Thursday, July 30, 2009
Michigan
Monday, July 27, 2009
Friday, July 24, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
When Doug and I showed up to the Troy race, nearly the first thing we saw was a racer, unconscious on the ground, being attended to by an ambulance. Great. We registered and received our info packet and race number. Being late in the season, I hadn't applied for a US Cycling #, so I had to pay an additional 1 day license fee of $10.
While the JRs were finishing up, I reconnoitered the course briefly. Once the race was finished, the judges gave us time for one lap around the course. Wow - there are a lot of turns.
They called us to the line and while I was nervous, my heart rate wasn't going too crazy. The judge gave out a few quick details and shouted "Bang!" - the race was underway.
24 riders, no one with that much experience. If they had experience, they would be racing CAT 4. Nice gentle push off and with surround sound of pedals clicking into place, the group heads for turn one. Nice and easy. There's some communicating in the pack to let racers know that they're on the inside or outside of another racer. I'm not one of them. I'm very tightlipped. But hearing the chatter reminds me to communicate.
The laps start to tick off. The pace, while not easy, is definitely not hard. I grab onto a wheel and
keep my position until that rider starts to fall back. I spot another rider and make the jump. Sometimes I'm near the front, other times, I'm near the back - but always with the main group. Rounding the fountain is a bit tricky. Nearly 270 degrees of turning and you have to stay on your line. After the fountain is a long straightaway. The pace always got high here. And of course, the wind is hitting right in the face - so I was always looking to ride someone's wheel - except for lap 10. For some reason, the peloton (hardly but it's nice to say) wasn't going its usual quick pace. Everyone sorta slowed down. I found myself riding at a comfortable pace, on the inside of the group, about halfway back with a clear shot right up the line. I had about three seconds to think about it and thought "this is the only workout you're doing today, you'd better make it a good one." So I took it.I reached down on the drop bars, popped into a bigger gear and just gunned it right past the grandstand and all of the other racers. I knew they'd jump on me but I had nothing to lose.(except the race and I wasn't going to win that anyhow) Two thoughts crept into my mind 1) holy crap it's fun to go fast and in the lead and 2) I have no idea how to corner going this fast but luckily I get whatever line I want.
It felt amazing.
It also only lasted about one lap. I ran out of gas. Right about the same place, another rider guned it up the outside, leaving me in a whimpering, thigh burning heap. Didn't matter. It was totally fun.
I squeezed everything I could out of my legs and clung to the back of the lead group. The finishers sprinted it out. I dug in and gave whatever I could to the sprint, ending a few seconds after the leaders. My chest was feeling the pains of going anaerobic but I loved it. Not exactly the best way to lead into an Olympic triathlon the next morning, but certainly a way to get addicted to criterium racing.
Friday, July 17, 2009
Fwd: Internship Opportunity & Announcements
Pass this along!!
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Wanna be a correspondent at this summer's hottest MTV festivals and concerts? We're searching for a *Rock Reporter* to go on tour with us (5 dates in August and the weekend of the VMAs), getting exclusive artist interviews, covering today's up and coming top comedians and highlighting all the action happening on the ground....leading up to the final event at the Video Music Awards weekend. All of your experiences will be documented and fans can check out your video updates online. Want a chance at this amazing opportunity?
Email us your name, contact info, photo and why you want to be MTV's Rock Reporter to *castme@mtvu.com* (and please cc: nycastingteam@gmail.com because the mailbox tends to fill quickly). You will be compensated and travel / hotel expenses will be covered.
*IMPORTANT*: Put the words "*MEIEA*" in the subject line.
Good Luck Everyone!
David SchreiberMEIEA Secretary
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Friday, July 10, 2009
"The mighty Jesus Lizard return to Chicago for Pitchfork festival"
For most of the ‘90s, the best live band anywhere was the Jesus Lizard. Their cut-throat music may not have been for everyone, but the Chicago quartet’s performances were everything a rock ‘n’ roll show should be: a spontaneous blast of personality in which anything could happen, and often did.
So when the Jesus Lizard set foot on a Chicago stage next Friday at the Pitchfork Music Festival for the first time in more than a decade, singer David Yow, guitarist Duane Denison, bassist David Wm. Sims and drummer Mac McNeilly will have a certain standard to uphold.
“I want to live up to that,” says Yow, the band’s primary on-stage provacateur. “I’ve been hitting the gym pretty hard.”
What’s the world coming to? David Yow working out?
“We’re thinking of calling ourselves The Old Jesus Lizard,” he says. “But the main objective is to play these songs as good as we possibly can.”
The type of nostalgia that leads to reunions has never been part of the Jesus Lizard mind set. As Denison says, “We wanted to be the one band that didn’t do a reunion. It almost feels like a cliché for bands to do the reunion thing and do an album, and most of them aren’t that great.”
But it turns out the band felt it had some unfinished business.
