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I take it back about Susan Boyle; great version of the Stones' Wild Horses

I knocked Susan Boyle the other day while breaking my own cardinal rule. I didn't even listen to her work, in this case, before commenting. Silly.

I take it back. (Although I do maintain there does not seem to be the same buzz about her now. Of course she's no longer 'new').

At any rate, nice job on Wild Horses, Susan.

Like all great cover versions, Boyle's take on The Rolling Stones' Wild Horses is different enough to be worth it. 

And as many Stones' fans (me among them) have suggested, it also reiterates just what quality, varied work the Stones have done, and what a beautiful song Wild Horses is, whether it's the Stones or anyone else doing it. As anyone who has listened to their full catalogue knows, they're one of the most diverse and eclectic rock and roll bands out there.

Meanwhile, searching Boyle's version led me to The Sundays version and then to U2's version of Paint It Black, which they covered as a B-side in 1992. It made for, as so many internet searches are, a well-worth-it trip through YouTube.

 

Sept. 20, 2007: The original 'Led Zeppelin as rip-off artists' post continues to resonate

More than 2 years ago I posted my thoughts on Led Zeppelin, a band whose music I like, but can't help downgrade just a bit due to their habit of ripping off blues artists.

It remains the most-commented on post ever on Blogovich, which does tell you about Zep's impact, for better or worse.

The latest comment, this from erik burk at eburk77@gmail.com and now approved. 

"Oh the jealousy. What have YOU created, blogodouche? So easy to be the critic. Critics are just failed creators, which all of you are who put down the most popular and influential rock band of our time. Funny, I stumbled on this like trying to find some obscure article on some dead bluesman. Google "Led Zeppelin" and see what you get, losers."

Well, I create this blog and its posts and, hey, it drew you. I used to create a multiple-times-weekly sports column that drew readers. And I've always at least done my own work.

I'm not so sure Zeppelin ever actually 'created' much. Google away, or read books, and learn.

Besides, it's all a matter of taste and as mentioned, I enjoy Zep - in fact was repeatedly playing them the other day. And it's got nothing to do with jealousy. It's about integrity. And Zeppelin by many if not most musical accounts - on account of their shameless crediting to themselves of blues songs - has little.

Robert Plant, I can handle, aside from his ridiculous characterizations of former Deep Purple and Whitesnake singer David
Coverdale as 'David Cover-version' for appropriating Zep sounds in late-1980s Whitesnake. Talk about the pot calling . . . 

Aside from that, though, one must grant that Plant has had a successful solo career.

But ask yourself - what has Jimmy Page done outside of Zeppelin? Except, ironically, a decent album with Coverdale? Why does he keep trying to convince Plant to re-unite? What has he (Page) written? Can he not find any more blues tunes to appropriate and claim as his own to the unknowing?

And didn't Page and Plant try, and essentially fail, to recapture the magic with their only non-Zep fuelled album Walking Into Clarksdale? Obviously Plant realized the magic had gone, unless they were playing old Zep stuff.

What did Page, aside from many (and excellent) session stints with many name bands and his own stint in the Yardbirds, do as a bandleader/songwriter (?) before Jeff Beck's Truth album in 1968, an album almost universally seen as the template for the first Led Zeppelin album?

And please don't reference The Firm, his 1980s band with Paul Rodgers. Even Rodgers couldn't save him.

Love Zep if you want; I do too. Just don't call them, and particularly Jimmy Page, creators. Appropriators, adaptors, yes. Enjoyable, yes. Creators? In some instances, yes. But most of the time? No.

Susan Boyle is back in the news, allegedly. Anyone care?

Susan Boyle, the singer who made good almost a year ago, is back in the news, apparently. An album is coming out. She's on a publicity tour.

Doesn't seem to be much buzz, though. I know, for example, in our newsroom here at the Waterloo Region Record, every move she made back when she was really famous :-) was cause for turning things upside down and ensuring that all things Susan were written, posted, and tracked.

Now, not so much.

That 15 minutes thing, you know . . . 

Why is Gretzky default position for coaching jobs?

Wayne Gretzky. Great player. Arguably the greatest. Lousy coach. The record speaks for itself. Never a playoff team in Phoenix (and don't give me this nonsense, though I know it's coming, that the Coyotes are doing well this year because Gretzky 'built' them; no, they're doing well because Dave Tippett can actually coach and doesn't have friends and parasites alongside).

So why, then, any time an NHL coaching job is open, or speculated to be open, or, heaven forbid, Canada needs some Olympic help, is Gretzky mentioned by even respected and healthily-skeptical sportswriters?

Yeah, respect the guy for what he was. As a player. But as a coach and hockey administrator? Get serious.

Habs with their lousy uniforms got what they deserved

See? Habs lost in a shootout tonight against Detroit. Bad unis, bad karma.

 

Montreal Canadiens, everyone: ENOUGH with commemorative, third, fourth, fifth uniforms! They stink!!!

So I tune in to my cable TV sports pak tonight, want to avoid the Toronto Maple Leafs and, lo and behold, on Manitoba CBC loom the Montreal Canadiens against the Detroit Red Wings - classic so-called Original Six matchup both in terms of history and classic uniforms.

My first glance was a Red Wing. Beautiful. The traditional uniforms. Then, the camera panned. Panned being the operative word. Ugh. The Habs elect to trot out their 1909-10 unis. BLUE. Look, you idiots, blue is PART of the classic Montreal Canadiens uniform. A relatively MINOR part. NOT the main aspect of it. I frankly don't care what was what in 1909-10 in terms of what the uni was; the NHL itself wasn't even in existence then.

Besides which, the unis are brutal. And they're wrecking, as we say, a great uni matchup. When you go to a game, that's part of it. Or should be. That's a major reason why nobody attends Atlanta Thrashers-Nashville Predators games. Too many hockey sticks in logos, for one thing. Bad colour schemes . . . need I go on?

Look, OK, fine, the Habs celebrated their 100th anniversary last season and trotted out assorted historical looks, including tonight's. That was fine, with gusts to great, even. THEN. It was a special season - at least in terms of celebrating the franchise; on the actual ice, it devolved into something less than satisfying if you're a Montreal follower.

BUT IT'S OVER. Park the unis. PLEASE.

But no. This year, already, for apparently no particular reason other than to try to sell more 100th anniversary DVDs, the Habs have trotted out tonight's abominations from 1909-10, those 1913 barbershop striped jobs, and earlier this year in Calgary, the spitting image of green Minnesota Wild lookalike unis.

Ridiculous. Absurd. What, praytell, is the franchise celebrating now?

Look: when I and I bet many others tune in the Montreal Canadiens, I want to see the classic CH with the base red (home) or base white (road) uniform we all know and love/hate or, at least, respect.

It's not just the Habs, of course. There are so many alternate uniforms in sports now -- and yes, we know it's all about marketing but how about the fans sending a message and not buying them -- that you can't even tell who you are watching half the time.

Enough, already.

I will say that some throwback or third uniforms work. For instance, recently the Leafs were in Chicago and wore their 60s era 'frilly leaf' white unis against the Blackhawks, as the Leafs often do against the Habs. Beautiful. The Leafs should alter their regular unis slightly and go full-bore with that 60s look, home and away. ANYTHING but the ugly look the Leafs wore from 1970-71 to the early 1990s with the all-the-way-down-the-arm blue piping and just two solid stripes on the socks instead of the classic three stripes they thankfully returned to.

Even with the expansion teams, the Buffalo Sabres obviously look WAY better in the duds (now an alternate look) with which they broke into the NHL in 1970-71. Picky point: they should get the socks right, though, go back to the Maple Leafs-inspired by former Leafs coach-GM and first Sabres coach-GM Punch Imlach three-stripe look. The first Sabres uniforms were essentially the classic Leafs look with a slightly different colour scheme.

Aside from that, awesome, Buffalo, with your original-turned-third unis. So get rid - permanently - of the so-called 'slug' logo official look.

As for the Habs, they're down 2-0 to Detroit past the midway mark of the second period at this writing. Looks good on 'em, wearing those unis.

Yeah, sure, we all grew up dreaming of competing in Olympic 'skeleton'

From today's Toronto Star story on Canadian skeleton racer Mellisa Hollingsworth's Olympic dreams.

 She's quoted as saying, regarding her bronze medal in the event at Turin: "It's obviously what you dream of ever since you were little."

Hmm. Anyone out there ever dream of winning the skeleton event in the Olympics?

Look, I wish her well, I suppose. And maybe I'm showing my age and preference for so-called traditional sports, and I respect whatever athleticism is involved. (Likely more athleticism than is shown by your average overweight heart attack waiting to happen pro football lineman, for instance - though from what I've been able to discern, any National Skeleton League that might exist can't hold a candle to the NFL or CFL in terms of attendance figures, TV ratings and, in the NFL's case, pool participation).

Skeleton isn't exactly new (just new in terms of Canadians being half-decent at it; it's only become relatively known here in recent years). It has been in the Olympics for years, dating back to at least 1948.

But seriously, folks. What next, awarding medals to those who go tobogganing on winter weekends?

Yet another once-every-four-years-invent-a-sport-win-a-medal-activity. 

People: New England threw a 2-yards or less pass on 4th and 2, that's the issue

All the former players and coaches and failed players and coaches and assorted parasites and "boy am I stealing money for this nonsense" yelling "c'mon man!!!" on the NFL Monday Night analysis team are going just wacko on the pre-game show about Sunday night's New England-Indy game and the famous/infamous Patriot gamble on 4th down and 2. Whether the spot was right, this, that, whatever.

As noted in the previous post - no issue on this had New England made it, had the Patriots threw just a teensy-weensy longer pass and/or run the ball or done whatever they had to do to gain the necessary 2 freaking yards.

End of story. 

Why is Tedy Bruschi yelling at us?

Why is former New England Patriot linebacker Tedy Bruschi yelling at us on Monday Night Football pre-game in analyzing this now-famous 4th and 2?

Tedy, yell at Bill Belichick if you feel so passionate about this, which is understandable - unless you've moved on in your life from football which you obviously have not.

I would advise Bruschi come out of retirement so he can take out the aggression that still lurks within.

Down, boy. Sheesh.

Belichick not necessarily an idiot for going for it on 4th and 2

Interesting analysis today from the Boston Globe on the New England Patriots' decision to go for it last night on 4th down and 2 against the Indianapolis Colts (and regardless, didn't that game remind you of the playoff game between the teams the year the Peyton Manning-led Colts finally won the Super Bowl? Patriots got out to a big lead in that one, too, before Indy rallied to win.)

Just a quick aside here. I have Jeopardy! the game show on, haven't watched in a while, formerly addicted, and boy have they changed the set. What's with the sort of Star Trek bridge metallic look?

Back to football. Of course, had NE made the first down last night, Belichick would have been hailed as even more of a so-called genius. 

(Then again, whatever your decision-making process, throwing a 2-yard or less pass when you need 2 yards is somewhat un-genius-like, no?)

But speaking of coaches and genius, I don't buy into the largely American notion of field-general quarterbacks and coaches (sorry, in the U.S. you're a Coach, Capital C) treated as war generals, but I will say this about Belichick, and I really have no strong opinion on him either way beyond respecting (and often learning from the tenets of) the successful folk in any field. 

He defies convention. Doesn't anyone remember Super Bowl XXXVI, you know, No. 36, played in January of 2002, thereby being the championship game of the 2001 season?

Anyway...that was the game where Tom Brady took the Patriots down the field for a game-winning field goal in the waning seconds against the heavily-favoured St. Louis Rams - defying NFL convention (and the apoplectic John Madden in the broadcast booth who was screaming that the Patriots should play it safe, take a knee and take their chances in overtime).

In that Super Bowl the Patriots defied accepted convention, and won. So why should anyone be surprised by what Belichick did Sunday night? In Super Bowl XXXVI, a.k.a. 36, 2001 championship played in 2002, he won. Last night, he lost.

By the way, as was mentioned on the broadcast re the game's importance in terms of home-field advantage for a potential playoff meeting, it's much easier to see New England coming back into Indy and winning than it is to see Indy going to New England and winning, though that likely won't happen now anyway.