Bundesliga - Day 30: So that's it then...

Eintracht Frankfurt - Borussia Dortmund 1:1
Hamburger SV - FC Schalke 04 0:1
Karlsruher SC - Werder Bremen 3:3
Hannover 96 - Hertha BSC Berlin 2:2
1. FC Nürnberg - Arminia Bielefeld 2:2
FC Energie Cottbus - FC Hansa Rostock 2:1
VfL Bochum - MSV Duisburg 1:1
Bayern München - VfB Stuttgart 4:1
Bayer Leverkusen - VfL Wolfsburg 2:2

So the german championship seems to be decided by now with Bayern winning comfortably against Stuttgart last Sunday, they now are 12 points ahead of the 2nd place and with only four more games to play they should take the title this year. So a rather boring season is coming to an end, at least when you talk about the top of the table. When you look down to the bottom it's a completely different ballgame. There are still five teams in contention for the three relegation spots and they do everything they can to stay down there. Last weekend Nürnberg looked like they were about to finally leave the cellar of the Bundesliga when they were leading 2-0 against Bielefeld at halftime. Cottbus were 0-1 down against Rostock, Duisburg looked good against Bochum leading 1-0. 45 minutes later the tables had turned and verything was back to take one. This is the only exciting stuff happening in this league at the moment. Funny trivia fact: A few minutes from the final whistle on Saturday all matches expect one (Hamburg vs Schalke) were tied.

In the 2nd division of german football, the 2. Bundesliga, it seems that no team really wants to get promoted. Borussia Mönchengladbach seem to stay out of trouble at the moment, but they only drew this weekend and Hoffenheim seems to ressurect themselves. Cologne plays their usual up-and-down form which noone seem to understand. They play great matches and then a week later they look like a completely different team. If they manage to get promoted they will go down again at the end of that season. Right now it's M'Gladbach, Hoffenheim and Mainz on the three lucky places at the top of the table.

Way down the slope at Verbandsliga level, Fortuna Cologne finally started a winning streak and is now in third place, only behind local rivals Viktoria Cologne and VfL Leverkusen. It seems that all the promotion for the project www.deinfussbalclub.de finally seems to pay off a little bit as the attendance figures have risen slightly over the past few home games. around 1.000 people showed up which is quite a lot for 5th division football in Germany. The president, Klaus Ulonska and Sönke Wortmann, the man who started the project, have been going to lots of events and talkshows lately. They even have a story in THE german football magazine "11 Freunde" this month. And although I really don't know what to make of the whole thing it still feels good that a club like Fortuna is getting a little more attention. Past weekend's game against Hennef was won 2-0 and seemed to have been a lucky win with the second goal scored in added time.

So with the excitement gone from the Bundesliga the eyes of german football fans turn elsewhere, to England, for example. Last weekend's clash between Chelsea and Manchester United was an interesting one from the german perspective, since Michael Ballack is that captain of the german national team and the audience doesn't get that many chances to see him play over here. Most of the action takes place on pay-per-view TV so the chances to see him on free TV are limited to the top games in the Premier League. The way he presented himself must have been very reassuring for the german fanbase. He scored twice and looked like the "leader" most people expect him to be during this summer's Euro championship in Switzerland and Austria. The 2-1 victory over ManU brought back some excitement to the English championship. Both teams are now level on points and only the goal difference puts ManU up front at the moment.

And while I had the chance to watch a J-League game I really found it interesting of how the fans in Japan participate in the game. They are singing constantly, something which also happens in baseball. This may sound like they are trying to hard and some people might even say that this is all because of the strange discipline and collective thinking of Asians in general, but just to hear the crowd sing in the match between Urawa Red Diamonds and Consadole Sapporo was very refreshing. Urawa was down quickly, then equalized, got behind again, scored another equalizer and finally went in front in the second half and all the time the crowd was there singing and chanting. So there wasn't any real difference from a european game. There was though with the goalkeepers. Both didn't look good at all so it might be a good idea to get someone like Oliver Kahn to go to Japan. Although he already might have abandoned that idea in favour of staying in Germany.
The level of play was rather decent although I have to admit that I am a bit biased when it comes to japanese football. I really like their way of playing a very fast and technical football, they try to play like Arsenal. Something they can't accomplish, that's true, but it's nice to watch. The level is definetely higher than the one played in the american MLS. The season over there is just getting on the way so it might be a little too early to make predictions. The Reds got off to a lousy start and it seemed they were just continuing from where they left off at the end of last season when the suffered a meltdown losing the championship to Kashima Antlers on the last day of play. But they regrouped and now seem to do just fine. The last goal of the match against Sapporo was a wonderful counterattack with former Frankfurt and Hamburg player Takahara Naohiro laying up the ball for teammate Edmilson (4-2).

NPB: How to stay up-to-date with the action

It's pretty hard to follow the action in the japanese NPB league, especially the games in the Central League, since there seem to be no streams for any of the matches. And when there are they are strictly limited to a japanese audience. In times of teams and sports looking for new chances of revenue and income all the time that can be considered to be rather anachronistic, I guess. Sports like football and leagues like the English Premier League seem to be willing to do anything to draw new crowds to their games and they even discussed an extra day of play at the end of the season in foreign countries, so the fans in Asia and elsewhere can watch there stars live instead of on the screen.
Now I know and take into consideration that baseball isn't a game like football and the only countries paying a huge attention to it are the US, the carribean states and some countries in east Asia. But still it's kind of sad that people interested in what's happening in the NPB get left out if they don't live in Japan.
I for my part would find it extremly interesting to watch a game of a Hanshin Tigers - Yomiuri Giants series, because of what I have read about the rivalry between the two teams. The only thing to do is to watch some wort of live ticker on the website of one of the teams or check the result elsewhere. I finally managed to memorize the kanji which are used for the different teams, so i now can read the table on the NPB homepage.
You can read the articles on some of the english sites of japanese newspapers afterwards, but it will always take a few days before the articles get published.
In the Tiger's case there is a great blog which keeps track of what's happening with the team where you can find a lot of information. But pictures can be rarely found anywhere.
Sometimes though some footage finds its way over here thorugh places like youtube so I was pretty thrilled to find the final inning of the final game of the series there (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3). Hanshin were down 2-3 and turned it around against the dominating Giants closer Marc Kroon, who holds the record for throwing the fastest pitch (161 km/h) in the NPB. The noise at Koshien is deafening and I always find it interesting how the baseball crowd sounds younger than, let's say, a football crowd. Their voices seem to be a little bit higher.
Anyway, it's nice to at least get a glimpse of what is happening over there. It's better than nothing.

DEL Finals: Cologne lose it but the doubts remain

So Kölner Haie lost Game 4 of the finals on Sunday in dramatic fashion. The whole series remained at a dealock in almost every single game and these must have been the closest playoffs I have ever experienced in my entire life. Of the eight teams who made it to the post season at least six might have had a legitimate shot at the title. So the final series ended with a 3-1 victory of Eisbären Berlin, who, alongside with Adler Mannheim, dominated German ice hockey over the past few years.
Still some doubts remain because of the player who scored the winning goal in overtime last weekend. Florian Busch was exposed of missing a doping test soem time ago, a fact which under the laws of the national anti-doping agency leads to an immediate supension. Still the German Ice Hockey Federation DEB does not submit itself under the rules of the German national sports court and in this particular case it just didn't act. What happened was that Mr Busch got a visit from some inspectors of the NADA (National Anti-Doping Agency) on Maqrch 6th who are supposed to pay visits to athletes on an irregular basis without announcing that they are coming over to check on them. When the player Busch opened the door he excused himself, saying that he isn't able to perform a doping test right now, because he was, at the time, "in a situation of enormous stress". One has to wonder what that might have been? There was the case of a Belgium cycling professional who was asked by doping inspectors to perform a doping test when he was busy with arranging the funeral for his son who was killed recently. Now that's what someone would call a situation of enormous stress. But according to some newspaper articles Mr Busch didn't look like that apperently. He delivered a test hours later and that test was negative, of course.
There is some kind of concern regarding the anti-doping practices of the German NADA, especially when you keep in mind what happened in cycling over the past few years. German athletes had a record of using performance enhancing drugs in the past, and most of the success the athletes of the former GDR was built on a state financed program which encouraged athletes to use such substances. Sometimes athletes were even injected those drugs wthout them knowing it.
To my knowledge this is the first time this happened in ice hockey but it is extremely worrying how Eisbären Berlin chose to deal with the situation. The result won't be revoked and Eisbären are the champions now, but a bitter aftertaste and some doubts remain.

Edit:
What'S written in this article (in German) is that theer seems to be some action from the side of the NADA. Obviously they are not satisfied with the outcome and they are still waiting for the DEB to give them a reason why they let Busch play in the finals. They will refer the case to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and that body has the right to bring the case to the world's sport court CAS which can rule on the matter. So there might be something coming at the Eisbären in the future...

Red Sox and Hanshin Tigers get a good start into the new season

And once again here's proof that a baseball game should be watched until the final out. I tuned into the coverage of Red Sox vs Rangers from Fenway yesterday and although the match itself was pretty close and interesting I somewhat lost interest and started doing other things while listening to the commentary and occasionally looking at the screen. Rangers went ahead 2-0 early and even extended that lead to a 5-0 advantage later in the game. The Red Sox left a lot of baserunners stranded over the first 6 innings and they weren't looking they they would be able to make a comeback this time. Now in football when a team is 0-5 down the final minutes of a match can become really boring because both sides know that nothing will change until the final whistle. When first watched the Japanese drama series "H2" which is about high school baseball in Japan the main character says one sentence while playing the first game for his new team. They are a few runs behind and the opposing pitcher is trash talking to him pointing out that restistance is futile, he's already lost the game. "Let me show you the benefits of a game with no time limit". There certainly are some. What happened in Boston was that the Sox scored two in the 7th and then rallied to score 4 more in the 8th, the final one being a bases-loaded walk. I guess that's something I really like about the sport. That you have to be aware until the very last out of the game. There's always the possibility that something happens which turns around the game in favour of the other team.

Meanwhile in Japan the Hanshin Tigers are on a run. They lead the Central League 15-4-0 while their fiercest rivals, the Yomiuri Giants are second to last with a 7-12-1 record. Seems like we are in for some surprises this year although it's still very early in the season. There is a great blog which keeps track of the Tigers games regularly.

Polar Bears, Germany's new national mascots

For quite some time now Germans are stark raving mad about polar bears. Yes, polar bears. Those artic predators. Still most people would consider them to be very cute at a young age. It all started with a polar bear baby at the Berlin zoo which was seperated from its parents after his birth. There was one animal welfare activist who said in a newspaper article that the poor animal would be better off if it was killed which caused a huge uproar by the nation's biggest tabloid, the Bild-Zeitung. So the media caught on to the story and suddenly the small polar bear was a front page celebrity. Named Knut it soon got the masses streaming into the Berlin zoo to take a look at the little guy. Thsi went on for quite a few weeks and I really was glad when it finally all died down and the media attention shifted towards other things.
But then the Nuremburg zoo pulls out Flocke, the next polar bear baby and the whole thing repeats itself. Not with the scandal about the bear being better off when it is killed, but still there are tons of people roaming the cages in Nuremburg only to get a small glimpse of that white fur thing running around. And just when you thought it couldn't get any worse there's another polar bear baby, this time at the Stuttgart zoo. Frontpages, etc, you know the story. There's even documentaries on news television stations and I believe there was even a documentary which was shown at cinemas.

Old Firm Derby: Now that's what you call football

There are a lot of rivalries in sports, especially in football. Those London derbys in England, Manchester united and Liverpool FC, in Germany there's the "Ruhrpott" derby between Schalke and Dortmund, the Munich derby, the Rhineland derbies involving Düsseldorf, Mönchengladbach and Cologne. In France you have Marseille and Paris and of course there in Madrid versus Barcelona in Spain. In Southamerica you have the Fla-Flu in Brazil or River vs Boca Juniors. But nothing, absolutely nothing beats the intensity of Rangers vs Celtic in Scotland. There are numerous legends and stories revolving around those matches between the two archrivals in Scottish football. What makes it even more fierce is the politcal and religious stance between the two clubs and their supporters. When you watch the Old Firm on TV you have the impression you are right in there with the crowd, something which rarely happens to me when I watch a football match. The noise and excitement of the audience is there. Always.
So when the two big teams met again tonight at Celtic Park it was no disappointment again. After Celtic went up 1-0 in the first half after a beautiful strike by Japanese midfielder Nakamura Shunsuke Rangers equalized in the 2nd on a goal by Nacho Novo. The game went from side to side, from one penalty box to the other. Some time in the 2nd half Rangers goalkeeper McGregor injured himself and was limping over the pitch for quite some time. He had enough energy to save a penalty though which came after a Rangers player cleared another Nakamura screamer with his hand on the goal line. But it finished in style with Jan venegor of Hesselink scoring the winning goal in stoppage time. And if it needed any more there was some pushing and shoving after the final whistle when emotions and frustration broke loose on both sides.
What's most astonishing in a positive way is the way that the foreign players adapt to the British way of playing. While you can see players falling down at the slightest touch in the German Bundesliga - one of the most annoying things in football, if you ask me - in Scotland the get hammered and still stand up, brushing of the tackle as something which belongs to the game. The referee also plays a vital role in letting the match continue. This is brilliant stuff and I would really like to see something like that going on in Germany as well. Unfortunately stuff like that won't happen here as long as the German FA (DFB) advises its referees to blow the whistle so often.

DEL Finals: Series tied at 1-1

The Kölner Haie tied the series against the Eisbären Berlin tonight at the KölnArena with a 2-1 win. Trailing 0-1 after one period they came back to turn the tide and win it in the final period with a goal by 40 year old Dave McLlwain. It seems like the Haie weren't able to convert their powerplay chances. Or were the Eisbären so good in killing the penalties? I have no idea.
Interestingly enough the Arena wasn't sold out and that came after all the buzz that was created around the championship series. I would have thought that it was a complete sell out but I was proven wrong. The series now moves back to Berlin on Friday.

Statistics in football are plainly dumb

There used to be a time in German football coverage when there were only three television stations in the country. Back in those days the sports program "Die Sportschau" used to show small clips of three games, all the other matches were just shown as results at the end of the program. Then in the 1980s private television was introduced and the broadcasting rights went from ARD (public television) to RTL (private). The coverage became more flashy and they even introduced live matches. I especially remember the matchup between 1.FC Cologne and Bayern Munich in 1989, I think. But since there were other private stations who offered even more money the rights went to SAT1 at the beginning of the 1990s and that's when the nightmare began. They introduced the so called "ran Datenbank" (ran database), a statistical monster which spat out useless numbers and events at every match that was shown. They counted the minutes a striker went without scoring, they recorded the longest streak for a goalkeeper without conceding a goal, etc. You get the picture. While those are to a certain extent reasonable there is one statistic which makes absolutely no sense. The commentators always talk about how long it has been that one team won against another one. The point is with the system of promotion and relegation there might be seasons when both teams never played against each other. So a streak of let's say 30 years might sound like a long time but when the one team has been in division one the whole time and the other one was relegated to e.g. divison 3 in the meantime, where's the point in bringing up a statistic?! So when a commentator was talking about that a match between Hamburger SV and Hertha BSC Berlin hasn't ended 0-0 in almost 30 years he was completely neglecting the fact that Hertha was playing in the 2nd division for quite a long time of those 30 years while HSV was never relegated even once.
I see the point for statistics in rather static sports like baseball or basketball or american football, where it makes sense to measure players by using numbers. It just won't work in football. A striker might not score for hundreds of minutes but if he scores that one vital goal at the end of the season he's the man. A goalkeeper might have a streak of playing 10 games without conceding a goal but how many shots did he have to save? When is a save a save? When can a shot be considered to be on goal? To me football is such a beautiful sport because it doesn't need something like statistics. The problem is that with things like the "ran Datenbank" people in the audience think that it's the complete opposite, that football needs statistics. And because of that we won't get rid off them in the near future.

DEL Playoffs: Cologne and Berlin in the finals

While the playoffs in the NHL are just getting started the German DEL is already in the final stages. The past few years haven't been very interesting in the domestic league with Adler Mannheim and Eisbären Berlin splitting up titles every year. It has been especially frustrating for my local team, Kölner Haie, who enter a season each year as one of the big favourites and then fail miserably in the playoffs. They won their last title (of eight in total) in 2002 and have made some impressive shots at the championship since then, but there weren't successful at all. At least they could find comfort in the fact that their eternal rivals from Düsseldorf, the DEG, haven't won anything either. Both teams were the dominating forces in German Ice Hockey in the 1980s and the early 1990s.
The draw for the playoffs offered the opportunity for a final which might have included those old rivals, but it wasn't meant to be. Still these playoffs seem to have been the most intense ones in a long time. Lots of overtime matches, one game in the quarterfinal matchup between Haie and Adler Mannheim going in to a record 7th overtime. Lots of close series, especially the one between the Frankfurt Lions and the Iserlohn Roosters (4-3) in which quite a few games went to overtime. So everything is set for a great final series which is a best-of-five game series.
Berlin and Cologne got at each other right from the start with the Haie getting a 10 minute suspension for Todd Warriner after only 2 minutes of play. This match was decided in a sudden death again and now the Eisbären lead the series 1-0. Still the euphoria in Cologne is huge. The team already sold 17.000 tickets in advance for Game 2 when the series will come to Cologne tonight. They seemed to have problems filling their arena over the season but now fans are eager for a championship team in this city. With the local football club struggling to get promoted to the first division and the local basketball team being on the verge of bankrupcy at the end of last year people look for a team which will give them something to celebrate. Because that's something the people of Cologne really like to do.

A Day At The Record Store (IV) cont.

Just to finish this off here's some words about the 7" singles I got while being at the record store a few days ago.

The Ice "s/t" 7"
The Ice were roommates of ours when we still had our rehearsal room in Cologne Mülheim and that basically is the only reason I bought the record. Well, it's not as bad as it sounds when I say this, it's just that it's not my cup of tea anymore. When I was listening to the single at the record store for the first time I had the record player on 45 rpm and the intro on the A side sounded cool. Not great, but cool. But then the voice set in and it turned out I had the wrong speed. Well, at 33 rpm the intro wasn't as cool anymore.
The Ice play your normal type of tough hardcore with lots of mosh parts, breakdowns and hard streetwise lyrics. As I said, nothing really special, but I heard the guys are great on stage so when they come around your place you might want to check them out. The artwork of this 7" is a blast though. Great good looking stuff.