In its 1987-99 lifetime, the Jesus Lizard ripped it up on several continents, played hundreds of shows, recorded a half-dozen studio albums and left behind a legacy that still brings involuntary smiles to the faces of those who were there when Yow threw himself into harm’s way. Nirvana were such huge fans that they cut a split single with the Jesus Lizard in 1993.
The music didn’t just have teeth, it snarled; the riffs concocted by Denison and Sims were thick with menace and tattooed themselves on the subconscious, the kind of sound you’d imagine hearing in a bad dream or a slasher movie. The heavy-hitting McNeilly somehow made it all swing, the indie-rock answer to Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham. And Yow was one of a kind: jester, exhibitionist, instigator, daredevil. He suffered broken ribs, was knocked unconscious and tried to set himself on fire, all in the name of rock ‘n’ roll -- truly the greatest show on two legs.
The quartet’s reputation and record sales expanded through the decade. But after McNeilly quit in 1997 to stay home with his young family (he now has three children) and was replaced by Jim Kimball, the band was never really the same. Two years later it played a final show in Sweden, and then drifted apart.
“I had told an interviewer earlier in the day that there was a good chance it could be our last show,” Yow says of the 1999 concert. “And when we performed the last song, I felt privy to a secret that no one in the room knew. It had become a job; we should’ve called it quits when Mac left the band.”
Yow settled in Los Angeles, where he worked in computer graphics and then began playing with the band Qui. Denison ended up in Nasvhille, Tenn., where he has continued to play music in several bands, most recently the Legendary Shack Shakers. And Sims wound up in New York, where he practiced accounting and dabbled in home recording projects.
Denison says the notion of a reunion had been discussed off and on for a few years, but didn’t gain any traction until the band got an offer from avant-rocker Mike Patton and the Melvins to play a festival they were curating last year in England. The Jesus Lizard couldn’t make the date last year, but when it was discovered that everyone in the band’s original lineup was interested, the foursome scheduled some rehearsals last January at Denison’s Nashville studio.
“It’s a very flat and dry-sounding room, there is no fooling yourself, and David Yow was a little put off the first day because we didn’t sound that good,” Denison says. “But it kept getting better.”
For Yow, the reunion with his old friends and Humboldt Park apartment mates was emotional. He hadn’t seen McNeilly since he left the band; the drummer was in many ways his closest friend in the original lineup.
“When we first saw each other, we hugged for two minutes and giggled like a couple of kids,” Yow says. Performing with McNeilly, Sims and Denison on stage at the first Jesus Lizard reunion show last May at the All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival in England led to another epiphany: “I was really nervous at first and throwing up backstage before we went on. I hadn’t planned on taking my shirt off. But within the first 10 seconds, it was off and I was in the audience and we were in it. I swear to God it was the playing that did it.”
Denison agrees. “It was intense, emotional. None of us will ever have that again. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house, especially from our side of the stage.”
The band’s longtime label, Chicago indie Touch & Go, will punctuate the reunion by reissuing the band’s first four studio albums with bonus material in September. Denison hopes it will prompt a reassessment of the band’s legacy.
“Back in the day, we were primarily known for the live show,” he says. “The albums got a decent critical response and sold well from an indie perspective, but we never got that much respect as songwriters and arrangers. But those albums have legs; they’re showing up on a lot of lists of the best albums of the ‘90s.”
Less clear is what the band will do once its string of approximately 50 reunion shows is capped off by a multi-night stand in Chicago around Thanksgiving.
“When we played our first show ever as a band, we knew it wouldn’t last forever,” Yow says. “This is much more ephemeral. I never thought this would happen, so I’ve learned never to say never.”
greg@gregkot.com
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Pandora (And Other Internet Radio) Has Officially Been Saved
SoundExchange agreeing to a 40-50% reduction in the per-song-per-listener rates. In exchange, Pandora is giving up a 25% share of its U.S. revenue. This agreement runs through 2015."
Monday, July 06, 2009
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Bike the C-Bus - Bicycle Tour of Columbus Ohio United States of America
The Long Street Tour's “Bike the C-Bus” is a fun way to get fit and check out a few of the neighborhoods in and around Columbus. Experience segments of the King Lincoln District, Woodland Park, Downtown, Short North Arts District, Italian Village, University District, Harrison West, Victorian Village, Arena District, Franklinton, Brewery District and German Village.
The entire ride will cover approximately 30 miles over 4 segments and will feature stops that highlight change that is occurring in our neighborhoods. Each stop will be sponsored by businesses and community groups and provide snacks, drinks and entertainment for the riders. The ride is configured to allow cyclists to complete segments if they do not feel comfortable riding the entire route.
The ($25) registration fee includes an official 2009 “Long Street Tour” t-shirt and wristband along with drinks and food at designated rest stops, plus a free lunch at the hospitality tent.
Our goal will be to make “Bike the C-Bus” into the region's premier cycling event celebrating design, health & fitness, and urban lifestyles. “Bike the C-Bus” is considered a ride and not a race and will offer a variety of course options to accommodate everyone from recreational riders to hard-core fitness enthusiasts.
