Mythical Entreaties and Your Tuesday Night Homework

First, the news:

Disheartening News:

James Keyboardelstein Kafader ("Jimmy Keys") has opted to discontinue his tenure with our (admittedly corrupt) organization. It was a good run. The Chop is now half Delawarean, half Californian, because of the...

Uplifting / Life-Affirming News:

The Chop has officially returned to proper, double-guitar strength rock and roll with the addition of Eric Murriguez.

The new band has gone into full cocoon mode for a while, working diligently at becoming something even cooler and more manly in stature before emerging Wilford Brimley style in a misty pool of jelly smoke. Many secrets are buried in these mines, dudes.

We're working on a full length album now...all the songs are written (or close), and about 8 are (mostly) arranged and ready to record, so we're just trying to finish up the other 4 or 5 before heading into a proper studio to record this puppy sometime in the early spring.

In the meantime, go check out the separate band we now fully encompass (the Lesotho to our South Africa, if you please) Aaron and Eric's band Pegataur, playing Tuesday night (12/8/09) at Bottom of the Hill. We'll all be there.

Most Glorious Facebook Invite

Covers for Hire: Round 3!

Dear Cryptozoologists!

The hits keep coming in our continuing effort to defame ourselves by recording your specific requests! Proceeds from these go to our recording costs on album #2, which is in the works now. Request one of your own here. Do this now...no really, we insist.

This Saturday night we're playing at Hemlock Tavern on Polk Street in San Francisco.

It's a party for the 20th Anniversary of the 1989 Earthquake! There will be earthquake-appropriate rock songs and even an appropriately named opening band.

My First Earthquake and Goodbye Nautilus are both playing with us. We're even having a gnarly guest guitarist (Eric, of Pegataur) come up to rock some numbers with us. If you're in jail, break out. (!)

Afterward The Chop will be descending all 39 steps into the underground laboratory of your heart to record a proper follow up to We Want It All, so this will be our last live show for some lengthy amount of time.

This week's "Covers for Hire" entry is a Ned Ryerson-style doozy from 1988.

"Straight Up" (Paula Abdul cover):

Keep them coming, you glamorous bastards!

Disguised as a prole,

Winston

(post script: I know this is from a different video, but I always thought the relationship dynamic between her and MC Scat Cat was a lot steamier than with Arsenio)

Covers For Hire: Round 2

Listen up! As far as my (very limited) research tells me, we are the only rock band ever to attempt something like this!  We are taking requests via our merch page on www.TheChopRocks.com to learn and record ANY SONG EVER, at your noble behest.

Go there now and tell us what to do next, or pass the link to this blog post on!!!!

We've been a little tied up with gigs and the like, but here's a cover (by request!!) of the classic 1992 Sir Mix-a-Lot jam "Baby Got Back"

Also-if you are in Oakland SATURDAY (9/26/09)...come to The Stork Club!  We're well oiled and chomping at the bit.  Inky, Blinky, Pinky and Sue will be there, will you?

Covers for Hire!

Dear Surface Dwellers,

Here's what's up.  As part of our current effort to save up a little money to record a second album we are currently offering to cover any song, (to record it and send it to you) right HERE on our website.

We debuted this about 2 weeks ago and here's what we recorded so far (songs by request via the website).

"Womanizer" (Britany Spears cover)

"Somebody To Love" (Queen cover)

We're ready for more.  Lay them on us.  Do this now.

Barring that, pass on or repost this link below wherever you can, let other people know what we're trying to do, and help your old buddies in the chop out.

http://www.thechoprocks.com/wwia

We're back to the stage next Friday (September 4th) at Bottom of the Hill.  We've got like 4 new songs and a sweet new cover we're gonna play (not one of the ones above).

Attend this show.  Get tickets HERE

Also, if you'd like a personal copy of either of these covers, just write and let us know.

New Everything and a couple of Friday shows!

All summer, we've been writing songs and trying to figure ways to raise a little money to record a new album (hopefully) in January.  To that end, we've totally revamped our merch options and James designed a sweet new T-shirt (see halloween-y design above)!  Check out this plus all the new merch and website stuff HERE.

