Punk Rock Super Bowl

I can’t be sure, but I get the idea that the city of Dallas can’t wait to get this Super Bowl – and this weekend – over with.  It may have been one of the worst weeks for the city since, well … you know.  (I’m thinkin’ Super Bowl X, what are you thinkin’ about?)

It’s been rough because of the weather: a brutal blast of blue-balls winter that unfortunately blew in to the Metroplex along with hundreds of Northeastern Sports Media Types.  The disastrous result has been a shit-and-snowstorm of bad press, mostly from smartasses who can’t imagine a place where they don’t know what to do with snow.

Lissen up, you Yankee bitches – go back to New York and take your Super Bowl with you.  Next time you visit drive a snowplow, just so ya’ll can feel at home.  Check back with us when you’re having one of your 90-degree “heat waves,” and we can return the favor with some advice of our own: “Open a f***ing window, Yankee Icehole!”

The game, the thing you are down here for, is going to be played indoors and Aaron Rodgers will rule the carpet.  Green Bay 35, Pittsburgh 21.  Don’t choke on a chicken wing.

Here’s some football music, and some punk rock.  Why?  ‘Cause that’s how we roll down here in Texas.

MP3: “Flyin’ Helmets” by Kyle Turley

MP3: “I Hate Everything” by the Queers

MP3: “Life Of Pain” by Black Flag

MP3: “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over For Monday Night Football” by Hank Williams Jr.

MP3: “Sheena Is A Punk Rocker” by the Ramones

MP3: “Lombardi” with John Facenda

MP3: “Scentless Apprentice” by Nirvana

MP3: “I Like This Kind Of Party” by Sam Spence (NFL Films)

MP3: “Punk Rock Is Dead” by Michale Graves

MP3: “A Golden Boy Again (Up She Rises)” by Sam Spence

MP3: “Pain Is Inevitable” by John Facenda

MP3: “Complete Control” (live) by the Clash

MP3: “Be Savage Again” by John Facenda

MP3: “The Autumn Wind” by Sam Spence and John Facenda

MP3: “When The Shit Hits The Fan” by the Circle Jerks

MP3: “Born To Lose” by Sid Vicious

MP3: “My Way” by Sid Vicious

Update: Listen to Lil’ Wayne’s “Green and Yellow” Green Bay Packers fight song

Update: Listen to a bunch of Pittsburgh Steelers fight songs from WTAE, Pittsburgh

Update: Listen to and download “Go Pack Go! 2011” by Garbage

Update: A truly frightening amount of Steelers fight songs to download

Who Dat? Big Bad Earl! – The Music of Football Part 2

Big Bad Earl (No. 34) and the Oilers: Nov. 20, 1978

The best football game I ever attended was in 1978, in the Houston Astrodome.  The Oilers were playing the Dolphins, and although Miami had hotshot quarterback Bob Griese Houston had its own secret weapon: a rookie named Earl Campbell.  You know the rest – Campbell romped for 199 yards and the game-winning 81-yard touchdown run, and people still call it one of the best Monday Night Football games ever.

Campbell created a sort of Oiler fever in Houston, and a number of people created songs about the player once called the “Tyler Rose.”   Even Joe Tex unleashed a song called “Do The Earl Campbell.”   Now that wasn’t new: NFL teams had their own fight songs for many years.  In 1960, the league put out an album, Marching Songs, with tunes representing each of the 13 teams in the NFL at that time.  Some of the older teams still use those older fight songs, many have enlisted local artists (in some cases, big-name artists) to update the sound of their fight songs.

I still wince when I hear the old 1970s Houston Oilers fight song, called “Luv Ya Blue” or “Houston Oilers No. 1.”   It is one of those ear-worms that will get into your head for days or weeks, and won’t leave.  Written by Lee Ofman, it has the same tune as a fight song Ofman wrote for the Miami Dolphins a few years earlier.  I like some of those songs for the New Orleans Saints, including “Who Dat?” and the highly rhythmic “Let’s Get Fired Up” by Zig and Gaboon’s Gang.  Zig is none other than Zigaboo Modeliste, drummer for the mighty funky Meters, and he cut this little tune in 1980 or so under the auspices of the Popeye’s Fried Chicken chain.

