Week 14 NFL Picks With Cline -- I Miss Peter Wolf

Amidst accusations of attempting a reverse jinx by Goose, I stand here before you to say that my bravado is based solely on the knowledge that this contest is basically over.  We're just playing out the string as my unrelenting march to hops continues.

After the jump, my picks, a bunch of musical vids, and a little Voltron art...

Well, I can guarantee at least one person is now reading this.

In honor of finally getting my iPod up & running on my new laptop, I'm going to put it on shuffle and find some YouTube goodness for the first 16 artists and/or songs that I can find.

I hope you like Marah, early Elton John, Slobberbone, and The Streets... Now onto Week 14 in the league where they play... FOR PAY!

Week 13 Records:

Cline -- 9-7 (+$40) (LOTW=W -- BDCS=W)
Goose -- 8-8 (-$160)

Overall Records:

Cline -- 94-65-2 (.591) +$1290 (LOTW=6-4 -- BDCS=5-5)
Goose -- 85-74-2 (.535) -$510

My Picks:

Oakland at SAN DIEGO (-9.5)

Ugh. Oakland stinks, but I also think that San Diego is just about done for the year. Atlanta did everything they could to hand them that game, and they said "No thanks, we're good." I'm going to put my money on a veteran team playing a night game to put up one last stand before reverting to mediocrity. Also, Oakland stinks.

This one's in the books already as Goose's track record for badly picking Raider games continues.  The first song on shuffle is "Catch" by The Cure off Galore (The Singles 1987-1997).  I don't really know this song that well, but it has some lovely violinning.  I've been on a bit of 80s kick lately with the Cure & Depeche Mode.  This is the official vid.  Surprisingly it involves Robert Smith brooding.  And the rest of the band strolling around a picturesque castle.  Which is probably a waste since Smith would still find something to be depressed about.

Jacksonville at CHICAGO (-6.5)

I am fully off of Jacksonville, when a veteran player makes statements as bold as this, it's time to stop picking them.  Especially on the road against a good team.

Shuffle: It's a cover of Brian Wilson's  "Love & Mercy" by Golden Smog, a lower-case "s" super group with members of Wilco, Soul Asylum, the Replacements, and the Jayhawks, amongst others.   The version I have is off of the "Until You Came Along" CD single.  I was really into GS for a while during my alt-country-centric phase. I still appreciate their stuff, but I think I like the bands' separate work better than this collaboration. This clip is from an Obama rally in Minneapolis earlier this year.

 

As a bonus, here's Brian Wilson doing the same song with Springsteen on backing vocals:

MINNESOTA (-9.5) at Detroit

Everyone (well a few people) are breathlessly wondering whether Detroit can go 0-16.  After looking at their schedule, I say "yes".  They're not beating Indy on the road or Minnesota at home this week.  Their best shot is an inconsistent New Orleans at home in Week 16 or if Green Bay is out of the playoff hunt in Week 17.  What you have to take in consideration is that even if the teams they're playing aren't playing for anything other than pride, no team wants to be the one that gave the Lions their only W.

Shuffle: "Heavy Rotation" by Dilated Peoples (f. Tha Liks) off of an EMI New Music Sampler.  As with most samplers, I'm not real familiar with their stuff, but I dig the laid-back groove on this track. 

As a bonus, here's a cool video & song featuring Kanye:

Houston at GREEN BAY (-6)

I'm going to use my really complicated formula to pick this game.  Green Bay's a better team and at home.

Shuffle: "Horn Intro" by Modest Mouse off of Good News For People Who Love Bad News. 

Bad news: It's only 10 seconds long.

Good news: It led me to find a clip of an Asian kid getting pelted with fish, cake, & OJ while this song plays.  Hang in till the end where you see some slo-mo reverse shots of him getting pelted.

Cleveland at TENNESSEE (-14)

There's lots of big lines, but I feel good laying the points with the Titans defense going against Ken Dorsey.

Shuffle: "Darkness on the Edge of Town" by Patterson Hood from a live recording at Athens' 40 Watt Club last December.  I think it was part of a charity show where he covered six Springsteen songs off that CD.  You can download them here.  I couldn't find a clip of him doing that song, so here's a 30-year old clip of the original:

 

And 20 minutes of Patterson and a guy from Widespread Panic covering Stones songs (actual music starts around 1:20):

 

Cincinnati at INDIANAPOLIS (-13.5)

I don't feel good about this pick because Indy's been winning, but not scoring a lot.  But I'm gonna give 'em one last shot to have an offensive explosion.

