“All In” On The World Series Of Poker

Last night I was flipping through the channels when I heard one of my favorite tracks of 2009, “All In” by The Grouch & Eligh (with a little help from my oft-mentioned favorite LA underground rapper, Pigeon John, as well as Flynn Adam). No, this wasn’t on MTV, BET, or FUSE. Instead the song (very appropriately) soundtracked a montage on ESPN’s World Series of Poker coverage, which you can watch at the bottom of this post. I haven’t been religiously following this year’s World Series of Poker, but I am intrigued by the story of amateur Steven Begleiter, a Bear Stearns financial analyst that has worked his way into the November 9.

Killer tracks like “All In” prove that these Living Legends members still are on top of their game. A laid-back jam with some great subtle synth lines, “All In” also benefits greatly from Pigeon John’s smooth vocal stylings on the chorus. While I’ve been pretty disappointed with the hip hop scene over the past decade, it’s great to know that there are still talented musicians laying down jams like this.

The Grouch & Eligh on MySpace

Pigeon John on MySpace

Head To Head Episode 7

It’s been a tough football season for me, and all the other Redskin fans out there. Now that my only hope is that the team tanks for a top 5 pick in the draft, I’ve been focusing my energies on following other football story lines, and the one that has me the most intrigued lately is that of two rival high schools in Mississippi, the Wayne County War Eagles and the West Jones Mustangs. Awhile back I posted the first episode of Head To Head, the reality series that is following the two teams as they battle under for supremacy under the Friday night lights.

Well, folks, Wayne County and West Jones finally had their much-anticipated show down, and I thought I would post the last episode of Head To Head that aired before they played. This last episode focused heavily on how football and real-life intersect, and shows stories of previous and current players at both high schools as they made the transition from high school athlete to college. You’ll hear the challenges that former West Jones star linebacker Archie Sims faced to gain academic qualification, as well as that of Jerrell Powe, the former Wayne County star defensive tackle and almost surefire future NFL player who had to wait three years before he could play in college. You’ll get to hear the maturation process of future Southern Miss defensive end Dasmond McCullum, as he builds himself up from a soft basketball player into a terrorizing QB-killer. You will also see that Wayne County’s Jerrell Gandy, Malik Lofton, and Marion Chapman also have a chance to play big-time college ball.

You’ll also get to hear “Enchanted Hill” by The Album Leaf again. As you may recall, “Enchanted Hill” was also featured in the first episode of Head To Head, and just like “First Breath After the Coma” by Explosions in the Sky, “Enchanted Hill” makes for the perfect epic football music. The song plays in Part 1 of this episode, about 2 mins and 50 seconds in.

I won’t spoil the results of the actual game for you, because the entire game is posted on Cellular South’s website (unfortunately it was too big for me to post myself), so I would advise this – check out the episodes of Head To Head to get you ready for the action, and then watch the game yourself.

Head To Head Episode 7 Intro – The story of Archie Sims

Head To Head Episode 7 Part 1 – Dasmond McCullum prepares for college; Wayne County has a few players poised to play at the next level, too

Head To Head Episode 7 Part 2 – Jerrell Powe fights through adversity to make it to Ole Miss

Head To Head Episode 7 Part 3 – Life after high school football

Those of you who have watched the entire series like  I have, know that this should have definitely played on ESPN instead of just regional television and online, but I’m still glad to have been turned on to this wonderful series. I can only salivate at the possibility of Jerrell Powe lining up next to Big Albert Haynesworth sometime in the near future.

Back to The Album Leaf, as I was listening to “Enchanted Hill” again, I realized that this band is at the top of my list as far as bands I love that I haven’t seen live, in some elite company amongst the likes of Godspeed! You Black Emperor, The xx, Girls, Built to Spill, and Sigur Ros. Here’s hoping for a tour featuring at least two of these artists in 2010.

The Album Leaf on MySpace

Lie To Me Blasts Some Bijou

Tim Roth is a bonafide badass. He made his first impression on me as a teenager when I was introduced to Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, and has carved out a nice career with roles in Rob Roy, Planet of the Apes, and The Incredible Hulk (which I actually thought was a really good movie…but maybe that’s just becuase the Ang Lee Hulk was so bad).

Roth’s latest project, Lie To Me, is one of the most original shows on television. When I first saw the promos for this show, I couldn’t help but think back to the classic Christopher Walken-Dennis Hopper scene from True Romance, where Walken says he learned all the different pantomimes people do to give themselves away when they are lying. In Lie To Me, Roth plays Dr. Cal Lightman, who helps out law enforcement agencies to expose the truth behind lies. It’s a great concept, and one that gives the writers a great amount of flexibility in the story lines they can come up with.

In last night’s episode, Cal and co. are assigned to look into a college football player accused of statutory rape (unfortunately, stories like this are all too common these days in the real world). During their investigation, they snoop around a college party to find more answers, and this particular scene jumped out. First, it had great realism – so many party scenes in movies and TV look nothing like an actual party. This actually captured the awkward crowdedness of the whole deal, and felt real. To top it off, one of my favorite party tracks of ‘09 was bumping in the background, the song “Bang” by Bijou.

I saw Bijou perform a few times when I was visiting old college friends down in San Diego, and the guy brings a tremendous amount of raw energy to the stage. “Bang” makes for the perfect party music, but also something that would work well as an entrance theme for a boxer (I’m thinking Jeff Lacy here). The beat, like Bijou’s rapping, is confident and propulsive, but never gets obnoxiously bassy or in-your-face like so much modern hip hop. Check out the scene below and see for yourself.

Edit: Sorry guys, I didn’t realize that my video had been taken down from DailyMotion, but I’ve remedied that. Click on the image below and it will play the scene on Hulu.

Bijou on MySpace

The Album Leaf Soundtrack A PSA

Recently, one of my reader’s who enjoyed Head to Head (which featured music from The Album Leaf), brought to my attention that the band’s music has also been featured in a recent public service announcement. The song used is “The Light,” and the commercial is part of a volunteerism campaign being conducted by the Entertainment Industry Foundation.This particular commercial focuses on helping out military families, but the overall campaign is all about getting people to help out in the community and volunteer in general. Good cause, good music. It’s certainly a breathe of fresh air (especially for an LA resident who is used to reading negative story after story concerning celebrity behavior) to see people with high visibility speaking up for something important. Not to preach, but I think you should all consider the message of this campaign for one second, and try to think of just one small way you could volunteer your time to help out those less fortunate than yourself.

Check the commercial out below (and thanks again to Todd for pointing it out to me).

Jennifer’s Body

I love camp horror films. Ever since staying up late one night as a young teen to watch The Rage, I’ve always taken to these movies, so when I first heard of Jennifer’s Body, I knew that would be a movie I would check out. Yes, the plot was ridiculous – but honestly, that’s part of the fun. Horror movies that take themselves seriously generally end up boring me to death. Instead, Jennifer’s Body does a great job of mixing in dark humor, some gnarly special effects, and just an excellent overall feel of how a good camp horror movie should be. Awesome special effectS? Check. A few corny one-liners? Check. Super-hot female? Check. Rockin’ music? CHECK.

I go both ways when it comes to really heavy music. Some of it just sounds like mindless rubbish. However, some ultra-heavy bands really bring a lot to the table musically, and aren’t just around to give an excuse to idiots to beat people up in the moshpit (see Between the Buried and Me, Trivium, etc). One such band, It Dies Today, shows up in Jennifer’s Body, as the song “Sacre Couer” blasts during the scene where Jennifer consoles Jonas at the football field. It Dies Today are the type of band that pummel you into submission, but don’t do so in a robotic way that insults your intelligence like so many other heavy bands. Do yourself a favor and check this track out.

The only problem? For some reason, somebody decided to leave “Sacre Couer” off the soundtrack, while tracks from the likes of Cobra Starship and Dashboard Confessional made the cut. Well, I suppose they do have to sell copies of the soundtrack to all the tweens that will see this movie, but I for one won’t be making the purchase. That said, this is just a small gripe as the movie was great, and it had other great music included as well, such as Hole’s “Violet.”  Check out the trailer below, as well as a YouTube video where you can listen to the whole song:

It Dies Today on MySpace

NHL ‘10 and Need For Speed Shift Debut With Rockin’ Soundtracks

Video game licensing has come a long way. It seems as if the days are gone (or at least going away) where games were filled with only garbage from the likes of The Ataris, Puddle of Mudd, and wannabe-Nickelbacks. This is a rather recent development, which I enjoy a lot – especially in my favorite type of game, sports games. Something about the right music puts you in the adrenaline-filled mood to play a good sports game, and this past week I picked up Need For Speed Shift and NHL ‘10, and am thrilled with the gameplay and soundtracks for both. I’ll leave the gameplay review to the experts, but both are getting near unanimous praise -definitely worth picking up.

I’ll start with NHL ‘10 and its use of Earl Greyhound’s “Oye Vaya.” While the game does feature some lame artists (Papa Roach, Nickelback) the surprise selection of Earl Greyhound just about makes up for it. For those unfamiliar, Earl Greyhound makes hard-hitting, straight-up rock n’ roll, the likes of which has been missing in the mainstream for a LONG time. No gimmicks, no unnecessary tricks. Just rock. I first discovered Earl Greyhound thanks to My Old Kentucky Blog’s Laundromatinee sessions, and you can check out the rad performance of that song below, as well as some NHL ‘10 gameplay :

Earl Greyhound on MySpace

I’ve been playing the Need For Speed series since about 1997 – in fact, Need For Speed was the first game I owned on the original Playstation. Now that we’re in a Blu-Ray, HD, PS3 world, it’s obvious that the game has come a long way. This is the first Need For Speed on a next-gen system I’ve played, and the physics and graphics are off the hook…compliment that with the great track “Under Control” by Rootbeer (which features previous blog favorites, Pigeon John) and I couldn’t be happier. Check out this great fan-captured live performance of this ultra-smooth song below:

Rootbeer on MySpace

New Tracks On Hit Machine

My Hit Machine addiction is still in full effect, and now the folks at OMGPOP have made it even harder for me to be productive, by releasing new tracks to the game. I already was happy with the 20 or so songs that they launched the game with, which I thought had some great diversity (Chromeo, Tokyo Police Club, Black Lips, Valient Thor). Well, now they’ve added additional tracks to the game, and I personally was stoked about “Come My Sunshine” by The Comas, and “The Unbeliever” by Middle Distance Runner. I’ve blogged about both of these artists before, so readers of this blog won’t find it all surprising to hear me gush about these tunes.

The best thing about “The Unbeliever” is the awesome claymation music video. I actually found it kind of distracting as I was playing the game because even though I’ve seen this video a dozen times, it’s just some cool eye candy that’s tough to look away from. Of course none of this would mean anything if the song was annoying, but it’s a great, non-pretentious straight up rocker. Also, for those of you looking to unlock higher levels of difficulty in Hit Machine, this is a relatively easy song to play, so knock yourself out with it.

Even though the song is two years old, “Come My Sunshine” has been getting some recent love. I was pleasantly surprised when it was featured in ESPN’s “Being Maya Gabeira” piece, and even happier to see it added to Hit Machine this week. The music video isn’t as cool as “The Unbeliever” – in fact some of the “Smells Like Teen Spirit”-esque band shots get really annoying, but it is a great song that reminds me in many ways of LA darlings, Silversun Pickups.

The Comas on MySpace

Middle Distance Runner on MySpace

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Football season is just upon us, so I thought I might share this countdown of the 50 most brutal college football hits to get you all pumped up (as if football fans need any more reasons to get amped. for the new season). My personal favorite? Well, it was also #1 on this list, too. New Washington Redskin Kevin Barnes’ devastating hit on Cal’s Jahvid Best caused him to vomit right on the field.

I was also just about to get bummed over the fact that Hard Knocks was over, but my buddy just turned me on to a new documentary show (I refuse to call it a ‘reality’ show, since this actually appears unscripted) about two rival high school football teams in Mississippi, the Wayne County War Eagles and the West Jones Mustangs. The show is called Head to Head, and it is only being shown regionally on TV, but you can watch it online, right here.

It’s a surprisingly well-made documentary considering the lack of exposure – when I first heard about it, I was expecting it to be like those high school football news reels. But watch it for yourself, and you will see that this is a high-quality production – it’s filling the Hard Knocks void beautifully.

The icing on the cake? A great music choice, with the track “Enchanted Hill” by The Album Leaf. The Album Leaf are like Explosions in the Sky, with a more electronic, less guitar-centric approach. I guess you could say they split the difference between Explosions and Sigur Ros. No matter, they’re great. As Friday Night Lights proved, football goes well with epic post-rockesque music, and hearing “Enchanted Hill” in Head To Head (starts at the beginning of the third video “Part 2″ below) gave me goose bumps.

Updates: FYI, West Jones plays Wayne County on October 23. Also, if you like The Album Leaf, they recently also soundtracked a PSA for volunteerism.

Head to Head – Introduction

Part 1 – The Season Begins

Part 2 – The Origins of the Rivalry

Part 3 – Game Time For Wayne County

Hit Machine

So, Time Magazine just released a list of their Top 50 Best Websites for 2009. While I’m a little butt-hurt that I didn’t make the list, that didn’t stop me from checking out some of the sites. While there are some of the usual suspects such as Yelp, Twitter, Google, and Hulu, they also had some interesting sites I had never heard of before. One such site, which I visited just based off it’s name, is OMGPOP.

OMGPOP is an interactive online arcade, with their own versions of popular games that you can play with other people. These include  Blockies (Tetris), Letterblox (Scrabble), and more – all perfect ‘time theft’ activities to engage in while at work. However, my favorite has got to be Hit Machine, which is OMGPOP’s answer to Guitar Hero. I’ve been ultra-addicted to this ever since it came out, not only because it brings a classic game to my fingertips while sitting at the computer, but also because of the excellent song choices. Add on the fact that it’s not only guitar (you play some keyboard or synth lines, too depending on the song), and you have a recipe for addiction.

Below, I will leave you with my thoughts on some of my favorite songs from the game, and, if I can, some tips for beating them. Keep checking back often, as I will be updating this throughout the week.

Tokyo Police Club – “Your English Is Good”

This song is an up-beat, catchy jangle, with some great clap-a-long action going on in the background. It’s one of the songs available to you right away on the “Easy” skill level in the game, so you can play it right from the start. Just establish the groove in your head and you should have no trouble with this one, although I always get distracted by the music video, which plays to the right of the gameplay window…you’re trying to concentrate and then you get all stoked on watching the music video and forget you’re playing. One tip : for the section where you have the fast runs up and down the keys J – K – L and back, I found it was too distracting to try look at the fretboard. Instead, just remember you’re going up and down, and listen to the song – it’s a lot easier to stay in rhthym that way (I discovered this after about 10 epic FAIL attempts at getting through this section).

Coming soon:  Islands “Creeper,” Black Lips “Short Fuse,” and more!

I will leave you all with a video of me beating “Your English Is Good.”

Youth In Revolt

I can’t believe I had never heard of this movie until yesterday, but Youth In Revolt, a movie adapation of the C.D. Lang book is coming to theaters October 30 and it will star Michael Cera as Nick Twisp. I’ve had this book recommended to me countless trusted friends, but have been to busy to get around to reading it. Well, now I get to watch the movie instead, and it has one of my favorite actors, Michael Cera. Ever since seeing him star in Arrested Development (my all-time favorite show) as the earnest and awkard George Michael Bluth, I’ve been a fan of Cera’s work. Superbad was great, too.

If the trailer is any real indication, this looks like it’ll be a great movie, regardless of the good casting decision. The movie looks to be a unique take on the “dorky boy trys to win girl” plot, and seeing Michael Cera playing two personalities looks like the funniest dual roll since Eddie Murphy in Bowfinger. And as if that’s not enough to get me psyched up for the movie, I was stoked to hear one of my well-documented favorite songs, “Timebomb” by the Old 97’s. Here’s hoping they feature more music from Rhett Miller and company in the film.

The Old 97’s on MySpace