So here you go: football songs!

MP3: “Luv Ya Blue/Houston Oilers No. 1” (excerpt)

MP3: “Miami Dolphins No. 1” (excerpt)

MP3: “Big Bad Earl” by Tom Cantrell with Dink and the Ooettes

MP3: “Bum’s Promise” by Tom Cantrell and the Newettes

MP3: “Let’s Get Fired Up” by Zig and the Gaboon Gang

MP3: “Who Dat?” by Trey Banks and J. John

MP3: “Crank Dat Dallas Cowboys” by Ya Favorite Homie JR

MP3: “Tony Romo” by unknown artist

Stream “Let’s Go Cowboys” by Los Lonely Boys  (Windows Media)

MP3: “Go Dallas Cowboys!” by the NFL Marching Band

MP3: “Hi-O Hi-O For Cleveland” by the NFL Marching Band

MP3: “Let’s Go You Colts” by the NFL Marching Band

MP3: “The Super Bowl Shuffle” by the Chicago Bears

MP3: “All My Rowdy Friends Are Coming Over For Monday Night Football” by Hank Williams Jr.

Listen to fight songs from current and former NFL teams

Another site with fight songs from current and former NFL teams

ESPN website recalls the big Monday Night Football game with Earl Campbell

Rockin’ the Jukebox

Lenny Bruce once said, the one machine made only for fun is the jukebox.   It doesn’t cut anything, or mash anything, or staple anything together, it just plays music.  When I was a kid we used to go over to visit my grandmother in Louisiana, and she operated a small pool hall in Catahoula, deep in the swamps.  I was fascinated with the jukebox – how it found the record you selected, placed it just so on the turntable and guided that needle with precision right to the first notes of the music.  When the record man came every once in a while to change out the 45 rpm platters, she gave the old ones to me and my brothers.  My musical tastes for the rest of my life were influenced by that handful of records from a forgotten jukebox in swampland Louisiana.

If you see a jukebox nowadays, it’s usually a relic stuck away in some corner of a bar.  It could play CDs or it could be one of those new digital models stocked with thousands of downloads (like my laptop).  Or you might find one in the rec room or basement bar of some guy’s house that you’re only going to visit once.   Jukeboxes seem to be disappearing, or at least morphing into something other than the machine that Lenny Bruce romanticized or the motherlode of forbidden music from my childhood.  Let’s drop a coin in the slot and celebrate the jukebox today.

MP3: “Juke Box Music” by the Kinks

MP3: “Let The Jukebox Keep On Playing” by Carl Perkins

MP3: “A-1 On The Jukebox” by Dave Edmunds

MP3: “Turn The Jukebox Up Louder” by Porter Wagoner

MP3: “Jukebox Man” by Dick Curless

MP3: “You’re Still On My Mind” by the Byrds

MP3: “Stoned At The Jukebox” by Hank Williams Jr.

MP3: “A-11” by Buck Owens

MP3: “Jukebox Charlie” by Johnny Paycheck

MP3: “Little Queenie” by Chuck Berry

MP3: “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts

MP3: “Juke Box Hero/Whole Lotta Love” (live) by Foreigner

All My (Birthday) Parties

      

Some recent birthdays for rock and rollers gives us a chance to post a handful of tunes for the weekend.  Stevie Nicks, born May 26, is 61 years old; Levon Helm, also May 26, is 67; Hank Williams Jr. (Bocephus), also May 26, is 60; and the great John Fogerty, born May 28, is 64. 

MP3: “Whiskey Bent and Hell Bound” by Hank Williams Jr.

MP3: “Stoned At The Jukebox” by Hank Williams Jr.

MP3: “White Dove” by Levon Helm

MP3: “Havana Moon” by Levon Helm & the RCO All-Stars

MP3: “If Anyone Falls” by Stevie Nicks

MP3: “Stand Back” (Eli Escobar disco mix) by Stevie Nicks

MP3: “Almost Saturday Night” by John Fogerty

MP3: “Centerfield”  (live) by John Fogerty w/Jerry Garcia

YouTube: Levon Helm making his new album Electric Dirt (out June 30)