Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
That your avatar has two guys who were gone before the '80s, one guy who was gone by the mid '80s, and no Steve Perry, Neal Schon or Jonathan Cain speaks volumes.
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MAD - Artist - Round 4 - #5's have been posted (7 Viewers)
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Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
We had a category like that in one of the ‘Palozzas - Meta.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
2 of those mentioned are awesome. 1 was the death of Journey. You could say there was a bit of a departure from the sound I love.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Would that I had the restraint of @Uruk-Hai to be able to say "here are a few things about the band, go to Wikipedia to learn about their history." But I don't. So here is part 1 of some light reading for your morning.
Though they didn't dominate the radio or gain any traction among almost anyone else I knew, the Canadian hard-rock trio Triumph may have been my favorite band from about ages 11 to 15 (1982 to 1986). To the extent that they were the headliners of the first concert I ever saw without parents, in the fall of 1986. A lot of fans, myself included, felt very intensely about them not only because of their songs and performances, but because they weren't on magazine covers and such, so they could be "my band" or "my secret".
The story of Triumph, which consisted of Rik Emmett on guitar and vocals, Gil Moore on drums and vocals and Mike Levine on bass and keyboards, is unlike most others in rock history. They built up a following big enough to play hockey arenas (by the late '70s in Canada and by the '80s in the US) while managing themselves (with the help of Moore's father) and getting very little support from the music industry in the traditional way. Kind of like the Grateful Dead and Phish, though they worked in a completely different genre. For this reason and others, they were ripe for a documentary explaining their unusual career, which was released in 2021 under the name Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine. I will be referring to things I learned from it a lot in this essay and in the song writeups.
Their most obvious sonic comparison is Rush, but they were always more AOR and less prog than Geddy and the boys. Another way I described them to my wife is that their sound represents the transition from Led Zeppelin to hair metal. They were never as innovative as the former or as cheesy as the latter, but if you listen to their albums in chronological order, they're as good a guide as any to show how hard rock/heavy metal got from where it was in the mid '70s to where it was in the mid '80s. Another good description is one Uruk-Hai came up with -- a cross between Foreigner and Judas Priest.
Their calling card was Rik Emmett's guitar fireworks. He was every bit the inventive technician that Eddie Van Halen was, and his most renowned performance -- his unaccompanied solo on "Rock & Roll Machine," iconic enough to have been parodied by Spinal Tap on its 1994 TV special The Return of Spinal Tap -- was released a year before Van Halen's debut, so he was no imitator. And he was versatile, incorporating jazz and prog on some tracks, and performing a classical guitar solo -- either as a standalone piece or within another song -- on almost every Triumph album. While he never became a household name like Van Halen, he was well-known to guitar fanatics of the '80s, wrote columns for Guitar Player and drew cartoons for Hit Parader.
Triumph was not just for guitar geeks, however. Unlike Rush and some other bands that played loud, dazzling music, Triumph had their fair share of female fans, probably because their music and lyrics were never intimidating and were relatable to almost everyone. It is no accident that the protagonist of one of their signature songs, "Magic Power," is a young woman.
Many of their lyrics sound like a hockey coach's between-periods pep talk. The documentary showed that this was by design. As with a lot of acts, their target audience was teens who felt out of place, but instead of writing angry or depressing songs, they wrote uplifting ones, to convey to confused teens that life had a lot of positives and with the right outlook, everything was going to be OK. Some of the best parts of the documentary are the band reading letters from fans who had suicidal thoughts but talked themselves out of it in part due to the band's lyrics.
Lyrically, Triumph songs mostly fell into four broad categories (some fall into more than one category):
Inspirational, power-of-positive-thinking themes -- the hockey-coach pep talks in between periods as mentioned above. These were usually (but not always) sung by Emmett.
Songs about rocking out, playing music, being on the road, etc. I also include in this category songs that reference partying but don't mention music or love/lust explicitly. These were among their heaviest material and were usually (but not always) sung by Moore.
Vaguely political themes, usually focused on how ordinary people (or one ordinary person) have the deck stacked against them. These tended to surface once or twice per album except in the case of Never Surrender, which is full of them. They were usually (but not always) sung by Emmett.
Love/lust/breakup songs. These surfaced once or twice per album except in the case of The Sport of Kings, which is full of them. Emmett and Moore were equally likely to sing these.
Triumph accomplished what it did with little support from mainstream music reporters and critics (though they were popular in the musician magazines). In one of the Rolling Stone album guides, the writer of the Triumph entry accuses them of being fascists, which is a hilarious and yet sad misread of their lyrics -- though it's possible they didn't listen to the songs at all and misread the intent of the album titles Rock & Roll Machine, Progressions of Power and Allied Forces.
Triumph (initially known as Abernathy Shagnaster and at first sporting a more blues rock-oriented sound than they would later display) was formed in the early '70s by Gil Moore, a drummer and singer who ran an equipment-rental business out of his garage and got to know a number of people in the Toronto music scene. One of them was Mike Levine, who worked for a venue Moore did business with, and Moore convinced to join his band on bass. With guitarist Fred Keeler and organist Peter Young rounding out the lineup, Triumph was signed to the fledgling Canadian label Attic Records and put out a single, "Hobo" b/w "Got to Get You Back in My Life".
Keeler and Young left the band soon after the single's release, and Levine added keyboard work to his bass duties, but the band needed a top-notch guitar player to make their sound work. Moore and Levine quickly identified a target, Rick Emmett, who played in a Toronto prog band called Act III and was an extremely versatile performer, being proficient in jazz, classical and prog styles in addition to rock. Their pitch was: You've got the talent and the showmanship, and we've got the record contract and a sound that's got a better chance to make an impact than Act III's. Emmett was persuaded and after a few jam sessions to feel things out, joined the band, staying for 12 years and becoming its most visible member and co-lead vocalist. (Emmett changed his first name to the unusual spelling of Rik after it appeared that way in the credits of Triumph's self-titled debut album due to a typo.)