Shuffle: "Wildwood Flower" by Mike Ness off of "Under the Influence".  It's a cover of an old Carter Family song, and quite good.  Huge fan of Ness & Social Distortion, by the way. 

The original:

ATLANTA at New Orleans (-3)

I'm gonna keep riding Atlanta until they prove otherwise.

Shuffle: "Cure for Pain" by Morphine off the album of the same name. YES!  A great song by a great artist. And here's a live version:

Philadelphia at N.Y. GIANTS (-7)

Philly does have the pseudo-bye week to get ready for this big game.  Philly could conceivably make the playoffs if they run the table.  They've done it in years past, but I don't see it happening.  The giants are too good and the Eagles too maddening to expect the upset.

SHUFFLE: "Cyclone" by The Lords of Altamont off of "Lords Have Mercy".  This is a pretty cool little project involving members of MC5 & The Fuzztones.  Just straight-ahead catchy power rock.

KANSAS CITY at Denver (-9)

Just like I picked Denver over the riding-too-high Jets, I think the Broncos may be riding too high after beating the Jets.  Also, I didn't like a lot of the other big underdogs.  I may sprain something reaching for this pick, but there you go.

SHUFFLE: "Call the Legion in Tonight" by Centro-Matic off of "All the Falsest Hearts Can Try".  This is a band out of Denton, TX (like Slobberbone) which is one of Will Johnson's many projects and definitely my favorite.  The style is a bit hard to pin down, but very good live.  Odd lyrics, odd vocals, but put together really well.  They've opened for the Truckers many times, but are very much their own thing.  I strongly recommend picking up "Love You Just the Same" if you dig these tracks.

 

MIAMI at Buffalo (-1)

This is in a dome in Toronto for some stupid reason.  Weather report for Buffalo?  28 degrees, snow, & wind.  Thanks,  NFL.  We hate watching football in the snow.  It's much better in a dome.  Screw you.

SHUFFLE: "Tear-Stained Eye" by Son Volt off of Trace.  Initially I was firmly in the Son Volt camp after Uncle Tupelo's break-up but Wilco slowly won me over.  "Trace" is still a hell of an album.

N.Y. JETS (-4) at San Francisco

The Jets bounce back from the Broncos game and beat a bad 49ers team.  They're firmly in the camp of decent/good teams that should beat mediocre/bad teams pretty much every time.  And 4 points is not too much to give.

SHUFFLE: "You My Lunar Queen" by Cousteau off their self-titled debut.  This something of a guilty pleasure.  Their very dramatic tunes are a little bit too easy-listening-ish at times, but the lead singer has a great voice.  And if I were a woman and prone to wearing panties, I'd have to wring them out after every song.

 

Their best-known song (used in several commercials & movies):

 

 

Probably my favorite song of theirs:

NEW ENGLAND (-4.5) at Seattle

File the Pats under the same category as the Jets.  They're a good team that I'll take on the road against a bad one.

SHUFFLE: "Come Baby Come" by K7 off of "Swing Batta Swing!"  Hells yes!  One of my favorite old-school jams, and featured as one of my Musical Interludes choices (baseball entrance music).

A mixture of live performances here, introduced by Fab 5 Freddy, Arsenio, Steve Harvey, and British Fab 5 Freddy:

 

There's comedy, high comedy, and then there's a bunch of white women taking what I can only guess is a hip-hop dance class.  YOU HAVE TO WAIT TILL ABOUT THE 0:58 MARK WHERE THE OLD WOMAN IN THE BACK ROW HAS HAD ENOUGH AND WALKS OUT:

 

St. Louis at ARIZONA (-14)

Not exactly Baltimore/Cleveland in terms of franchise-stealing rivalry, but I like the Cardinals to put up a big number in this game.

SHUFFLE: "Everybody Got Their Something" by Nikka Costa off the album of the same name.  This is a great CD that I know Goose digs too.  Saw her live at the Electric Factory a while back and dug it.  Haven't heard much from her since then, though she has put out a couple albums.  This is just great danceable funk/r&b, and she's not too hard on the eyes.

And here's "Like a Feather":

Dallas at PITTSBURGH (-3)

This should be a hell of a game.  If it were in Dallas, I'd take the Cowboys, but I think the Steelers pull out a close one.  But not too close since they're laying 3.

SHUFFLE: "Fever" by Marah off of "Let's Cut The Crap And Hook Up On Later Tonight" (possibly the best album title ever).  Well, you knew we wouldn't go entirely Marah-less.  This is off their first CD and it's really one of the songs that drew me in to them. I was firmly in love with alt-country and when XPN played this and a few other cuts, I was hooked.  I don't know where the band's going, but this song will always have a place in my heart.

Here's a bunch of songs including Fever and the All in the Family theme:

 

You knew you weren't getting just one from Marah...

 

 

And continuing a theme, here they are jamming with Bruce:

 

Washington at BALTIMORE (-5)

The Ravens have been berry berry good to me.  I'm dancing with the one that brung me.

SHUFFLE: "I'm Sorry Huston" by the Drive-By Truckers off of "Brighter Than Creation's Dark".  This is  one of Shonna's songs off the last album, and it's probably the best.  It's also probably about her failed marriage with Jason Isbell.  Enjoy.

TAMPA BAY at Carolina (-3)

The battle of 2 teams that aren't as good as their record.  I still believe in TB more for some unknown reason.

SHUFFLE: "Weirdo" by The Charlatans off of "The Best...Album In The World...Ever! Vol.3". I  love these compilations (I have several), as they provide a pretty expansive coverage of 90s Brit pop.

Beastie Boys & Charlatans mash-up

 

What's Next for the Drive-By Truckers?

Loathe as I was to admit it to myself, I was starting to get a little bored with the Drive-By Truckers.

Then last Saturday's show happened.

Does it represent a slightly new direction for the band I love?

Or was it just a drunken hook-up that will never call, never buy me brunch, never even throw me a pity bang?

A lengthy dissection of this and some kick-ass tunes after the jump.

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Hell No, I Ain't Happy

Rockin' in the Free World from 11/8 Philly show.

We all have regrets in life. The path not taken, etc. This one ranks just below missing an impromptu stand-up set at a PADA holiday party back in 2005. To this day, I don't know the difference between how white people and black people drive.

My regret is that I didn't trust my fellow Marah fanatics when they kept pimping this band called the Drive-By Truckers to me for over a year. It wasn't that I didn't trust their opinion, it was just never the right time or place. But those are just excuses for a lack of initiative on my part. When it was finally the right place & time (TLA, June 21, 2003), I had missed the chance to see them in the really small venues (they played the Bishop's Collar twice for crying out loud).

But despite not knowing any of their songs going in to that show, I knew I was going to be hooked. They beat the shit out of you with 3 guitars, and then throw you in the back of a pick-up truck and take you on a tour of seedy backwater counties resplendent in all shades of gray. Metaphorically, that is. Mostly.

And to say they had an embarrassment of riches in terms of talent would be an understatement. All 3 leads (Patterson Hood, Mike Cooley, Jason Isbell) could easily front their own band. And they were unabashedly Southern, embracing all the baggage and pride that it entailed.

In short, there was nothing for me not to adore. Ever since then, I've jumped at the chance to see them whenever they came to town, or any towns within a 2 hour radius. Or when the opportunity struck, any town within a 2 hour flight. New Year's Eve day 2003, with no big plans for the evening, I jumped a plane to see them at the Variety Playhouse in the ATL. I took 2 more Georgia-bound flights over the next year+. The destination for both of those trips was the lovely little college town of Athens, GA. Home to my favorite college football team and more great little dive bars than one could count on 3 hands. I fell in love with the town and put my soul further in hock to the band.

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Down in a Hole

Jason Isbell & the 400 Unit -- "Decoration Day"

Even though it was clearly Patterson & Cooley's band, you could tell early on that Jason Isbell was special. He could do the rockers and he could do the heartbreaking epics. And he was the only one who brought a smoothness in his vocals and songwriting to the table. He wasn't as prolific as the other two when you look at the DBT catalog, but there wasn't a clunker in the bunch. "Danko/Manuel", "Outfit", "Goddamn Lonely Love", "Never Gonna Change", "The Day John Henry Died" I could go on.

And the blend of the 3 songwriters was perfect during their live shows. Every single DBT set started with (in differing order) one song from each of the 3 leads. I loved the democracy it exemplified. And the rest of the setlist always seemed perfectly balanced between the three of them..

Then he left the band.

It was never a question of "if", but "when" he would go solo. His songwriting and chops were too good. But it all happened too fast (for me, anyways) in April 2007. It didn't help that he was divorcing the woman who was both his wife AND bass player (Shonna Tucker).

But like they say in Frisco, the band played on.

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Aftermath, USA

Burning for You in Louisville:

Since then, the live shows have been off-balance. It didn't matter how good the band or how hot the crowd was. It's not like the rest of the band started sucking all of a sudden, but there was always an Isbell-sized hole in the shows.

