August Friday Fun

Happy Friday! Happy August! An eventful week - the Local 9 have remade their roster, trading their best two started - Jon Lester and John Lackey, as well as a bunch of other players of varying value (Andrew Miller, Stephen Drew, Felix Dubront, Jake Peavy, last week) for all sorts of things. Actual major leaguers! Yoenis Cespedes comes from the A's - nice right handed power hitting outfielder; Joe Kelly and Allen Craig from the Cardinals - a promising right handed pitcher, a decent hitter; the Yankees gave us a long time scrub, Kelly Johnson, for Drew - whatever Drew is. The rest are prospects. All told - an interesting day. Probably not quite up to 2012's massive salary dump (which remains one of the steals of the century, whether the 2 starters they got out of the deal stick or not - though De La Rosa has pitched pretty well, and Webster has promise) - and it doesn't have the thrill of 2008, when the Sox traded Brandon Moss (currently leading the A's to the post-season) for Jason Bay (throwing in Manny Ramirez to make the numbers work, right?) - there haven't been many thrills of any sort with this Sox team. But you don't see that many major leaguers moving around these days - between the sox and the Tigers, getting David Price in a complicated trade that apparently involved everyone in the league except the red sox, but again - with plenty of major leaguers moving - it was a lively day. Fun stuff. Might make the Sox worth watching, out of curiosity at least. They do have enough young players to leave one more optimistic than a last place team ought to make you feel. The Bogaerts, Bradley, Betts, Holt contingent, the De La Rosas, Websters, Workmans - and here comes Renaudo! where's Henry Owens? - make this year easier to take. They have not all been up to snuff this year, but they are all young - a few of them ought to be involved in this team's success for a while to come. Keep the big league team running and things could get back to the good next year after all...

Okay - that's that. Historically - August 1 is the day the German's declared war on the Russians in 1914 - World War I was already going by then - Austria attacked Serbia on July 28 - but this is probably the point of no return. Once Germany and Russia started fighting, it was all going to come apart - France was committed to help Russia; Germany's plans committed her to attacking France before they attacked Russia, so if they were going to start fighting one, they would have to fight both - so off it went. The next month or so would be a bloodbath, as bad as any part of the war (and all of the war was a bloodbath.) So there is that.

Well - I don't have any way to connect those two bits to music, so thank god for randomization!

1. The Kills - Wild Charms
2. Pere Ubu - Thoughts that Go By Steam
3. Heroin - Meaning Less
4. 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me
5. Pere Ubu - Muddy Waters (who can complain about 2 Pere Ubu songs in 10? not me!)
6. Pere Ubu - Ice Cream Truck (this might be a bit much - iTunes is messing with me.)
7. Arcade Fire - Here Comes the Night II
8. Mission of Burma - What We Really Were
9. Volcano Suns - Animals (all right - now I know iTunes is messing with me.)
10. Wire - The Other Window

Video? All that Pere Ubu (though all of it fairly obscure) demands a response: so here's Pere Ubu live in San Diego, a full set.



And - howsabout - some Boston rock? same deal - here's a full Volcano Suns performance from 1991:



Okay - we need at least one video people can watch in one sitting: Roky and company sound right - 13th Floor Elevators: