2 Man advantage

[Bacardio]

Had to post this from the Wall Street Journal

The bands website is Two Man Advantage

Dropping the Gloves,

Picking Up Guitars:

Call It Puck Rock

Bands Devote Their Talents

To Goading Hockey Fans;

Zamboni Driving Maniac

By CHRISTOPHER CONKEY

Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

April 19, 2004; Page A1

By day, architect Anthony Spagnolo dons business clothes, squeezes into

a cubicle and studies floor plans for office-building renovations. By

night, he pulls on a hockey uniform, climbs on stage and belts out songs

like "Zamboni Driving Maniac":

Before and after and in between

One man's mission, the ice he'll clean

He's fueled by hockey, fueled by beer

Run you down if you get near...

Mr. Spagnolo, 30 years old, is the lead vocalist in Two Man Advantage, a

Long Island, N.Y., band in a tiny but feverish musical subgenre known as

puck rock. He and his four band mates compose and play songs about

hockey, a sport that for decades inspired very little music that

couldn't be played on a Wurlitzer between whistles.

Their pounding tunes use such hockey staples as hip checks, loose teeth

and ice-resurfacing machines as fodder for lyrics. One fan favorite, "I

Had a Dream About Hockey," describes the band's obsession:

I had a dream about hockey

and I tossed and turned...

when I woke up I had my skates on...

Mr. Spagnolo says he doesn't care that his songs aren't likely to get

much radio play. "Who cares if the fat, lonely lead singer got his heart

broken? The guys don't care. They care more that the Islanders lost last

night."

Hockey songs, like the game itself, were originally a Canadian

phenomenon. One early classic was "Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack,"

by Douglas Rankin and the Secrets. The song about Eddie Shack, a

bruising Toronto Maple Leafs winger in the 1960s, spent nine weeks in

1966 as Toronto's No. 1 song.

Another old gem is "Please Forgive My Misconduct Last Night," written by

Canadian comedian Alan Thicke in 1980. More recently, Wayne Gretzky fan

Darrin Pfeiffer composed "The Only Man I'd Have Sex With," and The

Zambonis sang "Bob Marley and the Hartford Whalers," a reggae lament for

the team that left Connecticut for North Carolina in 1997.

In hockey-mad British Columbia, local Elvis impersonator "Heavy" Eric

Holmquist, 43, has made a name with a series of odes to players on the

National Hockey League's Vancouver Canucks. It started in 1991 when Mr.

Holmquist wrote "Gino Gino," a song lauding Canuck forward Gino Odjick.

He followed that with "Bure Bure," a celebration of Pavel Bure, the

diminutive scorer whom Mr. Odjick protected on the ice.

In 2002, Mr. Holmquist's tune about the team's latest star, "It's Called

the Todd Bertuzzi," was all over Vancouver radio during the Canucks'

playoff run. The players listened to it before games, the team made a

video, and the song became a citywide anthem. When the NHL suspended Mr.

Bertuzzi this year for a vicious hit, the song became a rallying cry for

Canuck fans who thought the sentence too harsh.

Today, at least three bands devote themselves almost exclusively to

hockey music. The Zambonis, of Bridgeport, Conn., have had the most

commercial success as pure hockey rockers, while NoMeansNo, a Vancouver

punk outfit, plays sold-out nightclubs when they make occasional

Canadian tours as their hockey-crazed alter egos, The Hanson Brothers.

A poster for Two Man Advantage's April 14, 1999, show in New Orleans

New York's Two Man Advantage and its hard, pummeling sound are to puck

rock what fisticuffs and cross-checks are to hockey. Mr. Spagnolo, a fan

of the NHL's New York Islanders, assembled the band as a stunt for a

Halloween party in 1997. "I was tired of punk bands singing about

politics and heartbreak," he says. He plucked musicians from other, more

artsy bands who had also wearied of the seriousness.

The Halloween party never took place, but a few weeks later, Mr.

Spagnolo's band performed its 12 newly written songs about hockey and

beer at Dr. Shay's Pub in Lindenhurst, N.Y.

They wore hockey jerseys on stage and named themselves for the hockey

term that refers to a team whose opponent has two players in the penalty

box.

"It was supposed to be a joke amongst a bunch of old guys," Mr. Spagnolo

says. "But kids kept coming up to us asking, 'Hey, when's your next

show?' and it just snowballed."

After their third show, the band adopted the matching black-and-white

uniforms they always wear on stage. The front of their jerseys is

emblazoned with the band logo: a goalie mask and hockey sticks arranged

like a skull and crossbones.

Several NHL arenas have played their song "Hockey Junkie" during games.

Royalty Records of New York signed the band and released its first CD,

"Drafted," in 1998. "Wow, things came so fast," recalls guitarist

Jeffrey "Captain" Kaplan, 30, a legal assistant. "We thought we'd be on

some big label doing huge tours."

So far, though, Two Man has been relegated to minor-league status. Their

label went under and the band didn't put out its second album until

2001. Neither sold well. The band has lost nearly $30,000 over the past

six years, and that doesn't include replacement costs for beer-soaked

speakers.

On tour the band brings along sticks and pucks in case a local team

wants to take them on. Their performances have become "games" to be won

or lost against "opponents" -- the audience. The more frenetic the

crowd, the better, says Aaron "Coach" Pagdon, 31, an insurance examiner

who is the band's drummer and chief crowd instigator. "The object is to

get as far under the opposition's skin as possible."

Before a recent show in a Washington, D.C., nightclub, Two Man huddled

in a smelly room behind the bar. "All right, we've had a great weekend,

two wins already," Mr. Pagdon said, referring to previous games. Then he

led the band in the cheer it shouts before each game: "One, two, three,

Two Man!"

Between songs, Mr. Spagnolo goaded the crowd like a hockey goon spoiling

for a fight. "All right, all you Peter Bondra fans," he shouted,

referring to the then-star of the lowly Washington Capitals. "I think

the Penguins could even beat you guys." Two Capitals fans cursed him,

and Mr. Spagnolo yelled, "This song is about the Penguins and how much

they suck!" With that, the band launched into "Home Crowd," and the

audience became a mass of delirious hockey jerseys bouncing up and down

with the beat.

On St. Patrick's Day at the Continental in Manhattan, Mr. Spagnolo flung

himself off the stage into a mosh pit of Two Man fans in green Minnesota

North Star jerseys mixed with others in spiky leather jackets. In the

locker room afterward, a relatively satisfied Mr. Pagdon told his band

mates, "It was a two-goal victory tonight, but one of the goals was an

empty netter." Then he ticked off the scoring. Goals were surrendered

for playing out of tune and forgetting lyrics. Goals were scored for

general feeling and intensity level. The winning difference, he said,

was "Zamboni Driving Maniac."

"That's our Martin Brodeur," he said, referring to the New Jersey

Devils' all-star goalie. "If he plays well, we're going to win. And we

played it well tonight."

[#1siouxfan22]

I havent heard any of those bands except the zambonis and they are pretty decent. Tom Green sings a funny hockey song everyone should listen to that its great.

[WPoS]

ah, bacardio, dude, just like a few weeks ago, the shot needs a little work: the link is screwy! It seems to have an extra "www."

WPoS