Three pronged blog attack!

OK, trying to cover a lot of ground here today, so read onwards...

1. LONG LIVE THE JIM
Went to the Portland Timbers’ home season opener this last Thursday. We’re talking Soccer here – or if you’re anywhere else in the world, “Football.” Pretty kickin’ game with Portland beating Puerto Rico 1-O. It was Timber Jim Appreciation & Retirement night. Ol’ Jim is the crazy Timbers’ Lumberjack team mascot. I used to watch this fella back in the old NASL days when my family had season tix (Timbers 1975 to 1982). They used to play against legends like Pele, Georgio Chinaglia and Franz Beckenbauer, among others.

Jim wielded a chainsaw, marched around, scaled a massive telephone pole and led some awesome English like chants. Strangely entertaining.




Anyway, it was a semi-nostalgic night with him retiring and all and I thought I’d throw down an MP3 of the Timbers theme song ‘Green is the Color’ from back in the day courtesy of some of the Timbers Army. Long live Jim and “Go Timbers!”

2. DOIN' CRIME, DOIN' TIME!
Our charitably adventurous employee Alex Richardson went to jail last week. We were pretty bummed, but when we found out it wasn’t really jail we were relieved. She was raising funds for Muscular Dystrophy and she did an awesome job. Raised over $300 on very short notice! They took her to “jail”, where she needed to raise some $$ for “bail,” so to speak, so that’s what she did. Way to go Alex!


3. RECORD STORE DAY, YO!
Lastly, it was Record Store Day last weekend. I hope you all went out and bought some records and CDs. Who says CDs are fading in popularity anyway? Total baloney. Cravedog is making thousands of CDs every day for an absolute ton of artists. Have a look at what a couple of shoegazer mates had to say about record stores courtesy of recordstoreday.com...

Mark Gardener (Ride)
“God only knows what I would be doing now had it not been for the records that l have discovered and loved as a result of buying records and being turned on to new music from independent record stores. If we lose the independents then we lose a total culture of people who are aware that all the interesting bands and music start at this place and are fed by music lovers directly on a personal level rather than a sea of corporate mediocrity.”

Adam Franklin (Swervedriver)
"For me and a lot of people music itself is a visual thing, and browsing in a record store can be a multi-sensual experience; not only are you half listening to what's playing over the store's speakers and half earwigging on people's conversations or trying to make out what the girl with the headphones on at the listening post is listening to, but also album and CD sleeves are catching your eye along with the posters on the walls and the books on display. In other words it's a rather more gratifying experience than sitting at home on your computer clicking on the screen. Hey, you might even strike up a conversation with the girl with the headphones on! Support your local Indie Record Store!"

What we listened to today in the office: Far out psychedelic pop folk music from the B-Music record label. Check out this track from one of their artists, The Flower Traveling Band. The track is courtesy of the cool Scottish based blog Plain or Pan?
That’s all for today.

Thanks for reading/listening.
MF