One win from a bowl game...

Best of 120 Minutes: Figured that since I featured videos from Veruca Salt and Liz Phair over the past two weeks I might as well complete the Wicker Park triumvirate and play Urge Overkill. There was a brief moment in the early 90’s when Chicago was considered to be a hip music town. It really just consisted of these three bands and the Smashing Pumpkins (sometimes people would stretch and include Hum and Poster Children but in all honesty, I’m the only person on the planet who still remembers those bands.) It’s strange as to how few good rock bands came from Chicago. Until the early 90’s the best group was Styx as Cheap Trick is technically from Rockford. Anyway, at one point in my life I recommended Urge Overkill (and Sister Havana in particular) as proof of my awesome taste in music. Yeah, that didn’t really work out for me.

I find it incredibly funny that the first game that Notre Dame wins is the one that I don’t watch. If I watch every down they play horribly. If I avoid the game completely they pull off a big road upset. In the words of that wonderful poet Alanis Morisette, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think.” Well, at least I now don’t have to worry about a winless season. It’s still going to be a brutal season but that and a loss by USC makes life more bearable.

Plus, I did get to watch my Illini pull off one of their biggest wins ever. Ok, so it was a completely overranked Wisconsin team and I think that a few people had us as the favorites but damnit, we officially beat the number five team in the nation and that’s all I’m going to focus on. Do you know how long it has been since we beat a top five team? Hell, do you know how long it has been since we’ve won three conference games in a season? As always, I’m impressed by the current generation of Illini fans, who always wear orange and are loud and rambunctious. This is counter to when I was a student where we made up the most cynical fanbase ever. We booed our own team on homecoming. Admittedly, anyone who gives up a 17 point lead to Northwestern on homecoming deserves to be booed.

I’m just happy that my school is actually respectable in football again. Illinois is a school that never gets the respect it deserves. It’s one of the top schools in the country but no one ever realizes it. I was in a EE program that is equivalent to that at MIT, Stanford and Berkley but it’s tough to get anyone to admit it. Though I was happy to see that Dr. Holonyak got mentioned in the publicity commercial for the school at halftime. I met him a couple of times and the guy only invented the LED. Not a minor accomplishment.

Ok, there is one big music story that I need to touch on. As I mentioned last week, when I saw Arcade Fire with a three quarters filled Starlight I had my faith in humanity restored. Then I remembered that Garth Brooks was playing the Sprint Center in KC and I lost it again. Well, the tickets went on sale on Saturday and not only did that show sell out but they added eight additional shows. I’m not making this up. There is so much demand for Garth Brooks tickets in KC that he can sell out a basketball arena for nine consecutive nights. I’m not sure if this is a good sign for Kansas City or humanity in general.

Seriously, do you have any desire to see Garth Brooks? Even in a post-ironic “let’s make fun of the crowd” sense of the term? We’re talking about someone who hasn’t been relevant for a decade. Given that there are roughly 18,000 seats this means that nearly 150,000 people in this region want to see him play. That’s frightening. There is no other way to put it. I was one of like forty people seeing Mark Olson play. I doubt that Polyphonic Spree will sell out a small venue. But enough people for a sizable city want to see Garth. Just bizarre.

The five random CDs for the week:
1) Belly “Star”
2) Cowboy Junkies “The Trinity Sessions”
3) Bob Dylan “The Essential Bob Dylan”
4) Jack Ingram “Jack Ingram”
5) The Gourds “Shinebox”