to Station

While the infallible Wikipedia says The Hold Steady are "Brooklyn-based," it's no secret that the band exudes Minneapolis pride. That is no more evident than in their professed love for the Twins. While I am not as versed in The Hold Steady as I perhaps should be, they supposedly reference the Twinkies in a number of their songs. At live shows, they give history lessons on the team and they were recently asked to record a rendition of "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" (see below), which is played at the Metrodome.

First, check out this interview with singer Craig Finn by Ezra Ace Caraeff of the Portland Mercury from May 2007. Excerpt:

I went down to Fort Meyers, Florida, for two games, and had a lot of fun. I was talking to this guy Jim Walsh, who is doing the Replacements oral history and he told me Paul would be down there. I kind of had my eye out looking for him, and sure enough, he was there with his son. I've never met him before, so it didn't seem like the right time to go bother him. It's funny because even before we did "Take Me out to the Ball Game" for the Twins, I was at the Metrodome last year and noticed how great the music was during the games. They played a lot of the Replacements.

Next, if you have patience with buffering, check out this video with Finn and guitarist Tad Kubler talking about the Twins and baseball in general.




And finally some tunes, of course:

Photo courtesy of Blue Collar Distro.