Most bands could not have weathered a loss like that and continued to be a viable act. Most bands are not the Drive-By Truckers. But it also seems like they've been trying to find a new tack since then.

To their credit, they did not try to replace him with another guitarist/songwriter wunderkind. Not that there a lot of those hanging around the Waffle House, but it's a route they could have tried to take. It worked for INXS, right?

In the immediate aftermath, they launched a mostly acoustic tour (The Dirt Underneath) and drafted legendary Muscle Shoals musician Spooner Oldham to help fill in. But as they went back to doing more rock shows, they leaned more on pedal steel guitarist John Neff who had been with them early on and then rejoined them in 2006. But the pedal steel sound is going to swallowed mostly whole by the guitars of Cooley & Patterson. Shonna would do 1 or 2 of her Dusty Springfield-ish tunes, which was fine, but nothing to get psyched about.

The nadir might have been a show down in Baltimore at Pier 6 this past summer. A good chunk of the crowd left after the The Avett Brothers "opened", and the show could be best described as "workmanlike". To be fair, when you play 300 shows a year, that'll happen. And it doesn't help that the last 2 albums were overall quieter and smaller in tone than the bombastic brilliance of The Dirty South or Decoration Day.

Something, however, was missing.

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Daylight

Let There Be Rock in Boston

Maybe they found that missing ingredient in a NJ Turnpike rest stop on the way down to Philly Saturday afternoon. It wasn't evident Friday night in NYC, but to be fair, that felt like a Hold Steady show with a Hold Steady crowd.

Saturday night at the Electric Factory was a revelation.

Something lit a fire under their ass and they took it to another level, a level I hadn't seen them at since early 07. They extended several songs ("Heathens", "Hell No, I Ain't Happy") with some atypical jams. They do love a guitar solo (or threesome), but it's usually done within the confines of the song structure. It was nice to see them explore the studio space. It's interesting that their fan base has a decent-sized overlap with the "jam" community, but I never thought they fell into that category. They've never noodled.

Maybe it was as something simple as it being Saturday night before a hot crowd, or maybe the ever-present bottle of Jack they passed around was aged in a particularly good barrel.

Maybe it was the unlikely addition of a horn section for several songs. At first glance, you would say that the Truckers and a horn section go together like Craig Finn and tight, on-stage choreography. But against those odds, it worked. The horns lent a funereal quality to the otherwise uplifting "World of Hurt". 180 degrees the opposite direction, they helped cut the brakes on they always-fiery "Marry Me". On a side note, we here at the Popcorn Trick are working on a behind-the-scenes look at the particulars of how the horn section came to be. Stay tuned.

Or maybe it was the natural competition and inspiration that touring with a band like The Hold Steady can bring. I don't see how it couldn't bring out new aspects of your live show. Especially when the 2 bands intermingle for the encores every single night of the tour to do each band's signature closer (THS' "Killer Parties" and DBT's "Let There Be Rock") and a wide array of covers (e.g. "Rockin' in the Free World", "Look Out Cleveland", "Burnin' For You").

Most likely, it's some combination of all those factors. The simple fact is that without Isbell, they can't just hit you with a Neapolitan ice cream barrage of classics for 3 hours. But they're a very tight unit. What they can do is play the shit out of a still-impressively deep catalog of songs. I would love to see them rework a few of the war horses and forgotten chestnuts. Most importantly, take the vibe from those encores and extend it through the whole set. Make us feel like we might see something we've never seen before, even those of us who've seen 'em dozens of times.

Hell, if Patterson can change the lyrics of "Steve McQueen", anything can change, right?

"I really loved The Getaway back when I was eight... That pussy Alec Baldwin sucked in the remake..."

became

"I really loved The Getaway back when I was eight... I really thought Alec Baldwin was a pussy back when he made that remake... That was before 30 Rock... I kinda like him now..."

So it doesn't flow quite as well, but it definitely shows the Universe more respect. Either way, the next couple of lines still kill me:

"Speaking of pussy, they say Steve McQueen got it all... He fucked Faye Dunaway... And he fucked Ali McGraw..."

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Multimedia

Some auditory evidence of the genius that transpired that night:

• DBT
  • MP3: http://www.sendspace.com/file/mpbai8
  • FLAC Torrent: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=520207
• THS
  • MP3: http://www.sendspace.com/file/i7p94w
  • FLAC Torrent: http://bt.etree.org/details.php?id=520206

And some Hold Steady-centric stuff too:

The Band's Look Out Cleveland in Boston

Killer Parties in Boston:

Chillout Tent (!) in Boston:

And for you Van Morrison fans: Isbell doing "Into the Mystic: