UTEP football notebook: CSU-UTEP play lights out

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Late in the halftime during Saturday night’s game, the lights at the Sun Bowl went out (a blown circuit was blamed) and created a 25-minute delay.

At first it seemed like it might be part of the halftime show and the crowd celebrated by flipping open their cell phones and waving them back and forth like it was a rock concert. Teams were leaving the locker room for the second half when it happened.

“That was really cool,” UTEP coach Mike Price said. “It was awesome. I thought, ‘Andre (Faegin), the band director, does it all.”

Special impact

UTEP’s superlative special teams finally gave up some big plays the wrong way. the kickoff and punt cover teams, which had been among the best in the nation, allowed Colorado State to average 34 yards per return and 19.5 yards per punt return.

Worst of all, after UTEP’s lead was cut to 31-17 with 7:29 left, Vernon Frazier fielded the ensuing kickoff on his 4-yard line and took a knee. Frazier said he was told to take a knee, even though no one was within 15 yards of him.

“I didn’t want to be a hero, I was just listening to coach,” he said.

Kick challenge

The battle of two of the best punters in the nation was as good as advertised.

Ian Campbell averaged 54.7 yards on three punts for UTEP while Pete Kontodiakos averaged 51.4 yards on five punts.

Penalized

UTEP had been a disciplined team all year, averaging just 38.5 penalty yards per game, but they imploded in that regards Saturday with seven penalties for 89 yards and some could have been killers.

The most notable was a facemask away from the ball on DeShawn Grayson after a third-and-goal pass from the 4 went incomplete. That gave the Rams a first-and-goal from the 2, but aided by a motion penalty, UTEP made a stand. on third-and-goal from the 4, Grayson broke up a pass.

The Miners had a drive killed by a personal foul on Jerel Watkins for an illegal block and Nathan Jeffery was called for a celebration penalty after a touchdown.

In the second half, a Blake celebration penalty extended a Ram drive after a third-and-long sack, and Watkins was called for a late hit as Nick Lamaison crossed the goal line on his touchdown run. That touchdown did stand, but set up Colorado State with good field position when it was enforced on the ensuing kickoff.

“There was some uncharacteristic things we did during the game,” Price said.

Local plays

A play after Montwood’s Julio Lopez caught a pass, Chapin’s Cliff Tucker made his first career reception in the third quarter. It went for 10 yards.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at ; 546-6359.

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South Florida Classical Review » Blog Archive » Miami Symphony opens season with Beatles-inspired premiere

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The Miami Symphony Orchestra opened its season Sunday with the world premiere of Sam Hyken’s Beatles Guide to the Orchestra. Hyken, currently involved in the Miami Music Project Orchestral Academy, is the orchestra’s principal trumpet player and has a definite interest in the merging of disparate styles of music. The Arsht Center’s Knight Concert Hall provided the showcase for his skillful symphonic arrangement of several Beatles’ tunes into a narrated orchestral guide clearly modeled on that of Benjamin Britten.

The Beatles Guide is an eclectic piece in popular style, with elements of jazz. Opening with what sounded like Lloyd Webber’s Jesus Christ, Superstar, it quickly segued into Octopus’s Garden and took off from there.   The orchestration and arrangement were skillful and, if Britten got to the finish first, this imitation as the sincerest form of flattery even went so far as to include a fugue during the closing pages, as did Britten. The audience gave a standing ovation to Hyken and embraced this entertaining music with great enthusiasm. it would be surprising if the music does not emerge as a pop concert favorite. The orchestra, under Eduardo Marturet played with style and spirit.

Two popular warhorses completed the program. Tchaikovsky’s familiar Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor can sometimes seem a chore to sit through if routinely performed. from the opening bracing statement of the horns it was clear that both conductor and players aspired to something more.

Stewart Goodyear/ Photo: Andrew Garn

Pianist Stewart Goodyear, a student of Oxana Yablonskaya, Leon Fleisher, Gary Graffman and Claude Frank, entered with muscular authority, and a determination to banish all thought of the ordinary. this he achieved by using his varied tone and fleet fingerwork to bring a new freshness to this jaded masterwork. Marturet gave his timpani player an unusual amount of sonic freedom, and the resultant strength of the music was underlined.

Goodyear played the Andantino with beautifully rapt expression, and the breakaway Prestissimo took off like lightening. a few clashes of tempo between orchestra and piano, here and in the final movement, almost threatened to disrupt things, but recovery was quick, with perfection sacrificed to the excitement of the moment. even with a cacophony of audience coughs and sneezes, what came through was a performance as fresh, vigorous, and thrilling as any to be heard.

Quickly re-entering from the wings, Marturet hopped onto the podium and immediately began the famous “fate” motif of Beethoven’s fifth Symphony. this was to be a no-nonsense performance, expressive of all the anger and frustration felt by the composer over his increasing deafness. Tempos were quick, all repeats taken, and the rousing horns sounding forth as if life depended on their sheer raw, bold power.  With the conductor refusing to rein in the timpani, the music took on a new, and more forceful dimension of power and excitement. by the time the trombones entered for the final Allegro, the performance had grown into quite an achievement for the Miami Symphony Orchestra, with only the reticent piccolo buried during the jubilant final moments.

Posted in Performances

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Big Ten slaps Gholston with one-game suspension

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Apparently, there’s a cute little cat fight brewing between the football coaches at North Carolina and North Carolina State — over academics.

The back story: during a radio appearance Wednesday ahead of their annual rivalry game with NCSU, UNC interim coach Everett Withers questioned “the academic environment” at the Raleigh school, and said recruits in the area “need to know the flagship school in this state.”

“they need to know it academically,” Withers said during the radio spot. “if you look at our graduation rates, as opposed to our opponent’s this week, graduation rates for athletics, for football, you’ll see a difference. … if you look at the educational environment here, I think you’ll see a difference.”

Conveniently, Withers failed to mention that, of the two schools, only his has appeared before the NCAA Committee on Infractions recently to answer questions regarding, among other things, academic fraud in the football program.  That point didn’t go unnoticed by Withers’ NCSU counterpart, who lit into the coach’s remarks when asked about them Thursday, bringing up not only the academic fraud angle of the NCAA issues but also the one-time presence of John Blake on the coaching staff — alleged to be on the take from a now-deceased NFL agent — as well as multiple players receiving impermissible benefits.

“here is a guy that’s on a football staff that ends up in Indianapolis,” O’Brien said at his regularly scheduled post-practice media availability. “. . .if you take three things that you can’t do in college football, you have an agent on your staff. You’re paying your players. And you have academic fraud. That’s a triple play as far as the NCAA goes. So I don’t know that he has anything to talk about or they have anything to talk about. if that’s what people want in their flagship university in North Carolina, then so be it.”

He was asked what he meant by “paying your players.” He indicated that he was referring to the impermissible benefits players received.

“They had players accepting money from somebody,” O’Brien said. “I mean, money is being given from someone to somebody, that’s been documented, right? I don’t know how it got there. Maybe I’m wrong saying that. but those are no-nos as far as the NCAA goes.”

You’ll have to forgive any cattiness being displayed by the respective coaches theses days.  Withers is the head coach of the Tar Heels on an interim basis and will likely be replaced following the season with a permanent coach following a national search.  O’Brien’s hold on the Wolfpack job is a tenuous one, rumored to be on the coaching hot seat in the midst of a 4-4 season and with just one winning record in his first four years at the school.

And, as far as what the two are squabbling over?  The Charlotte Observer notes that, “[a]ccording to data provided by the NCAA, North Carolina’s football team had a graduation success rate of 75 percent for the freshman class of 2004, compared to 56 percent for N.C. State.”

The graduation success rate in 1-A (FBS) football for entering class of 2004 is 69 percent.

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Death metal band GWAR bringing lots of blood and guts to Chicago

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By THOMAS CONNER Pop Music Critic tconner@suntimes.com October 26, 2011 6:30PM

Updated: October 27, 2011 5:50PM

Sometimes the best part of a GWAR concert is what happens outside the venue immediately after the show. Concertgoers — most of them absolutely drenched in blood — spill back onto city sidewalks, leaving bloody footprints and shrieking with . . . glee? Horror? it’s hard to tell. Bewildered citizens look on with confusion and concern. What horrors just happened in there? Should we call 911?

Nah, it’s only GWAR, America’s long-running, costumed, shock-rock gore-fest.

Once an annual staple of Halloween in Chicago, the notorious and theatrical death metal band revives the tradition this year with another holiday encampment at the House of Blues — complete with spewing bodily fluids, a giant foam-rubber maggot that devours “hot bitches” from the audience and the opportunity to watch a “Jersey Shore” star disemboweled live onstage.

“Halloween is the biggest night of the year for GWAR, despite our attempt to make every night of the year a festival of death,” said lead singer Dave Brockie.

Or that may have been his alter-ego speaking, the human-devouring alien Oderus Urungus. in our recent interview, he slipped back and forth between the two. “I’ve completely lost my mind at this point,” he said. “I’ve been living this extended multiple-personality existence so long.”

he just finished celebrating that long existence, as GWAR went on a world tour for its 25th anniversary, a tour that went on for two years.

“Oops, we forgot our 26th,” Brockie said.

Then Oderus came out. “I didn’t know we’d still be enjoying this awful little planet so much,” he said.

The GWAR backstory is that they’re aliens — Oderus describes himself as a “pathetic undying chaos demon from the core of space” — created from the worst filth in the universe, banished here and on a mission to either sexually enslave or simply slaughter human beings. “Enjoy” comes up again: “I didn’t know I’d enjoy inflicting suffering on you humans so much. You’re so gullible and easy to kill.”

Oderus is the one character common to all incarnations since GWAR was founded by collegiate comedians at a Virginia college in 1984. (The band’s name does not, surprisingly, stand for God What an awful Racket but is rather an abbreviation for the original act’s name: Gwaaarrrgghhlllgh!) The current lineup also includes Flattus Maximus (Cory Smoot, guitar), Balsac the Jaws of Death (Mike Derks, guitar), Beefcake the Mighty (Jamison Land, bass) and Jizmak Da Gusha (Brad Roberts, drums).

GWAR shows weave the scatological mythos into thudding heavy metal songs. in between, alien rituals are acted out, with fake blood and sexual fluids — washable, non-staining — liberally sprayed over, into and on the audience.

Turnabout is fair play. “Some fans threw cups of dog vomit on us one time in Norway,” Brockie recalled, chuckling. “That was pretty cool.”

Usually, a celebrity is sacrificed during the show. a few years ago, the band blipped on the nation’s pop cultural radar when vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin took a dislike to her likeness being disemboweled onstage. This year, the band is apolitical.

“We had a long debate about who to kill this year,” Brockie said. “I’m so disgusted in the lack of personality in the current candidates I refuse to even comment on it. so I figured, who in entertainment is the fattest, grossest symbol of how untalented and grotesque you can be and still be a huge star? so we’re carving the sh– out of Snooki.

“She’s a tacky, bulbous, ignorant symbol of everything that’s wrong with society today. plus, there’s lots of blood and guts inside her. We can carve away on her for a song or two before we even get to the spinal cord. We did Lady Gaga before, but she’s just skin and bones. she disintegrated halfway through a song.”

Oderus reflected on his favorite moments on Earth during the band’s 27 years here.

“Having sex with Joan Rivers,” he said. “The Grammys” — yes, GWAR has been nominated — “and losing twice. That was big. We played in East Berlin after your puny Berlin Wall was torn down. they rebuilt a section of it after our show.”

The next move for GWAR? to television, of course. The character of Oderus stars alongside pop-metal singer Dee Snider (Twisted Sister) in “Holliston,” an original sitcom premiering next spring on the FEARnet cable channel.

“It’s a cross between ‘It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia’ and ‘Evil Dead 2,’” Brockie said. “Oderus is this goofy supporting character, like Kramer from outer space.”

So who enjoys GWAR’s kind of entertainment, and pays for it?

“Stupid humans,” Oderus said. “Only on Earth could we storm into your concert halls, openly advertise that we will punish and slaughter you and feed you to the maggot, and you sheep just stampede through the door.”

He laughs ominously. “Come on down!”

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WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

More Than Glass Balls: the 2,000-mile-long debris field from the March tsunami in Japan is headed our way. (News Tribune)

Social Media vs. Emergency Preparedness: Join Social Media Club Tacoma and chat  with WSDOT, Pierce County Emergency Management, American Red Cross and other groups. (SMC Tacoma)

It’s On: True Tacoman game matches local history with good food. (Weekly Volcano)

Unemployment Rate: the U.S. economy added 80,000 jobs in October, and the unemployment rate eased from 9.1 percent to 9 percent. About 13.9 million Americans were still out of work last month. (CNN)

R.I.P. Flattus Maximus: GWAR guitarist found dead. (Billboard)

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R. Crumb: the Complete Record Cover Collection. (boing boing)

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