It's been a great week if you're into Iowa Hawkeye football and basketball. First up, Iowa took the first quarter off and then came back to outlast Illinois 35-21. Next up, an encounter with Wisconsin.
(Joseph Cress-IC Press Citizen Photo)
Usually Carver Hawkeye has been a bust for Iowa basketball, mostly visitor friendly, and for three quarters Wed night, the Iowa State Women were having their way, outplaying and outclassing the girls and led by seventeen points, till Iowa roared back with a 23-7 four quarter domination and won on a last second Caitlin Clark three pointer to beat the Cyclones 82-80, the only time that the Hawks led by the way. Clark scored 34 points in her efforts. Cyclones' superstar Ashley Joens had 35 points but missed with the final shot in the game. This would have been the first Cyclone win in Iowa City since 2006 but Clark's had the final say in her three bomb. In the Cy Hawk Series, the Iowa girls swept UNI, ISU and Drake in girls basketball.
(Jim Slosiakek-The Gazette Photo Credit) Luke Garza.
On the Men's side, Iowa made 17 3 point bombs to blow by North Carolina 93-80, Jordan Bohannon scored 24 points to lead the team including 7 3 bombs (despite going 1-2 in FT shooting). Luke Garza was held under 20 points for the first time all season but still had 16 points and 14 rebounds. Good thing Iowa could make the three point baskets, their FT 8-14 was one of the subpar highlights and North Carolina did come back to take a brief lead before Iowa made 16 straight points to finally seal the game. Carver hawkeye, didn't do the Hawks any favors with poor free throw shooting but for the first time in years, the three bombs were going for the home team. Iowa then took care of Iowa State 105-77, Luke Garza becoming the legend of Iowa Basketball, going 13-14 shooting the ball and scoring 34 points. Plus making 6 out of 7 three pointers. Jack Nunge coming off the bench to score 17 points. Coach McCaffery's kids scoring 13 points as well. On Sunday, Iowa doubled their pleasure and their point total with a 106-53 whopping of winless Northern Illinois, Coach McCaffery's 200th career win. Iowa has had 93 or more points all season in each game they played. And all 16 Hawkeye players got playing time. Luke Garza led with 23 points. J. Wienkamp had 20 and coach's son Patrick McCaffery had 14 coming off the bench. Hard telling if Iowa is for real this season due to COVID, but Garza's return to play his senior season has paid great dividends for Iowa. It's been a great week for Iowa teams this week, the men's 3-0 record, the girls come from behind win, and the guys getting the Heartland trophy back to Iowa city. Hawks will take it easy before Gonzaga comes calling. For the Iowa football team, their reward is to play Michigan this weekend. For Michigan, this season hasn't been fun at all, and for the first time ever, they will not play Ohio State due to COVID. Which is just as well, it would have been a buckeye blowout.
(Patrick Been-AZ republic photo) Jackson He, first Chinese born to play college football and score
We haven't talked about Arizona State football this season, the COVID wiped out most of the season, but they did have their annual Territorial Cup and boy did Arizona State blew out the Wildcats in Tucson in the most lopsided rivalry game ever, racing to a 42-7 halftime lead and put up four more touchdown to win 70-7. Somebody had to win the game, and the Sun Devils won their first game of 2020. Arizona U, falls for 0-4. ASU has now won four straight against the Wildcats. A first: Jackson He, the first Chinese born person to ever play a college football game also, became the first to score a touchdown. The game was decided right off the bat when D J Taylor took the opening kickoff and went 104 yards, and then after that, school was out. Rasheed White after fumbling the previous carry, made it up by ripping through the Wildcat D with a 93 yard TD run.
Consider this, the 2020 Territorial Cup mirrored the 1919 Territorial game, when that year we had the big flu outbreak, but in that game long ago and far away Arizona destroyed the then named Tempe Normal school 59-0 in a downpour mud game. Tempe would not play another football game for three years. Forward to the present, Herm Edwards is undefeated against UA. ASU will play one more game before calling 2020 a season. But this was their bowl game. As for Arizona, their coach Kevin Sumlin was shown the door. He was supposed to turn the team around after leaving Texas A&M for Arizona but being blown out, the AZ AD seen enough. He'll get a nice 7.7 million dollar buy out.
And as for Michigan/Ohio State, the game was canceled due to too many Michigan players testing positive for COVID. At least Jim Harbaugh won't lose this game this year. Ohio State will play Northwestern for the Big 10 title, despite winning only five games, much to Indiana's chagrin, but OSU does have the tiebreaker anyway for BEATING IU. The COVID also wiped out Michigan coming to Iowa City to play Saturday for the Champions week. Michigan ends with a 2-4 record and whatever happens to Jim Harbaugh remains to be seen.
In the case of Iowa football team, had they played the first two games, they would be challenging Indiana for the title. The Hawkeyes manhandled Wisconsin 28-7 Ihmur Smith-Marlette caught two TD passes and Tyler Goodson ran one for 80 yards. You knew it was going to be a good day, when the Iowa Punter dropped the snap but still managed to kick it 40 yards on the bounce. Iowa finishes the regular season at 6 and 2. It was the first win for the Hawks against the Mad City Badgers since 2015. And with the win, The Heartland Trophy returns to Iowa City to a full Trophy case. The Hawks did something most teams in the big ten didn't....they played the full eight games this year.
Strange year indeed.
KCCK had played the Beaker Street hour but nobody bothered to do the playlist. Songs include Rollin And Tumblin from Live Cream, Evil Ways by Carlos Santana and Buddy Miles and a couple of Canned Heat numbers. They also played Blind Eye from Wishbone Ash.
I should finish up my best of 2020 before the year is out. I finally got the new King Gizzard KG album and the latest Body Count. Once they've been listened to, I'll get around putting together my last attempt of remembering the best of 2020 albums, even tho this year's list is even shorter than last year.
Charley Pride became another COVID causality when he passed away at age 86. He wanted to be a baseball player (he did try out for the Milwaukee Brewers if memory served me well) but ended up being the first black country artist to score a number 1 country hit. His late 60s albums for RCA are his best, with hits like Does My Ring Hurt Your Finger, Kiss An Angel Good Morning, Let The Chips Fall and many others. My favorite was The Spell Of The Freight Train (written by Jack Clement who produced Charley) the B side to Does My Ring. https://themusicuniverse.com/charley-pride-dies-86/
Record Reviews:
The Best Of Restless Heart (RCA 1990)
I guess boredom and cheap dollar cds are the reason why I tend to review the forgotten artists and bands of the 1980s. I could have reviewed Richard Marx's first album but then again I would reveal my inner hoarder in me. Restless Heart was a faceless MOR country pop band that scored a few ballads, namely the number 7 I'll Go On Loving You, recorded in the great musical year of 1985, which gave us, the puke inducing Take On Me or Broken Wings, but why KDAT play those 80s garbage rather than the mellow I'll Go On Loving You is beyond me (thank TimesSquare Media for that even decreasing and shrinking playlist of songs). Not that I'll Go On Loving You is a classic song but compared to the whiny Broken Wings, I prefer this or Richard Marx's Don't Mean Nothing. Their harmonies are more like The Outlaws (the Southern rockers, not Waylon Jennings) rather than the Eagles but they are polished and radio ready. Perhaps their best song is The Bluest Eyes In Texas, which can be country classic but I tend to think Restless Heart would have sounded at home with Dan Fogelburg or England Dan/John Ford Coley. They didn't rock out very often and Fast Moving Train is the best of them. There's another best of that adds more songs but the original Best of (aka You've heard it on the radio) is all you really need. Unless you like soft rock country. B-
The Best Of Bobby Sherman (K Tel 1995)
My girlfriend wanted me to try to learn Julie Do Ya Love Me for shits and giggles. The things we do for love. Back in the 70s, we had teen idols with the likes of Bobby Sherman fighting the 16 magazine generation with Donny Osmond and to a lesser extent Mark Lindsay. Being a pop teen idol isn't bad, but back in 1970, it wasn't cool to like Led Zeppelin and Bobby Sherman too. I mean he couldn't have been a total hack, hell he had Jim Gordon play drums on some of the songs. But anyway, the meanest thing I ever did was buy my brother a copy of With Love Bobby, to which I bought for 44 cents and the look in my brother's eye was worth the price of admission. I do think we ended up using that record for a frisbee. 50 years later, nobody plays Bobby Sherman on the radio. There's a certain charm of hearing how he recited Easy Come, Easy Go in a carefree manor, or the one song that they might play in Little Woman, (tho the "come on girl" gets a bit tiring) or Julie Do Ya Love Me. I did consider buying Waiting At The Bus Stop just to impressed my grade school steady, the line (I bet she thinks I'm dumb) might be a little on the creepy side when you hear the lyrics. Critics were never kind to Sherman, (Paul Evans in the Rolling Stone Review Guide, mentioned that Sherman made Shaun Cassidy seem like Robert Johnson...ouch) and Robert Christgau banished him to the meltdown file. In reality, Sherman did get good songs to cover, as much as you can hate Hey Mr Sun or Seattle, there's a sunshine pop that could even make a grouch like Christgau smile for a sec. And Restless/Enigma did issue a CD best of Bobby Sherman which is worth seeking. And the music was perfect for K TEL to reissue when K Tel returned to the CD scene in 1995. Bobby has remained one of the good guys of pop music, when his teen idol years were behind him, he went into acting and got so involved in CPR after starring in a episode of Emergency, he became part of the Los Angeles Police Department. and most recently started up a charity foundation for students in developing countries. Still, K Tel managed to use the Metromedia masters for these songs which are not re recordings, which might have drag K Tel into nadir and they did issue his albums on CD (which were replaced by 2 LPs on I CD via Collectibles). Getting Together might have been the best of the bunch but in reality, if you remember AM radio quite fondly, you'll be content with the best of. I mean somebody had the good sense to hire Jim Gordon to play, so it has to be a worthwhile recording? Even if Paul Evans disagrees, which reminds me, what ever happened to Paul Evans? B
Double Trouble-The Cobra Records Story (One Day/Not Now 2013)
Cobra Records, next to Chess made perhaps the most hardest hitting R and B of the late fifties. Willie Dixon was moonlighting and put together some of the finest musicians that backed up the Chess artists, but at Cobra, the songs were more loose and at times, dark, as Otis Rush's classic Double Trouble sounds. It sounds like being in the bad part of Chicago, but the song was so good, Stevie Ray Vaughan named his band after said song. Unlike the Capricorn long deleted Cobra Records Story, Double Trouble takes us more into the doo wop and pop sounds that Diana Haig overlooked when she compiled the Capricorn/Warners album. The folks at One Day/Not Now managed to find overlooked songs from Ike Turner's Kings Of Rhythm in Walking Down The Aisle. The Clouds Rock n Roll Boogie rocks while seldom heard B side I Do is more Doo Wop. For 40 songs, the compilers do give Magic Sam, Betty Everett and Otis Rush four songs apiece, but also Duke Jenkins and the Calvoes have three songs of their own. Fuel 2000 and Stan Lewis's Paula/Jewel label managed to cherry pick songs for various comps but I do admit that there's about half of these songs that I didn't have that are on Double Trouble. The scattershot package and remaster leaves a bit to be desire (as with all One Day issues, the last song has some sort of That's All message or drum roll that gets to be annoying at the end of disc two) but give them credit for at least bringing something new and unheard to their collection. B+
David Crosby-Oh Yes I Can (One Way reissue 1988)
This was destined to the cut outs a few months after release and while David Crosby tends to be a egotistical prick that Graham Nash or Neil Young wants nothing to do with him, Oh Yes I Can turned out to be a better album than American Dream, the crappy 1988 reunion album with CSNY. Somebody at One Way decided this needed a revisit compared to the American Dream or Live It Up, Oh Yes I Can outclasses those albums. But it's a not a perfect album, it's more flawed than If I Can Only Remember My Name that Crosby issued in 1971. Crosby could rock if he wanted to (Drive My Car), halfass the blues if he wanted to (Drop Down Momma) or improvise if he wanted to (Flying Man). I think his intentions are good as he tells about his personal demons and how that TX prison stint was a wake up call. Still an egotistical prick but at least his intentions are good. B-
Beaker Street Playlist; 12/11/2020 Show number 32. Tyler Vincent compiled.
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