No FX "Singles Club #10" 7"
I somewhat missed out on this Singles Club thing that No FX set up a few years ago. You had to pay some money in advance and in return you got a 7" each month. That's how it was supposed to be but some things happened along the way, at least I heard and now it's only 10 singles (edit: turns out there were really 12, I must have missed something there). Still a great concept and I didn't have the money to join the fun. Well, now I have to hunt and search for the scattered EPs all over the place and for someone who still is refusing to use eBay this can be rather hard. But every now and then I find one of those little gems and at this visit there was another one. I also got another of the 7"s but when I got home it turned out I already got that one. Damn!

Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "Jerry" 7"
I love the concept of this band. Usually coverbands don't really kick ass but this one is simply a revelation. Each of their records deals with a different topic and every time they manage to sneak in some quotations of punkrock classics in their versions of classic pop and rock songs. To accompany their full length releases they also put out 7" singles with two songs of one artist on it. So this one is off from their "Love their country" LP on which they shred country classics by artists like Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, The Dixie Chicks, Hank Williams or Willie Nelson. The 7" features "East bound and down" by Jerry Reed, hence the title. The flipside is "I'm gonna write a song".
Now after 60s, 70s, R&B, musicals, country and a bar mitzvah I wonder what Me First & The Gimme Gimmes will be targeting next...

Curses and buried shirts: Baseball lore revisited

There seems to be a strong belief in baseball that curses really exist and work, although some of them seem to have been overcame over the past years. The best known one must have been the "Curse of the Bambino", but is there any clue as to what made the curse go away? One that apparently is still active is the "Curse of the Billy Goat" which prevents the Chicago Cubs from winning a championship in the past 100 years. In Japan the Hanshin Tigers are still waiting to win the Japan Series for a 2nd time and there a fastfood mascot is taking all the blame. The "Curse of the Colonel" is thought to prevent the team from winning since 1985 now when excited fans dropped a statue of KFC mascot Colonel Sanders into a river.
This kind of sports lore is something which makes baseball interesting to me. Legends, curses, witchcraft, that's something which adds to the fun. Fans and supporters always turn to higher powers when they are trying to explain the inexplicable. Why has my team not won a championship in a long time? Well, maybe it's not bad management or even worse players. No, it must have been a curse. There we go...
Now, it seems some people even try to force their "luck" a little bit and with the New York Yankees building a new stadium what better way to put a little flaw in the construction. A worker buried a Red Sox jersey under the visitor's dugout, told the New York Post and then the Yankees resurfaced the jersey with lots of media attention. At least this kind of child's play is one where no one gets hurt, unlike the stuff football supporters to over here.

A Day At The Record Store (IV)

I haven't been to the record store in ages, it seems. So last week I decided it was time again to spend some money on some records and this is what I got in return.

No Use For A Name "The Feel Good Record Of The Year" LP (+CD)
I wasn't keeping track of these guys at all over the past few years. True, I was a huge fan back in the days and "Don't Miss The Train" is still one of my all time favourites ever. I also remember a brilliant live show at the "Underground" in Cologne where the whole audience just went berzerk for the entire set. But that was years ago and today I somehow lost my interest in most of the melodic punkrock bands mainly because the all sound the same, don't they? I know that argument is lame, but to me it's like that. There are no surprises anymore.
While saying that I know that that's true for this record as well but maybe because of sentimental feelings I still like it. It really is a feel good record.Nothing really changed over the years for Mr. Sly and his comrades, they still sound like 10 years ago. And in a way that's very reassuring and good. The record comes with a CD of all the album tracks. I guess that's one way of selling CDs to the kids.

Fine Before You Came "It All Started In Malibù" LP
Man, we love those guys. A Modest Proposal played two shows with Fine Before You Came from Milano, Italy a few years ago and we instantly fell in love with the band. While they are great musicians and composers who play a sound somewhere around the area of Braid and alike, they are also wonderful human beings, fun to talk to and hang around with. This is, I believe, their 2nd full length which came out on Strange Fruit Records, a label from southern Germany, not to be confused with other labels of the same name. So we were labelmates with them for a short time. They raised their level of excellence once more with this one. Jacopo's voice is just fascinating and really a thrill to listen to with the wonderful music pumping in the background. A great record and it's really a shame that this one was in the 2nd hand segment of the store.

Oiro "Vergangenheitsschlauch" LP
And once again the guys from Düsseldorf strike back with their way of playing northern German punkrock in the vein of all those "Jensen-bands" like Dackelblut, Blumen Am Arsch Der Hölle or Oma Hans. On their 2nd album nothing changed and I think it's better this way. They know what they are best at and they deliver. That's the way it should be. Although I initially bought this just because I know the people in the band this will become I record I like a lot, I am pretty sure that will happen.

Inferno "Pioneering Works" 3xLP
This was due for a long time now. Inferno used to be one of the first, if not the first hardcore band in the German scene. Their record "Tod & Wahnsinn" started it all here. That one is truly a classic piece of brutal early 80s hardcore music. I think I first got in touch with their music when I bought some compilation records of Mülleimer Records (who were then called AM Music). I then bought a CD which featured the aforementioned "Tod & Wahnsinn" together with their 2nd record "Hibakusha". And although I always like their first one better, the whole compilation was just great. "Ram It Up" was covered by S.O.D., they had tracks on the "Cleanse The Bacteria" compilation on Pusmort and so on. So they are truly legends in the German hardcore scene, although I would doubt if any of the young kids today know any of their songs.
This is a compilation of almost all the stuff they recorded. It features their three albums, compilation tracks, the "Son Of God" EP and the split 12" w/ The Execute. Three records labeled Oldschool, Nextschool and Highschool which I think is a nice joke. This is a piece of history.

Mount Logan "s/t" LP
I saw this band a year ago at some small festival show in Cologne where they played with some chaoscore bands and they completely stood out because of their very lo-fi and modest approach. Mount Logan are a three-piece without a bassplayer if I remember it correctly and yet they were able to produce a great sort of pressure and noise with their instruments. There were only a few vocals every now and then, very spartanic and the music was very dynamic ranging from loud to very quiet and back to really loud again.
This record really captures their live performance. Dark, gloomy, loud, quiet music which leaves a feeling of despair. You feel like you are the last person on earth. The design of the cover sleeve only emphasizes this. Almost completely in black with now band name or anything else on the front side. The record itself looks more like a test pressing with black labels and writings on it. Great lo-fi-doom-core (oh boy, how I hate makin' up those categories, haha).

Envy "Abyssal" 12" EP
Envy really seem to have found their style of music. After the brilliant masterpiece of their last record this just continues where "Insomniac Doze" left off. Only four tracks here, but the first one is a hymn which could have easily been put on the previous record. 10 minutes, maybe even longer, it just drags itself on and on and I personally wouldn't have a problem if there was no end at all to this one. It's got the usual breakdowns in the middle and then the outbursts come again, a classic Envy track, if you like.
What I especially like about the present Envy is that they still keep their rough edge while trying to add a few experiments every now and then. They could have easily slowed down their pace and reduced the heavyness of their music just like some other bands did. They could just turn into the next Mogwai, but that would be too disappointing if they just copy another band. I just like them they way they are. I liked them the way they were as well when they were still playing that upbeat chaotic brand of hardcore, but this suits them a lot better. I hope there's more to come in the future.

The Ice "s/t" 7"
No FX "Singles Club #9" 7"
Me First And The Gimme Gimmes "Jerry" 7"
...more on those three later on...

In The Backyard Of The Record Collection (9): Cross My Heart - s/t

To be honest, when I first heard about the band I really found the name, well, debateable to say the least. I mean, okay, they sound like an emo band, but that name is way too cliché. Still the music is brilliant. I remember a friend telling about this new record he bought and there was this great line in one song going "...and I'm moving on my own two feet just to get my direction". He would go on and on and on raving about how great this record was and that I should really get it as soon as possible. It took me sone time to be convinced, but when I bought it it struck me with full force. The opener "Dornier" begins at a rather slow pace and tone, then suddenly crashs out and dies down again. The clear and subtle voice sets in and we're off on a great journey. This wasn't like anything I was listening to at that time. "It doesn't take that many pills to sleep forever" is the best one one this record and that's the song with that particular line my friend was talking to me about. The verse, again, very subtle and quite and then the rumbleing guitars set in for the chorus. The closing tune is yet again a true classic. Starting off with some feedback beeping which carries over from the previous track "The hypnotist" is very much hypnotizing, to say the least. There's this part in the end where there is a smal change to the previous chorus when it gets a little heavier which really gives me goosebumps.
With this record Cross My Heart from Baltimore made themselves immortal to me. Their follow up releases didn't quite get through to me as well as this one although one has to say that those records were way above average as well compared to the numerous epigones and clones that sprung up and died away with the time passing. Some of the guys are now in a band called Liar's Academy, but it just doesn't have the same feel as it had 10 years ago.

A week in baseball

So here we go, the baseball season is in full swing after a week of play. And it seems that a few teams try to ridicule some of the experts who were labelling some clubs as losers before opening day. I found it quite surprising to see that the Orioles, the Royals, the A's or the Rangers (incidentally all AL teams) who were all considered to be cannon fodder for the big teams before the season suddenly turned out to be good ball clubs. Now I know that there will change a lot over the course of a 162 game season, but I found it quite astonishing that there wasn't a single team who was predicted to lose really did so. Everyone was talking about the great offense of the Detroit Tigers (0-7 after last night's loss to the Red Sox), the great Angels (5-4) and so on. In football the three teams who get promoted usually are considered to the the first three candidates for immediated relegation. Normally there's one stand out surprise (this year that would be Karlsruhe), but usually they go down the drain as the season continues. But that doesn't seem to be the case in baseball. What I like about that is the balance of the league. It's not like that every team has a chance to win the World Series, but it's close. Closer than in European football competitions.
And, oh boy, you got to give credit to the Americans for celebrating their championship teams. I was watching the ceremony for the Red Sox yesterday and that was brilliant. Although I don't really like F-16 flyovers, but bringing out legendary players from different sports teams (Bruins, Celtics, Patriots), honouring a former player who gave the club one of it's worst memories (Bill Buckner in 1986) by letting him throw the opening pitch, that's something you won't get in German stadiums. I like the way they honour their tradition.

In Japan meanwhile the spring Koshien ended with a win for a school from Okinawa. I guess that the population of those islands down south is rather small so that must have been a highlight for the region.
So this means the Hanshin Tigers finally get to take their home field again after having a great start on the road. They are now 8-2-0 and lead the Central League. I still wasn't able to watch a game because of the different time zones (Japanese baseball games will air at 11 am over here), but I really hope to catch one on some weekend in the future.

Bundesliga - Day 27: German football traveling back in time

MSV Duisburg - FC Energie Cottbus 0:1
Hertha BSC - Werder Bremen 1:2
Eintracht Frankfurt - 1. FC Nürnberg 1:3
VfB Stuttgart - Hamburger SV 1:0
VfL Wolfsburg - Hannover 96 3:2
Arminia Bielefeld - Karlsruher SC 1:0
FC Schalke 04 - FC Hansa Rostock 1:0
Borussia Dortmund - Bayer Leverkusen 2:1
Bayern München - VfL Bochum 3:1

The past round of matches in the first and second division of German football saw things which seemed to be long forgotten in stadiums all across the country. In Frankfurt the Nuremburg supporters launched fireworks onto the pitch which earned them a game delay of a few minutes and the club a € 50.000 fine. In Cologne meanwhile the infamous Rhine derby between Borussia Mönchengladbach and 1.FC Cologne was played on Monday. Both teams are contenders for a promotion spot to the first division and therefore the confrontation was rather heated. To add fuel to the heat a few weeks earlier a flag was stolen from the M'gladbach Ultra group who then declared they were going to disband because of the shame. This very flag showed up in the section of the 1.FC Cologne fans at the end of the game and that send the emotions skywards. Fireworks were thrown onto the pitch from the M'gladbach side while the Cologne supporters happily ripped the flag to shreds. The game was called off for 5 minutes while some players from Mönchengladbach tried to calm down their supporters. All this came when Gladbach was leading 0-1 in a rather mediocre match. When the play resumed Cologne was rewared a penalty which shouldn't have been one and the game was tied 1-1. It stayed that way until the finakl whistle and the sirens of the police cars could be heard all through the city that night.
Now this all comes in a time when stadiums are family orientated facilities in which the customer (note: not the "fan") should enjoy himself in a friendly and pleasant environment. Not that I would encourage people to throw stuff onto the field and so on, but it's rather fascinating when the media and sponsors talk and show about the wonderful atmosphere in southern european stadiums with all there bengal lights and on the other hand they don't want that stuff in their own backyard. This ambigous approach can be frustrating at times.
On lower division news Fortuna Cologne finally came back to the winning side with a 2-1 win against GFC Düren last Friday. Here's the last goal by top striker and fan favourite Stasiulewski.

And if that wasn't enough you now even have the chance to have YOUR say in what happens with that very liekable club from the south side of Cologne. Yes, following the example of Ebbsfleet Utd and myfootballclub.co.uk Germany now is the next takeover target where fans can reclaim football. Fortuna Cologne takes part in www.deinfussballclub.de, where you can register and when you pay € 39.95/year you can decide on numerous things, jersey style, player acqusitions, etc. You name it. Take part, get active and help us get back to professional football.

