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Author Archives: Rory Masterson

But I Was There: The Smokers Club Tour with Method Man and Redman

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December 1, 2014
Hip-Hip, Music
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METHRED

For what feels like a truly immeasurable number of reasons, the existence of the Wu-Tang Clan is a monumental feat in hip-hop. Consider the genesis of the group: a couple of kung-fu-obsessed cousins in Staten Island recruit some friends and start rapping to each other with a full-fledged five-year plan to take over the music industry. An unparalleled debut album gives way to a flood of solo records, each more outstanding than the others. Individual personalities coalesce and gestate inside the Clan before embarking on a crusade to change the way people think about how music happens and why. On November 22nd, at The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina, we had a chance to bare witness to this pursuit, as one of the Clan’s most prominent members and his most trusted associate spat and spun the crowd into a full-fledged ruckus as if it were 1994.

What I’m really trying to say is this: from the slums of Shaolin, Method Man and Redman struck again.

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3-Pointer: November 21, 2014

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November 21, 2014
3-Pointer, Basketball, NBA
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The Los Angeles Lakers were in trouble. Through the first ten games of this season, one of the league’s two most decorated teams in history was 1-10 and had become a punchline via the play of its fearless, sociopathic leader, Kobe Bryant. People were pointing fingers. Coach Byron Scott refused to acknowledge the league’s most efficient shot, the corner three, in any capacity, allowing Kobe and others to settle for long twos late in the shot clock. Kobe became festively jovial about his team’s historic incompetence. The Clippers officially became the team of Los Angeles. Carlos Boozer became an important cog in a professional basketball team, and it wasn’t the Philadelphia 76ers. The skies over Manhattan Beach, once a clear purple and gold, filled with dark clouds.

But then, a hero emerged. The perfect antidote to the Lakers’ struggles, it turns out, was swag, and only one man had the power to rescue Kobe Bryant from himself. That man is Nick Young, and this week’s 3-Pointer is dedicated (almost) entirely to him.

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3-Pointer: November 14, 2014

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November 14, 2014
3-Pointer, Basketball, NBA
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Courtesy of sportsmockery.com, because of course it is.

Courtesy of sportsmockery.com, because of course it is.

Derrick Rose found himself in a boiling pot of chicken broth earlier this week when he said that he does not want to sit in “meetings all sore or be at my son’s graduation all sore just because of something I did in the past,” and then promptly went out and re-injured a different part of his sore-all-around body. The 2011 NBA MVP continues to seem light years removed from relevance, but he has now stepped a few bounds outside of reality, at least in the eyes of some angry fans. Elsewhere, the Grizzlies are starting to Grizz in a monumental, significant way, and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has called for legalized and regulated gambling, surely to the delight of at least one TwH contributor.

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The Temple of Lance

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November 9, 2014
Basketball, NBA
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Lance

On November 7th, at the behest of Blog Serf James Vasiliou, I attended my first game in the Time Warner Cable Arena of this NBA season. Much has changed since last year, of course; the historically dismal Charlotte Bobcats had re-branded themselves as the Charlotte Hornets, returning to this city one of the most recognizable symbols of its growth during the 1990s and revitalizing a brand which had never really been the same since George Shinn moved the team to New Orleans in 2002. I fully intended to write about how the Charlotte Hornets, rather than the Bobcats, had returned to their place as a rallying point for a city, a way of telling the rest of America that Charlotte hosts more than simply heartless financial institutions and an airport you hate to stop through on your way to Boston, or Philadelphia, or Dublin. I intended to write about how the Bobcats’ postseason appearance last year, only its second in franchise history, became the perfect setup for this season and the re-emergence of the Hornets at just the right time. I wanted to write about how much better purple and teal look than grey, orange, navy and whatever other random colors the Bobcats haphazardly slapped on their uniforms each season to sell more gear to their beleaguered fanbase. I wanted to write about Al Jefferson’s jump hook (I’ll do that anyway, don’t worry).

Instead, I became positively enchanted with the Hornets’ shiniest new toy. No matter what happened on the court, I could not steal a glance away from him. This is how I learned to stop worrying and love Lance Stephenson.

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3-Pointer: November 7, 2014

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November 7, 2014
3-Pointer, Basketball, NBA
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Jennifer Stewart - USA Today Sports

Jennifer Stewart – USA Today Sports

Potential realized is one of the most satisfying aspects of watching sports. It’s the reason we have embraced Peyton Manning as a national treasure and also why Derrick Rose could end up being the inspiration for a Greek tragedy. What we have seen from DeMarcus Cousins this season already far surpasses the monumental steps he has taken each year since his days at Kentucky, and the Sacramento Kings are a delightful surprise as one of the best teams in the West coming out of the gate. Elsewhere, history repeats itself for LeBron James, and watching Rajon Rondo is always fun – always.

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33-Pointer: What Not To Look For This NBA Season

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October 28, 2014
3-Pointer, Basketball, NBA
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Courtesy of vinclusive.com

After months of agonizing anticipation, during which we filled time with other allegedly important sporting events and Mad Men binges on Netflix, the 2014-’15 NBA regular season begins tonight. A three-game slate eases us back into basketball this evening, and there are many important questions surrounding each team, the answers to which will dictate the course of the season. How will the new-look Cavaliers fit together? For how much longer will Rajon Rondo remain a Boston Celtic?  When will Kevin Durant return from injury, and what will he look like? [Insert literally anything] Derrick Rose? What about Kawhi Leonard’s contract situation and “the Spurs way”? Is the triangle a total crock of grade-A bull fertilizer, spread below the floor of Madison Square Garden ahead of the stadium’s demolition and the subsequent establishment of an actual garden in its place?

All that, we will know in due time. What we won’t know is what we don’t think about. Let’s take a moment to consider the impossible, that which could never conceivably happen in today’s National Basketball Association. Then let’s never think about any of these things again.

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Beat to Death

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October 14, 2014
Jazz, Music
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Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus, performing at the 2012 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival.

Flying Lotus performing at the 2012 Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival

The idea of a producer/composer as we now know it is something that two decades ago might have seemed unnecessary or excessive. The rise of DJs as actual musicians rather than jukebox heroes, people who create rather than simply derive, has powered this century toward an electronically-driven, hyper-evolving state in which genres become all but irrelevant. People like Aphex Twin and DJ Shadow blazed a trail for computer-programmed, beat-driven music that incorporates samples and drum machines in experimental capacities. A flood of noise precedes a few identical bars before one element changes, soon leading to a fire sale of sound exchanged for something entirely different.

To call Steven Ellison, better known as Flying Lotus, simply a DJ is to miss the mathematical beauty behind the cacophonous waves he creates. On his first four LPs, as well as the handful of mixtapes and EPs in between, he explored rippled soundscapes which tore through the listener’s consciousness so quickly and maniacally that there was hardly time to breathe. On his latest release, You’re Dead!, Ellison finds himself delving further into the infinite influences which have surrounded him since childhood and molded the 30-year-old’s long view.

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Pressure Cooker

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October 13, 2014
Basketball, NBA
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Courtesy of hoopdiamonds.com

Courtesy of hoopdiamonds.com

“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” – Abraham Lincoln

At this point, we have become accustomed to superstar injuries in sports. For every Cal Ripken, Jr., there are dozens of Paul Georges, each shining intensely before falling at a most inopportune time. In the cases of players like George, who can be the only contributor in specific areas most of the time, the team surrounding the star can only do its best to plug the gap and hope for a miraculous turnaround time. For those teams, season-altering injuries often spell disaster, leaving bloated pundits and defeated fans to point fingers.

What’s happened to the Oklahoma City Thunder should by no means be largely season-altering, nor should the loss of reigning NBA MVP and scoring champion Kevin Durant cause immense concern for the long-term prospects of the team. The operative word in that sentence is “should,” twice over, because what we may witness is an opportunity seized on the parts of both head coach Scott Brooks and the man who will dictate the Thunder’s fortunes for at least the next six to eight weeks, point guard Russell Westbrook. How Oklahoma City responds to the temporary loss of its hero may unlock the door to the Western Conference and reveal the true potential of one of the league’s most talented and divisive players.

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Mario Party

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September 17, 2014
Soccer, Sports
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Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

Courtesy of dailymail.co.uk

When he was 21 years old, a Minnesotan under the pseudonym Bob Dylan recorded his breakthrough album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan. On it, he displayed a full cultural fluency with American traditional folk music and the lifestyles of those who inspired and created it, though his brand came with a unique twist upon which he would expand with subsequent releases. Many music critics believe that his three-album run of Bringing It All Back Home, Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde on Blonde from 1964-’66 is among the finest eras of creative output produced at the hand of any single artist. His antagonistic attitude toward the media and the fans who turned against him fueled the rage which would revolutionize popular music over the course of the 1960s and ’70s. Some may disagree with his sensibilities and style, but it is impossible to discredit his impact.

By the time he was the same age, Bobby Fischer had recorded the only perfect score in the history of the U.S. National Chess Championship, striding into an impressive prime. A stunning rise in the chess world would see him become an American hero upon beating the Soviet Boris Spassky for the World Championship in 1972. He was already hinting at the unhinged tendencies which would eventually force his withdrawal from the public eye at the height of the Cold War before re-emerging as a hate-spewing shell of his former self.

Fans of Liverpool F.C. hope to see a similar prime from an exceptionally polarizing new signing. Mario Balotelli is equal parts Bob Dylan and Bobby Fischer, brilliant and maddening in complementary doses.

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