Category Archives: Music

This was a fun one for me. Knowing the exact city where this team plays (Arlington, just outside of Dallas), the tune here was molded after Pantera, one of my favorite bands when I was in high school. For the music, I threw in a solo like they usually did on their albums (no rhythm guitar part – just solo-bass-drums) and wrote a very active riff a la “5 Minutes Alone” for the chorus (That’s the part a lot of “groove metal” bands forget. They just kinda go “chunk cha-chunk chunk” and overlook the fact that those guys had some pretty serious chops). Oddly enough, this song proved to be more difficult to play on bass than guitar…

When it came to the lyrics and vocals, I must concede that I can’t sing/yell like Phil, so I didn’t even try. I still have a few entries left in this project and I kinda need my vocal cords for them, ya know? Instead, the Pantera-ness was focused on the words themselves. This is a song about “hey, look – this team is good now,” but I made sure to talk tough and use the word “power” a lot (you’d be surprised how often that word shows up in their songs). Overall, I’m very pleased with the results and I hope you enjoy this tribute to a band that completely blew away my teenage ears.

Texas

Next up: Toronto (Next Friday), Washington (The following week)

Alternate post title: “And Now For Something Completely Different”

This track is fueled by probably one of the most astonishing musical discoveries I made even before this project began. Believe it or not, most of the pioneering death metal acts – Death, Deicide, Morbid Angel, and Six Feet Under, to name a few – are from the Tampa Bay area. I threw in the essence of Tampa-based power metal band Iced Earth and I had myself a solid idea. This was a taxing track to record, particularly on the drums (I hadn’t written anything calling for blast beats until recently), but the end result is totally worth the trouble. The “synth pad” buried in the mix at the end is no pad – that’s three tracks of me singing harmonies in falsetto.

The lyrics are a bit of a mish-mash. Instead of one big idea, I took a few small things and worked them into the overall picture. Cowbells (“Your sentence: death by cowbell”), the catwalks in the field of play, and The Thunderdome (the stadium’s name when Tampa’s NHL team played in it). Throw in some evil sounding words – grime, suffer, judgement, punishment – and you got yourself some death metal! Enjoy the madness.

Tampa Bay

Next up: Texas (Friday), Toronto (Next Week)

Hello there. Usually, today would be the “off-days” post and this song would show up on Friday. BUT, since I’m going out of town this weekend, the “schedule” is reversed this week! And, in this case, the timing couldn’t be any better. Just last night, a Cincinnati player got the St. Louis manager all riled up and angry with the baseball quote of the season: “They’re little bitches, all of ’em.” For me, the best part is I wrote this song about the manager and his legendary Angry Manager Face. It’s almost like I planned this…

…But how to set it to music? I narrowed it down to two options: Either really uptempo punk/metal shouting “Angry Manager Face!” or all acoustic-style asking “What’s with the face?” Since I know what direction I want to take for the project’s last four songs (here’s a hint: consider this track the calm before the storm), I actually went with the latter. No drum set (cajon, shaker, and a cymbal played with brushes), a little bit of slide guitar, and here we are. Enjoy the musical (your favorite off-speed pitch goes here).

St. Louis

Next up: Tampa Bay (Tuesday), Texas (Friday)

Well, it’s time to wrap up the West Coast (the last five teams are in either the Eastern or Central time zones) with a fun little ditty from Seattle. The music here was an absolute no-brainer. There are three absurdly important bands to my generation (teenagers in the ’90s) from Seattle: Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden. I went after the latter two here (Pearl Jam sits the best in my voice range, but the end of the song is pure Soundgarden – the closing riff is in 5 and the next to last measure is in 7).

As for the lyrics: What is there to talk about with Seattle’s baseball team these days? Griffey retired during the season, Lee has already been traded away, and they have one of the worst records in baseball. Besides Ichiro and Felix, it’d be a real stretch to come up with something if their everyday center fielder (Gutierrez) didn’t have one of the coolest nicknames ever. Thanks to that nickname – “Death to Flying Things” – this song is about him. Enjoy!

Seattle

Next up: St. Louis (Tuesday), Tampa (Next Tuesday)

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)