The first two Triumph albums, Triumph (1976; retitled In the Beginning when reissued on CD in 1995) and Rock & Roll Machine (1977), were released in Canada only. Many of the tracks are Zeppelin rehashes, but the best ones are more ambitious, foreshadowing the varied sounds that were to come.
They very much followed the "If you build it, they will come" model in their early years. They set out to have the biggest, brashest live spectacle they could think of, with the music to match. This garnered a ton of favorable word-of-mouth and gained them a following to a much greater extent than their early records did. When they were ready to move up to theater level, they booked a gig at Massey Hall in Toronto, a creaky old venue. Once the venue folks realized what kind of show Triumph put on, they said the stage show with all of its lights and pyrotechnics was too much of a fire hazard. So Triumph, a band with barely any radio presence yet, even in Canada, moved the show to MAPLE LEAF GARDENS. And sold enough tickets for it to make a profit.
The band's U.S. breakthrough began in February 1978, when they were a last-minute addition to a radio station event in San Antonio and were positively received. They soon caught on in other markets in Texas and the Midwest, and later that year were signed to an American label, RCA, which issued an album also called Rock & Roll Machine, though it was a compilation of the best tracks from the two Canadian albums, not that they made Americans aware of this. (As a fanboy in my teens, I dreamed that I was in a record store and found two Triumph cassettes that predated Rock & Roll Machine. As an adult I learned that, more or less, these really did exist!)
One of the other things I learned in the documentary is that by the late '70s, schools in Canada often had cliques divided into Rush fans vs. Triumph fans. Which everyone in the documentary acknowledged was silly, because the bands weren't that different and because the concept of music-based cliques is dumb to most people once they become adults.
Though they didn't dominate the radio or gain any traction among almost anyone else I knew, the Canadian hard-rock trio Triumph may have been my favorite band from about ages 11 to 15 (1982 to 1986). To the extent that they were the headliners of the first concert I ever saw without parents, in the fall of 1986. A lot of fans, myself included, felt very intensely about them not only because of their songs and performances, but because they weren't on magazine covers and such, so they could be "my band" or "my secret".
The story of Triumph, which consisted of Rik Emmett on guitar and vocals, Gil Moore on drums and vocals and Mike Levine on bass and keyboards, is unlike most others in rock history. They built up a following big enough to play hockey arenas (by the late '70s in Canada and by the '80s in the US) while managing themselves (with the help of Moore's father) and getting very little support from the music industry in the traditional way. Kind of like the Grateful Dead and Phish, though they worked in a completely different genre. For this reason and others, they were ripe for a documentary explaining their unusual career, which was released in 2021 under the name Triumph: Rock & Roll Machine. I will be referring to things I learned from it a lot in this essay and in the song writeups.
Their most obvious sonic comparison is Rush, but they were always more AOR and less prog than Geddy and the boys. Another way I described them to my wife is that their sound represents the transition from Led Zeppelin to hair metal. They were never as innovative as the former or as cheesy as the latter, but if you listen to their albums in chronological order, they're as good a guide as any to show how hard rock/heavy metal got from where it was in the mid '70s to where it was in the mid '80s. Another good description is one Uruk-Hai came up with -- a cross between Foreigner and Judas Priest.
Their calling card was Rik Emmett's guitar fireworks. He was every bit the inventive technician that Eddie Van Halen was, and his most renowned performance -- his unaccompanied solo on "Rock & Roll Machine," iconic enough to have been parodied by Spinal Tap on its 1994 TV special The Return of Spinal Tap -- was released a year before Van Halen's debut, so he was no imitator. And he was versatile, incorporating jazz and prog on some tracks, and performing a classical guitar solo -- either as a standalone piece or within another song -- on almost every Triumph album. While he never became a household name like Van Halen, he was well-known to guitar fanatics of the '80s, wrote columns for Guitar Player and drew cartoons for Hit Parader.
Triumph was not just for guitar geeks, however. Unlike Rush and some other bands that played loud, dazzling music, Triumph had their fair share of female fans, probably because their music and lyrics were never intimidating and were relatable to almost everyone. It is no accident that the protagonist of one of their signature songs, "Magic Power," is a young woman.
Many of their lyrics sound like a hockey coach's between-periods pep talk. The documentary showed that this was by design. As with a lot of acts, their target audience was teens who felt out of place, but instead of writing angry or depressing songs, they wrote uplifting ones, to convey to confused teens that life had a lot of positives and with the right outlook, everything was going to be OK. Some of the best parts of the documentary are the band reading letters from fans who had suicidal thoughts but talked themselves out of it in part due to the band's lyrics.
Lyrically, Triumph songs mostly fell into four broad categories (some fall into more than one category):
Inspirational, power-of-positive-thinking themes -- the hockey-coach pep talks in between periods as mentioned above. These were usually (but not always) sung by Emmett.
Songs about rocking out, playing music, being on the road, etc. I also include in this category songs that reference partying but don't mention music or love/lust explicitly. These were among their heaviest material and were usually (but not always) sung by Moore.
Vaguely political themes, usually focused on how ordinary people (or one ordinary person) have the deck stacked against them. These tended to surface once or twice per album except in the case of Never Surrender, which is full of them. They were usually (but not always) sung by Emmett.
Love/lust/breakup songs. These surfaced once or twice per album except in the case of The Sport of Kings, which is full of them. Emmett and Moore were equally likely to sing these.
Triumph accomplished what it did with little support from mainstream music reporters and critics (though they were popular in the musician magazines). In one of the Rolling Stone album guides, the writer of the Triumph entry accuses them of being fascists, which is a hilarious and yet sad misread of their lyrics -- though it's possible they didn't listen to the songs at all and misread the intent of the album titles Rock & Roll Machine, Progressions of Power and Allied Forces.
Triumph (initially known as Abernathy Shagnaster and at first sporting a more blues rock-oriented sound than they would later display) was formed in the early '70s by Gil Moore, a drummer and singer who ran an equipment-rental business out of his garage and got to know a number of people in the Toronto music scene. One of them was Mike Levine, who worked for a venue Moore did business with, and Moore convinced to join his band on bass. With guitarist Fred Keeler and organist Peter Young rounding out the lineup, Triumph was signed to the fledgling Canadian label Attic Records and put out a single, "Hobo" b/w "Got to Get You Back in My Life".
Keeler and Young left the band soon after the single's release, and Levine added keyboard work to his bass duties, but the band needed a top-notch guitar player to make their sound work. Moore and Levine quickly identified a target, Rick Emmett, who played in a Toronto prog band called Act III and was an extremely versatile performer, being proficient in jazz, classical and prog styles in addition to rock. Their pitch was: You've got the talent and the showmanship, and we've got the record contract and a sound that's got a better chance to make an impact than Act III's. Emmett was persuaded and after a few jam sessions to feel things out, joined the band, staying for 12 years and becoming its most visible member and co-lead vocalist. (Emmett changed his first name to the unusual spelling of Rik after it appeared that way in the credits of Triumph's self-titled debut album due to a typo.)
The first two Triumph albums, Triumph (1976; retitled In the Beginning when reissued on CD in 1995) and Rock & Roll Machine (1977), were released in Canada only. Many of the tracks are Zeppelin rehashes, but the best ones are more ambitious, foreshadowing the varied sounds that were to come.
They very much followed the "If you build it, they will come" model in their early years. They set out to have the biggest, brashest live spectacle they could think of, with the music to match. This garnered a ton of favorable word-of-mouth and gained them a following to a much greater extent than their early records did. When they were ready to move up to theater level, they booked a gig at Massey Hall in Toronto, a creaky old venue. Once the venue folks realized what kind of show Triumph put on, they said the stage show with all of its lights and pyrotechnics was too much of a fire hazard. So Triumph, a band with barely any radio presence yet, even in Canada, moved the show to MAPLE LEAF GARDENS. And sold enough tickets for it to make a profit.
The band's U.S. breakthrough began in February 1978, when they were a last-minute addition to a radio station event in San Antonio and were positively received. They soon caught on in other markets in Texas and the Midwest, and later that year were signed to an American label, RCA, which issued an album also called Rock & Roll Machine, though it was a compilation of the best tracks from the two Canadian albums, not that they made Americans aware of this. (As a fanboy in my teens, I dreamed that I was in a record store and found two Triumph cassettes that predated Rock & Roll Machine. As an adult I learned that, more or less, these really did exist!)
One of the other things I learned in the documentary is that by the late '70s, schools in Canada often had cliques divided into Rush fans vs. Triumph fans. Which everyone in the documentary acknowledged was silly, because the bands weren't that different and because the concept of music-based cliques is dumb to most people once they become adults.
Last edited:
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Part 2 of some light reading for your morning:
The third (second in US) album, Just a Game (1979), was their commercial breakthrough and laid the foundation for the sound that would come to define the band's sound in the '80s. The overt Zeppelin-isms of the two Canadian albums gave way to a blend of prog, metal and "boogie rock," with folk touches surfacing on some tracks as well. Two of its tracks, "Lay It on the Line" and "Hold On," caught on with radio programmers, and the latter became the first of two Triumph songs to make the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Fortuitously, even though the music-video format didn't have many outlets yet, the band chose to rent a soundstage and shoot performance-based videos for four Just a Game songs. These would give the album a second run at popularity when MTV launched two years later.
Progressions of Power (1980) was a return to mostly hard-charging rockers like on the first two albums, but with more of a bent toward contemporary metal sounds. Listening to this album after the MAD 3 countdown, it strikes me how much a lot of its songs could pass for those of Judas Priest. Fittingly, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal stylings produced the band's biggest hit in the UK, "I Live for the Weekend." While Power's US commercial success did not match that of Just a Game, its tour found the band continuing to expand its audience and playing its first gig in the New York metropolitan area. Starting with Progressions of Power, the band members shared songwriting credits on almost all tracks; for the first three albums, the credits had been individual.
1981 and 1982 were pivotal years for the band. Moore opened Metalworks Studios so that the band could have complete control of its recording environment; eventually it expanded into a training ground for sound engineers. The first album Triumph recorded there was Allied Forces (1981), for which the band deliberately chose to go back to the approach of Just a Game, as that had produced their most commercially successful material and was the sound they wanted to be identified with going forward. (Aside from the respective album closers and a brief sound-effects track, each song on Allied Forces really does have a doppelganger on Just a Game).
This approach paid off, as the album produced two of their most popular tracks, "Magic Power" and "Fight the Good Fight," and sold more copies than any other Triumph record. It is their only one to be certified Platinum (sales of 1 million copies) in the US.
This is where they came to my attention. My family got cable in 1982 and I was instantly hooked on MTV, which regularly played videos for three songs from Allied Forces plus the four that the band had shot for Just a Game. Their performance videos were downright exciting and visually memorable, with Emmett wearing leotards and flailing about, Levine conveying cool-dude-next door with his extremely long hair, epic 'stache and hockey jerseys, and Moore pounding away like a madman. The reach of MTV made the band tons of new fans like myself.
Why, then, was their next record, Never Surrender (released in Canada in December 1982 and in the US in January 1983), their angriest? They had occasionally written political lyrics, but this album was full of them, and the arrangements followed the Just a Game/Allied Forces template but with harsher sounds baked in. The answer was probably that their relationship with RCA was deteriorating. The label had undergone reshuffling at the corporate level, and the band sensed that the new powers that be had no interest in promoting hard rock. So they sued to get out of their contract -- and lost ("The judge hated our lawyer," they said in the documentary).
Fortunately, the band was rescued by Irving Azoff, the head of MCA Records, who believed in them and bought out their RCA contract for a substantial sum. But this gesture would later come at a price, one that would lead to the end of its classic lineup.
Things were hunky dory at first. The band was tapped by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to play the 1983 version of his US Festival, and helped him plan that show's "metal day," at which Triumph, Van Halen and others played before 500,000 fans. (This also led to a lifelong friendship with Wozniak; there's a clip in the documentary of them at his birthday party.) Thunder Seven (1984), whose production gave a contemporary sheen to the Just a Game/Allied Forces sound but didn't fundamentally change it, made a big splash on FM stations in the US and Canada, with as many as four of its tracks garnering airplay depending on what market you were in. But for all that, it didn't outsell Allied Forces or begin to recoup Azoff's investment. Nor did their first live album, Stages (1985), which pleased the faithful but didn't expand their audience much, despite the inclusion of two new studio tracks.
When the time came to record the next album, The Sport of Kings (1986), MCA made it clear that FM airplay and a good draw on the road would no longer be good enough. It wanted millions of units sold and airplay on Top 40 stations. This meant concessions to the dominant production values of the day. It even wanted to focus marketing around Rik Emmett and have him handle all lead vocals, relegating Mike Levine and Gil Moore to sidemen. This made the recording of The Sport of Kings extremely contentious, and Emmett continues to speak ill of the experience (and the album itself) today. Eventually the label and producers relented and allowed Moore to do some singing (though one has to wonder if "Just One Night," the one time Triumph ever allowed themselves to perform a hair-metal power ballad, would have sounded better with Emmett singing it instead of Moore), but the '80s-ness of the production remained; three session players were hired to provide the cavalcade of keys and synths heard on the record.
Further adding to the tension was that late in the sessions, the label didn't think the band had come up with a Top 40-caliber single, despite the involvement of outside writers on some tracks. The band came up with one at the last minute, and "Somebody's Out There" became their highest-charting single in the US, hitting #27 on the Hot 100 and sporting an oh-so-contemporary video that was played heavily on MTV.
It was on The Sport of Kings tour where I went to a concert for the first time without my parents. Anyone can relive the experience on the A Night of Triumph DVD, which was shot in Halifax a few months after my show and released in 2004. For this tour and the ones for the next two albums, the band employed guitarist/keyboardist Rick Santers to fill out the sound, which in the case of the new material was difficult to replicate onstage with three people.
No other songs from The Sport of Kings got anywhere near the Top 40, and the band decided it would not put itself through that level of promotional grind again. Surveillance (1987) shares some similarities with The Sport of Kings, but is very much a record that sounds like it was made on the band's own terms. On some tracks, Rik Emmett's prog leanings, which had mostly not been seen since Just a Game, made a return. It even got a positive review in The Philadelphia Inquirer, which was the first time I'd ever seen a non-techie music writer have something nice to say about Triumph.
Touring for Surveillance was minimal (and what shows there were just used the previous tour's setlist with one or two Surveillance songs subbed in), and its presence on the radio was much less than that of The Sport of Kings or Thunder Seven. What we didn't know at the time, and which I didn't learn until the release of the documentary, was that the band was in turmoil, in part because of cracks that had started to form as a result of the label shenanigans, but also because Gil Moore's father, who served as the band's manager, passed away. Emmett said in the documentary that Moore became withdrawn during this period and communication between them deteriorated. By the end of 1988, Emmett decided that he did not want to deal with the situation anymore and left the band.
The third (second in US) album, Just a Game (1979), was their commercial breakthrough and laid the foundation for the sound that would come to define the band's sound in the '80s. The overt Zeppelin-isms of the two Canadian albums gave way to a blend of prog, metal and "boogie rock," with folk touches surfacing on some tracks as well. Two of its tracks, "Lay It on the Line" and "Hold On," caught on with radio programmers, and the latter became the first of two Triumph songs to make the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Fortuitously, even though the music-video format didn't have many outlets yet, the band chose to rent a soundstage and shoot performance-based videos for four Just a Game songs. These would give the album a second run at popularity when MTV launched two years later.
Progressions of Power (1980) was a return to mostly hard-charging rockers like on the first two albums, but with more of a bent toward contemporary metal sounds. Listening to this album after the MAD 3 countdown, it strikes me how much a lot of its songs could pass for those of Judas Priest. Fittingly, the New Wave of British Heavy Metal stylings produced the band's biggest hit in the UK, "I Live for the Weekend." While Power's US commercial success did not match that of Just a Game, its tour found the band continuing to expand its audience and playing its first gig in the New York metropolitan area. Starting with Progressions of Power, the band members shared songwriting credits on almost all tracks; for the first three albums, the credits had been individual.
1981 and 1982 were pivotal years for the band. Moore opened Metalworks Studios so that the band could have complete control of its recording environment; eventually it expanded into a training ground for sound engineers. The first album Triumph recorded there was Allied Forces (1981), for which the band deliberately chose to go back to the approach of Just a Game, as that had produced their most commercially successful material and was the sound they wanted to be identified with going forward. (Aside from the respective album closers and a brief sound-effects track, each song on Allied Forces really does have a doppelganger on Just a Game).
This approach paid off, as the album produced two of their most popular tracks, "Magic Power" and "Fight the Good Fight," and sold more copies than any other Triumph record. It is their only one to be certified Platinum (sales of 1 million copies) in the US.
This is where they came to my attention. My family got cable in 1982 and I was instantly hooked on MTV, which regularly played videos for three songs from Allied Forces plus the four that the band had shot for Just a Game. Their performance videos were downright exciting and visually memorable, with Emmett wearing leotards and flailing about, Levine conveying cool-dude-next door with his extremely long hair, epic 'stache and hockey jerseys, and Moore pounding away like a madman. The reach of MTV made the band tons of new fans like myself.
Why, then, was their next record, Never Surrender (released in Canada in December 1982 and in the US in January 1983), their angriest? They had occasionally written political lyrics, but this album was full of them, and the arrangements followed the Just a Game/Allied Forces template but with harsher sounds baked in. The answer was probably that their relationship with RCA was deteriorating. The label had undergone reshuffling at the corporate level, and the band sensed that the new powers that be had no interest in promoting hard rock. So they sued to get out of their contract -- and lost ("The judge hated our lawyer," they said in the documentary).
Fortunately, the band was rescued by Irving Azoff, the head of MCA Records, who believed in them and bought out their RCA contract for a substantial sum. But this gesture would later come at a price, one that would lead to the end of its classic lineup.
Things were hunky dory at first. The band was tapped by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak to play the 1983 version of his US Festival, and helped him plan that show's "metal day," at which Triumph, Van Halen and others played before 500,000 fans. (This also led to a lifelong friendship with Wozniak; there's a clip in the documentary of them at his birthday party.) Thunder Seven (1984), whose production gave a contemporary sheen to the Just a Game/Allied Forces sound but didn't fundamentally change it, made a big splash on FM stations in the US and Canada, with as many as four of its tracks garnering airplay depending on what market you were in. But for all that, it didn't outsell Allied Forces or begin to recoup Azoff's investment. Nor did their first live album, Stages (1985), which pleased the faithful but didn't expand their audience much, despite the inclusion of two new studio tracks.
When the time came to record the next album, The Sport of Kings (1986), MCA made it clear that FM airplay and a good draw on the road would no longer be good enough. It wanted millions of units sold and airplay on Top 40 stations. This meant concessions to the dominant production values of the day. It even wanted to focus marketing around Rik Emmett and have him handle all lead vocals, relegating Mike Levine and Gil Moore to sidemen. This made the recording of The Sport of Kings extremely contentious, and Emmett continues to speak ill of the experience (and the album itself) today. Eventually the label and producers relented and allowed Moore to do some singing (though one has to wonder if "Just One Night," the one time Triumph ever allowed themselves to perform a hair-metal power ballad, would have sounded better with Emmett singing it instead of Moore), but the '80s-ness of the production remained; three session players were hired to provide the cavalcade of keys and synths heard on the record.
Further adding to the tension was that late in the sessions, the label didn't think the band had come up with a Top 40-caliber single, despite the involvement of outside writers on some tracks. The band came up with one at the last minute, and "Somebody's Out There" became their highest-charting single in the US, hitting #27 on the Hot 100 and sporting an oh-so-contemporary video that was played heavily on MTV.
It was on The Sport of Kings tour where I went to a concert for the first time without my parents. Anyone can relive the experience on the A Night of Triumph DVD, which was shot in Halifax a few months after my show and released in 2004. For this tour and the ones for the next two albums, the band employed guitarist/keyboardist Rick Santers to fill out the sound, which in the case of the new material was difficult to replicate onstage with three people.
No other songs from The Sport of Kings got anywhere near the Top 40, and the band decided it would not put itself through that level of promotional grind again. Surveillance (1987) shares some similarities with The Sport of Kings, but is very much a record that sounds like it was made on the band's own terms. On some tracks, Rik Emmett's prog leanings, which had mostly not been seen since Just a Game, made a return. It even got a positive review in The Philadelphia Inquirer, which was the first time I'd ever seen a non-techie music writer have something nice to say about Triumph.
Touring for Surveillance was minimal (and what shows there were just used the previous tour's setlist with one or two Surveillance songs subbed in), and its presence on the radio was much less than that of The Sport of Kings or Thunder Seven. What we didn't know at the time, and which I didn't learn until the release of the documentary, was that the band was in turmoil, in part because of cracks that had started to form as a result of the label shenanigans, but also because Gil Moore's father, who served as the band's manager, passed away. Emmett said in the documentary that Moore became withdrawn during this period and communication between them deteriorated. By the end of 1988, Emmett decided that he did not want to deal with the situation anymore and left the band.
Last edited:
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
Part 3 of some light reading for your morning:
Emmett began a solo career and Triumph finished out their MCA contract by releasing a compilation album, Classics (1989). After several years of silence, Levine and Moore re-emerged in 1992 to sign with Victory Records and produce Edge of Excess (Canada 1992, US 1993), which, as in the very earliest days of the band, featured Moore as the sole lead singer. To replace Emmett, they recruited Phil X (Xenidis), who had played with Aldo Nova and Frōzen Ghōst. The resulting album varies greatly in quality but its best tracks sound like a contemporary update of Progressions of Power, their most metal-sounding record. In fact, you can hear the specter of Metallica's black album, released the year before, throughout the whole thing. The band launched a tour (with Santers singing a few Emmett-sung tracks in the set), but by the end of 1993, Victory Records folded and Levine and Moore decided to end the group.
Moore concentrated on Metalworks Studios full-time, Levine oversaw reissues of the Triumph catalog and new DVDs and compilations, and Emmett continued his solo career and taught songwriting and the music business at a college in Ontario.
Then in 2008, shortly after being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Emmett, Levine and Moore performed for the first time in 20 years, at the Sweden Rock Festival and the Rocklahoma festival (the set of the former has been officially released).
Interest in the band was renewed in 2010, when "Lay It on the Line" was made available for Guitar Hero 5. But the core trio did not perform together again until they convened in 2016 to play on a track on an Emmett solo album that is essentially an update of the Just a Game track "Suitcase Blues".
The climax of the documentary is a fan event at Metalworks Studios in 2019, in which Emmett, Levine and Moore performed a surprise three-song set. That may be the last time they ever perform together, as earlier this year Emmett announced that he is being treated for prostate cancer and that he has arthritis in his hands.
As you go through this countdown of what I think are Triumph's 31 best songs, some of you will relive memories of your youth and others of you will be exposed for the first time to a first-rate mainstream hard rock band from the '70s and '80s, and maybe you will be drawn to them in your middle age as I was as a tween.
Emmett began a solo career and Triumph finished out their MCA contract by releasing a compilation album, Classics (1989). After several years of silence, Levine and Moore re-emerged in 1992 to sign with Victory Records and produce Edge of Excess (Canada 1992, US 1993), which, as in the very earliest days of the band, featured Moore as the sole lead singer. To replace Emmett, they recruited Phil X (Xenidis), who had played with Aldo Nova and Frōzen Ghōst. The resulting album varies greatly in quality but its best tracks sound like a contemporary update of Progressions of Power, their most metal-sounding record. In fact, you can hear the specter of Metallica's black album, released the year before, throughout the whole thing. The band launched a tour (with Santers singing a few Emmett-sung tracks in the set), but by the end of 1993, Victory Records folded and Levine and Moore decided to end the group.
Moore concentrated on Metalworks Studios full-time, Levine oversaw reissues of the Triumph catalog and new DVDs and compilations, and Emmett continued his solo career and taught songwriting and the music business at a college in Ontario.
Then in 2008, shortly after being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame, Emmett, Levine and Moore performed for the first time in 20 years, at the Sweden Rock Festival and the Rocklahoma festival (the set of the former has been officially released).
Interest in the band was renewed in 2010, when "Lay It on the Line" was made available for Guitar Hero 5. But the core trio did not perform together again until they convened in 2016 to play on a track on an Emmett solo album that is essentially an update of the Just a Game track "Suitcase Blues".
The climax of the documentary is a fan event at Metalworks Studios in 2019, in which Emmett, Levine and Moore performed a surprise three-song set. That may be the last time they ever perform together, as earlier this year Emmett announced that he is being treated for prostate cancer and that he has arthritis in his hands.
As you go through this countdown of what I think are Triumph's 31 best songs, some of you will relive memories of your youth and others of you will be exposed for the first time to a first-rate mainstream hard rock band from the '70s and '80s, and maybe you will be drawn to them in your middle age as I was as a tween.
Raging weasel
Footballguy
Triumph was one of my favorite bands in the 80's and had all their albums on vinyl up to Sport of Kings. Saw the 83 and 85 tours and Rik Emmett solo a couple times and was always a great show. Forget which show had the laser and hologram effects that they bought from the Michael Jackson tour but that was one of the few concerts I've seen on acid and it was awesome.
Really looking forward to your countdown!
Really looking forward to your countdown!
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
The show I saw in 1986 had those, but I don't know if any previous tours did.
In the first half of the '00s, when I was going to NYC for concerts all the time, Emmett was playing solo shows at smaller venues in Manhattan. I never got around to going to any of those and I regret it.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I say that mainly because I'm lazy.
Raging weasel
Footballguy
Double checked the dates and it was the 85 and 86 tours I saw so probably the same one
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
There you go. Next time someone says you're lazy, just say "no, I'm restrained."
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
The setlist for my show:
Triumph
The Spectrum
Philadelphia, PA
10/24/86
(Yngvie Malmsteen opened)
Tears in the Rain, Somebody's Out There, Allied Forces, Lay It on the Line, Midsummer's Daydream, Follow Your Heart/Drum Solo, Take a Stand, Magic Power, Rock & Roll Machine/Guitar Solo, Spellbound
E: Rocky Mountain Way, Fight the Good Fight
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
You new to music threads?Maybe we should actually start this one before preparing for the next one
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Interesting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
titusbramble
Footballguy
Yeah, it's not as if I'm one that only liked their super early stuff. Kid A might be the most underrated album of all timeInteresting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
When I first heard Kid A when it came out, I thought “either this is brilliant or full of sh!t.”Yeah, it's not as if I'm one that only liked their super early stuff. Kid A might be the most underrated album of all timeInteresting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
It’s brilliant.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I remember my disappointment on first listen vividly.When I first heard Kid A when it came out, I thought “either this is brilliant or full of sh!t.”Yeah, it's not as if I'm one that only liked their super early stuff. Kid A might be the most underrated album of all timeInteresting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
It’s brilliant.
krista4
Footballguy
Raging weasel
Footballguy
In!
My current countdown will have a song that fits that theme as well.
Mrs. Rannous
Footballguy
Right with you there. Pip is the Tolstoy of drafters. I am writing the captions for USA Today.
Mrs. Rannous
Footballguy
I just cut a cover of a Beatles song from my Annie Lennox list. Do I need to send you a link?In!
My current countdown will have a song that fits that theme as well.
Mrs. Rannous
Footballguy
Must be a noob. I'm already working on the draft after the one after this one.You new to music threads?Maybe we should actually start this one before preparing for the next one
John Maddens Lunchbox
Socialism for Dummies
Im still trying to get my Robyn draft from 76 songs down to 31.Must be a noob. I'm already working on the draft after the one after this one.You new to music threads?Maybe we should actually start this one before preparing for the next one
No time for Batman. Robyn is the priority
zamboni
Footballguy
Fantastic work as usual, Pip. Really looking forward - I kind of shifted my tastes a bit to other bands after Never Surrender and would like to explore some of their later ‘80s under the radar stuff.
rockaction
Footballguy
I remember my disappointment on first listen vividly.When I first heard Kid A when it came out, I thought “either this is brilliant or full of sh!t.”Yeah, it's not as if I'm one that only liked their super early stuff. Kid A might be the most underrated album of all timeInteresting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
It’s brilliant.
I was taken at first listen. "Everything In Its Right Place" was so ethereally out of this world, and I loved it. I think I had cut my teeth on a bit of electronica and bands that were going there from America, so hearing the muted and slightly minimalist English version of that sort of synthesis wasn't surprising to me nor off-putting at all.
But I remember the album that I came to about ten months too late. The radio (HFS) wasn't really playing songs off of the album (oops, wait, they played "Optimistic") and I was 27 when it came out, so it was certainly escapable in a media and cultural sense.
But I figured I'd pick it up one day on a lark (if ever there was a wrong word that accurately described a feeling about to be flounced about . . . ) because I'd liked The Bends and OK Computer, and I can remember the grayness of the day going down Route 29 to 16th Street NW for my job in D.C. and feeling actually quite alienated from everything while listening to a very alienating record. I loved Yorke's
in its right place
there are two colors in my head
what was that you tried to say?
Radiohead was closing down the nineties and it was time to see if that last drink at the bar meant what it had meant just two years ago. It didn't for a lot of us. It was a seismic shift that might have killed rock, actually.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I'd like to hear more on why you think this.
rockaction
Footballguy
My God, Pip, I'm gonna get to reading that within the next few weeks.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
It’s less than half the length of the Fanny essay. Did you ever finish that one?
rockaction
Footballguy
Simply that nothing sounded authentic but the White Stripes and a few others after Kid A, and those bands were consciously retro. I mean, you had disco-punk and the Strokes and a revival, but it was short-lived. You don't hear anything but electronica on the airwaves today. Even the country is electronified and given hip-hop beats to make the sugary lager go down more smoothly. Radiohead ushered that doubt into the rockist consciousness with respect to sound, not just to attitude.
There are better people to do this than I because that's a post hoc argument, really. I guess Radiohead helped do several things: they took the piss out of the self-assuredness needed for a proper rock band. Thom Yorke isn't wriggling in spandex unless he's making a statement about how wriggling in spandex won't let him communicate with other people. There's none of that stuff.
Radiohead also suggested that a great arena band didn't have to be rockist, but could be ornately done and presented in a pop format without blistering rock and roll making the statement. Avant-garde jazz and sonic textures could make up for bombast by being a challenging yet rewarding sound.
In a way, it also seems generational and necessary. The younger generation had nowhere to take rock that The Beatles, The Who, The Kinks, Beach Boys, and The Rolling Stones hadn't already taken it. I mean, how to improve upon that? Or how to make culturally significant stuff to a pop culture audience, never mind an audience that was fragmenting and personalizing its taste into each person's own algorithm.
You do what Radiohead did. You take the sounds of a digital generation and give it feeling and meaning like they did in Kid A—and my personal favorite, the Kid A sessions that became Amnesiac. It's a two-record run that probably won't be topped in its intricacy, its forward-looking nature, its performances, nor its instrumentation, both in the compositional and actual choice of instruments to use to provide the texture and feeling.
rockaction
Footballguy
It’s less than half the length of the Fanny essay. Did you ever finish that one?
Oh, I think I did, actually. (Don't quiz me.)
I read their Wiki page and listened to a bunch of the songs off of the album you passed along, so maybe I'm remembering that and not your write-up. I think I might not have, Pip. I know I read at least one Wiki page pertaining to them, and I think that was the bulk of my reading. I never could get a straight answer over how their name came to be. Sounded like whitewashing to me from Wiki, which they're prone to doing these days. You might have answered that in your write-up. That's how I'll know. If you did answer that question, I would have remembered it.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
Thanks.
I'd posit that white-guy rock as a cultural juggernaut was dead even earlier than Kid A. It just didn't know it yet - kinda like a chicken with its head cut off still running around. As usual, Rolling Stone and it's misbegotten children kept fanning the flames for the NEXT BIG THING, but even those assholes had to throw in the towel (20 years too late, but hey...)
rockaction
Footballguy
That is entirely fair and probably accurate. I’d say Nirvana killed it, but people hate that claim. Radiohead was significant in sonics whereas Nirvana killed the myth making behind Rolling Stone and the music its rock critics dug or purported to dig.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
I have come around on the album, but I still feel like I under rate it vs. other fans and critics. If I was grabbing albums of theirs to listen to it would be 4th at best, and maybe 5th. For me it clicked more when I saw them on tour, but even now it's the live versions of songs from the album that I would prefer to listen to.I remember my disappointment on first listen vividly.When I first heard Kid A when it came out, I thought “either this is brilliant or full of sh!t.”Yeah, it's not as if I'm one that only liked their super early stuff. Kid A might be the most underrated album of all timeInteresting. I am looking forward to your list. When I did my list the surprise for me was having more songs on the playlist from King of Limbs and Amnesiac than I did Hail to the Thief or Moon Shaped Pool.I've got a handful of tracks that will get into the long list from the last two albums, one or two of which may crack the 31, but I want the time listening to King of Limbs back for sure. Was expecting the list to be early stuff heavy but maybe not this muchSo we have a non Radiohead fan doung a Radiohead playlist??!!!
It’s brilliant.
I was taken at first listen. "Everything In Its Right Place" was so ethereally out of this world, and I loved it. I think I had cut my teeth on a bit of electronica and bands that were going there from America, so hearing the muted and slightly minimalist English version of that sort of synthesis wasn't surprising to me nor off-putting at all.
But I remember the album that I came to about ten months too late. The radio (HFS) wasn't really playing songs off of the album (oops, wait, they played "Optimistic") and I was 27 when it came out, so it was certainly escapable in a media and cultural sense.
But I figured I'd pick it up one day on a lark (if ever there was a wrong word that accurately described a feeling about to be flounced about . . . ) because I'd liked The Bends and OK Computer, and I can remember the grayness of the day going down Route 29 to 16th Street NW for my job in D.C. and feeling actually quite alienated from everything while listening to a very alienating record. I loved Yorke's
in its right place
there are two colors in my head
what was that you tried to say?
Radiohead was closing down the nineties and it was time to see if that last drink at the bar meant what it had meant just two years ago. It didn't for a lot of us. It was a seismic shift that might have killed rock, actually.
I could be wrong but I remember hearing a "midnight release" on a DirectV channel or something like that. My buddy and I sat there
. I was disappointed enough that I didn't bother listening to the physical version I pre-ordered for a bit.
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KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Great writeups like usual, Pip. I'm looking forward to this one. I get the impression they are in my wheelhouse, but couldn't name you a tune.
Raging weasel
Footballguy
Not covers of Beatles songs but songs that mention the Beatles or their songs. If the cover was Glass Onion it would workI just cut a cover of a Beatles song from my Annie Lennox list. Do I need to send you a link?In!
My current countdown will have a song that fits that theme as well.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
There may be some songs you know but not by name. Depends on where you were in the 80s, whether you had MTV, etc. The potential to be in your wheelhouse is definitely there.
Raging weasel
Footballguy
I'm sure he will recognize at least 1 or 2. You and I have used Triumph in multiple drafts.
KarmaPolice
Footballguy
Yeah, page 6.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
They wanted to have a woman's name for the band name. They threw out suggestions, someone said that one, and they thought it was funny and kept it.It’s less than half the length of the Fanny essay. Did you ever finish that one?
Oh, I think I did, actually. (Don't quiz me.)
I read their Wiki page and listened to a bunch of the songs off of the album you passed along, so maybe I'm remembering that and not your write-up. I think I might not have, Pip. I know I read at least one Wiki page pertaining to them, and I think that was the bulk of my reading. I never could get a straight answer over how their name came to be. Sounded like whitewashing to me from Wiki, which they're prone to doing these days. You might have answered that in your write-up. That's how I'll know. If you did answer that question, I would have remembered it.
Their name when they got signed was Wild Honey, which sounds perfectly fine to me, but what do I know.
Pip's Invitation
Footballguy
And tonight I wrote up my Last 5 Out.
This month is going to be very hectic in terms of work and family stuff, so I gotta do what I can when I have time.
This month is going to be very hectic in terms of work and family stuff, so I gotta do what I can when I have time.
Eephus
Footballguy
This weekend is one of my favorites to be in SF because Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival is in Golden Gate Park. It's a free three-day festival that has bluegrass along with lots of other types of music across six stages. We usually go there for a couple of days, sometimes all three. Unfortunately, it's been unseasonably hot in the city this week, which is tough because most homes don't have air conditioning. Our flat has been uncomfortable which has really cut into our sleep. Mrs. Eephus even slept in ditkaburgers' ground floor apartment because it's much cooler down there and db is out of town for the weekend.
We bailed on Friday because our son was in town for a wedding but planned to head to the park Saturday morning. It was even hotter than Friday so we lollygagged around past the time we planned to leave. Friends texted us saying it was scorching in the sun. We kept dragging our feet past the time where we'd be able to get a decent place to watch and eventually decided to stay home (or ditkaburger's home to be exact) and watch the live stream like the old potatoes we've become. I even brought out my camping chair and sat on the floor to recreate the festival experience sans heat and crowds.
I guess things turned out for the best because I got to watch MAD#3 favorite Andrew Bird perform. We wouldn't have seen him otherwise because he was on a different stage than we were going to. Bird played with Madison Cunningham in a four piece group. They performed their upcoming duo album which is a front-to-back cover album of the long out of print 1972 album from Buckingham Nicks. Bird even quipped that Cunningham Bird has the same number of syllables so they had to do it. Buckingham Nicks is the pre-Fleetwood Mac album by Lindsey and Stevie and it's a beauty. Bird and Cunningham's version pays homage to the original but their instrumentation is unique and there's a lot more whistling. It was a great set that made me excited about their album later this month.
Steve Earle's headlining set gave me a few pangs of regret about not following through the Earle 1-31 that I started on for this round. I listened to him for a week but decided he had too many great songs to cut down to 31. He's an interesting guy who would provide a lot of content for writeups as well. Oh well, maybe another time.
We bailed on Friday because our son was in town for a wedding but planned to head to the park Saturday morning. It was even hotter than Friday so we lollygagged around past the time we planned to leave. Friends texted us saying it was scorching in the sun. We kept dragging our feet past the time where we'd be able to get a decent place to watch and eventually decided to stay home (or ditkaburger's home to be exact) and watch the live stream like the old potatoes we've become. I even brought out my camping chair and sat on the floor to recreate the festival experience sans heat and crowds.
I guess things turned out for the best because I got to watch MAD#3 favorite Andrew Bird perform. We wouldn't have seen him otherwise because he was on a different stage than we were going to. Bird played with Madison Cunningham in a four piece group. They performed their upcoming duo album which is a front-to-back cover album of the long out of print 1972 album from Buckingham Nicks. Bird even quipped that Cunningham Bird has the same number of syllables so they had to do it. Buckingham Nicks is the pre-Fleetwood Mac album by Lindsey and Stevie and it's a beauty. Bird and Cunningham's version pays homage to the original but their instrumentation is unique and there's a lot more whistling. It was a great set that made me excited about their album later this month.
Steve Earle's headlining set gave me a few pangs of regret about not following through the Earle 1-31 that I started on for this round. I listened to him for a week but decided he had too many great songs to cut down to 31. He's an interesting guy who would provide a lot of content for writeups as well. Oh well, maybe another time.
Uruk-Hai
Footballguy
I have friends in SF who go to this every year and keep inviting me to go along. I keep telling myself "next year" and never pull the trigger.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
If we do another round of this (“if”, yeah right
) and you go with Steve Earle, maybe I’ll choose his son, Justin Townes Earle that same round since he’s been in consideration for me since the beginning of this exercise.
rockaction
Footballguy
If we do another round of this (“if”, yeah right
Doc is up. You ready, Doc? I've been pretty much up all night on the West Coast waiting for this.
Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
I am ready. I got to sleep at least. Just had a Porkroll, egg and cheese sandwich with my friend visiting from Florida and ready to make Sam Darnold see more ghosts.If we do another round of this (“if”, yeah right
Doc is up. You ready, Doc? I've been pretty much up all night on the West Coast waiting for this.
rockaction
Footballguy
I am ready. I got to sleep at least. Just had a Porkroll, egg and cheese sandwich with my friend visiting from Florida and ready to make Sam Darnold see more ghosts.If we do another round of this (“if”, yeah right
Doc is up. You ready, Doc? I've been pretty much up all night on the West Coast waiting for this.
I should have slept. Just couldn't. I might fall asleep before the game here. I was going to talk more about the game, but I'll let this be the music thread. Take care. Enjoy the game today.
zamboni
Footballguy
Fixed for clarity
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Dr. Octopus
Footballguy
May as well head to bed now, rock.I am ready. I got to sleep at least. Just had a Porkroll, egg and cheese sandwich with my friend visiting from Florida and ready to make Sam Darnold see more ghosts.If we do another round of this (“if”, yeah right
Doc is up. You ready, Doc? I've been pretty much up all night on the West Coast waiting for this.
I should have slept. Just couldn't. I might fall asleep before the game here. I was going to talk more about the game, but I'll let this be the music thread. Take care. Enjoy the game today.
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