This Will Destroy You/Tephra @ MTC, Cologne

This went completely under my radar so I didn't take any notice of the show until a friend of mine told me about it yesterday afternoon. I have seen Tephra quite a few times now and their great blend of sludge/doom/slowcore/whatever-rock/metal is always very nice to hear. The sound was a little disappointing at first though as there were some bass tunes missing. At least that's what I thought. But they did a great job and the crowd seemed to like it as well. There's only one thing that was really annoying to me and that was this very strange gold curtain hanging at the backside of the stage. I mean, c'mon, this looked like some cheap Siegfried & Roy show imitation, but nothing like the dark and gloomy stuff which I would associate with the music of Tephra. Well, I guess it's just part of the club's interior so we all had to live with it.
The crowd, by the way, was rather small, a fact I always like when shows take place in underground (and I mean underground literally here) clubs, where you stand in small cellar-like facilities with almost no air conditioner. It was funny how many well known faces showed up for this one, so this made the show a very good time experience.
This Will Destroy You are a band I had never heard of before, but they really got me with their music. One might throw in Explosions In The Sky as a slight reference, but they have a touch of their own. Although I consider such sound as "living room music" because I always like it better when I listen to it at home, I still liked the show.
A nice evening to start the weekend. Very pleasant.

Bundesliga - Day 26: Nothings changes

FC Hansa Rostock - VfL Wolfsburg 0:1
Karlsruher SC - FC Schalke 04 0:0
1. FC Nürnberg - Bayern München 1:1
VfL Bochum - Borussia Dortmund 3:3
Hamburger SV - Arminia Bielefeld 1:1
Bayer Leverkusen - Eintracht Frankfurt 0:2
Werder Bremen - MSV Duisburg 1:2
Hannover 96 - VfB Stuttgart 0:0
FC Energie Cottbus - Hertha BSC Berlin 2:1

There were quite a few surprises this weekend but in the end there was no change whatsoever in the table. Although top teams like Bayern and Hamburg drew or others like Bremen and Leverkusen lost, nothing really happened. This must have been especially frustrating for teams at the bottom threatened by relegation. Usually Nürnberg would be happy to draw against Bayern, especially because it's a very important derby. But with Cottbus and Duisburg both winning their matches it didn't bring them any advantage in their quest to stay in the Bundesliga. Nürnberg, by the way, is the only team which got relegated after winning the championship 1968. Maybe they are trying to celebrate this by going down to the 2nd Bundesliga after winning the German Cup competition, the DFB-Pokal.
The finalists for this year's competition are Bayern and Borussia Dortmund and Dortmund look like they are completely concentrating on getting their ticket for European cup competition this way. They went down 0-2 early against Bochum, recovered, went down again and then equalised. This might sound like a team with a lot of will and moral, but against a team of no names like Bochum you have to play better. I don't think they will to well in the cup final.
Finally another bad boy emerged this weekend. HSV midfielder David Jarolim was known for taking a dive quite often anyway, but this weekend he got thrown off the pitch after reaching to the crotch of one of his opponents. This might be some relief for Maik Franz who was in the spotlight for similar actions the weeks before.

MLB: Opening Day holds its promise

I was really anxious for the new baseball season to start, something I didn't even think of at the same time last year. This is kind of strange for me to get sucked up into a sport which I didn't find very interesting some time ago. But somehow the excitement of grown up man clubbing small balls with way too thin sticks out of parks got me hooked and that is why I was watching a few games yesterday.
I started with Royals at Tigers, a highly anticipated game because of the tuned up offense of Detroit. They went ahead early but then Kansas City came back to tie the game and it all went into extra innings (Final: KC 5 DET 4).
There were quite a few rain delays and the final opening game for the old Yankee stadium was postponed to today. Impressing how the Cubs audience at Wrigley Field was cheering on every pitch Carlos Zambrano threw in the first inning. That was more like a rowdy crowd at a European football stadium than people hanging out at a baseball game. Well, they have been waiting for 100 years now. Oh, by the way, this seems to be the year for anniversaries of championship droughts. In German football two teams will have to celebrate as well. Schalke 04 is 50 years without a championship, 1.FC Cologne is waiting for 30 years now. In the end the Cubs also went to extra innings after their newly acquired Japanese outfielder Fukudome Kousuke entered the MLB stage in style by tying the game with a 3-run homer. Still they lost to the Brewers 3-4.
I also took a glance at the Dodgers who were facing the Giants at home, the only game I watched where there was nice weather, by the way. That wasn't as close as the other matches with L.A. getting in front early. (Final SF 0 LAD 5).

Meanwhile across the Pacific the Japanese season got started as well and the Hanshin Tigers are leading the pack in the Central League after sweeping the Yokohama BayStars. What makes this even sweeter is that the Giants lost their series to the Yakult Swallows.

Finally something to do in the evenings on boring days.