A little while ago I came across a terrible 80's gimmick known as the All Sports Band through a YouTube video of their song Jet Set. I was originally going to post ASB as a Gotta Love a Gimmick, but I found that other blogs like With Leather, Gimme Noise's The Popstream and The Record Robot (go to Record Robot if you want to hear more All Sports Band tunes) had already covered them, and so I decided it was probably best not to be completely redundant.
Luckily, pure awesome showed up in the sidebar of Jet Set's video, in the form of a performance by the Sports All Stars Band in 2000 at the World Sports Awards. The song isn't great, and the stage show is kind of cluttered with tons of musicians, but one of them is John McEnroe (I know right, I cannot be serious). Well it turns out he can actually play guitar pretty well, having played in his own band (The Johnny Smyth Band) AND with a member of Queen in 1983. So I learned something today.
Anyways, so you'd think that's it, right? Well one last site I found, an ESPN story entitled "Athletes who can make your ears bleed." Johnny Mac was at number 7 on the list, and that's how I originally found the site. But the list also contains links to snippets from guys like Chris Webber, Allen Iverson, Denny McLain, and Deion Sanders. Most of the tunes are terrible, but it's worth a look if you're into that kind of thing. I know I for one couldn't get enough of Barry Zito.
I Love the Internet: Athletic and Musical DNA Just Won't Splice