For 20 bucks, you get this new T-shirt, a physical copy of our (we want it all), a digital copy of the album, a (brand) new Mix CD from one of us,  a unique and very personal letter written in Spanish, an autographed portrait from one of our unforgettable photoshoots (suitable for framing), buttons, stickers, and a special surprise from us!  What value!  If that option doesn't appeal to you...we have lots of other options, big and small, including one where we'll learn and record any song...just for you.

Please take a look and consider helping us out by buying some of our really awesome stuff, particularly this T-shirt, which will make you awesome.

AND...as a special treat for even looking at that merch page...here's a song demo from said forthcoming album for you to listen to.

"Any Other Lover"

SHOWS:

THIS FRIDAY: (8/14) James and I are doing (separate) solo sets at Brainwash Cafe.  This is James' solo on stage debut! Powerhouse of the upstroke Igor (of Coup de Ska and The Titan-Ups) will also be performing...and it's FREE.  Starts at 8PM.  Brainwash Cafe is at 1199 Folsom Street (@7th) in San Francisco.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4TH! The Chop returns from summer break with a slew of new songs and an awesome venue/night/show.

Buy tickets to this show!

Afterward we will be in full force crumble cake celebration mode proper!  come do it with us.

lovingly, 

robot from the ancient past who's come to help us with our problems so we can be free. (please note: he is not a hero, nor a saviour...simply a man/robot whose circumstances went beyond his control.  specifically, he's kilroy.)

Stallone Movie Marathon

Yo dudes.

As you may recall--we are on summer break...but The Chop doesn't stop working.  Ever.

James and I are playing an acoustic show at Brainwash in SF on August 14th.  Our good compadre Igor is also playing.  It is free...and you'll be able to hear some of the new songs we've been working on with the full band, plus Hot Chip and They Might Be Giants covers and maybe some Styx if you're lucky.  It'll be James' solo stage debut...so you have to come see what's what and have some beers with us besides.  Do it!

Then we're playing a huge show on Friday September 4th, opening for Triple Cobra and PunchFace at Bottom of the Hill.  That will really be awesome...should have something like 5 new original songs for that, and we're involved in some intense cerebral discussion as to in which manner we should rock. The general thought is "hard".

Oh yeah--that picture is us at Grant and Green singing "Born in Wilmington" with fellow Delawareans Nikki and Louie.  Listen to the song here:

Things overheard at practice this week:

"Those ba-ba-ba's are killing me. You gotta cut that [guitar] solo shorter"

"My amp's in the perfect spot...way too loud for me and just regular loud for everyone else"

 - "Now you're thinking like a guitar player"

"maybe this part should just be all [guitar] feedback" (sarcastic)

as tango loves cash, so do we love you.

rob-a-lon 5 out!

New record plans and our summer break

Dear Fun-Lovers,

Many things happening. First, we made some demos for our upcoming album, and had lots of fun doing so.  We posted one we're quite excited about here, it's called "Radio Doctor (part I)":

http://tinyurl.com/laku27

Listen to that and please pass along the link or repost it if you can.

We did this recording ourselves with minimal time and equipment, but are really happy at how it turned out and excited to make it bigger and better when we record it again for the album.

We're on summer break right now writing and arranging the second half of a new album, and are trying to make/save money for that inevitably expensive process.  If you feel like supporting us (via paypal donation), go here to do so.  Even one dollar is significant to us and our rock and roll related cause.  Your collective generosity consistently astounds us.  Thank you.

We've booked an amazing comeback show on Friday, September 4th at Bottom of the Hill opening for two awesome bands, Triple Cobra and Punchface.  This show will really be epic.

Observe the checklist:

1. venue = bottom of the hill, our favorite spot in SF, no question

2. night = Friday, undisputed king of all nights

3. setlist = a bunch of brand new songs that we are very stoked to play

4. approach = fully theatrical and energetic after a nice break from being onstage

5. other acts = high energy, crowd-enflaming, full glam spectaculars (seriously)

6. age limitations = none.  all are welcome and encouraged to have fun.

7. FRIDAY night at BOTTOM OF THE HILL with TRIPLE COBRA.  We are very happy.

Buy yourself some tickets because this one is likely to SELLOUT.

We have lots of other plans and ideas for this summer and beyond...more details as they are confirmed, but suffice to say we are discussing how to release more songs of more varieties all leading up to and as promotion for our second album being recorded/released sometime next year.  Stay tuned.

Here's  a little poster I threw together....bigger and better promotional tools to come as the date draws nigh.

it was cold and it rained, thus I felt like an actor,

rob

If you enjoy hearing about the chop's day to day (and occasionally minute to minute) activities via the prism of this writer's brain, follow us on twitter at twitter.com/thechoprocks

Video Representations! and a FREE show tonight!

Despair not!

Recall that I taped our show at The Hemlock Tavern last month on my birthday (Mayth)...it was, as previously noted, a raucous good time filled with cake, jagermeister, and olivia newton john.

We are playing tonight for FREE at Grant and Green and then taking the summer off.

Some things some or all of us are gonna do on our summer vacation:

1. Go to Europe

2. Practice kung fu

3. Begin a culinary (education) program

4. Write comedy songs

5. Write rap songs

6. Write regular songs

7. Jump rope

8. Wonder where the water ice is

9. Fly across the country to see Steely Dan

10. Procure aforementioned water ice in quantity

check out some videos of the Mayth show (more on our youtube page!)

It seems as though the cat has been caught by the very person who was trying to catch him!

rob

Four Lecherous Men and a Little Lady Tour: Recap Dénouement

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Four Lecherous Men and a Little Lady Tour: Recap, Part Deux!

We got to Eugene on Friday afternoon looking to rest up and relax before our campaign of nailing balls to walls commenced for the evening.  After being sorely disappointed by finding a severe exception to the "culture rating of the town is inversely correlated to the coolness of the local goodwill" in some town who's name I purposely forgot, we quickly agreed that that the old adage "the exception proves the rule" was a retarded bit of word phrasing trickery most likely first perpetrated by some sly bastard who found a way to confuse his convo-pponent just long enough to hop away unscathed in a cloud of complete nonsense.  

Our old (college) roommate Steve was an excellent host, providing burgers as well as outdoor sleeping arrangements.  Our stink factor at this point was perhaps a 5, no more. A couple of showers were taken and we retired to the porch to go over a couple of tunes.

We heard our pal Marty was coming down from Portland and decided to knock the rust off of our Steely Dan cover ("Kings"), since Martin Walsh being at the show constitutes our most Dan-receptive audience ever.  It went steely, by the way.

Inside the house, Jimmy got very excited about getting behind the wheels of his eighth favorite instrument (right behind "broken organ beat box machine").  He cranked through a quick version of "Tom Sawyer" and then headed to the club.

Check our moves!

James' star-tambo-face-obscure meets "the lean"

Tom finds that clapping helps him enjoy himself more and recalls him of youthful trysts!

Rob's patented stutter-step.  This is right before I knock James' amp setup right the fuck over mid-song.  Grace be the watch word, aspiring stage prancers!

After the show, we rolled on back to Steve's pad where I must admit I passed out almost immediately on a couch in a room where a drum kit was being played until very late.  Pointedly un-rock and roll, but a lingering sickness and sinister college device did me in post-haste.  The rest of the boys (and Ariana) partied down for several more hours and reported it grand.

Awake again we headed off to Seattle! More pictures an all-time Chop highlight (courtesy of Aaron) yet to come.

continued tomorrow....

Four Lecherous Men and a Little Lady Tour: Recap, Part 1!

Like any proper tour, this one began with the mindless, random destruction of our equipment.

Our big blue van ("One of Many") has an interesting tendency to take on more and more household items, dirty clothing, and completely useless knick knacks (all collectively known as "junk") the longer it's in a certain band member's possession.  It is a phenomenal ability, really, and it leads to fun like the kind you see above...a stringless, hopeless, utterly value-less guitar is smashed (partly out of spite) by one Heart-thRob.  Spring cleaning, as they say...is an important aspect of van ownership.

The below picture displays perhaps the most exciting sector of rock band membership, the loading dock.  Such a professional operation as ours has lots of expensive, fully-functioning gear and it all needs to be carefully loaded into (and subsequently unloaded from) "One of Many" before we can properly rock any socks.  Notice Tom's excitement...which will not be mirrored upon our return to the space late Sunday evening.

Old Ironsides in Sacramento is a fun place.  We've played there before.  We laid some sweet pink stencils in Sac-town, sipped New Castles, and sold a T-shirt to the bartender.  The bill was a good one, we played in the middle of Ahoy and Starring Morgan Freeman, and like any great artists, took our money and hit the road.

We popped out several hours later in Eugene, Oregon, fully prepared to "pretend learn" a few songs on the porch, to "steal" toilet paper from the bar, and to "Lady and the Tramp" a few Slim Jims in the parking lot...

To be continued....

Mayth Show and The Murky Origins of The Chop

We really had a tremendous time last Friday for my (Rob's) birthday at the Hemlock Tavern.

Everything about the evening was terrific.  Rob wore his birthday shirt and it was (as you might expect) quite appropriate.  This May 8th also marked the official 3rd anniversary of The Chop. Who can believe it's been 3 long years.......

(flashback sequence)

In truth, we toiled away for some 8 months leading up to that, primarily dealing with such relatively minor factors as 'no drummer', and 'no experience playing instruments' right up until April 2006 or so.  Around that time Phil moved to SF, we had our brief stint with drummer Gil (ahhh, Gil...) and once he left town we promptly asked Tom (another brand new California resident) to learn the drums from scratch.  Right at this point James quit the band for about 5 days and we had one practice without him which was also Tom's official first attempt at drumming.  As a four piece we played "Slippery People" "Demolition" and most likely "Taste of Luxury" and "Carry the Wood" and were feeling pretty good, I must say.

Then while out at the bar that weekend, James came back into fold and we came up with "The Chop" and all got behind it super fast, with James designing the logo hungover as all hell approximately 12 hours after the word 'chop' was first mentioned.  That monday (May 8th, 2006) we practiced for the for the first time as The Chop and the rest is (see below).

(end flashback sequence)

Here's some pictures before we head off northward tonight to play some more.  The last one's from last weekend at The Stork, but I really liked it and wanted an excuse to repost it.  I also videotaped the show (on Mayth) so perhaps you'll be seeing some of that soon.

I'll be taking as many pictures as humanly possible this weekend and will report back with numerous embarrassing stories about individual band members next week.

The Cake

The Band

The Attitude

News and Updates and Videos of Us

We got ourselves a video courtesy of RedLabelFilms.com.  It's edited together from our live performance at the Coho in Stanford a few weeks ago, but laid over the album cut of Scientist.  Abteen and Jay did a swell job...check it!

We made The Bay Bridged podcast April mixtape (that's episode #160) with our song "We Want It All".  The Bay Bridged is a well-established Bay Area music podcast with oodles of listeners and mad cred, as it were.  If you're hip to podcasts, download that now off of iTunes. It is FREE.

We also have had some exciting shows in the last few weeks, and some more coming up...here's some brief descriptions:

Our Talking Heads Spectacular on 4/17 went amazingly well.  Goodbye Nautilus played Take Me to the River and Girlfriend is Better in their set, Touch Committee played Wild Wild Life and Road to Nowhere, and The Chop rocked through Swamp and Pulled Up...at the end 7 of us crowded on stage for a sweet rendition of Life During Wartime. 

Also, this girl was there:

Last Friday we went to Davis and had a wild (wild) evening...showed up to find we were the only band playing (although they did line up an acoustic opener) and that we were expected to play for something like 2 hours (as opposed to the 45 minutes we're used to).  So we extended all the tunes, ramped up the solos, did some songs we didn't quite know...it was all pretty fun.

At the end of the night one of the bouncers/bartenders was going through and pouring the miniscule remnants of each "empty" liquor bottle into one consolidated bottle.  It was a disgusting brown, the product of every liquor under the sun being mixed.  He dubbed it "Dumpster Juice" and was really excited about it.  Naturally, James took a shot of it.  In the bathroom.

After that we went home.

The next night we played the Stork Club in Oakland and I posted a 109xxx Ms Pacman score. Take that, Namco!

Tonight, we ride!

next year is the best year,

rob

The Chop plays the Doug Fir in Portland

We played an awesome show at Doug Fir Lounge in Portland last week!  The venue is a log cabin with amazing sound and killer decor.  Phil (ex-Chopsmen and dear friend) was on a business trip in San Francisco (he lives in Philadelphia these days), came along for the ride to Portland, and then jumped up and played some of the old songs with us.  The whole night went smashingly.  Thanks to everyone who helped make that happen.  

Here's some pictures of us onstage, courtesy of Marty.

Hop-along Tommy!

Cavernous ceilings make my voice sound way better!

"Horsing around" in the green room, which (consequently) was as big as many of the clubs' (main rooms) we've played in the not so distant past and was also stocked with RedBull (Tom was in heaven) and other goodies.

what's that?  I can't hear you.

Recording Procedures, Technical Post

While the rest of San Francisco was enjoying the near ridiculously beautiful weather last weekend, The Chop was holed up deep in Oakland's industrial sprawl recording (you guessed it) timeless tracks.

We went in on Friday, got all the microphones setup (this takes something in the neighborhood of a few hours) and then came in all day Saturday and Sunday to track six new songs we've been working on.  We're going to do some more work on these and then make them digitally available in the next little while.

A few highlights:

James struggles through a particularly grueling "clap" track.

Tom cocks his head to better hear that minor 6th harmony he laid down.

Rob grits his teeth and wishes he was playing Arkanoid

Aaron's tenacious dome oversees all!

More Adventures in Vinyl Shopping

I stopped by the Clement Street goodwill the other day with plans to kill a few minutes and just browse but then, like an addict, walked out with something like seven records, each for only a 1.29! I thought I'd briefly describe how cool I think I am based on the choices I made, so here it be:

Abbey Road

A mostly forgotten record from a otherwise consistent rock outfit called The Beatles. The record looks in good shape, though the jacket's a bit faded. To my mind, there is simply nothing better than Side 2 of Abbey Road. I have many fond memories and associations with this album, but here's something that happened to me quite recently: I was heading out at about 8:30 on a Friday a couple weeks ago and was standing at the bus stop on Fulton at Park Presidio when a woman in a car pulls up to the stoplight. She's singing along and bopping around to unknown music in her car, and I think that's cool, so we make eye contact and I smile at her. Then she offers me a ride. I hopped in and she took me 20 blocks down the road. She was cool and her name was Cordelia and she actually asked me directions to her destination in Cole Valley (maybe that's why she offered the ride?) It felt like an exciting, San Francisco-y experience, but the best part was that once I got in the car, I realized she had been rocking out to that section in between "Carry That Weight" and "The End" where Ringo is soloing and things are sort of peaking. Nice.

Headhunters - Herbie Hancock

Take note, burgeoning musicians. Perhaps you'd like to learn to improvise? Perhaps you've tried recording lengthy sections of yourself playing through a chord progression so that you can subsequently learn to improvise over it, but find it painstaking, and never lasting long enough? Track 1 of Headhunters is for you. "Chameleon" is a 17 minute stone groove: perfect for soloing/spacing out over. I learned a lot from this track.
Headhunters and John Scofield's A-Go-Go were on almost constant repeat when I was living with Tom and Phil in college.

Cosmo's Factory - CCR

I was pretty stoked about this one, and listened to it right away. I'm a longtime CCR fan, but hadn't actually heard this record in full. It's got tons of awesome tunes on it (Traveling Band, Who'll Stop the Rain, Run Through the Jungle, and Looking Out My Back Door) It occurs to me this moment that, based on this track list, one can assume that Cosmo's is The Dude's "creedence tape". Boss. I also really like this cover photo, as it gives you a glimpse into the sometimes sorry and typically un-glamorous (although occasionally tons of fun) life of the rehearsal space. Having thought/wrote that, I looked it up on Wikipedia and here's a telling paragraph:
The name of the album comes from the warehouse in Berkeley where the band rehearsed. Bandleader John Fogerty was so insistent on practicing (nearly every day) that drummer Doug "Cosmo" Clifford began referring to the place as "the factory"

Damn, that sounds soul-crushingly familiar slash really awesome. I didn't even know they were from the bay.

I also got an old Kris Kristofferson, a compilation of George Gershwin stuff, and Traffic's "Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys." I need some special shelves for all these discs.  I listened to Rhapsody in Blue, and I felt like I knew it primarily from it's use on Simpsons episodes. Modern youth, eh? This strikes me as akin to watching Casablanca and recognizing much of the script as a series of Bugs Bunny lines.  But hey, culture is culture.  At least I recognized it.

why not take all of me?
rob

Poster for to End/Save All Posters

Available for free at the show.

James Kafader hath conceived again. It will be epic.

love always,
The Chop

The Chop performs!

The Chop is soon to be donning holocaust cloaks, hopping in wheelbarrows, and storming castles all across this Western Coast a la the Dread Pirate Roberts.  Get your gate keys ready.

Dates this spring:

February 28th (Saturday): Coho Cafe in Stanford, CA *

March 14th (Saturday): Chop's 509 Club (All Ages!) in Santa Rosa, CA * 

March 19th (Thursday): Bottom of the Hill in San Francisco, CA **

this is the big one, friends.  You have to come to this.  buy a ticket, with love.  Mr Kafader's most stunning poster to be posted very soon.

April 10th (Friday): Brainwash Cafe in San Francisco, CA - Blue and Gold (solo) 

April 15th (Wednesday) at Coho Cafe in Stanford, CA

April 17th (Friday): Kimo's in San Francisco,  CA *

April 24th (Friday): Doug Fir Lounge in Portland, OR

May 1st (Saturday): The G Street Pub in Davis, CA

May 2nd (Saturday): Stork Club in Oakland, CA *

May 14th (Thursday): The Old Ironsides in Sacramento, CA

May 15th (Friday) : Luckey's in Eugene, OR

May 16th (Saturday): Mars Bar in Seattle, WA ^*

* with Goodbye Nautilus

** with The Dont's and Low Red Land

^* with Quadrillion and Kill Cupid

Dates and details and all updates are also available here:

www.thechoprocks.com

In other news:

We're on Rhapsody (an online music service)...Rhapsody pays artists (all of them) royalties for every listen to a song (about 1 cent per play...but still).  Support this company!  Support The Chop by playing our album on Rhapsody.  We love pennies!

Also, please exhibit your unyielding devotion to our cause via Facebook an up and coming online social network which has gained some popularity among the youth.

would anybody care for a peanut?

rob

Blue and Gold's first show

Hey Folks-

I (Rob) decided to begin recording and performing solo under the name Blue and Gold.

The first show happened about 10 days ago at a cafe in San Francisco called Brainwash.  It's also a laundrymat, and generally a cool place to hang out, though their equipment stash left something to be desired. It was a fun and relaxed sort of time with a few friends and bandmates.  Soaptones (aka Eric from Goodbye Nautilus) also played a set of his songs.

Blue and Gold has a myspace page with some very primitive demo recordings up, but I reckon I'll keep getting better and will definitely be posting new stuff there soon.

Here's some videos from the show...these are all my songs, except the last one's a Boyz II Men cover.

"Five Points"

"Get Up On Your Feet":

"Radio Doctor Part I":

"I Missed You More":

"The Pace":

"End of the Road":

Where did the time (and all my 5 dollar bills) go? Vol II: SuperBowl edition!

So very much has been occurring in the spacetime of The Chop multiverse, but I can't find the cord to connect my camera and share the numerous hilarious/gregarious pictures with you.  I find text-only posts to be pretty bland, so I'm reverting to one of my favorite topics to expound upon....video games and their effect on my life.

In the last installment, I carefully explained the impact Street Fighter II had on my life.  The response was vast in scope and voluminous in nature. "More!" you cried.  Today I oblige.

While the beer and guacamole-consuming public are in the grips of "football fever" a syndrome typically fueled by "actual games" with "modern teams" who play a carefully plotted game ripe with subtlety and real world importance (sort of), I am still completely in love with a little cartridge (nay, phenomenon!) known as Tecmo Super Bowl (alternately/commonly/incorrectly referred to as Super Tecmo Bowl).

To say this game has affected my life would be gross understatement.  This game continues to define 15 year old friendships.  This game has yielded some of the most glorious victories and most crushing defeats ever experienced (on earth).  This game made me the man I am.

The game (in brief, for to explain it's intricacies would take many a page):

A football game for NES which incorporates all the teams, uniforms, colors, and player rosters of the time.  This in itself was a huge innovation in football gaming technology.  You have access to a first and second string (all real people, with individual portraits and statistics) and can sub players as you wish.  Defensive players are there as well, but no changes or substitutions are possible.

The game is playable as exhibition or in the context of a season, for the game invents a full 16 week schedule and auto-plays all the games you don't want to.  In other words, you can play one team through an entire season and post-season, and let the computer autoplay all the other games (for which outcomes and stats are generated), or you could conceivably play every single game in a season.

My history with the game:  

Christmas Day, 1991:  Ernest, my best friend at that time, calls gushing with excitement.  He has received Tecmo Super Bowl for NES.  His elation is barely concealed as he comments on the graphics with a now oft-cited and fondly remembered, "you can see the wrinkles on the ref's face!"

Needless to say I was excited to see the wrinkles on the ref's face.

We begin playing the game incessantly.  Ernest's father ("Big Joe Beserker") even got really into it, and they played it and argued about it enough to have Ernest's mother take the controllers away as punishment.  Over the last 18 years, Ernest and I only end up seeing each other a couple times year (first because we drifted apart (I partially credit Tecmo Super Bowl with rekindling our friendship five years ago) and now because we live on different coasts) but when we are together, we always play Tecmo Bowl.

Johnny Buffalo Balls Magrans and I also have a rich history with Tecmo, we started our friendship in highschool, with a tradition of me coming over to his parents house for Sunday dinner, a tradition that was enriched by our weekly Tecmo Bowl games.  These days we typically only play when Ernest comes into town, resulting in brutal three man tournaments lasting far into the night.

How the playing has changed:

Amazingly (for a Nintendo game) it has held up not only for its nostalgia value (although that is quite high) but for the fact that our strategies and approaches have changed over the years.  With many games of this era, one reaches a certain basic level of skill and then plateaus forever.  The truly great games however show a subtlety of play and a strategic depth that defy this convention.  Tecmo Super Bowl is most certainly one of these games.  Over the last 17 years, our skill and understanding of the game has changed dramatically.  We've discovered under-appreciated players and made them legends,  we've learned the proper use of every defensive position, we've completely banned punts and field goals from the game, and perhaps most importantly, we've thoroughly incorporated gambling into the ritual.

Present Day:

We have a hotly debated "tier" system which proposes to rank the teams, then we revel in creating new matchups and different ways to bet on them.  Although we long ago established a standard, needs-not-be-discussed "5-dollar a game" rule, in recent spates we've begun making numerous side bets on things like running yards and pass completion percentage.  Other standards (of betting) that have evolved are the following: Shutout pays double, safeties pay 2 dollars, kickoff return pays 3 dollars, and a blocked extra point pays 10 dollars (these are quite rare).

As another testament to the amazing durability of NES games, we continue to play that original cartridge given to Ernest 17 years ago.  At some point I took possession of it and eventually bought Ernest another via Ebay, which I then had signed by Tecmo-era 49ers running back Roger Craig at a book signing on Haight Street.  Ernest responded by permanently affixing a Henry Ellard trading card to my copy.

I know I claimed to be ready to face an opponent in Street Fighter II, but have since realized that I am now only mediocre at that game.  Tecmo Super Bowl is a completely different story...I am chomping at the bit to take you on.  I don't care what team you pick, I don't care who you think you are, I will beat you and take your 5 dollars.

Also, as a sidenote:

Bo knows absurd dedication to a Nintendo game (this is not me, and I haven't accomplished this, though Ernest has at least come close):

it's certainly possible that I reached for the secret too soon,

rob

Record Shopping in the 21st century

This past Saturday, I woke up feeling unbelievably terrible, the result of a long-lasting adventure in the Mission which included shuffleboard, a Moped shop, and culmination/deterioration into champagne toasts at the top of Dolores. Waking up on a Saturday and having absolutely nothing to do is a beautiful, albeit occasionally overwhelming, feeling. I pondered this in a booze trance and decided to hit the streets for coffee, to catch a movie by myself, and to go record shopping.

I still really love the record store experience. I love pretty much every aspect of it, and living in San Francisco has a benefit in the awesome resource that is Amoeba records. I should also mention that I recently fixed my component turntable and have been getting into vinyl, so I went over there to buy some used records as well as CDs, and I noticed some things.

I suppose vinyl is inherently cool, but I want to talk about how Amoeba's pricing of said vinyl struck me as oddly indicative of what is and is not cool in terms of old(er) music these days. They get a lot of used vinyl there, so much so that they are offering to give away boxes of it for art projects or industrious DJs or community vinyl reconditioning experiments. Naturally they don't take scratched up stuff, so most of the albums look great. The main differences therefore are in price, and after my experience on Saturday I found myself (over)analyzing some of the current trends in retro-music coolness, as indicated (solely) by the seemingly arbitrary pricing of good condition vinyl.

Steely Dan The Royal Scam
Price = 3.99
Purchased!

Why do people hate the Dan? I seriously don't understand why no one (apparently) desires this album. There were two of these!  This record particularly strikes me as a highpoint of 70s cool. Slick production, hot solos, cryptic lyrics concerning San Francisco. How can Journey be making such a comeback whilst Fagen and Becker get no love?

Van Morrison Astral Weeks
Price = 26 dollars
Not Purchased!

Van is most certainly the man, and this album proves it. I've been familiar with it for several years now, but it has come back up in my musical rotation lately, and I thought I'd see about the vinyl. It was only available as a new pressing, hence the inflated price. I had no idea the kids were purchasing this stuff, but all in all, it's a good thing. Sunny days ahead.

Paul Simon Paul Simon
Price = 2.99
Purchased!

This is a classic for sure. I guess Graceland is probably selling well right now, based at least in part of Vampire Weekend's success and I couldn't find a copy of that at all, new or used. This not being sought after doesn't really surprise me, but it doesn't mean it's not fucking great. Terrific songwriting like Mother and Child Reunion and Me and Julio, and the other album tracks really showcase him as an interesting and I think highly underrated guitar player.

Velvet Underground Velvet Underground
Price = can't remember, but it was expensive
Not Purchased

Not to be confused with The Velvet Underground and Nico, this is the third LP, post-John Cale that has Candy Says and Pale Blue Eyes on it. Scorchingly affecting on headphones. Anyway, VU are forever cool, so this isn't really surprising, but again, there were new pressings of what I was considering their least appreciated (but also best, in my opinion) album so I guess it's still selling. On the plus side, the CD is mixed/mastered to have that hi-fi that's sort of intentionally lo-fi feel to it and almost reminds me of how vinyl sounds anyway.

J.C. Superstar
Price = 3.99
Purchased

I won't bother to defend this. It's obviously uncool, but I love it.

Bill Cosby To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With
Price = 1.99
Purchased

The Cos is cool. I think he gets minimal respect because he's more understated then many modern comedians, more of a storyteller really and less like what stand-up comedy has evolved into. I think he's cool, but it's unlikely that the popular opinion will turn on that one anytime soon.  I particularly liked this album cover and will probably hang it up.

Bruce Springsteen Various Albums
Price = various prices!
None Purchased

An interesting one for me because I am convinced he's coming back on the coolness wheel. I've always idealized the man, but my peers have and continue to be somewhat hard on him (this despite the fact that the almost uninanimous "Best Record of 2007", Arcade Fire's Neon Bible draws very heavily and unabashedly from The Boss). Born in the USA was present in multiple cheap copies as this is often considered to the young, hip, newly-converted Springsteen fan to be a lowpoint (Wrong!).  Nebraska, the de facto "it's cool to like this (Springsteen) record cause its sparse and edgy" option, was not to be found. Again, no real surprise. All in all though, there were just very few choices for a man who's recorded albums consistently for 35 years. Someone is buying up these other 70s gems (Born to Run, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Greetings From Asbury Park, etc...).  I guess I'm saying...Bruce is coming back. Believe.

trenchantly insightful,
The Amazing Rob