World Cup Femmes

Alright, raise your hand if you've been following the Women' World Cup of soccer.

No one?

Of course not. On this side of the Atlantic, soccer is less than even a niche sport, it's a distant memory that we were once from another continent, whether it be Europe, South America or Africa. And even for Europeans, women's soccer football is more of an afterthought than a happening.

Which is why the ladies of Team Germany went all-out (well, almost, anyway) and posed for the German version of Playboy: to attract some kind of attention.

Here is what they came up with:

I still haven't watched a game myself, but I am aware that Canada's captain suffered a broken nose and later scored a goal. If that means anything to anyone... but without the German ladies, I might even be unaware of that. So... thanks?

Video Of The (Past) Week: Doughboys

In honour of The Doughboys reuniting - at this point I'm unsure whether it's permanent, for a few shows or just to open for Foo Fighters - I have decided to use this song as my Video Of The Week, perhaps their biggest hit and the song that led to them parting ways, Shine, from 1993.

Well, to Jonathan Cummins leaving, and the band never recovering.

Grunge on!

Grunt Fest

I love women's tennis. A lot more than men's tennis, which I find merely ok.

Not just because of the many hotties playing, but also because the playing field is more even, whether one player is dominating the standings or not. You can always count the top-10 players to impress you, but anyone in the top-50 can give them a good whooping too.

In men's tennis, since Andre Agassi, I've only been impressed by Roger Federer. If that guy had the mental capacity to beat Rafael Nadal - an inferior foe in my opinion - he would be the best of all time. And no one else is nearly as interesting a case study. Nor as graceful.

But the girls... wow. That is what sports are all about. Fierce competitiveness. To the point of grunting like gladiators on every hit, like the superb Maria Sharapova:

What Stanley Cup?

I'm not ready to acknowledge the Stanley Cup victory of the Boston Bruins yet.

Sure, they're the Habs' rivals I respect most, the real deal, but this year's crop of Bs just had too many detestable, despicable, dirty assholes for me to bear, starting with Greg Campbell and continuing with Andrew Ferrence, Zdeno Chara, Shawn Thornton and Brad Marchand. And Mark Recchi, a former Hab who asked to be traded away; and Michael Ryder, the traitor who left the Habs after not caring about the team so much he was throwing paper planes into the crowd when he was scratched; and Tomas Kaberle, a former Leaf.

But there's the flipside: Tim Thomas, Patrice Bergeron, Milan Lucic, Rich Peverley: tough, talented competitors, worthy adversaries, deserving champions.

And there you have it: more bad than good. Which is why I'm pretending last night didn't happen for at least a few more days.

Video Of The Week: Eddie Vedder

I had wanted to feature this video for two weeks, but decided against it, first with a small tribute to an important creator who had passed away, then with the cheese that I couldn't get out of my head, but I finally have a chance to feature Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder - whose band will play Montréal on September 7th and Ottawa on my birthday a week later! - singing Can't Keep from his ''new'' solo album Ukelele Songs.

I single out the word ''new'' because many Pearl Jam fans had had their hands on some version of the songs on that album for years now, and Can't Keep itself is from PJ'S Riot Act record, not a ''cover'' per se because, like three-quarters of all PJ songs, it was written by Vedder alone.

Once again, the video's is themed around water, with Vedder simply singing the song solo, on his ukelele, atop a mountain on a small island surrounded by water. Simple stuff, but very effective.








Here's a version by Pearl Jam, should you feel like comparing:

Riot In The Streets

You haven't seen a real riot in Canada unless you've been in Montréal. That being said, last night's ''angry celebration'' in Vancouver was (in addition to being relatively tepid, tame and light): pointless, stupid, and juvenile.

The only redeeming part was the hottie pictured above.

Question: where was that anger when Stephen Harper got elected to a majority government despite having 75% of the population not vote for him?

Dirk Taste

Apparently, LeBron James doesn't just have friends.

NBC knows it.

Video Of The Week: Hall And Oates

Yes, this is the second time Hall & Oates make it onto the Video Of The Week segment - and once again it's for cheese more than discovery. But I did learn one thing this past week: that the song Out Of Touch was, indeed, from H&O.

For some reason, maybe because of the ''oh oh ohs'' at the end of the chorus, I associated this more to Billy Ocean or just about any other pop act of the 80s. Then again, if I'd remembered that after just about every time Hall sings ''I'm out of time'', backing vocals (Oates') repeat the word ''Time!'', it might have clued me in.

Also, from now on, whenever one of my musicians wants to add a useless chord to a song, even more so in an intro, I will refer them to this particular piece's intro as a ''don't''.

The video quality isn't that great, but at 3:09, you can still witness Daryl Hall's mondo dance from the front to the back of a giant O - the only way to scream ''80's!'' any louder would be to watch Pamela Anderson's sex tapes with Bret Michaels and Tommy Lee.



As an added bonus, as for the last time I featured Hall and Oates, I have included a Live At Daryl's House performance of the song. Two, as a matter of fact.

The first one is from KT Tunstall, who takes a backseat riding the Glockenspiel and lets the band get its props:



On the second version, Patrick Stump - who must be a legend in his family and circle of friends - dishes out a semi-convincing solo at the end, in addition to taking more turns singing than Tunstall (the song starts at 3:12):



You're welcome!

His Name Is Johnny Canuck

Nice short video about the Vancouver Canucks' namesake:

It's A Loki World

My friend Kevin Lo from Loki Design was in Europe, working and having fun.

Check out his experience at the Oddstream Festival in Nijmegen, you'll wish you'd have been there, too.

Video Of The Week: Emily And The Orgasm Addicts

My friend Patrick turned me onto this band from Denmark; I knew absolutely nothing of Emily And The Orgasm Addicts a year ago, but all you need to know about their singer is, in essence, in this quote from their website:

The young Emily has an incomparable voice; it’s plastic, arty and sharp as a knife, delivering to-the-point-lyrics filled with details about you and herself, that you really didn’t need to know. She’s always ready to dress up against all motherly-prescriptions, take you to a local bar and let you fail in drinking her under the table. She’s half-Irish so don’t say we didn’t warn you.

She is also what I wanted to hear when I purchased Kelly Osbourne's first record. Just sayin'. She is sexy, swift, and has a kick-ass attitude.

The band seems to rally behind her qualities and turn the thing into a tongue-in-cheek/we-know-rock-gets-repetitive-at-times-but-we'll-play-along and add humour, fun and wit to their rockin'. And they sure as fuck can rock. Here's an example: