Coach

Player: I'm gonna make practice this Saturday cause I took off from work...back when I thought we had a game this weekend.
Coach: Yeah...I'm sorry that it got moved and you missed the game. I owe you one.
Player: Buy me a cold one.

Odds

I've coached through my share of penalty kick wins and penalty kick losses. This study of penalty kick success rates performed on data from professional leagues in Europe and South America as well as from the European Championships and World Cup competitions sheds some interesting light on PK strategies that players should avoid or adopt. Check it out.

Scared Of Dinosaurs - Soulja Boy

I'm posting this out of some sort of strange curiosity laced with emotions that border on actually liking this cover. Strange but just might be worth watching at least once...

Jozy and the Bells

I've been meaning to post this video for a while but kept forgetting. Too much festival on the mind. A while back, we starting working on training Jozy to ask to go outside in some other manner than jumping up on the door and scratching all of the wood off. The solution: Poochie Bells (purchased last Christmas). It took a while for Jozy to get the hang of it, but now she is a a regular pro.

The other week, I was playing fetch with her and decided to see if she could solve a little puzzle. Here you go:

Michael Oher Drafted

Way back in November of 2006 (yes, this blog is over 3 years old), I was posting about Michael Oher (here and here) who is the focus of Michael Lewis' book, The Blind Side. This book was amazing. And now a new chapter will need to be written:

Oher was selected in the first round of the NFL draft (#23) and will be playing for the Baltimore Ravens. How cool is that?

Jozy and the Kiddie Pool

With summer on the horizon, if not here already, we (and by "we," I mean my wife) decided to buy Jozy a kiddie pool since she seems to love the one at the dog park. It only cost $9 so it was a pretty safe investment. If she didn't take to the pool, she would at least have a really large water bowl for outside.

After she got into the swing of swimming, it was inevitable that that the pool would be incorporated into the dogobie game. So here is Jozy's water trick debut set to a song by a local band called The Figs.

Vacation!

We just booked two tickets to Paris in June. The countdown (see sidebar on the right), has started already.

Zachary Richard at Festival International de Louisiane

Loved the Zachary Richard show last night! I went in with expectations that it would be a fairly mellow show but Richard showed up with a backing bad that picked up his pace and gave his songs an extra edge.

Here is the band performing Snake Bite Love from his 1992 album. Again, sound quality is poor, but I thought I would try to capture something from the show. This is the full song.

Rachid Taha at Festival International de Louisiane

We spent the night at the festival grounds yesterday and saw a ton of great music. The evening ended with Rachid Taha. He was fantastic. It is tough to describe a mixture of punk, techno and raï (which is a form of folk music that originated in Oran, Algeria, and then in Oujda from Bedouin shepherds, mixed with Spanish, French, African and Arabic musical forms).

My wife's quote as we left the stage area after one of the last songs was: "Songs like that are why I love festival." She was referring to an awesome drum driven song that whipped the crowd into a frenzy immediately following Taha's cover of The Clash's Roch the Casbah. Clips from the Clash cover and the "drum frenzy" song are below (sound quality is what you would expect from a small digital camera placed in a crowd at a concert). I've also uploaded a few pictures from his performance.

Rock the Casbah Cover:

"...why I love festival":

Scenes from Festival International de Louisiane

One of the awesome things about Festival is the sheer diversity of music you find there. It can be exhausting to try and take it all in. Last night we spent 4 hours touring the stages. Today I plan on potentially spending twice that amount. We'll have to find a nice balance of chilling at one stage vs. touring the stages spread out downtown. These photos show two separate bands:

1. Ilê Aiyê (Brazil – Carnival Drum & Dance), above and immediately below
   
2. Dobet Gnahoré – (Ivory Coast – Afrobeat), bottom
   

Rachid Taha - Rock El Casbah

Tonight is a stiff competition between Orange Blossom and Rachid Taha. I may go with the former, or switch stages halfway through. Thing is, Orange Blossom also plays on Sunday, so maybe the Algerian gets first dibs. Here he is doing a kick ass cover of Rock the Kasbah (recently mentioned in a random Coach post actually).

Scenes from Festival International de Louisiane

We went to see Grupo Fantasma last night at Festival and they did not disappoint. Here's some photos from the show. It was a beautiful night, good festival food, great company, Abita strawberry lager, and some great latin funk band.

FIL: Rupa & the April Fishes - Une americaine a Paris

I think my day at the festival ground is going to start around 3:15 tomorrow with this gypsy band from San Francisco.

Scenes from Festival International de Louisiane

One unexpected highlight from tonight at festival was Alpha Yaya Diallo, from Guinea in West Africa with his band Bafing. Xylophone, drums, 2 guitars. Alpha Yaya Diallo now lives in Canada and appears to be a steady presence at the Canadian Juno awards.

FIL: Tarace Boulba

Tarace Boulba is a brass band with thirty mouths and ten times more fingers.

Festival is here! I haven't done band previews justice but oh well. Here is the where you'll find me at 7:15 tonight. Check out 3:15 in and watch this one guy jam out on some sort of flute looking horn. The video seems to go in and out on this, but the sound kicks your ass throughout the whole 8 minute jam.

Official tour and band website.

FIL: Orange Blossom

There is a chance that these guys may be one of the highlights of the festival. They play Saturday night at 9 and Sunday at 4. Pick your preference. Band influences range from Mexico, Algeria, France, electronic, techno, trip hop, world music and apparently anything else you can throw in the pot, like a violin and some previous collaborations with an Ivorian percussion group. Seriously, how are you not curious at this point.

This video is a compilation of tunes and some interviews with the band members. Really cool.

Here is a live performance of their song Denya.

Landin v Morelia (Scorpion Kick)

We had a player on our high school team who spent the pre-game warm-up perfecting his scorpion kick. What is a scorpion kick? Check out what may be the best goal of the year courtesy of BOB Friend Pele1410.

FIL: Grupo Fantasma

Switching gears today on the Festival International prep work and bringing you some latin funk by a band named Grupo Fantasma. These guys are an 11 piece latin funk orchestra from Austin, Texas, best known for their exuberant live shows and their recent association with Prince (?).

Other interesting items of note:

• Quotes pulled from wikipedia: "They're the best band in Austin" confesses Austin Chronicle and Village Voice music critic Jim Caligiuiri, "The only other band I've seen get that kind of response was the Ramones."
• Apparently, their horn session has recently been backing the band Spoon.
• Their last album, "Sonidos Gold" was recently nominated for a Grammy, for Best Latin Rock Or Alternative Album
• Jose Galeano, the band’s primary songwriter is the nephew of the infamous percussionist “Chepito” from the original Santana band.

Now for the important part. These guys are gonna rock. Check out these two videos.

FIL: Pine Leaf Boys

"Imagine a wide river, storm-tossed and swollen with rain, staying within the banks but cutting a deep channel. Or, imagine a vintage tube amplifier driven to its electrical limit. A Pine Leaf performance is like that."
- Josh Caffery, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana

I'll kick off my prep for Festival International with a local band called the Pine Leaf Boys. These guys are all in their 20's, have been nominated for two Grammy awards, and play traditional Cajun and Creole music from Southwest Louisiana. Their list of tour dates on their website is impressive in its geographic reach, with dates this month in the UAE, Jerusalem, Jazz Fest, and of course Lafayette.

Below is a live performance with two songs from Nick Spitzer's American Routes, shot in St. Paul Minneapolis in the Fitzgerald Theater. They play Festival on Wednesday, 4/22, essentially opening up the celebration on the Scène Fais Do Do.

"The Pine Leaf Boys are steeped in tradition (singer-accordionist Wilson Savoy is the son of Cajun performer-scholars Marc and Ann Savoy) but with free-range ambitions in soul, Canned Heat-style boogie, zydeco (the country funk of black Louisiana) and Mardi Gras Indian chants. They did it all — sometimes all at once — in their Jazz Fest set with the tight, headlong delight that makes Blues de Musicien (Arhoolie), their second album, the next best thing to a Saturday night dance in Lafayette."
Rolling Stone, David Fricke

23rd Annual Festival International de Louisiane

Festival International de Louisiane is back in Lafayette! For the first time in about 4 or 5 years, I will have the entire Festival weekend to dedicate to live performances of bands from around the world (attracting close to 300,000 attendees) that are a part of one of the greatest musical events I have been to. Best of all, it's 100% free!

Description from the official website:

Festival International de Louisiane is a community-based, non-profit arts organization formed in 1986 to produce an annual visual and performing arts festival celebrating the French cultural heritage of southern Louisiana – primarily a combination of French, African, Caribbean and Hispanic influences. The largest outdoor, FREE Francophone event in the U.S., the Festival places special emphasis on highlighting the connections between Acadiana and the Francophone world.

Festival runs from 4/22-4/26 and I'll be spending some time over the next two weeks featuring some of the bands that are going to be playing. Click here to get a PDF version of the musical event schedule. And if you have next weekend free and want to come visit, just let us know. Trust me, it is not something to be missed!

Jones Street Station

Found this band last night around 3:20 on Sunday morning when I woke up on the couch and felt like poking around on the internet before going to bed for real. Glad I spent that time, cause these guys sound great. Check out their website, which has an embedded player with their full album if you are interested in hearing more.

Here is a short clip from a song called Last Time, back when the band was called Jones Street Boys.

Here is a video for a song called Tall Buildings. The video is odd in that it is a live performance but the studio version is dubbed in since the guy who made the video was disappointed in the audio quality. Regardless, this is a nice tune.

Free 'NPR Music At SXSW' Sampler

Here's some free music for you if you are interested: NPR's SXSW music sampler, which you can download on iTunes for free. The link to the download is found here.

Adebayor vs. Villarreal

In case you didn't get a chance to watch the Arsenal vs. Villarreal Champions League match earlier this week, here is the game changing moment from Adebayor. Watch this guy take down a 30 yard ball on his chest, in the box, and in one seamless move hit a bike into the back of the net to tie the game up. Unreal.

DC

The last few months have been really hectic, lots of travel, work deliverables, soccer, and other stuff competing for my time. At some point during this long stretch I took this self-portrait on one of my trips to Washington DC. I really like that city.

Get Well Soon!

Jozy's playmate Maggie is sick these days and it has been a while since the two girl friends had a chance to play together. These photos are from their last play date when we were dog sitting for Maggie's parents when they went to the Bahamas. Get well soon Maggie!

Sad Day

We returned Mocha today. It was a hard decision but I think it is the right one. We just don't have the ability to own a predominantly "outside dog" at the moment. He is back at his true foster home and looking for someone with a fenced in yard. Anyone?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

This may be tough...

It has been a long trial week with Mocha, with a lot of challenges and frustration. There have been some really cool moments as well. The two dogs are getting along pretty good. The biggest issue at the moment for me, seems to be establishing a daily telecommuting pattern that allows for two dogs. I think we are going to ask for a second trial week before we make a decision. Moments like the one captured in the picture below are priceless...

Odd Couple

We've had a few more skirmishes on the front lines of the Mocha-Jozy showdown. They have traded places and seem to be settling into the work day as we approach happy hour. Kinda cute.

A Fragile Peace

A fragile peace has been established amongst the coworkers of my office...

Jealousy

Yesterday we went to meet Mocha at his temporary foster home, and introduce Jozy to see if the dogs would be comfortable sharing space together. The initial meeting went well. After the initial meeting, we then had to bring the dogs to our home. So last night was the first night that Mocha and Jozy spent in the same house together. All in all, I guess you can say that it went fairly well. The dogs played a little bit, sniffed around, Jozy declared her dominance, Mocha hid in the corner, and then by the end of the night, Jozy allowed Mocha to sleep on her bed for a bit. That last bit is the one that gives me hope that Jozy will not terrorize Mocha forever.

So my initial reaction to the introduction of Mocha into the house is a littel tepid at the moment. Jozy needs to get over her jealousy and territory issues, and I would like to see them playing together a little more. However, it is only day 1 so...