Category Archives: 30 Clubs in 30 Songs

Before I get to the heart of the post, I must disclose something: I hopped on the San Francisco bandwagon as a kid when they went to the World Series in 1989. I was eight years old, they were winning, and Will Clark and Matt Williams seemed really cool. Hell, Matt Williams was one of my favorite players for a while. But I don’t follow them like that anymore – haven’t for a while. Kinda hard to keep tabs on a team on the other side of the country, you know?

Now, about the song: The music is straight-up thrash metal, as it should be. A lot of early 80’s thrash bands either formed in San Francisco or eventually called the city home… like, say, Metallica. The weird twist at the end is a tribute to Huey Lewis & The News, a band I used to hear a lot as a kid and I consider to be the best bar band you’ve ever heard in your life. The lyrics to this song are about throwing and catching things. Simply put, this team can PITCH… which sorta dictates the subject matter in this case. The first verse is about plunking, which is frankly just me goofing off. Of course, one could say I’ve been goofing off this entire project… which is true, but that’s beside the point. Enjoy!

San Francisco

Next up: Seattle (Friday), St. Louis (Next “Friday” (probably Thursday))

The proprietor of this blog does not condone the practice of plunking batters in real life. He does, however, highly condone said practice in baseball video games.

Here in the Eastern Time Zone, I – well, most people, really – don’t hear much about San Diego. Of course, we’re hearing and seeing a lot more than usual this year because we can’t really ignore a first-place team (which they are, as of this post). Sadly, I still don’t know nearly as much about them as I should. I instead wrote about a phenomenon that happens quite frequently in baseball stadiums across the country: The Ball Chasers. These people will do anything to get their hands on a free baseball… even if it means interfering with play, knocking people over, or even landing on the field face-first. The protagonist – or antagonist, if you prefer – completes his mission and snags a free baseball!… only to find out it wasn’t actually a foul ball.

Musically, this one was pretty simple. Even though there have been a healthy batch of interesting bands to come out of the area, the best-known San Diego-area band for my generation – and the one after – is Blink-182. So, I went for their mid-tempo single-type stuff. In retrospect, maybe I should have held my nose while singing the lead vocals… Anyways, enjoy the tune and I’ll see you next time!

San Diego

Next up: San Francisco (Tuesday), Seattle (Next Friday)

I’ll admit that I do casually follow this team here. Sure, they’ve had a rich recent history of losing, but at this point they’re becoming a pretty fun team to watch… even if they currently have the worst record in the NL. I went to their ballpark last year, too (they lost)… and all the hype over that place is extremely well-deserved.

Lyrically… well, duh. A team name like theirs is gonna trigger lyrics like this. The music, however, was a bit of a quandary. I had no real idea what would work… until my friend Brandon told me that a subgenre called Pirate Metal exists. Armed with the latest of a gazillion revelations I’ve had since this project began, the music seemed to work itself out from there. I still don’t know what I’m doing on the accordion, but I took advantage of my non-abilities here. Quaff some grog and enjoy!

Pittsburgh

The proprietor of this blog wishes to apologize for the lack of “Pittsburghese” in this song.

Next up: San Diego (Next Friday), San Francisco (The following Tuesday)

Like a certain line in Florida, I had a special case set for whichever team had the oldest average age. Since the winner in the age race was Philadelphia, Here’s the result: A song with the line “Get off my lawn” in the chorus! For the rest of the song, I wrote as an angry old man with a severe chip on his shoulder and a cannon for a throwing arm. Admittedly, he and his buddies turn into complete jerks in the bridge… (DISCLAIMER: This is not how I feel about the actual team itself. Truth be told, I kinda like ’em.)

Musically, I had a local band in mind and ready to kill… until I discovered they weren’t from Philadelphia. Armed with that knowledge, I went back to the drawing board and discovered a perfectly viable second option: The Dead Milkmen! I tried to hone their sound as much as possible on this recording: Not too thick of a sound, little to no distortion on the guitar, and bingo. Enjoy… and get off their lawn!

