RIP, Barbaro

Seriously. I am sitting at my desk crying.

Indianapolis Colts Are Now!

Husband and I went last night to see CanRock superstars the Sloans. As a perennial favorite mount in my stable of rock and roll horsies, I never miss them on their way through town and, in many instances, have followed them to other towns for additional rocking.

Though half of the band was considerably under the weather, their overall rocking was not proportionately diminished. Then again, I'm not sure it's physically possible for Sloan to put on a bad show. They played many songs from the new and genius Never Hear The End Of It, and given that album's 30-track run of variable length-tunes, I wasn't sure how some of the songs would translate to a live format. But they did, fantastically. Sloan worked them into little three- or four-song packages, one right into the other. The band was in good spirits and their famous wit was on display per usual -- save for Jay Ferguson's general demeanor of misery (he seemed the sickest) and the one time Andrew Scott started into a song before Chris Murphy and Patrick Pentland were done with their clever banter, as if to say, "Shut the hell up, fuckers, I want to be done with this."

Anyway. All of this was to be expected. The unexpected portion of the evening came in the way that one of the opening acts, a group from Detroit called Thunderbirds Are Now!, ruled. Now, typically, I am miserable at the mere thought of standing through opening acts. I go out of my way to avoid them, even if it means, in some cases, sacrificing precious position at the front of the stage (a must for short chicks like me). So it was rather convenient that the NFL AFC Championship game between the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots was going on during the two Sloan openers. Something to do instead of stand there, bored, staring at some local rock and roll hoodlums. That should tell you something: I am no football fan, but I'd rather watch a championship game than watch an opening act.

It was an interesting scenario: people who like Sloan enough to come out on a frigid Sunday night are generally not huge NFL fans, while people who are big enough football fans to be cheering wildly with each play are generally not really into Nova Scotian power pop. Not to make generalizations or anything. And it's not like you could be in the bar without paying the Sloan ticket price, so I'm guessing someone only in it for the game would have gone to one of the other no-cover bars just a few doors down.

So poor Thunderbirds Are Now! start their set, and they sound pretty awesome. Keyboard! I hear a keyboard! But the plays taking place as the Colts beat the Patriots were garnering much larger cheers. You had to sort of feel sad for the band, that Tony Dungy was getting a louder reaction from indie rock fans than they were. One dude was such a huge Colts fan, I thought he might strike me down in his exhilirating attempt to share a high-five. Dude turned out to be a huge Sloan fan, too, standing right behind us for most of the show until he disappeared, no doubt too overcome by all the football and CanRock excitement to remain upright any longer.

What I want to tell you is this: once we made our way to the stage after the game was over, we were treated to one hell of a show by Thunderbirds Are Now!. Specifically, their keyboard/tambourine player. Their sweaty, hyperactive, phenomenal keyboard/tambourine player, who is nothing less than the heir to the Flashing Lights' keyboard playing, tambourine shaking, cape wearing savant Gaven Dianda. Though Gaven continues to make music with various outfits -- and though my Thunderbirds hero was not wearing a cape -- I am glad to see someone else continuing in the general direction of misunderstood genius keyboarder tambourinist.

You should all go buy their albums.

Presented without commentary, but with plenty of hunger and Pavlovian yearning

Girl Scout Cookies. Thin Mints and Samoas on the lower left:

(Image courtesy of Slashfood. Yum.)

If I have to be scarred by it, you have to be scarred by it, too

I just read on msnbc.com that Britney Spears could possibly be pregnant again. Whatever.

More alarming: the detail with which the story was written, and, I guess, the extent to which said photo was circulated:

In one widely circulated photo, Spears was shown throwing up peanut butter and reports said she had been drinking, but according to ITW, Spears has been skipping the booze.

Does anyone really need to see that? Does anyone even need to read that?

Please, Lord, in all my time-wasting Internetting, don't let me stumble across that photo.

Your apparent interest in campy metal gives me hope for the future of our world

Since I posted a few days ago about the heavy metal Domino's pizza commercial, several of you fine folks out there have stumbled across Sympathetic Weather through Web searches utilizing the following strings:

-"it mocks your silly rules"
-it mocks your silly rules
-Domino's "your silly rules"
-singer Dominos commercial silly rules
-Dominos pizza commercial metal
-dominos pizza+metal song
-metal new dominoes commercial
-dominoes pizza tenacious d comm
-"silly rules" dominoes
-dominos pizza metal song
-dominos pizza heavy metal commercial

I can't even tell you how excited I am to learn that such searching is going on out there. Not even because it leads you to this blog. But because it means that, dammit, you need to know, specifically, how it is that Domino's is going to mock of your silly rules.

Meanwhile, your interest in Joel McHale's sexual orientation continues. Which I find to be fascinating, because he is totally straight. And cute. Anyway. I tell you, I don't know what I did for entertainment before I could monitor traffic to this blog.

That's about right, part 2

From the "Listening Party Forum" on cleveland.com, the online home of The Plain Dealer (and, for the record, I have no idea why I am reading forums on cleveland.com):

Anyone out there know why the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website has been flagged by Google and StopBadware.org as a site that can harm your computer?

And the most excellent response:

well several reasons
there may be a bug/virus,.. not sure..
but i know another reason
rock and roll is bad for society and listened to bad citizens

(Also for the record, this anti-rock response was written by a different user than the one in the post below.)

Meanwhile, I would like to draw your attention to the outstanding new Domino's television ad that's being aired here in the Cleveland area. It features two red flying v-shaped electric guitars swooping in over a pepperoni-laden pizza, and the details of the special are displayed on screen in an awesome font not unlike this one. Apparently this deal is so great that it "breaks all the rules," and when those words appear on screen the heavy metal singer who's been wailing in the background articulates the following brilliant lyric about this phenomenal pizza opportunity: "It mocks your silly rules!" Best. Ad. Ever.

Tenacious D is right: you can't kill The Metal.

That's about right

From the "Arts Scene Forum" on cleveland.com, the online home of The Plain Dealer:

To Anyone it May Concern,
I’m a college student returning to Cleveland, and I want to bring the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony to the city of rock as well. Any information, names, numbers, advice would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time, It will not be wasted.
Shine On,L. Palsa

The one and only response:

rock and roll fans are hoodlums