Philadelphia

Up Next: Pittsburgh (Friday), San Diego (Next Friday)

20 down, 10 to go! When I got the idea of writing the songs in this project in the style of a band that comes from the teams’ areas (an idea that really solidified with Atlanta), one band immediately sprung to mind for Oakland: Green Day – one of the most well-known bands from the East Bay region. Since my first taste of them was with their big crossover in 1994, that’s where I went in terms of the music here. Lyrically, I decided to write as a kid just getting called up from Triple-A… only to play in Oakland, home of by far the most expansive foul territory in the majors (I’ve heard people claim that the foul territory in Oakland drops batting averages at least 20 points). But he’s still convinced that if he does something worthwhile in the majors, he’ll “find somewhere else to go,” if the stories about Moneyball are to be believed. When it came time to sing, the melody was fairly simple to put together… mainly because Billie Joe Armstrong and I have quite similar voice ranges. Regardless, this song was a fun way to pay homage to an album that completely changed the way a 13-year-old Ed looked at music. Enjoy!

Oakland

Next up: PENNSYLVANIA (Philadelphia Tuesday, Pittsburgh Friday)

The proprietor of this blog wishes to apologize for the lack of “ghostride the whip” references in this song.

It’s New York Week! Like Chicago and Los Angeles, New York gets two songs for its two teams. The second song is for the AL team, the team we all know and love/hate/love to hate. Nearly every metaphor works (rich kid, bully, mogul), but a rival General Manager gave us an instantly usable nickname: The Evil Empire. With an alias like that, how else was this song going to sound?!

This is a tune where not only did I have a solid idea from the project’s onset, I actually had the last batch of lyrics written down for at least a month. Naturally, I went flat-out evil – and over the top – with this one. I even programmed some synth parts in GarageBand and flew them into Pro Tools – a first for me. The pile of guitars, though, was definitely not a first. I had high expectations going in… and they were completely exceeded. This has quickly become one of my favorites from this entire project and I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

New York, Part 2: Empire

Next up: Oakland (Next Friday), Philadelphia (The following Tuesday)

It’s New York Week! Like Chicago and Los Angeles, New York gets two songs for its two teams. The first song is for the NL team, who plays in the lone borough I’ve never visited (unless a layover in JFK Airport counts). I’m not a big fan of the team, but I watch them on TV a lot for two simple reasons. They’re on my local cable and they have one of the better broadcasting crews in the bigs. I tried not to be mean-spirited in this tune, but the lyrics wound up being really cynical instead… which I guess is kind of appropriate for this team.

Like the second Los Angeles tune, this was a near-Option Paralysis scenario. So much good music from which to choose! Luckily, this one was solved a little easier when my friend Brandon pointed out the late ’80s/early ’90s NYC hardcore scene. SOOO… I searched for Madball, Pro-Pain, and Sick Of It All on YouTube and presto. Admittedly, I was pretty surprised by how much a lot of that stuff grooved… but hey, go with what works, right?

New York, Part 1: Amazin’

Next up: New York, Part 2 (Friday), Oakland (Next Friday)

I don’t really have a favorite baseball team. I have to cross a border to see the geographically closest MLB team to my hometown and the teams I get on TV every day are both New York teams (friggin’ BARF). But, if I absolutely had to pick a favorite team, I think I would go with Minnesota. They’re kinda fun to watch, they always find a way to contend, and thanks to the minor league team that plays here, I got to watch about half of the roster play before they made it to the bigs. How awesome is that?

The twin cities have a fascinating pop music history. Thanks to the area’s very wide-ranging contributions to popular music, this tune could have taken a host of directions. In retrospect, it might have been fun to go Bob Dylan on this, but I decided to keep up with the vibe of most of the project and I went with the vicinit seminal punk band – Hüsker Dü. As a result, the track is a little raw and deliberately left unpolished. As for lyrics: Since the two big star batters for Minnesota have the same first and last initials, I made sure that every other word started with either “J” (first) or “M” (last). Sure, the finished song makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but this was an extremely fun and challenging exercise nonetheless… and in a nod to a more modern Minnesota band, I used some big words a la Motion City Soundtrack. Enjoy!

Minnesota

Up next: New York (Part 1 Tuesday, Part 2 Next Friday)